It was pretty much over after Matt saw my car. There was a week of trying to decide what to do, none of which involved praying. At least not on my end. I was just waiting for his decision. I will admit to some inappropriate behavior during that week to two weeks, but Matt wouldn’t go much past second base without leaving his wife. At the end of the week, he called me at work. He said he was going to leave his wife and asked if I would still respect him. I broke down crying hysterically not sure what to do as it was now on me.

As a side note, now 15 years later, we’ve been reading, “How to Hug A Porcupine: Dealing with Toxic and Difficult to Love Personalities” by Dr. John Lewis Lund. Matt was thinking out loud how things might have been different if he knew how to handle his first wife. Maybe if he had known and tried to do the things in the book, they would still be together. That didn’t make me feel bad at all. I wondered the same thing as I was reading it.

Anyway, back to the story. The job I was in was a cubicle world so everyone heard me breakdown. I didn’t even care. I called my mother and she only said, “I’ll love you no matter what.” I called a close friend and she only said, “I wish I was in your place, but don’t do it, it will ruin your life.” That sent conflicting messages. Really what it boiled down to was I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway.

I called Matt and told him I would be with him if he left his wife. Either that night or the next he sat down with her and told her it was over. He was leaving her and moving in with me. He left everything to her except his guitar, pillow and clothes. He closed his business and sold his equipment, giving her all of the proceeds. We both left the church. We weren’t asked to, but why make them ask us.

All of our friends, were no longer our friends. We received lots of condemning letters. Most of them deserved. The hardest letter to receive was the one from my pastor. He had always said, I was the most honest person he knew. He felt betrayed. That letter broke my heart. Mainly because I knew I had broken his. I told only one friend face to face and huge crocodile tears rolled out her big blue eyes. It’s making me cry even now. Everyone thought we were having an affair for a while and planned it. But it was literally a matter of 1 to 2 weeks. We were selfish and hurtful and to this day I wish we had done things differently. Even if only to have Matt leave his wife due to a toxic personality and live on his own for a year or so. So as to not hurt so many people.

But God has redeemed this as he has everything else. I’m just heartbroken that his redemption was the bloodied welted stripes on his back and the nails in his hands.

More story to come.