by Donna Britt
For decades I’d seen myself as powerful and confident with men. Suddenly I was in a 1950s melodrama in which a stranger had usurped the fun, bombshell role and handed me the part of the clueless matron. I was so retro, I actually wondered: What kind of woman pursues another woman’s husband? In the ’50s, such interlopers were portrayed as pathetic sluts. On TV and in movies today, some single women pursue married men with a single-mindedness that’s almost sport: cool, hip, so Sex in the City.
Some things, thank God, don’t change. Once the affair was discovered, Kevin made it clear he had no desire to lose me, or his family. “Whatever you decide, I’ll abide by it,” he said, before adding what I longed to hear: “But I hope you’ll forgive me.” He would end things with her the moment we got home. I told him to visit her once more, to tell her to her face that he loved me. After that, he’d never see her again. If he couldn’t tell her that, mean that, “just stay there,” I said. He agreed.
Eyes still on me, he waited. So far, so good.
I had to know more. For hours and then days, I asked every question I could conjure: How did you meet, when did it start, how often did you see her, where did you hook up, what did you tell her about me, who else knows, how could you, how could you, HOW COULD YOU? Kevin, glad to be telling the truth again, answered every one, even those whose responses made him look worse. When I was out of questions, I said we could stay together if he joined me in marriage counseling. Then we would see.
I couldn’t tell him the truth. As lacerated as I felt, I loved him—his affability, his intelligence, his warmth, his unwavering commitment to our kids. Nothing, not the hugeness of his mistake, not the incomprehensibility of his lies, not even two years, could wipe away what I knew him to be. For fifteen years, he’d seeped inside me. I couldn’t just unmingle us. Night after night, I lay next to him, my pain so palpable that it woke him like a shake. Wrapping me in his arms at three a.m., he asked, “You want to talk about it?”, listening when I did. I didn’t want to lose him.
Our between—the space where we’d overlapped—was too large to abandon.
In the next few weeks, I effortlessly lost ten pounds. Even when Darrell had died, I’d been able to eat; for the first time, food held no beguilement. Kevin repeatedly took my emotional temperature, endlessly asking, “Are you okay?” and saying “I’m sorry” more.
Like countless men and women whose infidelity has been discovered, he seemed like someone shaken out of a dream. The undefined shape of the consequences of his actions had become wincingly clear; it was the difference between seeing a car crash in a movie and actually being in one. He wasn’t just sorry. He saw himself through my eyes and the world’s, and it shocked him.
As my own shock receded, I knew that I’d sustained psychic scars that might never fade. As a grown woman, I thought I understood the realities grown-ups accept because living requires it. And although some childhood dreams can’t pass the tests adulthood administers, my girlish romanticism—my secret belief in dragon-slaying knights—had never faltered. It had withstood blackness (Negro girls aren’t supposed to believe in fairy tales), breakups, and even divorce before being rewarded with a prince. This dream’s collapse felt like a death.
As long as I lived, it would rankle, knowing my husband and this stranger shared private jokes, tender moments, a carnal connection whose depth and tenor I would never know. This interloper was still out there, possessing, perhaps cherishing, an intimate knowledge I’d thought was mine alone.
Yet what infuriated me most was all that my husband had accepted from me during his dalliance. I cursed every pan I’d baked of his favorite lasagna, every shirt washed, each I’m-tired-but-let’s-go-for-it intimacy. I wanted them all back, every ounce of exertion squandered on a man who could have saved me the time and effort by telling me the truth.
Why hadn’t he told me? Fear of losing his family? Of losing me? Or was a hidden affair “a male rite of passage,” as my friend Connie put it? “So many guys do it,” she explained, each one creating an agony whose toxic residue reminds her of the torture suffered by a friend of hers who years ago killed a stranger while driving drunk. “Who hasn’t had too much to drink and driven home?” Connie asked. “I know I have. But until I saw what she goes through, I had no idea of the pain it could cause.
“An affair is like that,” she said. “You think it’s a game, but you’re hurting your life. And you can never take it back.”
Never. I reared back when Connie uttered it, the only thought as brutal as two years. What if I never recovered, never understood, never got the room to untilt? “Never” was why I was glad to settle with Kevin onto the comfortable couch of a highly recommended marriage therapist. Maybe I’d find freedom from the rage, the questions, the inescapable him-with-her images.
Maybe I’d come to accept that even princes can have dragons within that need slaying. Maybe, if I sat with my hands folded decorously in my lap on that somber-hued couch, I could express my outrage without screaming.
Maybe we’d find some way to survive this.
Visible
Kevin and Donna, 2011.
A few years after I started writing my column from home, I heard wonderful news: My friend and Post colleague DeNeen Brown had won the ASNE feature-writing award. One of the most prestigious in print journalism, it’s an honor I’d been thrilled to win myself. Excited that a friend—and another black woman—had also won it, I drove downtown to cheer her. In his congratulatory speech before gathered employees, executive editor Len Downie told the assemblage that DeNeen had joined a select circle of previous Post winners. He named several—all of them white men. Though I’d made a special trip to be there and stood just a few feet from him, Downie didn’t mention me. Working at home, miles from my coworkers, had made me invisible.
Later, pondering whether I should have said something to my boss, I had to laugh as I wondered: Would a man who hadn’t seen me standing right in front of him have heard me?
Even when things are god-awful in a relationship, some memories are too sweet for banishment. Like those of the night I met Kevin. After losing and finding each other on the riverboat, we’d spent an hour talking on the waterfront before moving our conversation to a half-dozen nooks in the convention hotel. Hours later, still grooving to the romantic-comedy vibe that inspired me to tell Kevin, “Find me,” I cocked my head and said, “Tell me a secret.”
Pausing long enough for me to wonder if I’d struck a wrong note, Kevin began. Days ago he’d attended a relative’s funeral. As he wandered into his beloved kinsman’s bedroom after the service, his eyes had landed on a hairbrush that had belonged to the departed. Taking the brush in his hands, hefting it, Kevin found himself studying it. Suddenly, he saw it—how clearly it evoked the man who had for years touched it, used it, become part of it. And after days of holding himself together, he’d finally let go of his grief.
I was undone. This undeniably cool brother could have told me anything, yet had shared something so unguarded, I felt he’d seen me, someone who’d appreciate the instant’s import. At that moment, I knew Kevin would be a vital part of my life.
In our therapist’s office, I thought back to that first secret, and to the scores of secrets we’d shared, and failed to share, since. Just as I’d hoped, it was satisfying, sitting on the safety of that couch and sharing my confusion and rage and pain—until the man whose actions brought us to it started describing how angry and inadequate my resentment and expectations had made him feel.
I froze. Being betrayed by the man for whom I’d done everything wasn’t enough. Now I was supposed to listen to how I’d fucked up? Gripping the sofa, thinking, Screw this, I felt my legs tense to lift me, my mouth prepare to say I’d had it with this bullshit. Who would blame me?
Remembering all that was at stake, I kept my seat.
Everyone wants to be seen. Who knew that better than me, the invisible lint picker? Yet I’d had no idea of my own blindness, of how often Kevin had felt transparen
t, as unappreciated by me as I was by him. The longer I listened to him, the more I saw myself through his eyes: as someone who envisioned herself as a perfect martyr, not as a flawed human being whose bitterness had made her incapable of seeing him and all he’d offered me.
I saw how maddening it had been, hearing about his supposed ingratitude when he had for years given me compliments, cards, presents, praise for my beauty, and loving criticism of my work. Yet “none of it matters,” he said. “I don’t get any credit for it.” He’d given me weekend trips, surprise gifts, dinners out, countless hugs and kisses, and it wasn’t enough. My resentment had been so palpable that he, the most confident of men, began to feel he could never make me happy. Resentment—along with the demands of a ready-made family, a new baby, mounting debt, and a challenging career—had ripened him for a no-strings offer of sex from a woman who claimed only to want a good time. Maybe, he’d told himself, I was screwing around, too. Hadn’t she said she could be tempted? Increasingly, Kevin continued, he felt “smothered,” with no free time to see friends, have an after-hours drink, or just breathe. It seemed that he had to ask permission to do anything on his own, and that I greeted every request with a groan.
I squirmed when Kevin raised a tendency that my friend Jeff years ago dubbed my “rather-be-right-than-have-a-million-dollars” mind-set. My much-criticized husband insisted that I hated admitting I was wrong—about anything. Too often when I could have admitted a mistake or apologized, I explained the reasoning behind my actions, a sensible response that inevitably muted my regret. Sometimes, he said, people just need to hear “I’m sorry.”
What a frustrating pain it had been for him: a live-and-let-live guy wheedled and harangued by a trying-to-be-perfect-and-so-should-you girl who seemed blind to her own imperfections.
Let me be clear: Nothing Kevin said on that couch excused his infidelity. Nothing blotted out my rage and disappointment at his deception. Yet hearing what had pushed him toward it was as enlightening as it was disconcerting. Most unexpected—and frankly astonishing—was how tormenting the dalliance had been for him. Yes, he’d had fun, enjoyed feeling desired and admired. But for two years, Kevin had betrayed his view of himself as one of the good, straight-up brothers who do the right thing. His unequivocal shame over his disloyalty to me and to himself couldn’t be faked. I found myself believing something I never could have suspected: Throughout the affair, he’d been tormented by all he was forsaking—hence its on-and-off quality. I’d assumed it was a nonstop frolic.
Hearing what my husband felt was almost as illuminating as uncovering unexpected truths about myself. I considered how being the child of a needy, abandoned mother and a silent, withdrawn father had sharpened my craving for acknowledgment, how being my brothers’ sister, Greg’s wife, and a single mother had exacerbated my inborn giving impulse. Exploring the affair forced me to explore my feelings toward everyone who hadn’t given—or hadn’t known how to give—as much as I easily offered.
The problem was more than the imbalance. Part of my despair, I think now, was rooted in my brother. Once again, I had unwittingly allowed distance to creep between me and a man I loved. Again, I was being punished with the death of something irreplaceable.
I had so many frustrations to share on that couch: My certainty that Kevin was dismissive of the difficulty of working at home while managing a household and family. My suspicion that like most accomplished men, he was on some level uneasy with a woman who was his match. My disbelief that anyone as honorable as Kevin would have an affair at all. And that there was no magic wand anyone could wave to make it disappear.
I wanted my old life back. I wanted to be able to go to a party, restaurant, or grocery store without wondering if she might be there. I wanted to hear him say he was going for drinks after work or to shoot hoops with friends and not think: Really? I wanted to feel I wasn’t living some enabling lie that made our lives together look normal—look easy—when the reality was so painful.
I couldn’t shake a feeling: As apologetic and candid as Kevin was being, some part of him couldn’t accept how deeply he’d hurt me. He’d apologized profusely, joined me in therapy’s torture, done everything I asked. Why, he seemed to wonder, wasn’t I getting over it?
It had taken months to absorb that the unimaginable hadn’t just happened, but had happened over two years. Once I believed it, the real anguish—my deepest rage and most piercing recriminations—began. Get over it? I’d just started feeling this fresh agony, this new infusion of ungovernable emotions that ricocheted from acrimony to affection to indignation. Now that I no longer feared losing my husband, I could wonder, “Why am I holding onto him?”
A primal reaction to an internal struggle, an affair unleashes equally primal urges in its victims. When a spouse crosses that line, it can be natural for the betrayed to be consumed by thoughts of revenge. I know I was. What better way to make Kevin understand my agony than by having my own affair? Let him imagine someone else’s roaming hands and mouth on his spouse. I feared no repercussions; the infidelity had given me a get-out-of-jail-free card. Mentally I auditioned a dozen candidates—ex-beaus, his friends, strangers who flirted on the street.
Fate lent me a hand. Two old boyfriends whom I hadn’t heard from in years got in touch. Out of the blue. Like it was meant to be.
Joe, a former Stanford tennis player whom I’d dated when he spent a semester at Hampton, was a strikingly handsome attorney who called out of nowhere to “reconnect.” When he mentioned he was still single and searching for love, I thought, Hmmm. When he said he’d spent several years teaching yoga—which I’d begun teaching at a local gym—I smiled. When he said he was living in Philadelphia—the city where Mani was studying after having transferred to Temple University—I laughed out loud. I was already planning to visit Mani; Joe and I scheduled dinner.
Joe was the only man I’d dated more devoted to inspirational chats, books, and lectures than I. Unencumbered by a wife or kids, Joe spent most of his free time and income on spiritual workshops, retreats, and studying with various masters; his insight and openheartedness reflected it. In phone calls before our dinner, we discussed the affair. Gently, he helped me explore how I felt, what I might do.
Meeting at a hip Philly eatery, we had a fun, wide-ranging exchange about our lives and work. Later on the phone, Joe confessed he expected to find me bedraggled from my situation. “But in fact, you were quite sexy,” he said. Asked if I’d like to get together closer to my home, I said yes, though I was unsure exactly for what. Just before our meeting, Joe—who’s spiritual but still a man—clarified things by asking, “So are you feeling… naughty?” I thought about it. Confused, hurt, vengeful? Yes. Naughty? Not so much. Meeting didn’t seem the best idea.
Hoping to get my head on straight, I scheduled a trip to my favorite retreat: Rancho La Puerta, a magical Baja California fitness spa near San Diego. Days before my departure, Tony—another ex-beau, this one from grad school—called from out of nowhere. He, too, was headed to San Diego, he said. Could we meet at the spa?
What, I wondered, was God up to?
One of the funniest people I’ve met, Tony was also a lifelong truth seeker; our discussions about race, gender, and culture had always been electrifying. Smarting from having recently left his own contentious marriage, he, too, was a great sounding board.
Because we’d dated much longer than Joe and I had, Tony seemed more of a threat. But to what? I asked myself. A marriage my husband hardly considered while screwing his girlfriend?
Over a scrumptious vegetarian meal, Tony and I reminisced, guffawed, commiserated. Back at my room, I lit a blaze for us in the stone fireplace. Motown ballads floated from the CD player.
On a sofa warmed by the flames, we talked about our marriages, our disillusionment, our pain. Tony stretched out, opening his arms; I sank into them. We said soft, comforting words to each other. We fell asleep. A week later, Tony called and said, “Nothing happened, but that was the most romantic nigh
t I’ve had in years.” For me, that solace-filled evening held a lesson: As attractive as Tony and Joe were, I didn’t want an affair. I wanted my husband. I wanted my marriage back, untainted.
Impossible. But the only path that would get me anywhere close was forgiveness.
A fact: Some people believe adultery should never be forgiven. They wonder why, when I rose from that tub, I didn’t collect my bags, get on the first thing smoking, and immediately start divorce proceedings. In their screw-him-if-he-screws-her world, a betrayed wife who works to save her marriage is a fool. Infidelity can’t be tolerated, and forgiveness is tolerance in spiritual packaging.
I marvel at these folks’ conviction, but I’d never thought of infidelity as a deal killer. My vanity and idealism prevented me from envisioning any man betraying me, but I’d noted countless times how sexual desire inspires people—especially people with penises—to do self-defeating things. If humans could remove the overwhelming need for sex from their repertoire, divorces—as well as “What was (s)he thinking?” scandals—would plummet. More than half of married men (some estimates say 70 percent) stray. I was twelve when I saw the film version of William Inge’s Picnic on TV. One line hit me like a punch: “You don’t love someone because he’s perfect.”
Decades later, I’d be living proof. As someone who loved her husband and had always judged adultery on a case-by-case basis, I decided in my case to try to learn from it. I wasn’t ready to unload a man who’d done so much right for one spectacular wrong—no matter who felt it was the smart move.
Besides, I knew myself to be generous, compassionate, and spiritual. My spouse was repentant, my marriage worth saving.
How hard could forgiving my husband be?
Americans, I soon realized, aren’t crazy about forgiveness.