(07-21-2012, 11:38 PM)Ruth Wrote: I'm posting this here in my wanderer story instead of in "The Mysterious Nature of Time" because it is another small moment of my story. This is for Confused. . . . .
I was 26 years old, had been married for six years, and had a 3 year old son. My husband had been out of town for a business trip, gone for about 15 days. This was an annual trip, to order merchandise for our retail store. I had tried to call my husband while he was away to discuss a problem with an employee, but found he was not registered at the hotel where I believed he was staying.
I had begun to realize already that the marriage was in trouble, and had discussed this with my husband a few weeks before he left for the trip. He was away over Valentine’s day (a big deal in the US) but he had flowers delivered to me, and a beautiful heart shaped diamond ring. Before he left we also put money down to purchase our first home.
When he got back to town, he actually went to the attorney’s office before coming home and filed for a divorce. When he arrived home and told me, I was stunned, to say the least. When I called my best friend to tell her, she wasn’t surprised, and hinted that he had been seeing several other women. I wasn’t ready to believe that, nor to believe that the marriage would end. We actually continued to live together while we got things sorted out.
A couple of days later, the florist called about the bill for the flowers, seems they had been unable to deliver the flowers to the NEW YORK CITY address (we lived in Texas). I thought there must be a mistake, but took a message and promised to have him call when he arrived home. When I told him about the call, he confessed that he had been seeing a woman for 3 years and had been staying with her whenever he went to market in New York, which is why I couldn’t reach him at the hotel when I tried calling (this was before we had cell phones).
I was finally ANGRY! He used the phone in the kitchen, where I was preparing dinner, to call the florist. I had a great big butcher knife in my hand, and the rage, humiliation, hurt all welled up inside me. It would be very easy for me to stab him, cut him, kill him. He had his back to me. My son was next door at a friend’s. I can’t really describe for you how I felt – that shadow self really wanted to take action and kill this man.
But in that moment, I could see that I had a choice. I could see the sequence of events that would follow from such an action. I could see the price that would be paid. And I decided on a different course of action.
I tapped this man on the shoulder, this man who had been my husband, and told him he needed to leave the apartment that moment and not come back.
He looked at me. He looked at the knife. And he left.
There is always a choice.
Dear Ruth, please accept my very sincere thanks for posting your deeply personal story.
I am pretty happy for your then three year old son. If the Shadow had won the day, and I know that it can from personal experiences, then the life of your son might have become terrible. Moreover, I know you would have never been able to forgive yourself for acting against life in terms of snuffing one out.
All I will say is that human life is very difficult, especially when people whom you trust betray, and abuse. I have been on both sides of the fence.
I am very proud of you, Ruth!