A tale of husbands

My love story from then til now

Once upon a time…

There was a young woman in a dark marriage, where she was afraid for her life and her daughter’s, who was studying at Messiah College, now Messiah University. She prayed to God to save her marriage, knowing it was no use.- either it would end or she would die one way or another. One day, the young woman, yes, that was me, heard a still small voice tell her to move back to the Boston.

I had always said, “I will never move back the Boston area unless God drags me kicking and screaming.”

It has hard to know why I married a man who loved Boston more than me, who criticized how I chewed and couldn’t get a hard on for me without thinking of another woman or some risqué situation - who was a compulsive liar and stole thousands of dollars spent on phone sex -who a few weeks after we separated told me he never loved me.

He was older. And he used the same kinds of words I did. And once an intuitive said I wasn’t supposed to marry him, but just supposed to have the kid with him. Oh well. I waited til marriage for anything that would lead to a baby without immaculate conception. There is this one time we weren’t even dating that we hung out downtown and I had a wet tee shirt in the rain and something could have happened but it didn’t…I look back and I think, dang, I wish I could have been the person who would have had the one night stand - I wish he would have been the person who would have thrown his morals to the wind at that moment instead of the countless others, with other people. Because just up the street, the love of my life was working at John Hancock, and I could have had the baby who needed the first guy’s genetics and got on with finding the one I really wanted to be with for life a little sooner and with less trauma. Oh well. I forgive myself. Well I’m working on it. I’m almost there. Maybe I will be all the way by the time I’m finished this article.

But The Source of All Life, The Divine Mother-Father who loves us didn’t give up on me, even if my marriage wasn’t worth salvaging or even able to be salvaged. I got this strong urge to pray for a little Methodist Church in Maynard Mass, and when we were visiting our mutual high school hometown, I insisted we visit it. The ex nearly didn’t go with me, seven months pregnant though I was with that girl child I was meant have with him. The Romans Road tracts in the foyer, all fire and brimstone had him in allergic reaction. I told him to leave if he wanted to, but I was staying because I felt strongly led to do so. He tagged along, which was ironic because when we were friends, because we started dating and everything went to hell but I didn’t love myself enough to step away, he was always telling me I could tag along with him to this or that

The little old congregation was led by a vivacious male pastor from Zimbabwe. Everyone else in the church was white except for two people. We ended up being the only young people in the church except for one another couple: Well one of them is now my husband, and the other one can be thanked for introducing me to his cheek. It turned out both the first husband and the soon to.be second husband and I all attended the same High School albeit at somewhat different times. They had two years in common. I came along when they had already graduated. All of us have had at one of two teachers in common. My now husband’s at the time girlfriend was a Pakistani young woman who went to Brandeis. I have only known a few people from that college - three Russian-Israeli Jews, a Honduran, an Iranian (dating my friend,) plus the Pakistani woman and my white lawyer whose religion remains unknown to me. Surely peace is possible if all these people from so-called warring countries attended the same predominantly Jewish college, unless representatives of all these backgrounds are in convoluted interrelationship beyond public disclosure and I went to Waiting for Godot with some of them…naaaah, probably not.

After that visit, I heard God or my guides or some voice that felt trustworthy speak for the first time. It told me to move back to the Boston area. A miraculous housesitting job opened up through the church we’d be attended, So I finished the first semester of my senior year ad a few friends helped us pack up a uhaul, and my youth ministry professor let me do an independent study for my last non-gen ed requirement to gratitude. though I’d and at my insistence that I would be going to the new rather than the old church, the ex tagged along too.

The girlfriend in the other young couple invited me into Mary Kay, which is about the last job I would choose, except that my checks were bouncing, so I thought I’d give it a try. It was traumatic enough being told that my card bounced at a large department store. Then, telling the lady at checkout the story told me by the ex about how the credit card building had a fire and burned down, and having the cashier look at me as if I had just told her my credit card was bouncing because my undies were inside out, while telling me that no such fire had occurred and other credit cards were going through - I was willing to try Mary Kay. I didn’t yet know why my cards were bouncing, but I knew the ex was a chronic liar and had bought far too many fried chicken sandwiches given our budget.

For my Mary Kay debut, which the girlfriend of my now husband organized, yet which took place at the home where the ex and I were housesitting, a whole bunch of people from the original church where I met the first husband came to see my baby. They didn’t want makeup. They just wanted to see my daughter, who was at this point six months old. Even my ex and I only had to pay utilities, even that was a stretch because my ex was using all our money and money we didn’t have for phone sex that I didn’t know about at the time. I knew he was pressuring me toward an open relationship I did not want to have; I knew he was angry at the church for its puritanical attitudes and blamed them for his addiction, but I didn’t know he was acting on those addictions.

So the Mary Kay debut commenced with my now husband passing his cheek around a circle of women so we could feel and inspect the other brand side versus the Mary Kay aftershave side. By this time he and I were friends, and I’d had a rather unique conversation with both him and his girlfriend, separately. I was getting a bit o a crush on him, and even as I was getting pushed toward an open relationship, I didn’t want to be a home wrecker, (although they didn’t live together) so one day I asked the girlfriend, while I was at her house for some or other Mary Kay related reason, if she had long term plans with my now husband. She said no, that she was planning on breaking up with them before they each went their separate ways to medical school. I asked him the same question when he was by himself, right after that, because she sent me over to his house to get a signature from him to co-sign for my now ex who was trying to become real estate agent, since his interest in the ministry had dropped to zero once he decided that he hated the church and wasn’t a Christian and blamed the church for pretty much everything wrong with him, leaving a little left to blame on the abuse from his dad, but really mostly leveling it at the church. I realize that is a run on sentence, but I just read it to my husband and he says I should keep it and I always listen to my husband ;)

So I went over his house to get his signature, and I asked him, “So you and…you’ve been together for a while…are you guys serious, like thinking long term?” He said, “No, I’m planning on breaking it off when we go our separate ways to medical school.” The only thing was, they hadn’t told each other. I mentioned he might want to communicate with her. And I decided it was harmless to flirt if neither of them planned to stay together after the natural parting of paths for their future career training. We talked about chocolate and he kept giving me more chocolate and inviting me to stay later. Eventually I got the signature and left after his mother peeked down from upstairs and gave off the vibe that I really shouldn’t be there. I excused myself, fully chocolitified and definitely sure I had a crush.

When I found out the extent of what was really going on with the ex while I was away graduating from college and attending my roommate’s wedding, I asked a friend I’d known since high school who attended the same college to accompany me to break up with the ex once and for all. So in one weekend I graduated (except for an outstanding general education req that I fulfilled that summer,) attended a wedding and broke up with my ex. I did this with a baby in tow. I did this without parents present, because I told my parents that I had a lot going on and that I would want to focus o this very last chance to spend time with my friends, and that they were welcome to come but that I needed to know it was okay to spend time with my friends without being guilt tripped. They declined to come. Somehow, by the time I got home I had a voicemail from my now husband, who’d heard through the grape vine that we had split up, and sweet man that he is, thought maybe there was something he could do to help us.. Now at first he thought that maybe he could help patch things up with my ex, but when I told him the story - and he is the first and really the only one who has heard the whole thing without censor - he decided maybe there was a better way to help. But before I could tell him the story, I wanted him to come over. I didn’t want to tell the story over the phone - I couldn’t. I told him the ex was out watching a movie and asked if he (the now husband) wanted to come over. He said sure and popped over carrying enough chocolate pudding and popcorn for a medium size group. He misheard me and thought I was inviting him to a group movie night including the ex! Good thing for both of us he was wrong. I told him the whole story, then he realized he shouldn’t get us back together. Our chemistry became electric but we didn’t do anything about it. I told him it was time for him to go, because he needed to get unentangled before anything happened. It took a little time for him to completely untangle - for example, he got essentially dragged to the alter of the church and told to repent of his feelings for me, even though no action had occurred between us other than too many smiles during a church skit about Jesus and too much joy at a concert in the park where we sang worship songs together. It isn’t criminal for a man and woman to sit next to each other on a pew regardless of each one’s marital status. It’s not even a sin in the Methodist tradition. Behind closed doors we got the Pastor’s eventual blessing, and actually his wife who was also a Pastor married us spiritually before we made love the first time on a bed of rose petals. In church we got kicked off the worship team and there ministries of which we were a part, but several couples supported on us privately, including one who gave us a gift card for groceries to get us started.

I had rented a one bedroom apartment and given my daughter the bedroom I chose the location because of intuition and it happened that my now husband lived just down the street, making it easy for him to stop by after work. At the time he was a medical assistant, getting ready to apply for medical school. On the day my divorce was legal, he was beginning his journey to becoming a doctor. We already owned a condo in Jersey when I returned to the Boston Area to complete my legal business with Uncle Sam and the ex, with the help of the lawyer I met in school on the triple date with the guy from Brandeis, along with my friend, who on the day of the divorce, had my lawyers personal number and was able to get him up and out of bed in time help help me untie the last of that knot, for good.

Unbeknownst to me, the induction into medical school was a second marriage for my husband as well - one he didn’t know he was getting into - one I feared and suspected. They played Canon in D during the white coat ceremony and marched them down the aisle in pairs of men and women before they took their oaths. Untying the generational knot of ego and programming that my husband unwittingly was born into and then married without his conscious consent took longer than untying the knot of my early first marriage. There were a lot of times I had to face a lot alone until my husband’s awakening became such that our original spiritual marriage became spiritual marriage in all ways. It was well worth it. Because today my husband is one of the most amazing human beings I know - the best husband I know and is the only person I know who is able to be a doctor and a healer in the way he is - without being married to the job. He learned to put me first and to trust that I will never ask him to do or forego doing something that is actually divinely aligned.

The other day when he brought me to a clinical appointment during a day he had long break midday for OMT, on the way home he was fully planning to bring me home before returning to work. As we passed his urgent care clinic, I felt led to offer to drop him off instead, so he didn’t have to be late. He buys me chocolate, to this day and feeds it to me until I tell him to stop. But the best thing about him, is how he feels to me when I can feel his soul pulsing through his soft, strong, unconditionally loving energy, shining through his cuddly, wonderful, sexy human self.