Be happy with me

My boyfriend is beautiful. I have never known a man like him. His hands are outstretched and full of gifts. He possesses a thoughtfullness unmatched by any other. When I speak to him, no matter how often (and it's quite often), and no matter how trivial, he listens and he hears me. He is remarkably patient and understanding.

We met under the most unlikely circumstances. I was married. David lived 1,138 miles away. I was bone achingly lonely. My husband's depression combined with his work schedule isolated him from me. I tried to break through it. I tried to love my way through it. I tried to pray my way through it. I tried to scream my way through. We were caught in a cycle that had no end.

1,138 miles away, David put fingers to keys and joined a website where other individuals like myself joined to talk about how lonely we were, how depressed, how disjointed we felt even in a room full of other people. We shared our stories which aren't remarkably similar, and yet, our connection was impossible to ignore.

We started writing to each other with more urgency. It wasn't inappropriate, per se ... However, the simple fact is a married woman shouldn't confide in a man 1,000 miles away, right? She should speak to the man committed to her, I know this, but that man simply was done listening.

It was not right of me to continue writing to David.

But, I did anyway.

He made me feel heard. He made me feel loved. He made me feel beautiful and special.

Over the period of our marriage and even our courtship, my husband told me that I was unattractive to him because I am overweight; told me that I had no common sense, that I was stupid; told me consistently that I was not good enough.

It was one week before Jon figured out I was writing to David. He found the evidence on our computer, because I don't know enough to hide such things and I didn't want to. One morning, I woke up and walked into the living room where the Bible was open on the kitchen table. Often I had asked Jon to read the Bible with me and at different times in our marriage, he had.

"What's this?" I asked him, pouring a cup of iced tea.

"Just thought we should read together," he said, nonchalantly.

I started reading verses in Proverbs about a whore who has committed adultery. I looked up at him. Smugly, he looked back at me.

"I know about your correspondence with David," he said.

In the time between that day and this, much has occured, of course. My heart burns with regret and suffering when I think of the pain I caused my husband, my exhusband, with this emotional infidelity across the Internet ... but I understand my motivation. My husband was cruel to me. David, in contrast, has always been kind.

I know that I not only signed a legal agreement committing myself to Jon for life, but that I also agreed before God to be joined to him eternally. It has been nine months since I met David, nine months since that fateful day when Jon confronted me, nine months since I decided to divorce him, and I still hurt every single day because I know I broke my vows.

I hurt every single day when I think of it.

I did not divorce Jon because I met David. I divorced Jon because he was controlling and cruel. I divorced Jon because I often begged him to get help and he refused. I divorced him because I put in every ounce of effort I had to love him, to make our marriage work, and he repeatedly, for years, said that he could not.

Meeting David reminded me that I'm not ugly, I'm not fat, I'm not stupid, I'm not unworthy. It reminded me that I have purpose. He reminded me that I may have years or only hours left on this earth and I don't want to live with someone who makes me feel like trash.

He sees me now and knows I'm still tripping over sadness like it's a pair of shoes in the living room. I confide in him still. I explain to him this complex array of emotions, this guilt and pain I'm still working through because of my divorce and everything preceeding it.

Beautiful brown eyes layered with velvet lashes plead with me.

"Be happy with me," he said kindly and sincerely. It was a gift to me, this offering of the intangible.

I'm trying, David. I promise.