My Name != Jolene

It's come up more that once.  It's time to set the record straight. 

I am not a husband stealing ho.

I will admit freely that once upon a time, I was a boyfriend-screwing ho.  I learned a lot from that experience, not the least of which is that one's own self respect is the center of one's self esteem, and acting like a ho is as painful and damaging to you as it is to the other people your actions affect. 

The woman who's boyfriend I had a (stupid, unsustainable, ridiculous) affair with never did forgive me.  I kind of wish she would, but I understand why she doesn't.  For the way I acted back then, I have a good deal of well earned shame.

But let me be clear about this; I have no shame where it comes to my husband, because I didn't do anything wrong.

Here's the story.

We met at a picnic; his wife was there.  I was attracted to both of them.  They were pretending they weren't married.  (Their reasons for doing so were between the two of them and not mine to reveal or judge.)  I flirted with both of them that day.  After that, I flirted with him on the computer for about a week until he told me that he was married.  Then I called him up and yelled at him - I told him that I wasn't going to be his excuse to get out of an unhappy marriage and that he better look to his own house and quit with the bullshit.  I told him that I could be his friend but as he was married that it would not go farther than that, and that he needed to work on his marriage and not some new relationship with some new woman.

Shortly after that his wife wrote me a long email asking me to stop speaking with him entirely - she listed all his faults, then appealed to my - I don't know what - sense of mercy?  The letter was weird, though - it was written to a woman who was a lover, not a friend.  This was confusing to me - but I told her that while I wished the two of them and their marriage the best, I was not responsible for her marriage - she was, and he was, and it didn't have shit to do with me, and me speaking or not speaking to him wasn't going to make a lot of difference - the only thing that would was their relationship getting better.  And I wished her luck.

I thought that was the end of that weirdness but somehow (I've forgotten how) I found out that he'd tried to leave her "for me".  When I heard that I was livid - I made it clear to him that I didn't want someone who would dump someone for someone else without dealing with the issues underlying the first relationship - honestly trying to solve them, and if that failed, end the relationship for it's own sake rather than the sake of another.

I was pissed after that and for the next two years was rather cold with him whenever he IM'd me.  I was polite enough, but beyond polite conversation all I did was encourage him in his attempt to repair his marriage.   When frustration  overcame him I pointed him right back at her - "talk to her, tell her how you feel" and when they were doing well I was genuinely happy for them. 

I'd my own life to live, 3000 miles away, and I was busy.  He was someone I chatted with on the computer about once every 3 months.  It was - whatever.

About two years after that initial meeting, he IM'd me told me that they were getting a divorce.  His wife started writing about her emotions about it in her blog.  He started seeing other people.  This also didn't have much of an impact on me.

Some time later, he IM'd me and asked if he could stay at my house one weekend - he was planning to come out to see some friends who were visiting that weekend.  I didn't think anything of it when I said yes - plenty of people have crashed at my house before. and plenty since.  It'd been two years since I'd met him, and we'd spent about 6 hours together.  I didn't figure it would be a big deal - I think I'd even forgotten that I found him attractive.  Two years of IM's is a long time to sustain interest, and I hadn't.

So I was unprepared for the strength of my attraction to him, and his to me.  We dated, but I wasn't ready face the idea of falling in love and he wasn't ready to give up being single and dating lots of people.  We saw each other frequently but casually - until I it was clear that his wasn't something that was gong to go away in a few months.  We talked about our feelings (how terrifying that was), and we began to discuss monogamy.  We agreed on a date by which we would become monogamous or stop seeing one another.  On that date, monogamy won.

All of which is just to say;  I didn't have shit to do with the termination of his previous marriage.  That was and still is between the two of them, and it was something they both lost by playing badly.  He and I don't intend to make the same mistakes - ours will be different, and they will be all our own.  I would not have married him if I didn't think that between the two of us, we have the skills and qualities necessary to handle those mistakes.  But if we don't, it's not someone else's fault.  The blame will lie squarely where it belongs - between the two of us.