You know how a dog has no interest in his old bone until another dog sniffs it? That.
Suddenly my husband picked up the pace spending time with our daughter. It’s not that he disappeared on her in the beginning. But once he thought he had competition,
he showed up at our door on the regular.

Now don’t start thinking crazy like he was saying he was sorry. Like he was manning up. Not even close. But he was acting like he cared.

From where I stood, the keyword was acting. The whole dog and its bone thing stunk up the room to me. But I played along because, well, I for one had committed to saving the marriage.

It’s OK. I hear you snickering. I can see your eyes roll. I feel you.

You’re going to love this: We started dating. As in going out. Out to eat. Out to the movies. Like boyfriend and girlfriend.

And we never talked about the obvious. (Like why I was both his wife and the other woman.) We just had fun. Come to think of it, maybe if we’d done more of this in the first place…

All right. I know you’re wondering. Yes. I had sex with my husband. He was my husband!

About another year passed while we were playing high school sweethearts. And one afternoon he brought up the time I’d told him God had given him 3 days to come home. He swore he hadn’t been able to keep two nickels together since that day. He just bled money.

Ye of little faith, I scolded myself. Just because I couldn’t see it didn’t mean God wasn’t at work.

Our dance continued. My husband still couldn’t find a way to admit he was wrong. Pride is a strong prison. Still, he was softening. I could sense it.

But when he wasn’t with me, he was carrying on in ways that could only lead to trouble. He was in over his head. I was clueless.

The night spaghetti was hitting the fan (meaning he was running from the police,) they knocked on my door looking for him. Not a hair on my head was mussed. I slept right through it.

The next morning my mother called asking why I hadn’t answered the door. She told me Jr was in jail.
Do you know I’d never even told my mother about our separation? About his cheating. About any of it. She had no idea the shenanigans that were our life. I was just too ashamed to tell her or anyone in our family.

I hope against hope that you cannot relate to this… I had my first night’s peaceful sleep since my nightmare began when I learned my husband was locked up. I didn’t have to wonder where he was or what he was doing. He was safe. That was that.

So you can probably guess this gets a little interesting here, right? I did have to deal with his mistress. Bail money needed to happen. And you should know me well enough by now that I wasn’t coughing it up.

She actually caught me off guard when I called. She was crying hysterically. She flat-out asked me what she was going to do!

My head spun so hard I nearly got whiplash.

“How do you think I feel? I’m his wife?” I responded after putting my head back on straight.

Wait for it. Wait for it. She didn’t know. She thought we were divorced and that he gave me the house.

And he said he was going to marry her once she graduated nursing school.

I know I should have felt for her. I knew exactly what his betrayal felt like. What it did to a woman.

But all I had for her was a mental “She’ll get over it.”

Now he was out. He was ready to come home. I felt like he was acting like a politician looking for a photo op. Like living with his family might keep him out of jail.

Don’t worry. We will never know. Homie don’t get to play that. The judge let him enjoy his birthday and then he had to turn himself in.

Honestly, who did that fool think he was? We’d been separated for almost 3 years. He goes off and gets in trouble. And now he wants to come home?

Do I look like a backup plan to you?

If he hadn’t gotten caught, he’d still have been running amok, doing whatever floated his boat whenever it did. Not coming home.

Very stinking likely. Thank goodness God had other plans.