Hearts Torn Asunder
An affair, an addiction, and sobriety
In 2020, I did one of the best-worst things of my life. No one else made me do it. It wasn’t my wife’s fault. It happened gradually, like a slow game of chess, culminating in a kind of self-imposed, rapturous checkmate.
For the first few months of the year, our marriage was as strong as it has ever been. It would be the year of our twelfth anniversary. We had worked through many of the common kinks in learning how to love each other. Our relationship had settled into a predictable comfort zone — for my wife, that is. For me, it was, in a word: boring. Because of that, I was unwittingly primed for the allure of an extramarital relationship. But — and you’ll have to take my word on this — I wasn’t looking for one.
There was a girl at work whom I had been attracted to since the first day I saw her. Because of this, I kept my distance. (She would later tell me that she hadn’t perceived any hint of attraction). On one of the few occasions that we chatted, however, when I mentioned my son’s love of animals, she suggested that we come out and see her farm sometime. In the tradition of common courtesy, I said it sounded fun but committed to nothing.
Looking back now, I can see how that seemingly innocuous invitation just sat in my breast pocket, so to speak, slowly germinating and putting out deadly little roots that strayed quietly toward my heart.
I liked the idea of having a plausibly platonic excuse to see her, but I hadn’t yet begun to buy my own bullshit in wholesale quantities. So I tabled the invitation indefinitely. Months slipped by without any further response on my part, and I began to feel I should at least say, “Thanks but no thanks.” But what would my reason be? The only one that seemed believable was the truth: because I was attracted to her and didn’t want to jeopardize my marriage. That, however, wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have at work. So I told her my son and I would come out and see the animals after all — but on the day of the visit, I went alone.
At The Farm
When I pulled up, she was in the corral with her horses. After a bit of polite conversation, I asked, “How’s your mental state?”
“Not great.”
“What’s going on?”
“Maybe I’ll tell you about it some other time.”
“What, you don’t want the horses to hear?”
She didn’t answer, trying hard to seem relaxed, her arms slung loosely over the horse gate.
“Well, I certainly don’t want to add another burden to your mind, but there’s something I need to tell you. I don’t know if we can even call ourselves friends, but as much as I’ve enjoyed getting to know you a bit at work, I don’t think I can do it anymore. It’s just too hard not to become attracted to you. And as a married man, there are things I need to do to be proactive about keeping the promise I made. But rather than just ghosting you, I wanted to make it perfectly clear that I think you’re wonderful and I want the best for you. I simply don’t know how to stay in contact with you without it being a huge distraction for me. To be clear, you haven’t done anything wrong. I just think the best way for me to channel my feelings for you is to pray that God would take care of you and leave it at that.”
Surprised by my transparency, she then opened up and told me about her ongoing heartache involving a high school teacher (she had graduated the year before) who had seduced her and then vanished from her life. As we chatted, we moved to a nearby patch of grass and sat down in the shade of an old pine tree. I marveled aloud at the parallels between what she’d just shared and the errand that had taken me to her house that afternoon. She admitted that she hadn’t been innocent in what happened with the teacher, that she was still trying to get him back even though she felt guilty about all of it, and that the tension was breaking her — a tension she’d resorted to medicating with alcohol, even at work.
As we sat a comfortable distance apart, finally able to speak long-hidden truths, a light breeze wrapped stray hairs around her full cheeks in the perfect afternoon.
“If you were to see your life as a movie,” I said, “would this conversation be a good part of the movie or a bad part?” She said she didn’t know. I told her it had been nerve-racking to contemplate coming to see her.
She nodded, emphasizing her agreement. “When you told me you were attracted to me, I thought you were going to ask if I was open to having an affair with you.” I laughed out loud at how close the notion was to my desires and how far from my actual aims.
Even though I had intended to sever ties with her, after what she shared, I felt a kind of protective pity for her. I asked if she thought it would be helpful to keep the lines of communication open — that my wife might be a good resource if she didn’t have many stable women in her life. She declined, saying that the attraction was definitely mutual and that her answer might have been different if she hadn’t been so hurt by what happened with her teacher. She said she never wanted to feel that pain again. Lost in the anxious enjoyment of sharing thoughts, for a moment I completely forgot our age difference. For that self-forgetful moment, we were just two human souls looking at a hard, shared truth: that we were not alone in our attraction, but also that we could not be together in that attraction.
“Is it strange that you can be attracted to someone half your age?” I asked. She said she didn’t think so. “If I could go back in time, and make it so this conversation never happened, do you think that would have been preferable?” She said, “Yeah, maybe that would have been for the best.”
Assuring her that meeting up like this would never happen again, I asked if she had any final thoughts to share. She said no, that she was sure she’d have to cry in her car for half an hour, but that after that she’d be okay. As I stood to leave, I extended a hand to help her up. She declined; so strong, so independent. “I’m really glad we got to talk today,” I said. She didn’t respond at all. I turned to walk to my car. I only looked back once, but she was already gone.
First Emails
The following week, after thinking of several things I wished I’d shared with her when we talked, I sent a long email — ostensibly to tie up loose ends, but also, to be honest, to leave the door just slightly ajar for the possibility of future conversation. This is more or less where the buying of my own bullshit began. In the email, I reaffirmed the importance of things remaining non-romantic between us, and I told myself that since that had been clarified without issue, the bomb had been safely disarmed.
Then she wrote back. 2,658 words. The girl who had been so reticent in person blossomed in email. She said she thought for sure she’d never hear from me again. I was impressed with her analysis of high school politics at the administrative level, as well as her honesty about her affair with the teacher. She didn’t write (or think) like a nineteen-year-old. She told me that for years she’d had trouble making friends. That when she’d gotten her first car, she’d quit trying completely. Instead, like a vulnerable mollusk, she spent nearly all her free time (as well as many class periods) alone in the safety of her new movable shell. She described the anthropomorphic attachment to her car as toxic and debilitating: a place to hide so she wouldn’t have to face her fears. Fear of people, fear of judgment, fear that others wanted to hurt her and keep her from being happy.
She also said that she had wanted to reach out to me again, but didn’t want to come off as obsessive or clingy. She said that she tried to convince herself to delete my number, but couldn’t do it. She concluded by saying:
From the very beginning, something has compelled me to talk to you. While I shut others out and push them away, I find myself desperate to tell you all I possibly can. Even before our conversation last Tuesday, when I sat in my car during those bad days and scrolled through my contacts to see who I could possibly talk to to get help if things got really bad, I always paused when I scrolled past your name. Maybe it’s my lack of others to open up to, or maybe you really are just different. I don’t know if you’ll take this as a compliment or not, but I’ve truly never met anyone like you. I don’t mean that in a way of attraction, but just as a human in general. And in a way, even as much as I’m drawn to talk to you, there is something about you that is unsettling to me. It seems that you don’t let pride or social norms interfere with how you interact with people. You seem very real, not shallow or fake. I really enjoy talking to you, just as friends. Knowing and accepting 110% that nothing more than friendship will ever come, I would really like to get to know you more, either through email or during breaks at work. Your mind interests me and it would be nice to have conversations with someone other than horses or my car. I’d love to hear more about what you think about free will. If God has our every thought and action planned, then free will isn’t a thing, right? Does that excuse me to go rob a bank or steal a car, because it’s all part of what God has planned for me to do?
BOOM! I was toast. It’s hard to explain how thoroughly her words bowled me over. Like heroin, I’d imagine. How would you respond to someone telling you they hold you in a unique position of trust and mystique? That you stand out as genuine and interesting in a world of humdrum posturing. She was reconciled to my insistence on friendship only. Moreover, she’d had the self-restraint to refrain from contacting me. And she wanted to discuss the theology of free will? She hit my personal bull’s eye within the bull’s eye. I wanted more. So I wrote back.
Playing The Hero
Her second email was at least as long as her first. In it, she told me about her childhood and her relationship with her dad, which I’d asked about. She referenced an attempted suicide (months later, she would show me a picture of the blade in her wrist). She told me how hung up and torn up she was about the teacher she’d slept with. She said that her relationship with him had been the single worst experience of her life, but that she still wanted him back so very badly, and still carried a message for him on a half-notecard in her phone case everywhere she went, just in case she saw him. She described him as “a poison that tastes so good for a second but will make you sick later.” She was still in love with him, still trying to get him back — or at least to get closure on why he’d abandoned her, and to let him know that she was sorry if it was because of something she’d done. She also said she had a plan to get this closure. Regarding her regret, she wrote,
I’ve had moments on my knees on the bathroom floor with arms raised above my head, dry heaving and blinded by tears and drippy makeup, back sore from spine-twisting silent sobs, begging God to forgive me. Maybe God has already forgiven me. Because even my greatest sin was paid for almost 2000 years ago. Maybe the hang-up is that I can’t forgive myself for being in a relationship with a man who I knew damn good and well was a husband to someone and a father to two little kids.
As we emailed back and forth that week, I tried to provide good counsel and emotional support from a distance.
In one email, she wrote,
I recently came across the idea that “The things that happened should have happened because they did.” I find that extremely comforting when I hear it with Christian ears. The situation with my former teacher, it was supposed to happen because it did happen and I can’t change that. And because God is doing things bigger than what I can see, and that experience needed to be a part of my big picture story. Even if it was a bad experience. But I don’t like the saying as much now that I’ve thought about it more and look into what it could sound like to someone who doesn’t believe in God’s big plan for us. It makes me think, “Who says? Who says I needed to go through the pain I’ve gone through as a human? How can you tell me events that made me want to end my life were ‘supposed to happen’ just because they did happen? How dare you claim the authority to determine that, or have the audacity to try to get me to believe that?” Where’s the logic in it anyway? It’s circular, a dead end. I only like the saying when I can remind myself that God does everything with intent, nothing is an accident and nothing is out of God’s control. God meant for it to happen, and that makes even the worst situations seem a little more okay.
Already having a soft spot for her, I wanted to help in whatever way I could. Her angst and distress presented an opportunity for me to be helpful in a time of need. To offer something of some actual value, rather than just being another guy who wanted something from her. At least that’s what I told myself, possibly to avoid seeing what I was getting out of it. For me, it was an opportunity to play the hero, to be the rescuer. It was an ego-hit of fairytale proportions spiked with the dopaminergic peaks of falling in love. But when I framed it all in terms of compassion, my conscience seemed to buy it. Rescuing those in need is, after all, at the heart of the faith that revolves around a Savior.
That is how, without realizing it, I started a drug habit. That habit, combined with a penchant for self-disclosure, is what led me to tell my wife. I told her about the girl from work, that I was attracted to her, that she was in a tough spot emotionally with precious little in the way of stable relationships, and that I wanted to help. I told her all this in the hope of getting her blessing so that I wouldn’t have to sneak around getting my hero-fixes in the shadows, but she wouldn’t give it. I’m not sure if she thought this would stop me, but it didn’t. From my self-justifying point of view, I felt that I had asked for her support with something I intended to do, that she had refused, and that because of that, I would just have to do it without her knowing.
Secret Meetings
At work, we occasionally had a break at the same time in the evening. When time allowed, we would meet up at a walking path that led to a scenic lookout. The first time we met at the walking path, we chatted as we walked to a place with a bench. We sat apart, me asking her about life, and she trying to find words through her nerves. We talked about the disconnect between Tinder and self-respect. We talked about people at work spreading rumors that she was a slut. I suggested that being on birth control might be a way of preparing to fulfill the rumors.
By the time we parted, she had relaxed a bit. I gave her a hug, which she accepted readily enough. But as soon as I put my arms around her, she tensed and pulled back — just as I felt one or two non-anatomical lumps beneath her sweatshirt. She would later tell me that she’d been armed that night: one of the lumps was a slim can of mace; the other was a knife.
The next time we walked to the end of the path, we sat on a large flat rock. She told me about her plans for her final attempt to get her X-lover back — and if not, to at least know that she had done all she could. I was surprised at how daring her plan sounded given how shy she was. As we sat together on the rock, I moved over next to her so that our shoulders touched, transferring a modicum of warmth between us in the fading evening light.
When the day came to execute her plan, she pulled it off perfectly, tracking him down incognito and giving him the letter she’d written for him (not the notecard, but a longer letter). Then she sat in her car and waited for him to call. I asked if she wanted me to come sit with her while she waited.
We met at a river access with towering old trees. I climbed into the passenger seat. She was frantic, trembling and sobbing. The vein in her forehead stood out. Each passing minute without a call drove the knife in deeper. He wasn’t coming back. He had used her, lied to her, and left her for dead. In the letter, she had said everything she could think of to clear up any misunderstandings or hard feelings, and she was sure he had read it. But still, he didn’t call. Nothing she could do or say would change his mind. Her fingers curled around the steering wheel and her arms shuttered from the tension in her fists.
Then she grabbed her phone and played me the last voicemail he had left her several months earlier. “I listen to it every day,” she said. “It’s the only way I can hear his voice. He screens all my calls. I’ve thought of getting a burner phone, but I feel so pathetic. I’ve tried to delete the voicemail, but I can’t bring myself to do it.”
“Yes, you can,” I said.
She glanced at me and shook her head.
“If you’ve listened to it every day, you have it memorized by now anyway. You can play the whole thing in your mind without even using your phone.”
She looked down at the voicemail on her screen.
“Do it,” I said.
After another moment of hesitation, she quickly slid the message sideways, hit the delete button, cleared the “Deleted Items” folder, and threw her phone down.
I put my hand on her shoulder and told her it would all be okay in time. For a while, she was inconsolable, panicking in futility like a caged animal. When she finally calmed down a bit, I put a pillow on my lap and let her lay there, stroking her hair as she wept. Before leaving, I leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.
Under The Clouds
The following week, she asked me to take a drive with her. It was a long drive into the country. We stopped at one point to explore an old abandoned house. Later, we hiked down through a small valley and up to the top of a large hill. We threw some rocks from the top and sat down to rest.
“Look at the clouds,” she said.
I looked up and turned in a circle to see the sky filling with clouds on all sides. Oddly, there were none directly overhead. The huge ring of clouds ranged from dappled white to inky black, from cotton to obsidian. In order to take in the full scope of the sky, we lay back and rested our heads on the hillside. We watched and waited to see if the wreath of clouds would close above us, but the expanse of blue held its place in the halo of churning grays. We lay there for a long time as the air around us grew so still that it seemed unable to carry a sound.
“I don’t want to die,” she said, “but if I had to for some reason, I’d want you to be the one to do it.”
I rolled up onto one arm and looked at her. “That’s a terrible thought,” I said. “Why would you say that?”
“I don’t know. It’s just something I think about. I’m just saying that if I absolutely had to die for some reason, I’d pick you to do it. Because I think you’re strong enough to let me down gently but still see it through to the end.”
I rolled onto my back and looked up at the clouds, now releasing sheets of rain in the distance. “I’ve heard it said in many ways, but I’ve never heard it said like that before.”
“What have heard said in many ways?”
“‘I love you’. The phrase ‘I love you.’” Then I slipped my arm under her head and we lay there in the enchanted stillness for a long time.
A Bridge To Love
The next day, I invited her to go check out an old bridge with me. I’d seen the bridge from a distance but wanted to see it up close. It was another long drive out to the country. We discussed her drinking, anxiety, insomnia, and workaholism.
“Why do you work so much,” I asked.
“I can’t sleep unless I’m exhausted. And even then sometimes I can’t.”
“What’s that about? Has it always been that way?”
“I guess I can’t sleep unless I feel I’ve earned it, and if I don’t kill myself at work, then I don’t feel like I deserve it.”
“Who told you that you have to earn your sleep?”
“No one in particular. I just constantly feel guilty about… existing. Or something like that.”
“It sounds like your soul has a disorder — like something inside you is broken. It’s like you’re running from self-hatred that’ll catch up with you if you stop. So you’re taking care of yourself by running, even if that means running yourself into the ground.”
“Yeah, I’d say that’s about right. And the deal with my teacher just made everything ten times worse. I feel like I have a debt I can never pay off.”
“So your plan is to work yourself to death, and when you die you’ll still be just as indebted as you are now?”
“I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s how it is. Sometimes I just want someone to tell me what to do.”
“How’s that worked for you so far?”
She chuckled. “I don’t usually end up doing what they suggest anyway.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, here’s what I’d tell you to do: Someday, not until you’re ready, but someday, I’d recommend that you stop running from your self-hatred. Stop running, turn around, look your demons in the face one by one, and shout them down. Show them who’s in charge, even if you’re afraid. Those ideas can’t hurt you, but they’ve always been able to control you by making you think they could. You could also read your Bible each day. There’s a lot of good in there. It can change the way you see yourself and the world. And take up a new hobby, just something with the potential to bring you some measure of regular health and happiness.”
When we got to the old iron bridge, I took a picture and sent it to my wife as a kind of half-true non-verbal alibi. We stood on the bridge and looked at the gently moving water below.
“You wanna jump?” she asked.
“I hadn’t thought of it, but it could be fun. I didn’t bring my swim trunks.”
“Maybe just underwear?”
I had on black boxer briefs; not so different from short swimming trunks. “Sure, let’s put our clothes over there on the shore so we can get them when we get out.”
She’d brought some long basketball shorts and wore those with a modest sports bra. We climbed over the rusted railing of the bridge and found a place to sit on an iron girder where she could muster the courage for the jump. As we sat there, legs dangling over the water in the sunshine, I had a delightful sense of wellbeing. I felt as if we were two childhood friends who loved each other, out in the woods, away from the cares of the world. More than that, I felt there was a wholesomeness, a childlike transparency and goodness about our new friendship. Maybe it was because I had never been so emotionally open with someone I wasn’t overtly pursuing. Maybe it was because what we were not doing made me feel good about what we were doing.
When she was finally able to steel her nerves, we made the exhilarating jump, climbed back up, and jumped again. To dry off, we stretched out on a huge sun-bleached log that was lodged against the river bank. Neither of us felt the need to say much. We were just there together, enjoying another peaceful moment in nature, letting it be what it was.
Once we were dry and warm with sunshine, we parked in the shade near the water’s edge and got into the back seat. I moved over to sit close to her. She looked out the window shyly.
“Look at me,” I said.
She looked into my eyes cautiously, then looked away.
“Can I asked you something?” I said.
“Sure.”
“How does it make you feel when guys at work steal glances at you?”
“It doesn’t really bother me. People have told me I’m attractive all my life. I know I have a fit body and long eyelashes and all that. But in my own head, I don’t see myself like that.”
“How do you see yourself?”
“I see myself as overweight and big-eared and possessing a funny-shaped mouth. My muscular arms and flat chest make me feel like I don’t look feminine enough. If it weren’t for my long hair, people would probably mistake me for a man.”
“What? The shape of your mouth is one of the best things about your face. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but in your case, there are at least as many reasons to see yourself as beautiful as there are to see yourself as masculine.”
“I know, it’s weird. Especially because no one has ever called me anything but nice things, at least when describing me physically. So it’s not like those negative images were put into my head by someone else. They came out of my own thoughts.”
“Malarky. No one has to tell you directly that you don’t measure up. Our whole culture is lousy with messages of inadequacy. We’re obsessed with the moving target of fashionable perfection. It’s all about selling stuff, at bottom. Make people feel like trash, and you can charge them billions for solutions that don’t even pretend to address the real problem. It makes me sad to know you see yourself like that.”
I leaned over and buried my face in the long thick hair around her neck. It still smelled fragrant and clean. I breathed in deeply, and a fresh cascade of pleasure chemicals bathed my brain. She turned and wrapped her arms around me, but then pulled back slightly.
“Is it okay for me to touch you?” she asked.
I looked at her quizzically. “Of course it’s okay.”
With that, she snuggled in closer and held me tightly. We stayed like that for nearly an hour, holding each other. She wept quietly, still decompressing from months of frustration and disappointment. I kissed the tears as they ran down her cheeks.
Later that day she texted me several pictures of cherished childhood memories and some of more recent adventures. I responded in kind and told her that our time at the bridge had been the best day of the year for me. She texted back:
I really enjoy seeing you. Every time. Probably more than I should. I really appreciate it when you find times to talk to me. Let’s do the bridge again. It was my favorite day of the year, too. So peaceful and so intimate. It was really hard not to kiss you. I was thinking about that afterward and I was so so thankful that I didn’t. Funny how something can be so tempting in a moment but after careful thought, it turns out I am so grateful for self-control and lessons learned.
Getting Better, Getting Worse
A few days later, she sent me an email that included the following:
I don’t know why, but you make me want to be better. I was so different a month ago. I never would have relaxed enough to go for a drive with someone else. Definitely never would have climbed on the bridge frame, and sure as hell never would have jumped from it.
I don’t want pride, competition, productivity, outside validation, and people-pleasing to run my life anymore. I want to try new things. I want to fail at them and be okay with that. I want to love my mom and have a good relationship with her, but still be able to choose my own path in life. I want to love my body. I don’t want to hide anymore. I want to go to the gym and just be in the moment. I want to be able to spend time with you and not be sad because I’m anticipating the future. I want to try to eat with you someday. I want you to keep pushing me to be brave and be better, even if it hurts. I want to go back to the bridge on my own and jump and jump until I’m not afraid to anymore. I want to stop manipulating the people at work into liking me. I want to know God loves me even if I’m not constantly productive.
It’s a lot to look at and I don’t know where to start. But at least I know now. However long you stick around, be it 24 more hours or a year, thank you for making me want to change. It’s not something you can do for me, it’s on me. But you got the ball rolling. Thanks for being a net gain. I love you.
Even though I was falling in love with someone else — possibly even because I was falling in love and filled with the positivity that that process entails — I wanted to come clean about the situation to my wife. Sparing her the more questionable details, I told her that over the past month I’d stayed in touch with the girl from work. I told her that she was doing much better now. Hoping that my wife would adopt something of the concern I felt for this other woman, I shared some of the details about her situation and her self-harm.
Having vaguely convinced myself that kissing on the mouth was the mysterious line not to be crossed, I actually felt a sense of accomplishment in having resisted that particular act. As twisted as it may sound, I felt that I’d managed to be mostly faithful to my wife even while enjoying the forbidden first-fruits of an extramarital relationship. Such is the mind on the wheel of self-confirmation, spurred on by the overwhelming desire for the next hit.
My wife was upset that I’d been hiding things from her, but said she was glad that I’d finally told her about it. For some reason, she didn’t immediately demand that I kill the connection. That would come later, when she realized that my confession was not one of repentance but one of trying to gain acceptance of the unacceptable. I knew that I was on thin and breaking ice, but I was so fixated on the feeling that I was willing to risk falling through. Why is it that the forbidden and the fatal can make us feel so alive?
Too Close
One day about a week later when my family was out of town, I invited her to go for another long drive. I was famished from working all day in the sun, so I asked her if she would bring something for us to eat. She picked up a couple sandwiches at a gas station on her way to meet me. The sandwiches turned out to be half frozen, but I was too hungry to care. Not only that, but she had also brought one for herself — which was noteworthy because, due to an eating disorder, she had previously refused to eat when she was with me. As we drove into a beautiful pink sunset munching our sandwiches, the message in the ham-textured ice chips was: I trust you.
“Remember when I asked you about free will?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I loved your analogy about the latticework: that the solid areas represent God’s unchangeable determinations and the hollow spaces represent our freedom to choose and thrive and fail and rebel and learn.”
“Oh, nice. Glad you found that helpful.”
“It makes perfect sense. For the first ten years of my life, my only exposure to religion was through my very judgmental and harsh grandmother. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a very selfless and nice lady. But there has to be a better way to get kids to want to learn about God than threats of burning in hell, bad luck, and shaming us when we couldn’t remember our Bible verses.”
“No, no, they’ve done studies. Shame and fear are the best way to win people over.”
She smiled and rolled her eyes.
“My grandma and grandpa took me and my siblings to church when we were little. My sister and I were tomboys, but my grandma made us dress up in fancy dresses, itchy tights, and painful dress shoes. The outfits were never warm, and it was so cold in the church and outside that we would shiver. I remember my grandpa would have his window rolled down all the time so he could spit his Copenhagen out, which would splatter on the window next to my face. Even in the winter. The cold air blowing on my almost bare legs and making its way into the bones of my tiny toes made me want to cry.”
“Cry out to Jesus, you mean. Maybe that was the point.”
“Hey, I’m trying to get to the point!
“Sorry, go on. I’m listening.”
She paused and took a deep breath. “My point in telling you all this is that my grandma made it seem like it was impossible to do anything other than what God wanted. As if God were playing a video game with us as the characters. From that point of view, it sounded like God made me think the way I did and act the way I did. And it made me wonder what the point was. Either God wanted me in heaven and He would decide I was a good kid so I could get there, or He knew even before I was born that I wouldn’t make the cut, so what was the point in trying? So as a kid I felt doomed to hell and incapable of doing anything about it. I believed I was a bad kid. I knew what sin was, and I knew I sinned constantly. I believed God was a big man in the sky with an angry face, watching me do bad things. What I didn’t know is that He would forgive me and that He loved me. I didn’t have a clue.”
“Wow. Thanks for sharing. We humans sure pass down a lot of confusion in the name of good intentions. I see how free will is a kind of sub-theme in what you just shared, but to me, it sounds like your main concern is God’s heart toward us — whether He’s an implacable tyrant or a loving Father.”
After driving through a small town, we explored some backroads and nearly got stuck in the mud of a half-flooded cow pasture. She thought for sure we’d have to get towed, but in the end, the all-wheel-drive saved the day. Laughing about the close call, we found a quiet place to park and got in the back where we could relax and take off our shoes. I asked her to put lotion on my sunburnt back, and after she did, I put my shirt back on. With the seats pushed back, we reclined this way and that, chatting and holding back subterranean urges.
“So, free will,” I said. “The way I see it, free will is an article of faith. It’s the story we tell ourselves about how we have control over our lives.”
“Are you saying you don’t think people have free will?”
“No, I’m saying that it’s something we firmly believe but can’t prove. Since we’re trapped in the flow of time, we can never go back to identical circumstances and do something differently than we did the first time.”
“And yet we tell ourselves that we could have done something differently if we had wanted to.”
“Right. In my opinion, people who champion free will tend to undervalue the weight of circumstance. For example, one time I slipped and fell and my watch gouged into my wrist. Should I be mad at my watch for hurting me?”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
“Me either. But when we ask this question about people, our answer changes — because we say that people have free will. Sure, we make choices. But our choices are subject to a litany of other forces, and those forces can, at times, cause us to do things we would not otherwise have done, just like my watch.”
“That actually makes me look at the way I’ve treated people in a different light. I usually interpret their behavior personally, as if it were always a reflection of what they think of me. But it’s so helpful to realize that, just like me, they’re probably caught in the middle of so many different forces and influences that most of what they say and do probably has very little to do with me.”
“Yeah, most times there’s another aspect of a person’s story, which, if you knew it, you’d see them differently. It’s like that parable about the father on the train with his ill-mannered children.”
“I don’t know that one.”
“Oh, one of the other passengers tells the dad to get a handle on his kids, and the dad, after apologizing for their behavior, says that their mom just died and they’re having trouble coming to terms with it.”
“Yep. Just like that. I’m usually the other passenger, sitting there judging the person, even if I don’t say anything.”
As night fell, we snuggled closer together until our arms were around each other again. Like the inexorable slide of a glacier, the instinct of desire steadily advanced, crushing everything in its path. In the darkness, my hand came to rest on her chest. “Is this okay?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
I breathed out. The needle was buried deep in my arm. Its contents coursed through my system. As we sat like that, it occurred to me that there was only one other person I’d touched that way in over twelve years. As intoxicating as the contact was, I removed my hand. She looked at me questioningly. I put my arm around her shoulders and held her until we were sleepy and the windows were foggy with condensation. Then we started the drive back to town.
We were quiet on the way back. While at a stoplight, I blurted out, “I feel like a married man with a girlfriend! I can’t do this. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have touched you like that. I feel sick.”
“I’m okay,” she said. “You didn’t hurt me.”
“I know, but I want to be a good part of your life, not just someone else who reinforces a pattern of affairs with married men. I thought I could be strong enough to be your exit drug, to help you transition away from what you’ve been through. But I’ve become addicted to you in the process. You’re like a very strong magnet. From a distance, it seemed manageable, but the closer we get, the less I can resist.”
When she got out of my car, she looked both sad and apprehensive. The following day, she explained her feelings in an email.
Free But Stuck
I think about you constantly. I’ve become addicted to you, too. My arms and clothes smell like you and it’s equally comforting and heartbreaking.
From where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re on your way out and all I can really process now is bracing for that. Like when you’re falling in a dream and you can see the ground coming at you so fast. You can claw at the air all you want but it doesn’t slow you. So all you can do is pull your limbs close and brace for impact. But that might just be because that’s how other experiences have gone. Something happens, and they run. And as soon as they start turning around to run away, I turn and run faster. Just so it feels like I wasn’t the one abandoned. Like I initiated the running away. If you do decide to cut me off, please promise me you’ll find a way to do it in person.
I don’t hold against you anything about last night. It doesn’t change my opinion or thoughts about you at all. No hard feelings. No need for apologies. I feel like all it was, was a lesson learned and a gentle nudge back toward caution and reality. I hope you feel the same. You haven’t done me harm. Your intentions were and are good. I’m glad I know you as deeply as I do. I wouldn’t take any of it back. Remember when we talked about whether it’s better to have loved and lost or never loved at all? I can’t answer that about many people I’ve lost. But with you it’s clear. It’s better to love.
I love you so much. So much that I can tell you to take care of what you need to take care of, and don’t worry about me. I love you so much that I’m willing to let you go because I don’t want you to hurt. I’m willing to take that hurt all on myself so you don’t have to feel it. I love you so much I can tell you it’s not your responsibility to take care of me, and whatever happens between us will happen. And I’ll pick up the pieces and continue on by myself, just as I have for years. If I end up running away before you, just know it won’t be because I want to. It’ll be because I love you too much to allow myself and my issues to do you long-term harm. I’m not saying goodbye right now. I’m just giving you another out. Telling you that if you need to go, it will be ok. I may not fully believe that, but maybe saying it is a start.
I, too, thought about her constantly. I checked my email several times a day, hoping for a verbal micro-dose. It struck me that I was fixated on an impossible romance with her just as she had been fixated on an impossible relationship with someone else: as if my physical and emotional proximity to her were reproducing her spiritual symptoms in me. I felt vaguely pathetic and misguided, with only myself to blame.
The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that I needed to step away. I could finally see that if I let things take their natural course, it would only get worse and worse. But as I realized what I needed to do, I experienced a very strong internal resistance. She had set me free, but I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to have to say goodbye. It upset me that I couldn’t have it both ways — that I had to choose, and that no matter what I chose, someone was going to get hurt.
I had to reconcile myself to the fact that I couldn’t really protect her. The fact that there was ultimately nothing I could do to keep her from giving herself to men who would use her and drinking herself to death. Wrestling with these thoughts led to moments of intense frustration. Several times, that frustration became a physical ache inside my chest that left me screaming — not from pain but from powerlessness. It was not, however, just that I felt powerless to help someone I loved. There was a deeper issue embedded in my heartache — one that I didn’t want to face but one that God was urging me to see: the assumption that my vision for her life was better than His.
Slowly, God helped me choose to believe that my protectionism was inferior to His beautiful but often heart-wrenching permissiveness. I wanted merely to keep her safe. He, by contrast, was able to redeem the danger, the wounds, and the filth.
Hope Before The Storm
In the midst of all this, I started to crack. One sunny morning, while sitting in bed talking to my wife, I broke down in tears.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I can’t do it,” I said. “I thought I could, but I can’t. I can’t protect you both. No matter what I do, someone will get hurt. I’m not strong enough. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
My wife, who had been cold and distant for days, suddenly rallied from her malaise. I think she saw my tears as contrition or a rare plea for help. She gathered me into her arms and said, “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I still love you so much.”
To me, that was a sign that even though I had put our marriage in harm’s way, we were going to make it. Shortly after our conversation in the bedroom, she had to run an errand with our kids. Alone in the house, I got on my knees to thank God. I wept and wept, and kept on weeping long after standing up and the whole time I was cleaning the kitchen. They were tears of wonder and gratitude and something deeper than joy. So deep it was sweetly painful. Of this experience, I wrote:
How are such adventures possible in this life? Hidden valleys of unspeakable treasures for those whose trust is without borders. With the tools of faith, freedom, and forgiveness, we have scaled impassable mountains, a murderous range of uncharted territory. Even the bravest, if they knew, would regard us as unhinged, reckless, those with a death wish.
Little did I know that that uncharted territory was going to get much worse before it got better.
Hastening Goodbye
I told the young lady who had become so precious to me that we needed to pick a day to say goodbye. As she had asked, I assured her that it would be in person. She said, if possible, for our last time together, she wanted to hike back to the hill where we had lain under the ring of clouds. We scheduled it for the following week when my family would be out of town.
I told my wife that I was getting around to ending the relationship, but I didn’t share the specifics. Although she was relieved to know my intentions, as she discussed the situation with friends, her sense of uneasiness grew with each passing day, and she began to prod and pressure me to end it immediately. I couldn’t do that, though. Neither could I tell my wife that it was because I’d promised to say goodbye in person: it sounded too premeditated, and it hinted at a deeper relationship than I wanted to admit to. I resorted to deflecting her pressure with assurances that I was handling it, hoping to bide my time until I could honestly say that it was over.
Unfortunately (but understandably), my wife wouldn’t let it go. It was an argument every day, with each jab and complaint and demand making me a little more bitter and a little more spiteful, driving a wedge between us at our most precarious hour. I was trying desperately to walk a knife’s edge between competing objectives, and my wife, without fully understanding what she was doing, was pelting me with stones as I tried to keep my balance. Having lost her trust and respect in this way, I had that much less to lose, that much less to hold on to.
The day before our scheduled goodbye, all I wanted to do was be near her. So I picked her up and we drove back to the old iron bridge and lay next to each other in the back, sharing songs that brought one another to mind. The first time we’d come to this spot, she cried for her runaway teacher and I kissed her teary cheeks. This time, as we listened to song after song, she cried for someone else.
This time, as I kissed her cheeks, I let my lips stray downward, making the barest contact with the corner of her mouth. She made no response, save a slight change in her rate of breathing. I kissed the corner of her mouth again, then let my lips hover over hers, barely touching. Still, she held back. But only for a moment. Only until there could be no question about who initiated the fall. As I pressed my lips into hers, hers parted to let me in.
An instrumental song came on as we started kissing, and as the kissing progressed, I slipped my finger behind the waistline of her shorts. She gently put her hand on mine and said, “No, remember what you said? This isn’t who you want to be.” As if coming out of a trance, I leaned back and took a deep breath. “You’re right. You’re right. Thank you.”
That’s when I noticed that the same instrumental song had been playing the whole time. I picked up her phone to see what it was called. The album art for the song was a tattered old doily that made a kind of picture frame. In that frame were four small but unambiguous words: THIS WILL DESTROY YOU. I took it as an omen, a warning, a prophecy — one that I would try to sidestep through secrecy. Prophecies, however, have a way of pushing through the veil.
Adrift In Open Water
That night she sent me a final email.
There were so many things I had to leave unsaid today simply because I can’t speak when I’m around you. The lump in my throat makes breathing difficult, so talking is out of the question. I’m not sane or rational right now. I have to keep setting my phone down to pace around the house to keep the storm inside the bottle. I can’t let it out because once it starts, it won’t stop. I feel like I’m so close to throwing up. My heart is pounding. I can’t breathe. But I feel like this state of mind is the only time I can tell you about the thoughts in my head and be real about it. It’s hard to do when I regain composure over myself because I worry about making this harder on you than it has to be, or offending you, or letting you see how much I’m hurting. I don’t want you to read this as begging you to stay, because that’s not at all what it is. But this letter is the real me. Raw and unfiltered. I hope you can handle it. I hope you won’t judge me for it. I hope it doesn’t change anything about the way you see me. Again, I want to be nothing but wonderful in your memories.
Have you ever seen the TV ads for 60 Minutes? I hear that ticking clock in the back of my mind, when I’m quiet and when my eyes are closed. When I try to be numb and just relax into my pain for a moment, that ticking sound is still in there. I’m running out of time, and I’m wasting what little time I have left to know you. It makes me so very angry with myself. The deadline is fast approaching. And when I can no longer be in your arms, I’ll want nothing more than just that. To be held by you again. To let it feel the way it did before you told me it was time for me to start running. I’m living in the future and nothing saddens me more than realizing my limited hours with you are being wasted on being sad. I wish I could not live in the future.
After seeing you today, I got in my car and hugged the steering wheel and the tears just kept coming. But I didn’t blow apart like I expected to. That built-up pressure never released. I didn’t scream. I didn’t hit anything. I didn’t pull my hair out, dig my nails into my skin, or bite my lips. I just sat in my car for a minute, then went home. I don’t know why the planned meltdown didn’t happen. I can’t help but wonder what made the difference. For an hour I held it all in, but when I was finally in a place to let it out, I didn’t. That’s never happened before.
I think I’ve put you on a pedestal. I know you’re a flawed, imperfect human just like me. But you seem to have a grasp on life unlike anyone else I’ve ever met. You’re real, honest, and stable. Unchanging even when pressured by your wife. You refuse to give in to control, even when given a massive ultimatum. Will you answer honestly when, not if, she asks if you saw me these last few days? I don’t blame you if you deny it. I would. I was just curious how brave you can really get. That kind of realness and stability is rare. You seem almost non-human in that way. Sometimes it seems that you have the answers to questions that there aren’t answers to. I’m afraid to lose that. In a way, it’s good that we’re severing ties now, before I saw your imperfections, before I stumbled in my faith in the advice you’ve given me.
I’m terrified. I know I told you I can move on without you, and I meant that. But it’s such a fluid thing. The thing that freaks me out the most right now, is not knowing which direction to swim. I’m scared of drowning. You, and whatever it is you’re standing on, is all I can see. To be optimistic, maybe it’s a rock, and I can still swim to it and stand on it. Or even better, maybe it’s land. And I can get to it and live on it, and I won’t have to swim anymore. But in my mind’s eye, the thing you’re standing on looks more like a boat. A passing boat leaving me behind. You and your boat are the only sense of direction I have. Without that, it’s all open water. When your boat is gone, where do I go? Any direction could be the wrong one. I could be thinking I’m going the right way, but land (wellness) could be in the opposite direction, and I’m only swimming farther from it. If there’s anything in the world you could give me an answer to, it would be to tell me how to get to land when I can’t see it. How to know which way is the right way. When water fills my eyes and my lungs, what do I do? When life drops a rock on my head and all my sense of direction is lost and I’m back to square one, how do I know where to go next? I’m so terrified.
The voice in my head is making fun of me right now. It’s laughing in my face. “Look at you, you stupid girl. Here you are, laying on a cold bathroom floor, while he’s tucked in bed sleeping soundly. He has someone coming home to him, someone to hold him when he needs it. He’ll have someone to talk to and heal with. What do you have? A big hunk of cold, hard steel on wheels. How’s it feel to hug that? How’s it feel to curl into a ball on those leather seats and sob your little heart out all by yourself? You have nobody to call. Nobody to help. Nobody to hold you. And even if you did? You couldn’t. Because you can’t tell anyone about him. They’ll know you’re a selfish home-wrecker. He got you good. And you fell for it, you little idiot. Everyone you’ve ever loved has abandoned you. Someday you’ll figure out what’s so disgusting about you that even an overweight old school teacher didn’t want you, even just for sex. You can’t have a serious conversation with your father. You can’t have a conversation, period, with your mom. Your relationship with your brother and sister revolves around keeping secrets and getting the booze you so desperately need to breathe again. You probably ruined his marriage. His wife will never trust him the same again. Who are you going to hurt next? What are you going to do after you peel yourself off this floor?”
I thought about deleting that last paragraph because it makes me seem so selfish. Only seeing my own pain and loss. I know you’ve lost a lot of trust in your marriage, and you could lose a lot more. I am so sorry for that. Before today, I thought I’d never take it back. I would never have done anything different. But thinking about what it has cost you and your wife, if I could go back, I might have let our last day be that day on my lawn by the old pine tree. Not to spare myself this horrifying fear and pain, but to spare you the hurt and the potential loss I have caused. My growth and healing brought pain and loss. I’m so sorry for that.
I love you. More than life itself. Thank you for every single second. Every email. Everything. My time spent with you may not have been deserved, but it was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, experience of my life. I’m not on land, but I’m going to keep swimming until I find it. Your time with me will not go to waste, I promise you that.
On my drive home tonight, God revealed himself to me. For the first time. I called out to Him, and when I did, He was there with me. In my car. I don’t know how. I just know that He was there, consoling me, helping me see that everything will be okay. See you in the morning.
The Morning After
The next morning, we drove out to the edge of the valley and hiked back to the brow of the hill. She was dejected, but my feelings were mixed. Part of me knew that I was doing what I needed to do, doing what was in the long-term interest of my family, even if it was difficult to say goodbye. Plus, the reality at that moment, even if our moments together were numbered, was that she was still there, right before my eyes, and that made me happy. She sat on the hillside while I pitched rocks way out into the valley, trying to keep the mood light.
“What really saddens me is the not knowing,” she said. “I’ll never know you again. You’ll never know me again. You won’t know if I swam in the wrong direction, if the rum in my back seat took control of my life because I couldn’t. I won’t be able to send you pictures of my next adventures. I won’t tell you about how my new job goes. Never another email notification. No more playlists, podcasts, movies, phone calls, texts, frozen sandwiches, sunsets, or bridges. No more hugs, kisses, holding, talks, or tears shared. That hurts. Bad. So bad. Isn’t there something we can keep, something we can share and always know that the other one knows, too?”
“I’m not sure, but I want you to know that there will never be a day that I won’t want to see you. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. I’m the type that selects a handful of people to let in close. You are one of the people that I chose and you always will be. You have no idea what a drug you are to me. But the costs are to the moon. The only future you and I could have together is one of destruction. My destroyed family. My scrap-heap of broken integrity. Your self-condemnation for your part in it. Trying to build a relationship out of rubble. We always, always knew this couldn’t last. Always. Now you have to continue your journey without me. Although this may not be the world’s version of a happy ending, given the realities of our situation, this may be the best ending we could’ve hoped for.”
A few drops had begun to fall from the morning sky. “What about the rain?” she asked.
“What about it?”
“When it rains, we can think of each other.”
“Okay.”
“Promise me you’ll do it? Promise you won’t forget and let it become routine and pointless?”
“I promise. It’ll remind me to pray for you. Let’s head back to the car.”
On our way back, in a grassy field above the valley, I stopped and pulled her toward me. “Say you’re my sister,” I said.
“Why? What happens when I say it?”
“You acknowledge that we have the same Father.”
“Okay, yes, I’m your sister.”
I put my arms around her and held her tight.
When we got back to her car, she said she had one more song to share with me. “Remember the secret playlist I told you I wasn’t going to share with you? That’s because it’s a goodbye playlist. I’ll send you the full list afterward, but this one song just makes me feel all the feelings. One of the lines is, “You gave me peace, and I wasted it.” That line has been on repeat in my mind. That’s why I’ve been crying so much. I can’t shake my fear of the future without you, and I hate that that fear has dominated the time I’ve had with you.”
We sat there and listened to a song with a raw piano melody and heartfelt lyrics:
I’m really on the ropes this time
I’ve been fighting all my life for you
I never should’ve said goodbye
Maybe that’s what stupid people do
’Cause you gave me peace and I wasted it
I’m here to admit that you were my medicine
Oh I couldn’t quit and I’m down on my knees again
Asking for nothing
Thank you for the happiest year of my life
Thank you for the happiest year of my life
Don’t think I could forgive myself
I’m sorry for the ways that I used you
And I could care less right now
But you know you hurt me pretty good too
Yeah we made each other bleed and we tasted it
I’m here to admit
That you were my medicine
Oh love I couldn’t quit
And I’m down on my knees again
Thank you for the happiest year of my life
Thank you for the happiest year of my life
So wake me up when they build that time machine
I want to go back
Wake me up when you were sleeping next to me
’Cause I really loved you
Thank you for the happiest year of my life
Thank you for the happiest year of my life
After we listened to the song, she pulled a small, worn, flattened piece of paper out of her phone case. “This is the notecard I’ve been carrying around for the last five months.” She handed it to me. I read it and handed it back.
“I don’t think you need that anymore.”
She glanced at the note one last time, then ripped it into about twenty little pieces and threw them out the window. The bits of paper landed in the dirt and tumbled down the road like ashes in the country breeze. “Let’s go,” she said. “You drive.”
As we made the winding drive out of the hills, she leaned back against the passenger door and just looked at me, smiling. When I looked back, for the first time, she didn’t look away. Her face was peaceful and content. She seemed changed, like something fresh from its cocoon. She studied me calmly.
“What are your thoughts about me and the time you spent with me?” she asked. Do you feel like you accomplished what you set out to do?”
“I’m not sure if I’ve accomplished much of anything. I tried to be your exit drug. I tried to let you fall for me in order to soften the blow of being dropped by someone else. And now it seems the result is that your heart will be broken twice instead of once. I am now where you were the day you deleted that voicemail in your car, needing to get rid of so many digital reminders of you. I don’t know how I’ll find the strength to do it, but I have to. Anything less is just an opportunity to water a tree where it shouldn’t grow. I’ll probably keep one picture, but I’m not sure which one.
“In the interest of being a good man for you, I’ve let myself become a worse man. I sacrificed my integrity to steal a few moments and days with you. I’m not blaming you for that. I’m the one who made those decisions. But wow, the blinding arrogance of imagining I could descend into hell to pull you out and not be scorched and poisoned by the very air! You’re not the only one who has screamed and wailed on a cold bathroom floor. Last night, my tear ducts were swollen. My eyes were bloodshot. I could barely look at myself in the mirror.
“I wish to God I could know you deeply and forever. I could easily tell myself that now God wants nothing to do with me. But I know that’s not true because I know Him. He’s not like that. He’s not done with me. He’s not surprised by my sin. He’s so not surprised by it that He took care of it before I did it. He’s so good. He’s my Rock, my inheritance, my permanent place on land. He can be yours, too. As to answers and direction when you’re lost and drowning, read and re-read the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7. That speech has been the bedrock of western civilization for a reason.”
She just looked at me and nodded.
“Oh, and don’t even think about waiting for me,” I said.
As if talking to herself, she mumbled, “That’s exactly the opposite of what he said.”
“Do you understand? Do NOT wait for me. Don’t waste your life. Live it as fully as you can.”
“I understand.”
When I pulled up next to my own car and the finality of it all set in, she grew sad again. I turned toward her and she took my face in her hands and looked from forehead to chin and ear to ear. She seemed to be trying to memorize every pore and freckle.
“Don’t let it be a burden to you,” I said, “but know that the family that grabbed your hand while you were drowning is out there picking up the pieces and trying to put them back together. Pray for us. In an “ideal world” (if that phrase even means anything), what happened between you and me would never have happened. But this is the world that is, where it did happen, and I believe God can still bring good out of it. Don’t let anything rob you of that just because there was a cost. ALL good things have costs. We pay them because we believe they’re worth it. I believe you’re worth it.”
“How can you be so positive right now?” she asked.
“I’m saving my sadness for later. Oh, I have something for you. It’s just a little scrap of cloth, a finisher’s token for an adventure race I did a while back. I feel like we’ve been on a long journey together. I wanted you to have this as a small symbol of completion.”
She took the little red headband and looked at it. “This is the one you’re wearing in one of the pictures you sent me!”
“Same one.”
She doubled and then tripled the headband around her wrist. “I can’t think of a better gift in the whole world. I can look at it on my wrist, and look at that picture of you, and have part of you with me. It’s going with me everywhere. Hiking and working and walking in the rain. Slack-lining and road trips and all the others things I do. Thank you so much.”
I took her lips with mine one last time. “I’ll miss you. Every day. My time with you has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. If I ever see you again, I’ll always consider you a friend.”
With that, I let myself out, got in my car, and flew down the road and out of her life.
Epilogue
Much has been omitted from this account in the interest of brevity. Gifts and letters and life lessons — from money management to sibling relationships. Secret plans and supportive friends at critical moments. A bitter standoff in which my wife threatened divorce and I made careless remarks that still carry a sting. A history of dark, unfeeling sexual encounters. Small steps of growth, such as deleting certain social media accounts, getting off birth control, and learning to decline the ongoing overtures of males coworkers looking for an easy lay.
While walking in the mountains a few weeks after saying goodbye, God impressed a thought upon my heart and mind: I want you to tell your wife that you kissed her. As soon as the thought came to me, I somehow knew that I had to do it. I stopped dead in my tracks and yelled at the sky in protest. My voice echoed off the steep rock faces in the distance.
When I told her a few days later, she writhed in pain at my betrayal, which stabbed at the heart of her deepest insecurities. She ran across the room, putting the dining table between us and yelling at me as she dug her nails into her scalp, seething with anger. Ultimately, she said she wanted me to move out. I told her that at no point in the whole relationship had I ever wanted to leave her, but that I would go if that’s really what she wanted.
I packed some food and clothes and resorted to sleeping in the back of my car. I contacted a marriage counselor and started weekly sessions. I “showered” discreetly in the bathroom sink at my new job. I heated my chili beans and ramen noodles wherever I could find a spare microwave that wouldn’t raise too much suspicion. Eventually, my wife asked me to come back, not because things were better but because of the burden of dealing with the kids on her own. I moved back in and was glad to be home. I tried to reassure my wife that I still loved her and didn’t at all want to separate.
Even so, the desire for the high didn’t stop. I went through what could be called withdrawal symptoms, which I medicated for months by listening to the playlist she had given me. I fed on the lyrics and daydreamed about our time together. I had to remind myself sternly and constantly that there could be no future with the girl who still had half of my heart — the girl who, every once in a while, would surprise me with a solitary picture of a traveling red headband.
2021 has been a year of slowly rebuilding our marriage after the storm of 2020, and it’s still anyone’s guess if we’ll make it. My wonderful wife has done her best to forgive me, but my choices have done ongoing damage to our relationship. Even though I’m committed to her and to our kids, the aftershock of my affair still triggers occasional fights and bouts of silence. Sometimes we feel more like roommates than husband and wife. The truth is, it’s hard for me to accept her forgiveness because, in some ways, I still haven’t forgiven myself. At times, this unforgiveness makes me hunker down in childish pride when what I really need is humility. I feel both unworthy of her love, and (if I’m honest) I still miss the love-drug I chose to give up.
Because of the parallels between substance addiction and the hold this relationship has had over me, I recently asked a friend if I could attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with him. It was good to be with people who could look at their respective foibles without making excuses. I felt like I was among people who were no longer in denial about the darker realities of our shared humanity. It was a roomful of people at various stages of accepting their own frailty and capacity for evil — which was one of the things I found so endearing about the girl with the horses, the girl with the weapons under her sweatshirt, the girl who couldn’t kick her love of poison and couldn’t sleep without being utterly spent. The girl with the eating disorder who learned to face her fears. The girl who wanted to know about free will, whose lips left a mark on my life.
Something else about the people at that meeting caught my attention. In addition to admitting their own weakness and darkness, they also (each in his or her own way) acknowledged their need of a Strength beyond themselves. That Strength is not something they can prove, of course — they’re just desperate enough to see that without it, they’re sunk. And so, against their natural inclinations, they choose to believe. Do what you will with it, but there are now generations of sober addicts who attest that this one unscientific idea has made all the difference.
What kind of creatures are we, that something as insubstantial as an idea can forestall our self-destruction? Could this forestalling be, in large part, what it means to be “saved”?
Some days I still wonder if I really know God. Do I really hear him? Does He really love me? After all, as Spirit, God is more like an idea than like an object in the world. But I come back to this: even if God were only an idea, He is an idea that enables us to live in this world in a manner that is beyond it — to aim high enough to hit the mark, so to speak — which is often just what we need, and what can’t be found but anchored in some unprovable story. Not unlike this one.
