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Tortured. I'd been barraged with thoughts of another man from our church. I prayed about it—with no reprieve. I tried not to think of him, but the thoughts wormed their way into my obsessed brain. After an internally trying month, I called my best friend who urged me to tell my husband, Colin.* But I hesitated. What if he rejects me or never trusts me again? I thought.

Finally, that night I mustered a scrap of courage and said, "I have feelings for another man."

Once the words left my tongue, I knew I was free.

Colin responded with uncanny grace. Then he hesitatingly said, "There was someone else for me, too." I knew immediately to whom he was referring. "Your former secretary, Gloria?" I asked.

"Yes."

And just like that it was out of the bag. No longer tortured with thoughts of another man, now I fretted about Colin's ambiguous admission. But I didn't want to know any details. Perhaps it was my relief at his prompt forgiveness of me, that if I pushed the issue, he'd withdraw it. Perhaps it was my insecurity that caused me to pretend all was well. Whatever the reason, I didn't ask him what had happened between them.

Winter turned to spring and the subject of Gloria remained unplowed.

Then one day six months later, Colin phoned me from work. We'd just spent a fabulous weekend at a marriage conference, and I assumed he was calling to tell me he loved me. "Elizabeth" he said. "I got a card today—from Gloria."

"What?"

"She enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelope and wants me to write back."

"I don't understand. Why would she do that?" Even as I asked, I realized there was more to this relationship than I'd let myself believe. My stomach knotted. "Did you kiss her?"

"Yes."

I threw the phone to the ground.

Within minutes Colin was home, shaky. I wanted to scream, to hit him, to run away. I called my friend again and pled with her, "Please tell me to stay. I don't know what to do."

"I can't make that decision for you, Elizabeth. I'll pray for you, but you have to take this to God." I knew she was right, but first I needed to interrogate Colin before I could even think straight. After recounting everything, he broke down and wept. Although the affair hadn't been fully sexual, the physical contact that did occur sickened me.

"How could you kiss another woman? How could you woo her in such a way that she said she loved you?" I yelled.

Colin's only reply came in stilted "I'm so sorrys" punctuated by head-in-hands sobbing.

I just kept thinking, What kind of man did I marry? How can I ever trust him when he's deceived me for months?

Within the next few days, I talked to a counselor friend who advised me to vent my emotions and ask every question; she cautioned that if we stuffed it all now, we'd have to revisit it later. Not wanting to ever revisit this, Colin and I spent blurry-eyed weeks reconstructing the affair. I yelled. I sat quietly in dark rooms. I prayed. I contemplated walking out the door and never returning. But every time I considered that, I'd look at our children, and their innocence restrained me. I grew up in a home of three divorces, all of which dealt debilitating blows to me, so I determined not to do that to our kids. But Colin was sure I'd leave—every time I went to the grocery store alone, he'd watch the clock and wonder, Will she come back this time?

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