Emotional weekend

This was a really tough weekend. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was because my husband was out of town all last week. Maybe it was seeing his lover. Whatever the reason, we were both in very raw pain and were not connected enough to each other to help one another.

My poor husband wept like he hasn't wept in months feeling like we will always be miserable, we will never heal, and that he is a horrible human being. I wept because I want closure so terribly much from the other woman, but know logically that is not realistic. It was horrible feeling all the pain and not being able to reach out to my husband, or feel him reach out to me. We were supposed to attend a CORE session up in Boulder, but decided that it was best we spend the day together talking and trying to reconnect.

This weekend it came out that a very prominent Evangelical church leader had been using drugs and engaging in homosexual activity. He has denied some, but not all of the allegations, and was removed as senior pastor to the megachurch he founded here in town. He and his wife both wrote letters to the congregation, and his wife's in particular touched me. She spoke of her determination to work on their marriage. My heart broke for her and for him, because I know that good men can be terribly tempted and because they are good, are plagued by guilt when they fall.

The final thing that happened this weekend that was difficult was my husband's brother alluded to some of his (my husband's) past sins that were like that of another brother. I was at first fearful that he had found out about the affair, but when my husband called to see what it was he was talking about, he told him that he knew my husband had lived with a girlfriend many years ago. The thing is, that never happened. My brother in law heard gossip about his brother and believed it all these years, never once asking if it was true. That hurt my husband and me a lot.

Last night we seemed to be close again, but there was a different kind of pain between us: a pain not caused by the affair but I think a general disappointment in the family. The sadness was not desperate and passionate, but quiet and resigned. My husband and I need to focus on us. We can't change the family, we can't control other people. I keep begging God to help me trust completely in His will and let go of the things I can't change.

Lord willing, that is one prayer He will see fit to grant.