Forgiveness... kind of

My husband stormed out of the house shortly thereafter and left for a little while.  When he got back he informed me that he had called our Pastor and told him what was going on.  Ironically, I was on the verge of calling our Pastor as well...  Anyway, our Pastor told my husband not to make any life changing decisions for at least a week because he was too raw to think clearly.

I just knew regardless of what the Pastor said our marriage was over.  I knew I destroyed my husband.  I just knew he would never look at me as his wife again.  I was prepared for the worst.  I tried to see my life without him, having to share our kids, moving half way across the country... I couldn't.  I don't know if it was the fog in my head, lack of sleep, stress and pain or what but I couldn't see my future.  My thoughts turned ugly dark.  I'm not going to say I contemplated suicide because I didn't, that's not me.  I did think about things like just disappearing into the night.  I though even if he did forgive me I wasn't worthy and it would be best for everyone if I was gone.  I just knew my life was over.

So anyway, when my husband returned we talked... a lot.  We discovered things about each other that we either did not know or forgot.  We talked into the night that night.  The next morning we got up and went to church.  Now usually at church we don't see each other but for a few minutes as he's in the band and I'm a Sunday school teacher.  In light of things, we excused ourselves from our duties.  We sat in service together and the subject was on dreaming big.  I know it doesn't sound like a relevant subject but my God was it ever.  After struggling through half of the service in tears (for both myself and my husband), I reached over and put my hand on his arm.  He grabbed my hand and held it tight... all the while both of us near hysterics.

As soon as service was over he pulled me to the side.  I thought oh no, here's the end.  He's made a decision to leave.  Instead he held me tight and told me he forgave me.  We both broke down.  I can't tell you what else was said, who else was around, or anything else for that matter.  I knew, in that moment, in his strong embrace, that we would be OK.  We WOULD make it through.  We WILL NOT be a statistic.  We then broke our embrace, said our goodbyes to the Pastor and congregants still around and went home.

After getting home we talked and talked and talked some more.  (We have been doing a lot of that lately.  Every day we find time to TALK.  Not just the usual "how was your day" and "what do you want for dinner", but honest talking.)  He asked me questions, I answered.  I asked him questions, he answered.  We made a "pact" to work through all the emotions together.  It's been working.  We've become quite close...when we're together.

I know that sounds odd.  We're close when were together...duh?  When we are together the ugliness doesn't creep in.  For him it the mistrust, the feeling of betrayal and such that don't clutter his mind.  For me the self loathing, mental self abuse and sadness isn't there.  As soon as he goes to work or we have things to do away from each other it all comes back.  Some days it's so oppressive that I can't think straight.  

Here I was a week or so later feeling a little smug that things were working out, we were making progress.  Moving forward and not looking back I thought.  You know those days you have that you are cruising along and all is well then SLAM something knocks you on your ass... yea, we ran into one of those.