Dogism

by Mark Anthony

  As Nicole sucked her teeth, she said, “Lance, see, like right now, I had to catch myself because I can tell that I was starting to get heated inside. Lance, again, all I can say is that I don’t think I ever want to know the . . .” Nicole stopped in the middle of her statement and just stared into space. Then she looked as if she was gonna cry as she asked, “Lance, do you have love for Toni?”

  I thought before I began to speak because I wanted to give Nicole the most honest answer that I could. In my heart I sensed that Nicole really didn’t wanna know the answer to that question, and that’s probably why she asked another question before I could give her an answer.

  “Lance, like I said before, with God, I know that I can trust you. But I want you to tell me, Lance, can I really ever trust you again?”

  By this time in the conversation, my tears had left my face, and I said in a compassionate tone, “Baby, listen. Let me just say this . . . I understand fully what you’ve been saying. And believe me, whatever you want, however you feel things should be, that’s how it will be. Nicole, I’m just so thankful that you can even find it in yourself to forgive me. Baby, you don’t know what it means to me to know that you want our marriage to work out. Nicole, I promise you that I’m going to give more than a one hundred percent effort in every aspect of our marriage. And I promise you that together we’re going to work out all of my sexual hang-ups so that nothing like this will ever happen again. I realize now that I should have just spoken up much sooner. I could’ve come to you for help and support in fighting through all of my struggles. I never came to you for help and support, and that was a huge mistake, but I promise you that I’ll be forthcoming with anything that I think might trigger off something sexually immoral on my part.

  “Nicole, I understand your pain. And baby, I don’t want you to ever experience again what it is that I’ve put you through. And to answer your last two questions, yes, you can trust me. Nicole, I’m willing to work as hard as I have to in order to rebuild that trust. I don’t know if my word is worth anything, but all I can say is that I have no love whatsoever for Toni. Other than God, you’re my first and only love, and I realize that now more than ever.”

  Nicole and I hugged and deeply embraced each other for about two minutes straight. Then she went to the bathroom and got two washcloths for both of us to wash our faces. As I washed my face, my body felt tingly and numb. I yelled to LL and let him know that Daddy was not leaving and that I would be staying at home.

  I had a couple of concerns and questions but I was sure that they would work themselves out. I wondered how I would react if I were to see Toni in person. I wondered how I would behave two or three years from now if I were alone with Toni visiting the baby. I wondered how I would deal with the rest of my doggish ways. How would I stop lusting? How would I stop masturbating? Would I really never cheat again?

  I knew that only time would answer certain questions, but there was one thing that I knew for sure, that being the fact that Nicole is a one-in-a-million kind of woman. In fact, God doesn’t make women like Nicole anymore.

  As I finished washing my face, I realized that God had answered a prayer of mine. See, through Nicole, God was teaching me what it was like to love as He loves and to live as He lives. Yeah, there will be many tests for me to pass in the future, but for the first time in my life I earnestly wanted to pass all of those tests. Not only for myself, but more so because I didn’t want to hurt anyone else in the future.

  Again, I realize now more than ever that first and foremost, my doggish ways hurt not only myself, but they hurt God and those around me who love me. If Nicole can love me unconditionally the way she does, I’m sure that if I plug into God and really focus, then and only then will I put an end to my dogism.

  The Calm After the Storm

  It is said that when a person breaks a bone, the bone will actually be stronger after the break has been mended and it has had a chance to fully heal.

  With my adulterous ways, I had broken the fibers and the innermost sacred parts that Nicole and I had created with our union of marriage. And unlike a bone, which is very tangible in the sense that one can touch it, grab it, and physically see it, the fibers of a marriage are totally different—they are more spiritual. How do you mend those fibers in a way in which they will properly heal and be stronger than they were before the damage was done?

  That is a question that only time can truly answer.

  During the months after I revealed my adulterous ways to Nicole, we went through every range of emotions known to man. We had been frustrated, sad, remorseful, regretful, angry, depressed, and so many more adjectives that are along those lines. There were countless nights when we laid in our bed and soaked our pillows with tears.

  From my standpoint, there were times following the affair’s revelation in which I would literally feel like I was going to go insane simply because I knew deep down inside that my cheating had never truly had any bad intentions. It sounds stupid, but I never wanted to hurt Nicole. I never wanted to put her in the position she was in. At times when we would lie in our bed and discuss why the affair happened and what the warning signs and red flags that we both should have noticed were, I would just want to ram my fist through the bedroom wall out of pure anger and frustration.

  For one, I was truly regretful and mad at myself for having ever let myself trample over the vows that I had made to both my wife and to God. I would also get ridiculously angry and frustrated because Nicole would constantly blame herself for the wrong I had done. She would always say things like, “If only I had been more affectionate or supportive then maybe you wouldn’t have cheated.” She would also say things like, “If I had only called you, Lance, on your cell phone and checked on some of your alibis for not being in the house at night, then maybe I could have prevented you from cheating.”

  See, I knew that Nicole could not have been further from the truth. Honestly, I had wanted to cheat. I had something inside of me that was driving me to do what I did, and I acted on it. And there was really nothing that Nicole or anyone else could have done to stop me from being a dog.

  One night while we were laying in the bed, I gave Nicole the following example in order to get her to fully understand how I was feeling and also to get her to stop blaming herself for what she had no control over.

  “Nicole, I’m sure that the surviving family members who have ever lost a loved one due to some sick serial killer walk around blaming themselves for the death of their loved one. They probably say things like, ‘If only we had told so and so to take another route to school that day’ or, ‘If only I would have taught my daughter not to talk to strangers.’ See, Nicole, the family members should not blame themselves for the sickness of the serial killer. The fact of the matter is that when a serial killer is determined that someone is gonna be his victim, he has a twisted and demented drive that will not let him rest until he kills the victim that he is after. And see, that’s how it was with me. I had this sick and twisted drive to be with other women. It was a drive that I couldn’t escape. The only way that I would have been able to escape it would have been if God saw fit to not allow it to happen.”

  Yeah, I remember very vividly giving Nicole that example, because while Nicole did get the gist of what I was saying, she focused more on the latter part of what I had said.

  “See, Lance, that’s what I can’t understand. Why would God allow something like this to happen? I wouldn’t wish this type of pain on anyone, and that’s why I just can’t understand why God would put me through this. I’ve been faithful to God, and I’ve always trusted Him and prayed to Him, and I continue to do that. I just can’t understand why God would allow all of this.”

  I fully understood Nicole’s reasoning behind questioning God. But during the months after I told Nicole about Toni, there was no way in the world that I could personally question God, because I knew that it was my reliance on Him that had carried me through and allowed me to stay on the straight and narrow. It was
like my cheating ways had been a cancerous tumor in my soul, and by me plugging into God, He was able to go into my soul and cut out that cancer and keep me in remission from cheating.

  Yeah, for the first six months following the revelation of Toni to my wife, I was regularly checking in with God, and I saw the benefits. If my cheating was like a cancer, then it was as if through prayer I was going to God on a daily basis for chemotherapy treatments. It was as if the Lord’s chemotherapy treatments were designed to totally prevent the cheating cancerous cells from reforming again in my body and eliminating those cells that grew back after having been fully cut out during the initial operation of my repentance.

  But just like most people when they are sick, as soon as they start to feel better, they stop taking their medication, usually totally based on their own decision-making process and their doctor will be totally in the dark about it. In my case I was able to battle relentless pressure from things such as dealing with Toni’s pregnancy and subsequently the beautiful baby girl she and I had. I was able to deal with losing all sense of integrity and credibility with my family and friends. I was able to properly deal with new and old sexual temptations. I was able to muster up the courage to attend a weekly twelve-step program called Sex Addicts Anonymous, which is similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, only it was for people who felt that sex for them was either out of control or beginning to get way out of control. I was able to deal with all of those things and not crack under the pressure because I was managing to stay plugged into God. However, like the sick person who starts to feel a little better and automatically assumes that they can stop taking their medication, I began to get real cocky in my own mind.

  Right around the six months following the revelation of the affair, I noticed that I was only praying a few times a week instead of multiple times a day. It was like I began to put my guard down. I wasn’t reading the Bible every day like I had been doing when the affair was first revealed. In other words, I began to voluntarily skip my chemotherapy sessions with the Lord.

  And like magic, it must have been a new group or a new cluster of cancerous cheating cells that managed to work their way through my blood stream and stop at the part of my brain that controls my common sense. Those new cheating cells had a way of disguising themselves very well. In my case they had disguised themselves real good because they used different tactics in order to set me up. They didn’t cause me to out and out lust and just want to sex someone per se, and they didn’t cause me to want to masturbate or fiend to look at pornography. Rather, those new cheating cells began working on me. They began asking my ego: “What’s up with you, Lance? Why ain’t nobody calling you? You ain’t the man no more or what?”

  See, my ego or something inside of me seemed as if it always needed to really be stroked and caressed. And that’s exactly what those new cheating cells began to play on. Maybe I felt the need for my ego to be stroked due to my many insecurities. I don’t know. But I do know that my cheating ways had never really been carried out simply as a quest to conquer the actual act of having sex or having an orgasm with fine, attractive women. It may have appeared that way, especially considering how attractive both Toni and Scarlet are. But the truth be told, my cheating ways went far deeper than superficial, surface things, it was more like they were done in an effort to prove to myself that I was valuable and needed. And I would base my value and my self-worth on the women that I would want to go after and eventually conquer.

  I could have been super successful in all areas of my life, which for the most part I was, and yet I would always feel the need of wanting to feel better about myself and wanting to cause someone to feel like they really needed to be with me and needed me to be around in their lives, regardless if that “someone” was another woman and I was a married man.

  I don’t know if it will prove to be unfortunate, fateful, or whatever, but once again I really began realizing my strong need to feel desired and valuable in the eyes of the opposite sex. I began feeling this way only months after Toni gave birth to the baby.

  See, God had been answering all of my prayers. He had been keeping my mind free of that desire to want to feel needed. He had even made sure and saw to it to protect me from everything. God protected me so much until it got to the point where certain women like Scarlet and others like her actually backed off me.

  Yeah, that was ill because Scarlet, along with my other female acquaintances, had totally, voluntarily, and willingly distanced themselves from me. Me! Of all people, Lance Thomas. And I knew that God had played a role in that because that was what I had been specifically asking him to do for me. God had also been keeping me away from bad influences in the form of people like Steve and many others who did not have my best interests at heart.

  Yet it was primarily the thoughts of Scarlet that were really wreaking havoc on my mind. I knew that the best thing in the world that had happened to me was that I hadn’t spoken to women like Scarlet for a little more than six months, which had been a record time frame for me not having contact with women outside of my marriage. What was really ironic, though, was that those cheating cancerous cells had kept a serious poker face during that time. They had a huge ace in the hole in that they knew that I had managed to keep one thing in the dark about my past.

  Having revealed just about everything to Nicole, I always knew that I had never told her about Scarlet. Keeping Scarlet a secret had never been my intention. I guess that after seeing Nicole react the way she did when I told her about Toni, that I wanted to protect Nicole’s emotions and, therefore, I instinctively and completely blocked out of my mind the life of sin that I had carried on with Scarlet, not to mention wanting to avoid that fear of completely being exposed and feeling like a worthless freak. Yeah, that also played a part in me keeping my mouth shut about Scarlet. Yeah, even when Nicole had specifically asked me had there been anyone else other than Toni, I knew I could have mentioned Scarlet del Rio, but something just came over me and made me lie about it. I lied by keeping the Scarlet thing in the dark.

  I know it sounds pathetic and pitiful, but again, I figured that telling Nicole about Scarlet would have been a blow that she would not have been able to handle. Even after having told Nicole about Toni and the pregnancy and living through that, something inside of me told me that Nicole would not have been able to handle the entire truth and details about Scarlet. I mean, after all, Scarlet had been in the picture for the entire time Nicole and I had been married, so that would have put things in a completely different league of revelation.

  I guess for the most part, after Scarlet began fading out of the picture, which happened to be right around the time I’d met Toni, I viewed it as Scarlet didn’t really need to be discussed with Nicole. I know I was using twisted logic, but Scarlet had been further in the past than Toni had been. Plus, I had met Scarlet and had had sex with her before Nicole and I had actually said “I do.” In my mind I had convinced myself that the Scarlet thing was okay to brush under the rug, especially considering the fact that no baby or no sexually transmitted diseases were involved.

  My silence about Scarlet gave so much power to my demons. That one ace in the hole my cancerous cheating cells held was just waiting to be played. The danger of me having kept Scarlet a secret was two-fold, and I knew it. It was like I had a mistress in my hip pocket and Nicole had no way of helping me to stay clear of her. And if now, more than six months after the fact, I had chosen to bring the Scarlet thing to the spotlight and expose what had been a five-year on-again, mostly off-again sexual affair then Nicole would have really lost all sense of trust in me, and she would have never, ever been able to believe another word that came out of my mouth for as long as I lived. Everything concerning my marriage would have been down the drain—everything.

  So in order to protect myself, Nicole, and LL, I convinced myself that it would be best to keep things quiet for the rest of my natural life as far as Scarlet was concerned. In no way could I put Nicole through that type of drama again. In n
o way was I gonna lose the battle against my demons that Nicole and I had been fighting together during the past six months.

  I had a lot of thoughts waging war in my mind on a daily basis. I knew of all the destruction and pain that I had caused. I knew about all of the new promises and new vows that I had made. I knew about all the repenting prayers that I had offered up to God. I knew about the rosy future that I wanted to re-create with Nicole and LL. I truly, truly, from the innermost part of my being, wanted to continue to do right. And from the pit of my soul I had truly been genuinely remorseful and sorry for what I’d done. I knew that I truly loved Nicole and that I truly loved God. I really knew those things.

  But still, why hadn’t Scarlet at least checked for me during the past six months? I mean, she hadn’t even called me one time. I wondered many things, such as if she was a’ight. I wondered if she was angry with me for not having called her. I wondered if she was angry with me because of my relationship with Toni. Hell, I wondered if she had still been stalking me. I wondered if she was sexing anyone else. I wondered if she had completely written me off and had really moved on in her mind as it related to me. I wondered if she still thought that I looked good. I wondered if she would still let me hit it if I were to see her. I wondered if she were in a relationship with someone else, and if she would be willing to cut that person off for me. I wondered if she still saw me as an emotional stronghold that would help her deal with all of the baggage in her life. I wondered if she would still be excited to hear from a brother.

  If it takes me the rest of my natural life to do it, I know that I will one day be able to explain why I would want to entertain the thought of placing fire in my lap all over again. One day I will be able to explain exactly why I would want to behave like a dog that returns to his vomit, sniffs it, and then eats what he has already regurgitated. One day I will fully be able to articulate the reasons why, but I want to be able to articulate it in a way in which I understand it and in a way in which everyone else will understand it.