The Christian Girl's Guide to Divorce

Oct 05 2011

No Past, No Mistakes. Just Love.

We spent a week on the road together, making the most of Baltimore, Atlantic City, Philadelphia, New Brunswick and New York.

New York.

In retrospect, it was probably the best week that we had spent together in almost a year. We always had a great time traveling together, and the luxury tour bus, accommodations and friendly environment took the stress off our relationship. My husband was able to see, first-hand, my life on the road, and I was happy to share it with him. It started to feel like the old, happy couple was being resurrected.

And then I’d remember.

There are times when I feel like everything is normal, and then I see some sickness or I remember what he did. It is so hard to forget. I want to forget so, so badly, I cried out in my journal.

We continued to struggle, but I blamed it on myself. At the same time, I wanted to fix everything, and feel a sense of security in my marriage. I wanted to know my husband’s plan for the future. As he continued to give me the same, seemingly run-around answer, I began to question whether we would actually make it. I didn’t want to quit, but I was so tired of being unhappy. Nothing was changing. At least not in my perception, or immediate time frame.

We parted ways at the train station in New Brunswick, New Jersey, after a long, fun night of debauchery in New York City. My husband would fly back to Los Angeles for a night, and then onto Hawaii, where a new writing assignment awaited him.

I headed to Pennsylvania, Connecticut, South Carolina, and Tennessee, self-reflecting all along the way. I prayed for my husband. After performing at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, I started to feel a stronger sense of who I was, what I wanted in my life, and, perhaps being on my own wasn’t so bad.

I wrote constantly.
I want to stay on the road; I don’t want to go back to LA at all…sometimes I feel like I don’t want to put the effort into my marriage anymore. But what would I get out of a relationship with someone else? There’s no guarantee that someone wouldn’t cheat on me, as well. UGH. I am so tired of thinking about it, talking about it, feeling it. I am lonely but I don’t miss [him]. I hate what we have become.
I need help, help, help, help.

Then, my husband emailed me from the North Shore. It softened my heart. He wasn’t able to sleep; he felt sick.

Why? Because I’ve been so rude? I joked.

What he had done was hitting him in waves (no pun intended!) I interpreted that it was starting to dawn on him: his infidelity — his mistake — would never go away. He couldn’t sweep it under the rug, no matter how hard he tried.

I rambled back at him, per usual.

If you want to call it quits I am game. I have half a mind to move to Nashville and start my life over, marry some country western band leader who plays in one of the bars on the main drag and have a bunch of kids…all the while maintaining my own music career. I feel like I have so much life to live, and I don’t want to be in a diseased relationship.

I love you, I always will. I honestly think your career will explode if you are single…you don’t need anyone like me bogging you down.

I go back and forth between wanting to run as far away from you as possible, to really wanting to make this work, for spiritual growth and all. But I feel like I am so far ahead of you in the process…

I want you to hurt as much as I do but that’s just mean.

Or maybe I’m trying to get you to dump me once and for all? I don’t know. The harder road is the best, I know that.

He said he felt sick; he wanted to throw up.

Are you sick like “you want to be done with me” sick? Like before?

He couldn’t breathe without me. He wanted to die. He felt awful, and my emails made him horribly sad.

Of course you can [breathe without me]. You will be fine. Is this the end?

It wasn’t.

Don’t die. I’m sorry. I should shut my mouth. I don’t understand any of this…I think it’s only fair that I imagine my life sans you: you did it to me. Can we talk on the phone?

And, almost like that, it seemed like he had switched off again. He claimed he didn’t have reception.

I sighed, and told him to call whenever he could. It was dinnertime for me.

He said he loved me.

I love you so much, too, I replied. I think it’s all we need for now.

No past, no mistakes. Just love.

Oct 05 2011

4 Comments

Bad Behavior, F Bombs, Love

Die For Love

For weeks, I had asked my husband to join me in Baltimore for Thanksgiving. He was back in Portugal, covering some sort of car race for his magazine. The race ended a few days before the holiday.

It wasn’t long before I started to get the sense that my husband had, indeed, gotten back on the “trouble train”. He hadn’t ever actually given me a straight answer about joining me in Baltimore, much less spending a week on the road with me. When the time finally came around, he didn’t have the money for a plane ticket. He had only asked the magazine for a one-way ticket to Lisbon. He had “gambled” with making something out of the car race story, but it wasn’t looking too good.

He asked me to cover his ticket to Baltimore. I couldn’t afford it. I had been paying all of the bills, and our property taxes were due in a couple of weeks. We would not have survived financially had it not been for my tour. Money from my husband’s stories had started trickling in, but it certainly wasn’t consistent, or substantial.

To be fair, I did understand that my husband was trying to make something of himself and his career. He certainly couldn’t return to teaching, especially since he had crossed professional lines and slept with one of his students. Furthermore, he had dreams of becoming a writer. Every chance he got to cover a story, he took. I was supportive, and wanted to be moreso, but the damage had already been done. I was wary of the content of his articles. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t know whose company he was keeping. I felt like he was giving his career way more effort than his marriage. And if all of this meant that he was going to be traveling extensively over the next year or so, I didn’t want to have any part of it.

I was sitting on the leather couch in my swanky tour bus, unpeeling a banana for breakfast as my husband and I emailed back and forth.

I’m not staying in a long-distance marriage, my thumbs pounded, furiously. Nope. Won’t do it. Not when there are prettier women, more exciting people and parties, more alluring countries, sights, smells, sounds, food…I won’t compete because I just shouldn’t have to.

I shouldn’t have to feel bad for wanting you around. I shouldn’t have to feel bad for being mad that you can’t get your ass to Thanksgiving on time. You should have booked your return ticket from Lisbon to Baltimore when you bought the ticket in the first place. But, no, you had to keep your options open just in case a better opportunity came up. For what? Money? Really?

Your actions have spoken deafeningly louder than any of your words.

He didn’t want a long-distance marriage, either, but he was writing to me from almost four thousand miles away. He just wanted me to understand, and not place myself in competition with his career.

My blood started to boil. I stood up, and threw my banana as hard as I could. It narrowly missed hitting a trombone player square in the face. He ducked as the banana splattered on the window and sank to the floor. Everyone in the front lounge stared at me. Still, no one knew of my relationship troubles, so I tried to pass my behavior off as PMS. One of the guys jokingly offered me a beer. I cleaned up the mess, crawled back into my bunk, and quietly cried myself to sleep.

A few hours later, we arrived in the next city. I wrote a more lengthy reply from the privacy of my hotel room.

Greetings from Wausau, Wisconsin. I am staying in a hotel that is nothing short of the midwestern version of “The Shining”. The crisp, white bedding and the worn carpeted halls scream death! It’s fun to be in the midwest. I realize how great my life actually is. I have profusely thanked the Lord that I do not have to work at the Walmart nail salon in Waukegan, Illinois. I think I have issues with the entire state of Illinois. Sufjan Stevens would be sad.

Regarding our earlier exchange of emails (the new way to conduct a marriage!):
I’m sorry for sounding unsupportive. More than anything I want to support you in your career. And I really DO. I DO, and I know I don’t show it well.

I think that anytime I lose my focus on the Lord, I start going insane. I’m not used to this type of insecurity. I know you think I’m crazy, but sometimes I feel like you will just dump me because you get tired of my reactions; you’ll dump me because I’m not excited enough or supportive enough of your new venture. The fact that you had an affair opens every single door that is available. If you were able to fall in love with and have sex with another girl so easily and quickly, why not dump me over the tiniest matter? Especially when the door is open for a new, more exciting life?

I keep asking God, “Is this why he had an affair? So that he could have a successful career?” It’s not that far-fetched. You started intensely focusing on your career mid-affair. It has paid off.

It feels like our marriage got in the way of your career in the first place, and when it was at its worst: shattered, destroyed and hopeless, you were at your best, getting your career off the ground.

I know I am just speaking from my dumb, idiot, messed up, emotional heart…I’m trying my best to think before I speak. But this is me, and I am a passionate person.

I want to know that you aren’t going to leave me because I piss you off, or because I mention UKR’s name for the millionth time. I don’t want to mention her stupid, lying, manipulative, evil, destructive, blood-sucking, husband-stealing name ever again, actually. I have to forgive that bitch. I have to forgive you. I want her dead. I sometimes want to become Dexter and wrap you both up in your favorite brand of condoms, real nice and tight, and then stab you both in the heart. Multiple times. Murder you both dead, and make you watch each other scream, bleed and die. Die for LOVE, you infidel mother fuckers.

Yeah, that’s the hate in my heart that I carry for you both. Not pretty. I have to control it.

I have to forgive her. I have to forgive you. I have to forgive as the Lord forgave me. An excerpt from today’s devotional: “If your mind needs a focal point, gaze at My Love poured out for you on the cross. Remember that nothing in heaven or on earth can separate you from that Love. This remembrance builds a foundation of gratitude in you, a foundation that circumstances cannot shake.”

I have to remember that, even if you do dump me, I will be OK. God will carry me. But that’s insecurity talking. Beyond that, I have committed to being your wife. It’s extremely difficult. It never was that difficult before. I know that I am not easy to be married to, either. I truly do not want to have this affair define our marriage forever. I need your help. I need your patience. And if you can’t do it, then let me go. I know I keep saying that, but I truly cannot live like this, in hopeful expectation only to be devastated again.

I am committed to being your wife. I DO support you in whatever you do. I am sorry I can’t be more excited about things right now. I know that with God’s help, I can get there. I am truly committed to trying. I am sorry if I go bezerk and/or project worry into the future. That’s my sinful nature. I lose focus on the Lord. We are in the midst of doing this, and it’s hard, but we’re doing it. I just miss you and I want you to miss me and want to be with me more than you want to be in Portugal, or Lebanon, or Yemen, or Hawaii. But I can’t make you do that, and I have to be OK with it if you don’t feel that.

GOD is in control, let us not lose our focus on Him. Forgive me, forgive my rants and raves. I am human and I am hurting. I know you are, too. God is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine. Let’s ask him to help us. We can do this. We can, but only with God’s help, guidance and direction.

My husband showed up in Baltimore, the day after Thanksgiving.

Oct 04 2011

1 Comment

Funny

Trouble Train

Before I knew it, I was on the road.

Our first performance was a taping of a The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. We performed a new song off Setzer’s latest album, entitled “Trouble Train”. It felt so good to be performing again. I cannot even begin to describe the blessing that my job was – and still is! – especially counting the fact that I needed a creative outlet; something to take my mind off my shattered, hopeless marriage.

In addition, it was refreshing to be genuinely treated well and appreciated by a bunch of good men. I felt safe, and my self-esteem started to build again. Furthermore, I simply love being on the road.

After the taping, I headed home to finish packing for my early flight the next morning. I noticed that I had several new voicemails.

The first was a woman with a hesitant valley-girl accent. My musician’s ear did not attune to her high-pitched, squeaky voice.
“Hiyyeeeeeeeeeeee, uhhh, I theeeennnk I feeyoounnund your daawwwwg???…”

Oh, no.

The next was a very authoritative man with a deep voice.
“Hello, ma’am. I am one of the conductors of Amtrak. I ran into your…dog here at Union Station; please give me a call…”

What the…?

The next was, undoubtedly, a hipster teenager. I pictured his fedora, oversized black-rimmed glasses and skinny jeans as he mumbled,
“Um, your dog is licking my hand right now.”

Finally – a very kind woman:
“Hello, Leslie, this is [so and so] from the Lacey Street Shelter. We are holding your dog overnight – apparently he rode the train…? (Laughs) Anyway, we open at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow, so you can come get him anytime.”

I hung up the phone and sighed.

My adventurous, friendly and hard-to-tie-down dog, Wimbley, had trotted a few miles south to the Metro in Highland Park, gotten on the train and traveled all the way to Union Station, making several friends along the way. This would mark the second “trouble train” trip for Wimbley, who, two years earlier, had followed a friend of ours (with the name, “Train”, no joke) along the same route. When the friend Train/real train left him behind at the station, Wimbley ran after both on the tracks and ended up going home with a woman who lived in Mount Washington. Thankfully, we found him two days later, via an ad she posted on Craigslist.

Trouble was, I had no way of rescuing Wimbley before my Detroit-bound flight left at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. I would be gone for six weeks. I was desperate. I had already lost two dogs that year, and couldn’t bear the thought of my sweet, only remaining dog being abandoned at the cold kill-shelter.

I immediately called my father-in-law and asked him to bail Wimbley out, but he refused. He basically told me it was better for my dog to find a new home.

I picked up on the double entendre, and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Then again, I wasn’t a stranger to my in-laws’ cruel and thoughtless judgment.

So, I called upon my neighbors, yet again – my amazing, wonderful, loyal and generous neighbors. I was embarrassed and ashamed that I could not keep my house in order. I couldn’t tie my husband down, and now I couldn’t even get my own dog to stay at home.

I didn’t sleep much that night. I flew to Detroit in the morning.

My neighbors rescued Wimbley from the shelter the very next day, first thing in the morning. His “bail” wasn’t too expensive. He had received a bath, complimentary flea medicine, a complete veterinary check-up, a microchip, and a gold star for being the friendliest dog in the shelter. He also got a new name tag, complete with five phone numbers – all neighbors who live on my block. We all later joked that Wimbley just needed to get to his appointment at the “Day Spa.”

With Wimbley safe and sound, I relaxed, and was able to really start enjoying myself on tour. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony and timing of my dog’s wild adventure.

I also pondered the depth of the message of my boss’ song. I hoped and prayed that my husband — back in Portugal — would stay far away from his own “trouble train”.

The trouble train is comin’
It’s been rollin’ through this town
Since I don’t know when —
The trouble train, they call it
And once you’re on it
You just can’t get off it, my friend

Don’t get on that train again
It’s rollin’ and thunderin’
‘Round the bend
If you hear the devil call your name
Don’t get on that trouble train!

The trouble train is comin’
It’s full of troubled souls
Who have gone astray,
The trouble train is burnin’
It’s puffing smoke and fire
And it’s headed your way

Now don’t get on that train again
It’s a long way down
Please listen, my friend!
If you hear the devil call your name
Don’t get on that trouble train.

If the devil’s calling out your name
He’s riding on that trouble train!

The trouble train’s left the station
It’s claimed another soul
It’ll come back again
The trouble train’s damnation
Is a one-way ticket to the fiery end

Don’t get on that train again
It’s a long way down
Please listen, my friend!
If you hear the devil call your name
Don’t get on the trouble train!

Oct 03 2011

4 Comments

Forgiveness, Grace, Hanging On, Love

By the Grace of God

Yet, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pull the trigger.

I still loved him.

Dammit.

So, I went back to marriage counseling and self-help books.

We went to church together and tried to pretend like everything was normal. The first Sunday back, our charismatic pastor delivered an outstanding sermon on Ephesians 5:21-33. I could have sworn he was looking right at us the entire time, else we were the only people sitting in the pew. Things got intense when the pastor paced, sweated and screamed, “HUSBANDS! LOOOOVVVVEEE YOUR WIVES!”

Members of the congregation communicated right back: “A-men! Preach!”

The man directly in front of me put his arm around his wife. She responded by reaching over to scratch his back with her left hand. Her diamond sparkled in the chapel’s bright light. For a moment, it hurt my eyes.

Myhusband and I sat dutifully on our wooden bench, not touching. We had always made fun of the “back scratchers” in church. I glanced down at the tiny diamond adorning my tired left hand. It was dull, dirty. I rotated my wrist around in the light, trying to manipulate the stone to reflect some brilliance. I briefly caught a faint glimmer, and made a mental note to get my ring cleaned.

I later re-capped the play-by-play of the sermon in my journal.
Most poignant was the definition of sin, that it is self-centeredness. We end up with the inability to look beyond our own needs and consider anyone else’s…I spent the majority of the service crying, which is always awesome. I keep having angry outbursts at [him] which is even more awesome…God, his heart is still so very far away. Help me to forgive him, Lord. I need and want to forgive him and heal from this. I need patience for his re-attachment to form, if it ever will. I pray that it does.

Every day over the next few weeks was a complete struggle. I had no self-esteem whatsoever. The only time I felt “normal” or alive was when I was doing tasks that didn’t involve my husband. I still felt like I was in a one-sided marriage, and thus a failure at everything I was trying to do. I beat myself up for overreacting, for not being thankful or forgiving enough, for constantly “taking the temperature” of our relationship, and, most of all, for not trusting God. I was desperate to trust Him in that He would change my husband. I wanted to see immediate results of repentance and spiritual growth.

Isn’t it funny? Little did I know – especially then – that God was changing me.

Marriage counseling was beginning to help. In one session, our counselor had us face one another and apologize. I said I was sorry for having an “affair” with my career, with New York. My husband apologized for having an affair with a 24-year old married girl from the Ukraine.

We then looked into each other’s eyes and said we forgave one another.

Our counselor defined New Testament love as action, not feeling, and explained that, after ten years of marriage, we may not necessarily “feel” love, but we act it, and the feelings will follow.

Hmmm. Too bad I still actually felt love for the guy. I wanted to raise my hand and demand a gold star in the love and feelings department, but I kept my hands to myself.

Our next task was to re-write our wedding vows. Our counselor — one of two pastors that had married us ten years earlier — rummaged through several metal cabinets until he finally found our file. It was complete with notes he had taken during our pre-marital counseling sessions, as well as our original vows that we had recited on our wedding day. As he opened the coffee-stained folder, a 4×6 wedding picture fell out. My husband picked it up and studied it for a moment, before handing it back.

I studied him and wondered what he was thinking.

Our counselor had us read our old vows. They were pretty traditional, but cut straight to the point. My heart briefly sank when my eyes scanned the “forsaking all others and remaining true as long as we both shall live” section. It seemed null and void at that point. I again wondered what my husband was thinking. I decided to just be glad that he was there, participating.

Our counselor then gave us a few suggestions on re-writing our new vows. This time, we’d write them ourselves, but could use phrases such as, “With Jesus as my guide,” and “By the grace of God.”

“Why not throw in a few ‘Hail Marys’ and ‘Hare Krishnas’, as well?” I joked.

We all laughed, and left our counseling session that day, feeling somewhat peaceful.

I quickly wrote out my new vows. Part of them felt generic, but I wanted to get the point across that I supported my man, and wanted to trust him. And, above all else, I loved him.

By the grace of God I take you as my husband.

I offer myself only as I am.

With Jesus as my guide, I promise to be “your best”, your wife. I promise to be faithful and true to you in the good times, and especially in the most trying times. Wherever God may lead us, I know that with His help and our commitment to one another, we can be “bigger than life.”

I promise to care for you and provide an encouraging, supportive, forgiving and loving home as we continue to rebuild our marriage and become one.

By God’s grace and mercy, I promise to trust you as my faithful and only husband, to lift you up, pray for you, encourage you and passionately love you forever.

I promise to stand firm in my faith, knowing that our marriage is and will continue to be God’s amazing plan for our lives. Without Him, we are nothing.

I love you so much.

A few days later, my husband flew to Portugal – again. I was about to commence a six-week tour, myself. We made plans to meet up in Baltimore for Thanksgiving, and I obtained permission for my husband to spend a week on the road with me. Our goal was to re-build our marriage, and, at the same time, our careers.

My husband’s plane took off on a Wednesday morning, early. When I finally awoke, I found his vows sitting on the kitchen table.

He called me his wife. His only.He told me he loved me more than words could ever express. He loved me with everything in him. He acknowledged that he failed daily, but even his worst failings didn’t change the fact that and that his heart was now — and always would be — mine.

He wanted to be “big” for me; to make a place where my talent could shine. He said he had never known someone with a greater talent, or bigger heart than mine. And he wanted to mirror back all the love that I had shown him.

What struck me most in his letter was that he referred to me as an inspiration. He promised to become an inspiration to me.

All by the grace of God.

Sep 30 2011

1 Comment

Bad Behavior, F Bombs

Pull the Trigger

Deeply frustrated with my husband’s apathetic response to my (admittedly funny) experience at the gynecologist, I started to act out. I was fueled entirely by my unstable emotions, insecurity and fear.

I went ballistic, I wrote. The divorce papers came out, [he] revealed that he doesn’t quite love me enough. [He’s hoping] feelings will follow because he’s doing the “right thing”.

Painful, hurtful, hopeless, awful.

And then, another piece of the puzzle fit into place.

A few weeks earlier, while I waited for my husband to return from Portugal, my dear friend had “accidentally” been forwarded an email. It was a conversation between my husband and his best friend. This was the same person from whom I learned of the initial affair, via a candid Skype chat on my husband’s computer. In addition, the two had traveled extensively together throughout the years, and shared the same ideas and beliefs. The friend was divorced. In this particular email, they casually discussed the “investment banker”. My husband called her a “half breed”, and they evaluated her age, background, and how “hot” she was. My husband’s BFF asked if they had been “shacking up.” He evaded the question. BFF went on to detail plans of meeting his new, model girlfriend in London after she recovered from her breast enhancement surgery.

Then, my husband wondered when he should “pull the trigger” — end our marriage.

I was glad my friend summarized the content of the email for me. It would have been too painful (not to mention familiar) to read the actual exchange. I absorbed the shock, and then exploded. I grabbed the big file folder, angrily labeled “DIVORCE”, and fled the house again. Since my husband had no cell phone, he tried communicating with me via email. It had oddly become a new form of texting between us.

He wrote and asked me where I had gone, most likely from his permanent spot on the couch. His laptop was always glued to his knees. I would go to work every day and he would sit and write. Oftentimes I would come home after a long day and he would not have moved. His writing seemed to consume him: mentally, spiritually, emotionally and now even physically.

“To pull the trigger,” I emailed back. “I am done.”

He asked why; why today, why now.

You are free…goodbye.

My heart can’t take any more. I don’t think I’ll ever be patient enough to wait for you to come around.

I think you got what you wanted, anyway. In five months, five years, you’ll be glad.
I’m tired of being dramatic, I know you are tired of it, too. This is the most cinematic way to blow it all up.

He asked again where I was.

I’ll be back later to get my stuff.
Kathy will be in touch with you about signing the lease papers for the house. You just have to sign, she’ll do all the rest of the work (finding a tenant, etc).
I’m thinking we can find someone to rent starting in January. I don’t want to lease the house before I get back from tour because I want to go through, sort and pack it up. I’ll re-post furniture, etc. on Craigslist.
I’ll pay the rent for November and December so you can stay in the house. Unless you want to move out, that’s fine, do what you need to do.

He wanted me to come home. He understood my frustration, and if we were to end things, we should do it face-to-face.

Sorry. Talking face to face doesn’t work. Nothing works.

Fuck it.
I give up.

You got what you wanted.

He reiterated that, no! – this was not what he wanted. He wanted to talk.

You don’t even know what you want. I don’t fit into your life.
You don’t talk. You just sit there and listen.
I’m tired of talking. Deep, deep down, you don’t want to be married to me. I know it. I feel it.

I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE GOING TO BREAK MY HEART
I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE

A simple line: Please.

BANG BANG
MY BABY SHOT ME DOWN.

Sep 30 2011

3 Comments

Funny, Scary, TMI

Doc

Four days later I got tested for STD’s.

Since I had only ever slept with my husband, first on our wedding night (!!!), neither of us had to worry about sexually transmitted anything. Upon my therapist’s recommendation, and slight suspicion that my husband had, indeed, slept with the “investment banker” (and who knows, to this day, whomever else during that time), I paid a visit to my gynecologist.

“HI, LESLIE!”
She is always unbelievably cheery, for a woman who has to deal with vaginas all day long.

“Hi, Doc,” My eyes met hers. I quickly looked away and forced a smile.

“What are we doing today?” (Still cheery!)

I sat there, visibly sweating through the arm holes in my hospital gown. I took a deep breath.
“Well, I’m here because my husband…”

She cut me off.
“OH, NOOOOOOOO! What the hell?! When are men going to learn to stick with just one vagina?! What an idiot. I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

I smiled, relaxed and shifted my heels in the seemingly extra-wide stirrups.
“Thanks,” I squeaked.

She adjusted her glasses.
“Well, I want to run a test for everything,” she offered, matter-of-factly. “That includes HIV, HPV, PID…” Her voice became somewhat muffled, a la the ambiguous teacher in any Charlie Brown special on ABC.

“She was his student,” I suddenly blurted out. “She didn’t speak English very well. She’s twenty-four.” My eyes shifted over to the plastic model of the uterus, complete with a miniature baby inside. My heart hurt.

My doctor peered at me, and raised an eyebrow. “What nationality is she? Anything Asian?”

“Ukrainian,” I mumbled, still gazing at the miniature baby. It was upside down.

“Oh, GAWWWWWWDDDDD,” she threw her head back, clicked her pen open and started furiously scribbling on my chart.

“Hepatitis A, B, C, D, E, F and G, as well as Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Trichomoniasis and definitely HIV,” she trailed, out loud. She then looked up at me and shook her head. “People die from this shit in that country. “

OH, GAWWWWWWDDDDD, was right.

I couldn’t disappear, no matter how hard I tried. I was sitting atop a medical table, naked yet thinly veiled in my sweat-soaked gown, legs spread wide open, ready to discover whatever disgusting, unattractive and deadly disease I had contracted from my cheating husband.

His familiar voice rang out in my head: “It happened…just once”.

I took another deep breath, laid down on the table and scooted forward. My doctor did her thing, quickly, as I tried to bravely breathe through it all. Honestly, it hurt like hell.

Like HELL.

Trying not to “catastrophize” (a big word I had just learned from my therapist), I prayed that everything would turn out OK. At the same time, I had no control over any of it; I had to accept my fate.

After she had finished, I thanked my Doc and got dressed. She gave me a huge hug on my way out.

“Good luck, sweetie. You’ll find someone that deserves you.”

I swallowed hard. I had never told her that I was trying to make my marriage work, STD’s and all.

“Thanks.”

I drove home, clenching my teeth. I wrote in my prayer journal the next day.

I am out of control; I am a total failure. I am NOT handing any of this very well, Lord…it just sucks. I got so angry with [my husband], and last night just raged and ranted. So ugly. I’m sorry. Forgive me.

Father, I am going to shut up today. I am not doing well by doing it “my way”. Grant me patience, Father, help me through this. I am tired of myself.

An agonizing two months later, I received my test results. I was totally, completely, free and clean, and have been, ever since.

God is so good.

P.T.L., indeed.

Sep 29 2011

1 Comment

Love, Marriage, Sex

10 Years

He came home on a Tuesday, three days before our 10^th wedding anniversary.

I refused to pick him up from the airport. I was extremely weary, and wary of his intentions. My behavior was anything but stellar. We met for dinner at our favorite local pub the night he returned. Halfway through, we started arguing, which evolved into a huge fight, which escalated to me screaming expletives (surprise!) in his face. I quickly left. He followed after me, and I responded by kicking him in the shins.

Things got a bit better the next day, when we returned to marriage counseling. Through another two-hour session, my husband expressed his desire to be in the marriage, and said he was back to “do this” with everything in him. Clinging to Hope, Part Three, I had faith that God could, and would, renew my marriage and resurrect our relationship.

Still, I had trust issues.

It is the eve of my 10^th wedding anniversary, I wrote. I want so much to pretend it’s just another day, but it’s not. Is this my final year of being married? How many more months or years will I endure [his] apathy?

Oh, God, I mourn the loss of [him]. I miss him so much. I miss my loving husband who didn’t care what anyone thought. I suppose I deserve it.

I just have to treat tomorrow like any other day. God, I know you love me even if [he] can’t. He may never again – I can’t bear his apathy.

I CANNOT BEAR IT.

Suffering from jet lag, my husband went to bed early that night. While he slept, I found a note that he had written to himself. It was neatly printed on a small, lined piece of paper. I don’t quite remember if I was snooping through his belongings, or if he had strategically placed the note so that I would find it. His words made me gasp for air. I have since burned this particular writing, but I recall reading that he did not love me anymore. At the same time, he still loved me. He dubbed himself a liar, and wondered why he had ceased caring — even about his family. In the end, he concluded that there were more exciting things going on in his life than his marriage.

I felt like such a fool. I immediately fled the house, note in hand. I had no idea where I was going, but I needed shelter. I “followed the windshield” and ended up at my in-laws’ house, just two miles away.

My mother-in-law didn’t react to the note. She didn’t see anything wrong with it. I was confused. Still, I asked to stay over that night. I couldn’t go back home.

He has no energy to make the marriage work because there are more exciting things, I wrote, sitting cross-legged on my husband’s childhood bed.

LORD, I want so much for him to be broken. But he is not there. I give him to You. I set him free. I will set him free. God, I don’t know what to do otherwise. He doesn’t love me, he doesn’t see anything about marriage beyond a history and that he once loved me. He fell out of love with me.

Lord, I know that You will never fall out of love with me. God, I don’t want to be divorced but I cannot endure this treatment any longer. I don’t know what else to do. [He] is paralyzed, incapable of making a decision. But he doesn’t WANT to make a decision.

I don’t want someone who is apathetic. I don’t want a husband who just sticks with me because we had a history. I don’t want a liar and a cheater for a husband, and certainly not one who is incapable of action, especially forgiveness.

The next morning I lay in bed and stared the large, intricate collage of family pictures hanging just above me. Depicted as nothing other than the happiest of couples, my husband and I adorned the wall.

Ten years earlier, I had woken up with such hope, excitement and anticipation for the future. Vivid memories of our wedding day flooded my mind. I remembered goofing off with my bridesmaids just before the church doors opened and the organ blasted; I remembered how much my face hurt from grinning as I floated down the aisle. I remembered how my husband and I enthusiastically recited our vows to one another, and then became overwhelmed with joy and amazement just after we had been pronounced “Husband and Wife.” I recalled the faces of our wedding guests, even what some of them wore. I chuckled at how our wedding cake toppled over in the unseasonal heat of that late October day, and genuinely laughed at the memory of my husband shoving his hand down the front of my dress as we drove away, bound for our honeymoon suite.

We were so innocent.

I dragged myself out of bed, still fully clothed, and drove home. I slowly climbed the stairs and quietly slipped in through the back door. I didn’t think my husband would be awake, much less notice that I had been gone. Yet there he stood. He greeted me eagerly and presented me with a dozen red roses. A note accompanied the large bouquet.

This note was vastly different from the last one I had read.

He called me his wife. He knew he had failed me, but I still loved him, and that was beyond anything he felt he deserved. He wanted to do me justice. He wanted me to soar. Most poignant to me was that he said he loved me.

So, in that moment – that day – things were better. We had made it to Tin / ten years.Our “celebration” was not spectacular. It fact, it felt just like any other day. Yet it was refreshing to behave as a couple again. We went out to breakfast with my mother-in-law (yes, weird), strolled with our dog, Wimbley, around the Rose Bowl, shopped for socks and T-shirts, scarfed an early dinner at happy hour, and patronized the indie theatre to catch Nick Hornby’s An Education. It would be the second time I had seen the film.

It was a fine anniversary, I recounted. We…made love, which is still hard for me but I want to trust [him]. I don’t know the correct formula for healing sexually after an affair (but) I don’t want to hold it over both of our heads for years and years.There have been small steps and some progress. I don’t want to give up…I so very much want him to become a godly man.I want to be married to a godly man.

Restore us, O God Almighty,
make Your face shine upon us,
that we may be saved.
~Psalm 80:7

Tagged Marriage

Sep 26 2011

2 Comments

F Bombs, Sad

Destroy the Monster

A few days before the picture was splashed over the internet, I had asked my husband to return home in time for our 10^th wedding anniversary. I was mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted from trying to hold on and save our marriage all by myself. It also seemed to me that he was just wasting time; playing around in Europe. Paychecks that were promised hadn’t arrived. I had to sell my beloved piano — a wedding gift — to pay the mortgage.

I kept hoping my husband would “wake up”. I pored over a book, entitled Sacred Marriage. The author posed the question: “What if God designed marriage to make us holy rather than happy?” I had completely forgotten what it was like to be happy, so holiness sounded pretty good. I read the book from cover to cover in almost one sitting. To this day, I highly recommend the reading.

As before, I continued to attend marital and personal therapy. I was desperate for answers. At the same time, I was desperate for someone – anyone – to give me the green light to get out.

But so few people knew what was going on, and those who did know, weren’t going to tell me what to do.

Just get me out of this, Lord, I wrote in my prayer journal. I want to be whole and I want to live.

After a few days’ silence, I finally wrote to my husband. Our anniversary was a week away, yet he still had no firm plans to return home. He tried to assure me – again – that the picture was “dumb”, it had meant nothing. His readers had been clamoring for more of his travel companion. He had to deliver. Sex — an “the element of the story” — clearly sells.

Thirty-seven emails immediately shot back and forth. He knew he had “fucked up badly”, and said he felt worse than he ever had in his entire life. I was tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. Where were the actions to back up these remorseful and heartfelt words? He told me I deserved better, and that he’d spend the rest of his life regretting what he had done.

[Then] GET on a FUCKInG PLANE AND END IT WELL yOu FUCkING COWARD, I spat, angrily. I didn’t even try to go back and fix my capitalization errors, much less censor my foul language.

Tried to end it well with [the affair], how about showing some respect and ending it well with your WIFE?????

I know deep down you are done. Just be a man and say you don’t want to be with me anymore. I have tried everything. I am exhausted. I know you don’t want me and that’s OK now. Just let me go. Stop hurting me.

He said would be home before our anniversary. He then offered that he didn’t blame me for going to New York. He blamed himself for letting me go, or, at the very least, not going with me. Then he said he should have known that he couldn’t live without me. He still couldn’t live without me.

These were words for which I had longed, yet I seethed.

Well clearly I am not any reason to live now. And there’s such a thing as grace, forgiveness and mercy, and COUNSELING (the Holy Spirit is called Counselor!!!!!) but you are too cool for any of it.

You hate me so much.
Where do I even begin?

I believe in marriage, and this affair is bullshit. Your investment banker is bullshit. But please call it and say you want it – them, whomever, you can have it. But do NOT put this on me. You have NO idea what I have done in the last few weeks for you.

He knew I had done everything. And he didn’t hate me. He hated himself.

I continued.
Fucking investment banker, fucking Ukrainian keychain that I found in your drawer today and hammered with a vengeance.

I am ready to live.

He told me he would come home soon.

Did you fuck that ugly investment banker?

“No!” — Simple answer. Over email.

Whatever. I don’t believe you. It’s always later, soon, blah,blah, blah. Just leave me be. Go live the life you always wanted: untethered, “cinematic”, travel without baggage or obligations. Give me the house. I have invested so much since you have been gone. You won’t even recognize it.

I am dead. I am dead. I need to learn to live and love again.

Even through my anger, I wanted him to see me. To TRY. Something. Anything! He couldn’t even break up with me properly.

It’s soooooo not cinematic to break up over a dumb affair. Let’s be the couple that loved each before the lameness and makes history afterward.

He said he kept asking himself why all of this had happened, but resolved that the only thing that mattered was the future; what happened next.

What happens next is your choice. You can sit in Portugal with the rain, your ego, your fantasies and your investment banker (next affair). I don’t know. I’m so bored by you and your image and your so-called career I actually cry myself to sleep every night. And then I wonder, why I am wasting my time?

He was hurt by my description of his “so-called” career.

My tirade dragged on.
If you insist that this is your career — writing jerk-off fantasies for 14-year old wanna-be’s– then by all means, go for it. But you will pay a huge price…

What’s so wrong with being married?

Just file. Get rid of me. I know you want to. You have every reason to dump me. I didn’t love you enough, I’m not “hot” enough, I’m not exotic, I’m not anything that is print-worthy.

JUST FILE. End your confusion and end my pain. Give a real reason to not wear your wedding ring. Give a real reason for not caring about our wedding anniversary. Give a real reason for not allowing me back into your life.

And then I realized something.

Oh my god I am such a fool.
You are so so done.
You just want me to do it all.
You want me to file, don’t you?
Wow. wow, wow wow.
What an idiot I am.

I received his response a little while later. His words were wrought with sadness, confusion and pain.

He couldn’t get his heart to open towards me — not even a crack. He was waiting for it, and wanted it to open; he wanted to love me like I needed, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t pretend, but he also wanted to make everything “right”.

My husband didn’t want me to be in pain anymore. In fact, he felt like he deserved all the pain. I deserved to be blissfully happy.

He recalled how he used to love me, and when that love went away, so did his life. At the same time, he still loved me. Obviously he was confused. He hated who he was, what he had become, but it didn’t change or fix anything. He said that he needed to start over, and destroy the monster that he had become.

And, almost in that moment, it seemed like he had an epiphany. He said he would come home, and we would choose how we would color the rest of our lives.

Tagged F Bombs, Sad

Sep 24 2011

3 Comments

Bad Behavior, Hanging On

Portugal and the Picture

My attempt to woo my husband through my love letter(s) was met with tepid response. He wrote back, first reiterating that the Investment Banker and French Cigarette Girl (WHO WAS SHE!?!?!?!?) were just “elements of the story” that he was weaving through Europe. He wanted to make his journey sound “Aristocratic” and “Bohemian”. He admitted to being consumed with his writing, and hoped that it would become lucrative so that there wouldn’t be such a financial mess back home.

His next few paragraphs softened.

He said that my email about our past, and what we had together, bent his heart. He wanted for us to be OK, but he didn’t know how to make that happen. He felt so far away. He felt horrible. He felt pressure. He felt fear. He felt alone, and very much on his own.

And then he said he loved me. I should know that.

I did know that he loved me. And I suppose it was enough to keep me going. Yet what was this talk of his “bent” heart? My heart was broken, daily.

At the same time, I somehow understood the difficult personal journey that he was on – how could I beat him while he was down? I had, after all, offered him forgiveness. I wanted to extend grace. He was expressing love for me, and even appeared to begin dealing with himself. He confirmed over and over that his affair was done, and even offered his email password as proof.

I never used it.

The positive emails continued to flow. It seemed as if my husband was slowly turning back into the sweet, humble, loving man I had married. At the same time, however, he was spinning a different tale to his readership. I read every one of his daily stories, and the Investment Banker with the BMW was becoming more of a central figure. Still, I chose to believe that my husband was writing fiction; portraying himself as a harmless character.

He wrote again to tell me that one of the magazines had asked him to stay on and cover the next leg of the tournament, which would be held in Portugal. We were out of touch for 40 hours.

And then, a picture of him and his Investment Banker surfaced.

It was a candid shot. The two of them sat in a golf cart, comfortably close together. The woman appeared to be in her early 20s. She relaxed into him, her left arm draped lovingly over his right shoulder. She was dressed casually, in jeans and an off-the shoulder T-shirt that displayed a busy, silkscreened image of James Dean. I immediately noticed her thin frame, and how tragically small her breasts appeared to be. Her long, dark hair was pulled loosely back in a ponytail. A few stray pieces covered her small, heavily lined eyes. Her fiery red fingernails gripped at the Blackberry in her free hand. She concentrated on the screen, frosted lips slightly parted.

My husband leaned forward, his arms resting over the steering wheel. His head was turned in her direction and his lips mirrored hers. He had gotten a haircut and new sunglasses. The colorful, grassy green background contrasted the heavy, dark ink on his biceps.

I peered closer.

His left hand was completely naked.

Sep 23 2011

3 Comments

Hanging On, Love

Love Letter

I wanted to get out as fast as I could. I continued to clean and pack the house, but I couldn’t do it alone. My mother drove 280 miles south to help me organize and sort through what remained of my (our?) life. In one weekend, we scrubbed the entire kitchen and took a large load of unwanted dishes, glasses, pots and pans to the Goodwill. I touched up paint in all the rooms as my mom washed floors and windows. I took down every single picture in the house and packed them away in bubble-wrapped boxes. I duct-taped those boxes shut. Together, we tightened fixtures and fixed loose doorknobs. The house started looking and feeling less like a “divorce house”, and more like a happy home.

I didn’t want to move out anymore.

One of the tasks I ordered myself was to start going through the mountain of boxes in the garage. I was focused, and determined to get it done. As I opened each individually labeled box — “JUNK”, “LES”, “KEEPSAKES”, “PICS” — the anger within my icy cold heart started to melt. Before me lay tangible evidence of a joyful, fun, committed fourteen-year relationship. Our love had been real. I didn’t care if we were fetuses when we got married. What we had was special. All the old memories started flooding back, washing over the pain of the present situation.

I poured out my heart in a long email.

I’m going to bed in a few minutes but I just wanted to write…

I went through boxes and boxes of keepsakes today. It was unbelievably beautiful and painful at the same time. To see our correspondence through the years, and to see old pictures and silly remnants of times past.

I read through some journals you wrote to me before we got engaged, and I read a letter I wrote to you the night before you left for Germany; I read a ridiculously large card that I wrote to you on your 23rd birthday — just two months before we got married.

Our letters have always been filled with such love and hope; such encouragement and support of each other. And such a desire to live together, always, in the Lord. I must have done something that made you sad right before your 23rd birthday and I wrote about it…apologized for being selfish, and it made me cry. Here I am, ten years later, apologizing for being selfish.

It didn’t take long before I couldn’t go through any more boxes. I am not sharing this to make you feel bad (I’m not even sure what you actually feel), but I haven’t wept like this, ever. I guess the point in sharing all of this with you is that I realized just how beautiful our marriage is. We have withstood a lot together. We have weathered separation, deserts, bombs, kidnappings, overwhelming financial messes, sickness, selfishness on both our parts, roommates, “nihhsty” hot chocolate, parental over-involvement, the divorces of our friends, Showtunes, the list goes on and on. I wept at the thought of it all being over.

“And like that,” Verbal Kent says, “Poof! (It’s) gone.”

I went to church this evening with my sister. It was, first, such an answer to many years of prayer for her, and it also was really good to go to church. Afterward, we trekked across the street to the coffee house. You can imagine how old and retarded I felt — here I am, baggy-eyed 32-year old Les hanging out with three 20-year olds in a Christian coffee house. I looked at Carolyn, and then I looked at her friend, and I realized that they are the exact age that I was when you and I got engaged. I started observing their innocence and the hope in their eyes…then I noticed the excitement around me…just a bunch of nerdy Christians getting coffee, but there was something so wonderfully familiar about it all. It felt like I was back at Biola, in Common Grounds…something you would have loathed, but it brought back good, wonderful memories. Coupled with the letters and pictures, birthday cards and old plane tickets I sorted through today, it brought back a flood of memories and emotions about you and me. We have such a long-standing history, but what is more, we have such a beautiful foundation upon which our marriage stands. And maybe it looks dorky from a 32-year old perspective, but it snapped me back into a place from which we haven’t been that far. It certainly made me miss you and grieve your loss all the more, especially if I had to pick from the intolerable “prospects” in the room.

There simply is no other for me but you.

I’m not writing any of this to invoke a response, please don’t feel like you have to say more than you want to or are even capable of at this point. I’d probably start censoring myself and hope that I didn’t say anything to turn you off or annoy you. I’m simply going back to the best way I think I communicate, which is through words on paper/computer screen.

You may argue with me on this next part, but I have to say that I know you…I know you better than anyone knows you (except God). I would even say I know things about you that you don’t know. And I care. I care so, so much. I may do a horrible job at showing it, but I do.

I am your wife, and I love being your wife.

Every word that I wrote to you ten years ago is still true. I love everything about you: your mind, your wit, your humor, your touch, your taste, your smell, your skin…I still love that inside part of your arm. I love you deeply and I love you for who you are, even if you are able to go back and pick apart all the ways I failed at showing that to you. You cannot take away from me the love I have for you, no matter how hard you try. Yes, you successfully damaged all trust in our relationship, and when you continue to pursue a relationship with UKR you are incapable of seeing the beauty that is still our marriage, but even that won’t stop me from loving you.

I love you, I love you dearly and I don’t know what else to say. It’s so late for me, I don’t know why I can’t go to bed, but I just have to express to you how I feel. I want you to know my heart, and how much I want to be with you.

Someday I hope you can read what I am writing to you and it will strike a chord…it will make some sense…maybe it will remind you of the foundation upon which our love is (and has been) built. I have said to you before, nothing is irreparable. You are worth it to me. You are my beautiful, wonderful, amazing husband, whom I love, support, admire and desire. If ever you read anything more from me, know that; know how much you mean to me…our past, our present, our future together.

I don’t mind being the “old familiar” because “new exotic” will eventually become “old familiar”, anyway.

I want to help you write the next chapter of your life, and the next, and the next, and the next.

I love you.