Ben called Barney that day and told him to either come get me out of his house or leave me alone. I knew the choice Barney would make…he would leave me alone. Barney and I talked once that day so that I could also tell him the affair was over. I also talked with his wife that night and he must have told her because she didn’t feel it was appropriate for us to talk considering all that had happened that day. There was perhaps a business message or two that needed to be taken care of following the revelation, but by week’s end, we had ended all communication and have not talked since the week of September 6th, 1994.
So began the long road to healing. I chose to quit my job, at the chagrin of my boss (and her boss). The company was trying to convince me to stay and they would fire Barney. These were some pretty powerful words that seemed to be competing with the anger I was unexpectedly experiencing from Ben. You see, anger comes with conflict and we were conflict avoiders so we hadn’t come face to face with much of that. What was good about his anger and my despair were that we were finally beginning to feel. We both made a conscious decision to feel everything. Not only feel it, but talk about it.
In the process of talking everything through, it was revealed that Ben had been involved in an emotional affair back when he worked at the trucking company. He had never perceived it as a threat because it was never physical. What we began to realize was how this emotional affair set in motion some dynamics that set me up for the physical affair I had. Ben was giving his heart to Betty, not me. He had left me lonely, abandoned and emotionally vulnerable. He began to own his share of that and how he had hurt me.
The next fourteen months were full of ups and downs. Some aspects of healing I feel we did right was that we talked…a lot. We also surrounded ourselves with community, this included friends and counselors. We became transparently honest with one another. We opened up our souls to one another. My priorities began to shift from outside of God’s order and design to inside His order and design. I began to focus on Him, His image and who He had created me to be, not what He created me to do. Ben realized that more than anything else he wanted to be close to God and in order to do that, he would have to forgive me. The process of forgiveness had already begun, but it took a huge leap with this realization.
After those first fourteen months we felt like we were on more solid footing. We felt like we would make it. That’s not to say there weren’t difficult days ahead, but we had the hope to pull us through them, hope that a better day lay ahead. We began to make plans for the future, which had been put on hold those long, dark fourteen months. Ben wanted to return to seminary, but not for a Masters of Divinity to preach. He now knew that he wanted to counsel others who had been through the hell we had, because had it not been for some key people in our lives encouraging us that there was hope, I’m not sure we would have made it.
Ben’s Chaplain in the Army Reserves suggested a graduate counseling program in Denver, Colorado. So we sold the house (and half the stuff we owned), sold the car, gave away the dog and moved to Colorado. That was eight and a half years ago. During this time we have both grown tremendously. I also completed my Masters in Counseling degree hoping that we could counsel and minister to couples together, which is exactly what we get to do with our work in Pastoral Care at a church in Denver. We get to do counseling, lead infidelity groups, teach premarital classes, lead seminars. Wow!
Our relationship today is more than I ever imagined it could be on our wedding day. We have a level of intimacy that is amazing and is our best protection against infidelity sneaking it’s way into our lives again. Ben is the protector of our family. He has regained a strength that he was designed to possess. And he is now my persistent pursuer. I am no longer the controlling, guarded woman. I have learned to rest. And it is in that rest that I have discovered (and am still discovering) the woman God designed me to be rather than the woman the world demanded I be.
We have learned much about one another and about how to love one another. We are honest. We play. We laugh. We cry. We love.
