It was New Year’s Eve and I was excited as I was getting ready for a date night with my husband. It had only been two days since he told me about his affair and we had decided on giving our marriage one more chance. My sister bought me this backless leopard print dress for Christmas, and I thought that night would be a perfect time to wear it. I hot rolled my hair, put on the same high heels I had worn for nine years, and headed out the door feeling beautiful and sexy. I didn’t take the time to dress up for Richie often, but I was hoping to make him remember just how physically attractive I am. We met at one of our favorite restaurants and when I walked through the door Richie mentioned how good I looked. I was excited and nervous at the same time. I felt like I did years ago when I was a young teenager waiting for Richie’s black jeep to pull in my driveway. During dinner I felt awkward and I know he did to. It had been a long time since we had planned a night together to be alone. As I looked across the table at him I thought, “How did this man I’ve been with for 13 years become such a stranger to me?” The truth was somewhere along the road we lost our friendship. I was so caught up in my own little world that I never took the time to ask him things like who his favorite football player is or what shows he enjoyed watching on television. We usually only talked about the kids or work. In the Bible it says, “Not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” Philippians 2:4 NIV. I definitely wasn’t doing a good job of that. I was more concerned about myself and the kids.
After dinner we decided to go see a movie. Richie was distant so I reached over and grabbed his hand. I didn’t want to be the one making all the moves, but I knew I had something to prove. I had to prove to him how serious I was about giving it my all. Richie had been the one who tried harder than me for years so I thought, “So what if the tables are turned? If I have to initiate everything now, then I will.” I knew I had to show him that I wanted him. When we got home he didn’t seem interested in spending more time with me. I was confused but I also knew that I couldn’t expect things to be perfect at the start of trying to fix our marriage. I was emotional and he was too. I made him sleep in the bed with me that night. I had in my mind if I could get him to sleep with me 21 days it would become a habit and he would never sleep on the couch again. One mistake I made early on in our relationship was choosing to let the kids sleep in the bed with me all the time. It was the reason Richie started sleeping on the couch to begin with. Sleeping with your spouse is important for your marriage because it’s an opportunity to show love and intimacy, and we were lacking in both of those areas.
The next several days were great. Richie and I spent every evening laughing, kissing, cuddling, watching tv, and having great sex together, but still every morning when I woke up all I could think about was the other woman. It drove me insane! I didn’t sleep good at night because I had too many thoughts running through my mind, and my appetite was poor because I kept a sick feeling in my stomach at the thought of him and her. I had to find out who she was. The curiosity was killing me.
One night while Richie was asleep I got his phone and went in the bathroom with it. I changed his Facebook password and reactivated his account. He had deleted all their messages to one another but it wasn’t hard to find out who she was. She was one of his top chat friends and when I viewed her profile she had all the same interests like him as he mentioned. I looked at her pictures and I thought, “She’s a pretty girl, but she has nothing on me.” They say affairs aren’t about looks anyways. In fact studies show that most men have an affair with a woman who isn’t as physically attractive as his wife. I was glad the messages were deleted. I don’t think my heart could have handled reading messages of him telling another woman the things he was supposed to say to me. Finding out more about her didn’t make my curiosity go away, it only made it worse. She don’t live far from us so it made it harder to believe that he had never met her in person.
That weekend I couldn’t take it no more, I had to confront her. I sent her a message from his account that read, “This is Rachel, Richie’s wife. Richie and I have decided to try to work our marriage out, so please don’t try to pursue him in any way.” She replied with, “Don’t worry I never want to hear from him again! I hope the best for you.” I wrote, “I hope the best for you too, but I’m not sure what you thought you were going to get from a married man.” She replied, “Well I don’t know honey maybe you should ask your husband.” I replied, “I did ask my husband and he said he was only talking to you for attention because I wasn’t giving him any, but did you really think he was going to leave me and our three kids for you?” She replied, “He told me things that I’m sure he didn’t mention to you. This conversation is over!” I wondered what kind of things had he told her. Did he plan on being in a relationship with her before divorcing me? I knew then I had made her upset with my words and that was not my intention. Yes she was the woman who was having an affair with my husband, and yes I thought she was nothing more than a slut, but does that give me an excuse to be anything but Christ like towards her, not at all! In Ephesians 4:29 it says, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up... See I knew that Richie had probably told her that I was a christian and all I cared about was God and church, and that I was the nicest person you could ever meet except to him, because he had said those words to me several times. I thought to myself, “If I really want to show this woman that I’m the Christian Richie described, then instead of speaking mean to her and putting her down for the things she did, I’m going to have to speak with love. If that was going to be the only time I would ever talk with her, then I wanted to make sure I left a lasting impression. Most women would be so angry they would want to physically fight or say a bunch of curse words, but I’m not like most women. After all she didn’t betray me, my husband did. It’s still hard for me to understand how a woman could get involved with a man knowing he is married. My next message read, “I did not message you to pick a fight. I’m not mad at you, I’m just hurt by all of it.” Those humble words I wrote was followed by her apology to me. She wrote, “I’m sorry!” Richie made your marriage seem a lot different then what your telling me. I will tell you this, Richie loves the hell out of you! You two have a beautiful family and I hope you can work your marriage out.” That was the end of our conversation. For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to ask her if they had ever met, had sex, or anything of that nature. It made me feel good that she knew how much he loved me. I don’t know if he told her that or he just told her so much bad stuff about me that she thought he must love me a lot to choose me over her. I wish I could say that everything was perfect after that day, but the truth is my pain and suffering had just begun.
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