The Advice I Didn't Take

When I first learned about this entire debacle and my husband was sitting on the fence of giving up vs. fighting for our marriage my sister kept telling me I should make it public.

Tell his parents.
Tell his friends.

She said making it public would make it real. It would hold him accountable for his actions. Keeping it between my husband and I would do the opposite, keep it hidden. Make it okay.

Tonight I finally saw what she meant.

The other night I was worried because I heard from the wife of his childhood best friend. His oldest friend. She wanted to know how I was doing. I was afraid of putting her in the middle.

No matter what, I didn't want him to lose friends (rationale me knows how absurd this statement is) and I know that when people learn the real story they will think differently of him.

But now I know what my sister meant. We kept it between us and that made his irrational decisions okay. It didn't allow for others to tell him to make a mistake.

Those that he chose to confess in? They weren't marriage proponents. Either they were unhappily married or had never been married. They told him it wasn't a big deal to walk away. Some are lawyers and gave him legal advice on how to make it easier. They all encouraged him to walk away. No one told him to fight for his marriage.

During one of my most desperate moments I asked him to call a friend from college who is happily married and get his perspective. He refused. I told him to pretend that this friend was in our scenario; what advice would he give him? He refused to even entertain this scenario.

Why I didn't think to reach out to his oldest friend I don't know. I mean, we spent a lot of time with them, we vacationed with them.

Tonight Molly called. All she knew was that we were getting a divorce and that I was the one filing. I told her everything from start to finish. I cried. She cried.

When we got off the phone it was like everything was new again. The hurt, pain, desire for him to come back. All of it.

Then something happened that I didn't expect. The childhood/oldest friend (Molly's husband) called. He told me he was sorry, that he would do anything he could to help. That in all of his recent interaction with MS2BX he was aloof, distant. That he was willing to give him a piece of his mind whether I wanted him to or not. That no matter what he and his wife would be there for me.

For the first time in this entire debacle someone from MS2BX side of things was willing to stand up for me.

The worst part; what if I had reached out to them earlier? What if I had clued them in from the beginning?