Adultery

There, I said it. I committed adultery. I was unfaithful. If you haven't figured this out yet, that is what the Scarlet A is for.

For much of this time after the mark was discovered I have kept my wall up around myself so I don't have to acknowledge my sin. I don't know how to understand it. It was so unlike me. So opposite of who I am. I had never so much as broken a heart, and suddenly I'm nearly destroying whole lives, potentially destroyed one for certain, though not mine nor my husband's.

I am so sorry for the thing I did. Sorry to everyone. I will probably go into "the Other" and how he came into my life at some point. But not now. But he does play a role in my inability to let go because I feel such tremendous guilt and responsibility for causing the harm. Harm that cannot be fixed. This is hard on Husband, who I'm sure thinks it is unfair since he is the true victim in all of this. But I feel they were both victims of my treachery and that I was the villain in all of this.

In regards to the "Other", I feel like I led a starving soul into a place unnatural to him with a crumb of bread and a promise for something he was desperately hungry for. Evil. I was like the White Witch with the Turkish Delights. Husband had no idea about what was going on and I tried my best to pretend there was nothing going on. That I lived two different lives. But I felt like I was living outside my body, and that I went through daily life forcefully-only by willing myself to exist in my life.

It was hard for me. I loved my children, but I did not live here anymore. I lived in my head and I wanted so much to be "in love", to fulfill love. To finally live and be with someone I loved.

I guess I should point out that I married my husband out of mutual interest and companionship. That I never fell in love with him (although I am blessed enough to be able to say that I am finally in love with him). There was a person I loved, someone who left me-died. After his death I just gave up, I would never love again. But I wanted a family and I wanted to be with my dearest friend, so we got married. It seems terribly unfair, doesn't it? He sort of ambushed me, asked me to marry him very early in our dating relationship and I didn't know what to say. Couldn't say no. Maybe didn't want to.

Of course I never did tell him this. He never had any idea about this until he discovered the mark upon me. Then it all spilled out in great heaving gasps of unwanted and unsuspected truth. Truth I had never meant for him to know.

When I think to that moment, I feel such sadness for the pain I caused him in those revelations. I count my blessing he has remained with me and loves me even more than before. Just last night he danced with me and said "I love you, and you are forgiven." He says this to me with a loving smile on his lips. He knows I haven't forgiven, yet he has, and he wants me to move past this. I am a blessed woman. I don't deserve it. But my therepist would say that is what Grace is all about. And the longer I hold this, the longer I give it power over us.

This is all for tonight.