an existential keekah

Someone very close to me did a bad thing a long time ago.  She cheated on her husband with my ex-husband… and the results produced a child.  She came clean to her husband, they worked through it, she had the child and her husband raised the child as his own.

I found out about it last year for the first time.

It’s funny – because you know, I slept with my best friend’s husband when they were still married and kept it secret for five years – before telling her and eventually losing the dearest friend I ever had in my life.  So I had a unique perspective on the whole situation when I found about this friend and her indiscretion.  Plus, it helps that I’m not with my ex AND I don’t like him all that much.  His actions didn’t surprise me.

If I’m honest, my friend’s actions didn’t surprise me either.  Not because she is anything like my ex-husband – not at all.  I know she didn’t deliberately do this act out of malice, out of spite or anything like that at all.  She is a good person – warm-hearted, loving, a great mother and a good friend.

How can I say that when I now know what she did to her husband, and I guess in some way, to me?  Because I can see that she didn’t do this to me.  This wasn’t about me.  This wasn’t even about her husband.  This was about my friend and her circumstances at the time.  Sometimes people make bad decisions and end up living with the results for the rest of their lives.

I guess I can’t be mad at my friend because I am her in some ways.  I guess I can’t be mad at my friend because I know the pain and guilt she is living with every day.  I guess I can’t be mad at my friend because she did this to herself.

I know that now – from personal experience.

I found out last year but she and I just talked about it last night, at her insistence.  I was quite content to live with the knowledge, be her friend and let it go.  But she wanted to talk about it – no – she needed to talk about it.  She had to let me know she didn’t do it on purpose, didn’t do it to hurt me or even her husband (now an ex-husband, by the way).

I understand.

Sometimes you just need to talk it all out – to admit what you did to someone besides yourself.  I didn’t offer her forgiveness because there was nothing to forgive from my perspective.  But maybe she can finally forgive herself.  It might make it easier to live with.  If she figures out how to do that, I hope she shares her secret.