Such A Fool Was I

So, I've been thinking about writing this post for the past three days.

I have a story to tell you and hopefully it will benefit someone today.

I believe it was five years into our relationship, dating, living together, and it was ten years ago when we lived in Maryland.
It was the month of March.
  I had come across a series of e-mails on Hubby's computer.  He had been acting a bit 'different' that evening and I noticed that this 'change' in his level of happiness occurred right after he had checked his e-mails.  So I went snooping; something I never should have done and probably would have been better off never having done.
 But I did it.
 I'll never do it again.

I found a series of e-mails between he and a lady, someone he had never mentioned to me before and that was the upsetting part of it, the part that I felt threatened by.  Not so much anything they had said in the e-mails, but the fact that he had kept this friendship a secret from me.

My response was to fly off the handle, become livid, yell, scream, smack him, threaten to leave him and take it out on him every chance I had in the following days.  These actions really hurt me more than they hurt him and it took every ounce of my energy to keep the anger level ramped up.
He felt sick to his stomach.
So did I.
There was much lost sleep. 

Why had he done this?

Why had he kept it secret from me?

Why Why Why.

He had worked at the same company with her for many years and she was his friend, but he had learned in a previous marriage that wives could be very insecure and jealous if they knew you had a female friend, so keeping her secret from me was somewhat of a learned response... one that kept him from having to give up a good friendship and possibly place him in a situation of an insecure girlfriend, ME.  

She had helped him emotionally throughout his two previous divorces and had been a source of not only female friendship, but someone who helped him through the bad times.

I made a fool of myself and e-mailed her after finding their online correspondence telling her what a horrible person she was for putting a 'wedge' between he and I.  I chastised her and called her a few names that I never should have.  She responded that they were friends and would always be friends, but I told her that 'friends' get invited to dinner and he had NEVER invited her to dinner at our home so how could she possibly be a friend and not something more.

At the time, my first granddaughter was being born in another state and I had packed up the vehicle and headed there to meet her and to be with my daughter during her post pregnancy time.....
 I told him I did not know if I would be coming back. And at the time I meant it.

What kind of idiot was I?

Why do so many women act this way?

If you met my husband you would understand.

He is not the cheating kind.

Some men are.

He on the other hand is not.

After spending the time with my daughter I did return home to him in Maryland, I reconsidered and took the time to think things through, I calmed down, I applied logic, and I did stay to this day, ten years later.

I was foolish and  had acted on emotion alone.

Sometimes, Ladies, we only harm ourselves.

I hope anyone reading this today who is feeling that their husband or beloved is cheating on them, only by your discovery of an e-mail takes the time to reconsider their actions before they fly out the door and also make an idiot of themself.

Are there cheating men?

Yes.

But not mine.

Life with him is GOOD!
I'm sooo glad I stayed because the years have been wonderful to the two of us and the trust between us has only grown stronger simply because I stopped being an insecure ninny.
Don't let the ninny in you take control.
Stop and listen to your heart and apply logic and they will tell you the truth.
Be the strong, and most of all, loving woman that you are and let  that love be what guides your marital life.