It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are without any self-deception or illusion that a light will develop out of events by which the path to success may be recognized.
– I Ching
A sickening mixture of fear and dread started churning in the pit of my stomach. It crept with cold fingers to grip my heart. “How far has this gone – in your head?” I added the last part of the question, somehow sure that he had not crossed a line, physically anyway, with his growing obsession for Tracy.
His answer came back as a long guilty pause before he quietly muttered, “I haven’t done anything about it.” As if it didn’t matter as long as there had been no conjugal contact! I recoiled from him, retreating as far as I could to the other side of our bed. It was even worse knowing that the woman who had come to mean such a threat to my entire life was at that moment living in our home. Stephen, in what had become characteristic of his approach to Tracy, had offered her safe haven, along with her partner and two children, while her unstable ex-husband was in town, fearing that he might try to take the kids back with him across country.
Feeling an explosive combination of anger, hurt and pain, I felt that the physical space between us should somehow mirror the emotional chasm. I had always told myself that no matter what, his heart belonged to me. His response indicated to me that this was perhaps no longer true. It had seemed that from the very beginning, Stephen was my home. He had always made me feel so safe and secure and loved. The feeling that our connection spanned lifetimes was so evident to us and was something we often lovingly joked about. I felt that in becoming emotionally attached to Tracy, he had violated our intimate connection. Why would he allow someone else to occupy that space in his heart that was mine and mine alone?
He met Tracy through one of his IT clients. He had been instantly drawn to her. She shared his interest in the spiritual and was looking, as he was, for a new path. Stephen had gone through some huge changes in his life’s path after having spent almost 17 years of his career life in the IT industry. A development of intuitive abilities, that he probably always possessed but never focused on, had led him to an interest in energy healing, mediumship and past life regressions. Tracy shared a fascination with those subjects and he found her rapt attention intoxicating.
For the most part though, he had included me in any personal time spent with her, outside of his professional capacity with her employer. It was not like he was sneaking around to see her. He talked about her with me quite openly. We got together with her and her partner and children, socially, on many occasions. Tracy seemed sweet and we all connected. But for Stephen, there seemed to be a growing bond and a need to “take care of her” and help her out, emotionally and financially.
She told us several months into our acquaintance, that she was going to interview a massage therapy school that she was interested in attending. This was a direction that Stephen had explored as a way to start to bring his spiritual practice to the public. The state of Florida requires a massage therapy license, or a similar health practitioner license, in order to do any work that involves touch. We had only started to consider how he would be able to practice and massage seemed like it was a viable alternative. He immediately offered to drive her to the school in St. Petersburg so that he might also give it some consideration and while he was there with her, decided to attend the program himself. Our daughter, upon hearing his decision, expressed an interest in pursuing massage therapy and defining a new direction for her own life as well.
They had all three started the course together and the night of the party when our confrontation came to a head marked three months into their study. I understood that it was an overwhelming experience to change career paths drastically and I tried hard to lend support and encouragement when possible. I had encouraged him to attend massage therapy school—he was excited about and interested in something for the first time in a long time. But I had allowed the connection between them to go too far without giving voice to my apprehensions and concerns regarding his relationship with Tracy. I was reeling at how fast the connection blossomed. After 27 years and 3 babies, I wondered for the first time, if our marriage was over. We had never been faced with this kind of challenge.
A billion thoughts bombarded my brain; scenarios all wrapped up with fear and vulnerability. The hot tears poured onto my pillow. “You are so monumentally stupid,” I chastised myself, “hadn’t everyone tried to warn you?” But I had ignored the kind warnings of my children and friends until his fascination with this woman and her two kids seemed to have taken on a life of its own. Believing that nothing would be served by any further discussion tonight, and truthfully, fearing what he might say, all I managed to tell my husband was “I have to work in the morning, I want her gone before I get home. I don’t give a shit what you tell her.”
Sleep, although elusive, finally and blissfully, saved me from any more thoughts of what might lie ahead.