Last year I reached out to my friend, the one I betrayed and hurt so terribly. I just felt it was something I had to do. I could not even explain it to you now why I felt this compulsion to reach out, to try once more, I just had to do it. Her response was as you would expect. Please leave me alone, she said.
I let her know that I would wait, always, with my door open and that I would try again in the future. I meant what I said then. But more time has passed and now I know that the time for my attempts are over. I must respect her wishes, though they go against everything I feel in my heart. I will never give up waiting for a time maybe never to come. A time where the life we shared and the memories we built would be stronger, more urgently felt than one senseless, thoughtless and selfish act.
An act of betrayal so profound, novels and movies and poems are written about it. I admit I’ve Googled “sleeping with your best friend’s husband” and the Internet is filled with people’s opinions on the act. None of them are flattering. Everything I read echoes what my friend said to me, and yet, there is a part of me that can’t or won’t accept what I read or what I was told. Yes, I think sleeping with your best friend’s husband – even once – is a rotten thing to do. Horrible. Wish I’d never done it. But I keep looking back on our past life together and remembering everything we shared as friends and it overshadows the horrible act.
But of course, I’m on the other side. I’m the rotten one, the betrayer. Culture is set up to flay someone like me and encourage my friend to kick me out of her life and turn her back on what we shared because of one stupid, selfish act. There is no “pro or con” list for this situation for the betrayed, no looking back over history and balancing what was and what could be. It’s kick the betrayer to the curb and close that door. And never look back.
I suck at never looking back in this instance. I’ve been cheated on more than once and in different ways. Because there is emotional cheating as much as there is physical cheating. There are lots of ways to cheat without actually having intercourse and I’m sure many of us have crossed lines we’d prefer our partners not cross with other people. Deceit comes in many forms. When I was faced with the deceit of my at-the-time partners, I chose to look at the grand picture instead of just the one act. I gave the benefit of the doubt allowing that person another chance to prove their love for me.
You just never know, you know? Good people do bad things sometimes and regret, oh so regret what they’ve done. I see no honor, absolutely none, in turning my back on a good person out of spite. Out of anger or a sense of self-righteousness or whatever drives a person to do so. No honor at all.
But I’m not my friend. Heck, she isn’t even my friend anymore.
She is not my friend.
So I’m back at that last stage of grief – acceptance. I accept that the consequences of my selfishness and weakness are that I lost my friend. I’m not regretful I told her the truth at any moment because it was the right thing to do. Even if it took me a few years to do the right thing. I’m grateful for the time we had together as friends and will cherish the memories. I’m eternally hopeful that some day, in some way, she will remember me as the friend I was before that night.
And my door, my heart will forever remain open to her in case she ever wants to be my friend again.
Posted by mmkeekah 
