This is something that I've been thinking of for the past few days. I'm not putting it out there as some kind of justification for anything because I'm not justifying or excusing my behavior. Please don't take that the wrong way. I'm not apologizing for it either. Sorry for any offense that someone might take at this statement, but I don't think I have anything to apologize for to anyone in my whole life. Even my former husband.

I mean....I know for a FACT that I am not perfect. I have a friend who used to tell me, "I don't need anyone to point out my faults and weaknesses...I know them intimately". How true that is. I can be a little moody...I have a major upside and a serious downside, neither one of which has seriously hindered my life one way or the other. I've had a terrible fear of failure that I had to overcome and did not do so until almost middle age. I have always been shy and even somewhat introverted, in spite of the "bubbliness" that came over me as an adult. My mother has told me many times that as a child I was "rambunctious" but not talkative at all. That shyness did not come across as shy after I grew up and learned how to relate better to people. It was still under there though, making me nervous in certain situations and giving me fairly severe stomach problems at different times because of the way I internalized the stress of it.

At the same time, what am I supposed to "apologize" for? Being faithful physically and even mentally to my former husband for 36 years? I mean, SERIOUSLY! I don't want to sound pious...God KNOWS I don't, but lust was never one of those things that I struggled very much with. I'm not saying I'm better than anyone else. I'm just saying that sex, the act of it, the thought of it, was never a huge deal to me one way or the other. That's not to say that I wasn't satisfied in my marriage or that my former husband wasn't. There is a reason why we were BOTH faithful all of these years. What I'm saying is that, I have taken some flack recently for being an "adulterer". For one thing, I think people might have a different perception of what that means to me as what it means to them. Jesus said that even the "thought" of it is like doing it. Okay, so finally, after all of these years of not having any untoward thoughts like that, I did. I admit it then. I'm an adulterer. I had a thought. Lot's of them. I kissed a man who I'm not married to. So...since you can't sue me for that, judge me instead. Be careful what you judge beyond that, my friends. Be very careful. For with the measure that you judge it shall be measured back to you.

If I ever fantasized about another man all of these years, and my former husband knows this because I told him, it is not because I wanted a better looking man, a more romantic man, a smarter man, or a man who made more money. What I wanted...what I CRAVED...was a man who truly loved me, inside and out, wanted to know me and be known by me, and who loved God more than he loved me. That's it. That's all of it. I stayed with him because I felt I was "supposed to", and in the end, looking back, I WAS supposed to. Look at what we were able to accomplish together! Look at the fruit of our life together! It was GOOD, right? We took what could have been a horrendous problem and made something good out of it. At the risk of sounding corny, we took some of the lemons of our relationship and made lemonade, you know? Isn't that a GOOD thing? Well, I always thought so anyway.

Sometimes, there comes a time when you need to prune back a fruitful vine, isn't there? Not just me....everyone involved. I know I keep saying this, and I know it's getting old and tired, but whether anyone wants to believe this or not, my former husband is HAPPIER now. You should see him in his new clothes, talking about getting a motorcycle for himself and taking all the plane rides that he knew I wasn't that interested in. I always wanted the camper. I'll go by air, I don't care, it's just not how I saw my golden years. Our interests are so different and varied. He is free now. Maybe more than I am. The kids, apart from the gossip they love to spread at times (this has always been an issue in my family...see, tol' ya we weren't perfect), are HAPPIER now than they were. Remember Barbie? Remember when she left in November under such a cloud of disapproval from us? I didn't know if we would EVER see her again! We have seen so much more of her lately and while none of us really can wrap our mind around the fact that she is with this almost 40 yr. old man, we are finding reconcilation. My situation is requiring some of the same openness of mind so I guess I'm getting a taste of my own medicine, huh? Let it never be said that POH can't see the irony in her 20/20 eyeglasses.

The point I am trying to make is that the family is doing BETTER not worse since this has happened. It may not seem that way at the moment but one must remember that there were problems, pretty bad ones, before this. Not so much between my former husband and me...we kept those under wraps so well that one of the kids living at home said to me, "I never saw this coming". In a way, that should be a good thing, right?

Yes, I have children who not only won't talk to me or take my phone calls but have not spoken directly to me since they found out about this whole thing. They are judging the situation, even to the point of harassing other bloggers on the blogstream by sending them PM's, but they have NEVER spoken to me directly, even to this day. Yeah, that sounds like they got their spirituality together to me....not.

I have a blogging friend who I felt extremely close to, and has PM'd me in the past three months about how much they miss me over at their blog since I haven't been on so much. They haven't spoken directly to me, by e-mail, PM or phone but have specifically asked me not to visit their blog anymore and have blocked me. The vehemence of this person's judgment shocked me a little but not any worse than my mother and four sisters who told me that I am no longer welcome at their homes. Humph. And to think that two of my sisters have been divorced, one twice, and for the second one, adultery on her part. Alrighty then.

Apparently the issue with me is that I have professed to be a CHRISTIAN and they haven't. When they started telling me what they think GOD has to say about this though, that is where I had to back up ...let's just say that the hypocrisy was deafening to my ears....it was making it hard for me to hear what they are saying. "What God are you talking about?" I asked. "The God you have told me for years to shut up about? The God you have so loudly proclaimed not to believe in?"

Well, if you are talking about THAT God, then let it be said that whatever your opinion about POH and the choices that she is making for her life is not more important to me than what HE has to say about it. I already know that God hates divorce. I also know that He hates abortion. How many so-called Christians have had one of THOSE, hmmmm? I also know that He hates back-stabbing, two-faced gossipers, in my family and on the blogstream who have nothing better to do than sit around on their computers and plan evil in their hearts. He who is without sin, let him be the first one to cast a stone at me.

My peace is made with God, if not with some people who wish I would do THEIR will. I'm sorry if this is offensive to some....just my way of saying that I care about you, I truly do, but I'm going to live my life the way I see fit and if you choose to hold that against me, when you claim to love an all-forgiving God, then I will leave you to your own heart and mind. The issue isn't really whether what I did that offended you (even though it wsa not done to YOU) was wrong, the issue is what will you do with the offense?

It's all about the choices, baby.