The Art of Forgiveness

There once was a time when everything was outwardly perfect. Everyone was happy, carefree, family-oriented. Nothing could get better. However, on the inside, people were resentful, hurting, angry at the fact that everything wasn't okay, that actually, they didn't feel they could go on, but they had to act happy so they couldn't be yet another person to add to the list of miserable failures. This time, ladies and gentlemen, was called the 1950's.

Some people still pick up acting careers in life today. There are some of us who want to act happy and perfect so no one can pity us, so people look at us and admire us for being something we're not. For being inhumanly, impossibly, unbelievably perfect.

Yet, there are those of us that have a life that couldn't get any better. We don't brag about this, but we simply don't complain about the small stresses of everyday life. I am one of those people. For years, life was perfect. There was no acting about this, it simply was. I loved who I was as a person, I loved the odd little family I had acquired over the years, consisting of a husband (or, back then of course, a fiancee) and a collection of fuzzy creatures I could call my family. None of them are perfect. My husband has always had self-esteem issues and my cats sometimes miss the litterbox. But the simple fact remains that they are my family, through everything and anything, whether I like it or not.

In order to continue with my rambling today, one radical belief I have must be put to light. I do not believe in divorce. Nope, I am actually a twenty-one year old morally old-fashioned woman. I have always viewed marriage as a once in a lifetime thing. You do it once, you don't do it twice. Why? Because at a wedding, you stand there next to someone you love and you promise that he or she will be there next to you until one of you falls over dead (assuming this is from natural or accidental causes not relating to the partner's hand, of course). You promise "till death do us part," yet most people nowadays hear "Until weight gain, mental or physical health disabilities, accidents, mistakes, cheating, major disagreements, kid arguments do us part."

Don't get me wrong; I believe in separation. If it is best for the couple, why not? I also believe that people make mistakes, and although marriage is something too important to be taken lightly, I know some women marry men who are abusive, etc. But for me, personally, no divorce. AND, if I were to get a divorce, I would remain single for life. I also have never understood "moving on" after the death of a spouse. Move on? How do you move on with only half of your being? You don't. I never want to touch another man like I've touched my husband. I don't want intimate memories to be shared with anyone but the two of us, because to do so would be degrading.

I also believe in different types of love. Love, true love, and true pure love. Love can come multiple times in a life. True love is rare. True pure love is once. I believe more than I believe I am sitting here that what I have with my husband is true pure love. There is absolutely no one else now that I've met him. I don't find other men attractive...I can honestly say I love every single thing about my husband, even the seemingly negative things, simply because I love the fact that I am the person who can work with him on those negative things. My husband isn't perfect. And I adore that.

So, back to the point, I had my husband and I had our cats. I had a house I could call home, a nice, working car in the driveway, food in the pantry and food in my belly, and enough free time to kill brain cells by itself. I absolutely loved life. According to me, it was perfect. I needed nothing to make me happier. I was high on life. As corny and disgusting as that sounds, it simply was.

The unthinkable is an ugly thing, and just last week it gnashed its decomposing teeth right through my heart. My husband committed an act against our marriage, one that couples break up over, marriages fall and deplete over. The shock was the first thing I felt. My husband wasn't like that...right? He would never do such a thing. I would have bet the Second Coming would be here and long gone before he'd ever even imagine committing such an offending act against me.

Then, more things came to light about the situation, and I wasn't sure if that made it better or worse. My husband hated himself for what he had done...he didn't understand why he did it...lying on the bed next to me during one of our talks afterwards, his face was hot and wet with tears and his life was crumbling. He loathed himself and wished he could understand why he couldn't remember when he had done it, what he had done, and the only reason he could give me for doing it was that he felt like he wanted to hurt me. And it hated that, in and of itself.

Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder is something that turns people into something they don't want to be. My husband has it, and he hates it. Knowing that the act he committed against our marriage was done when he was out of his right mind is of a tiny comfort during this healing process, but it is of larger comfort when I compare it to a personal memory of mine when I went through the same thing. It is a story saved for a day all of its own, but it is one I know well, and it is the only reason (besides my gut instinct) that I can truly believe my husband is telling the truth when he says he didn't want to. He didn't want to, but he did. And to prevent anything like this from happening again, we'll have to practice using our beliefs.

I don't believe in divorce. And although my husband is less strict on this belief he is stern on the fact--not the belief, the fact--that he will die by my side or I will die by his, whichever comes first. Come hell and high water, we will get through it. I hung on to the hope that our marriage could once again be the perfect union it was. Within the first two days I knew about my husband's mistake, I wanted to die of heartbreak. I had the first suicidal thoughts I'd had in seven years, and I didn't eat.

Now, only a few days after that, I can say our marriage is once again the perfect union it was. When I woke up this morning, a love note was waiting for me on top of my laptop, where he knew I'd find it. I could live by his words alone, and today they only magnified how far I've come in forgiving him over the past few days. Working with his disorder may be hard, and it may be a long process.

But as I repeated to my husband on March 31, 2009, "Till death do us part." It may be a long process, but we have forever.