From: ChristineK @ NoISP.com
To: PorterB @ CalArtsCtr.com
28 May 2004 5:39 am
Bette,
No apologies are needed. You are not the only person of late who finds themselves up in the middle of the night facing their demons. I suspect that Tina is doing likewise only she chooses not to pace, perhaps for fear that I will figure out that she is wrestling with herself.
I must confess something to you, something I have never told Tina. I had an affair once.
I have always held to the story that I chose to attend Miami because of proximity to the beach. That is not, however, the only reason. My senior year of high school, I knew that I was *****. I had told no one, especially my friends. I found myself confiding in a teacher who was also the coach for our golf team. She was married, with children. Let us just say that it was her who initiated my into the mysteries of physical love between women. Naturally, being young and foolish, I began to fantasize that she would want a life with me. It was her rejection that was the catalyst which sent me to a university out of state. I was actually grateful that Tina and my other friends chose to stop speaking to me. The secret that I was carrying was a heavy burden. It did not help matters that Tinas high school boyfriend was the son of my lover.
In a nutshell, Bette, Ive been there. Whereas, I was in a different position that you were, I know the pain of a physical relationship that isnt supposed to happen; the fear, shame and guilt of adultery. I also know the thrill of illicit love. There is a certain romance to the idea of secret lovers. For all of the pain and heartbreak that my relationship with my coach cost me, I cannot say that I would trade it for the experience and the lessons that I learned.
There was a TV movie once, that I remember. It involved a woman with a boring, small town life. She fell in love with a convict and helped break him out of prison. They lived on the run for a few weeks before they were caught. I remember this only because of something that the woman said in the movie. She said that it was worth it because she lived more in those few weeks than most people ever live in a lifetime. That is how I choose to remember my affair.
As I said, I know that my circumstances are not comparable to yours. However, I do identify with the demons that you face.
Sometimes, in life, we risk everything. Sometimes, we do this for all of the wrong reasons. Sometimes the risk pays off and sometimes it doesnt. For whatever reasons you may have had, you took a risk. You gambled and you lost hard.
Despite everything, I know that you love Tina and I know that she loves you. In the grander scheme of life, the rest is just details.
The reason that I love the beach so much is that it reminds me of how insignificant we are. I believe that God is Mother Nature because, ultimately she always wins. She is the only entity that always wins. Sometimes, we all need to be reminded that the role we play in the universe is the same role that a grain of sand plays upon the beach. Sometimes, we needed to be reminded that in the grander scheme of things, we are nothing. Why then, do we place so much emphasis on the details of our lives when, in the end, they matter so little?
In a nutshell, I believe that Tina should forgive you. If you do it to her again, then she should reject you the way sea shell collectors carelessly toss a defective shell back into the tide. However, if this was truly one error, one aberration, one horrible gamble gone wrong, then I think that she owes it to herself to try again to build the life that the two of you have wanted.
Saying that, I also know that building the life you have wanted involves far more than just forgiving your infidelity. You both made mistakes that brought you to the point where you sought physical release from another. I dont think that in the bigger picture your affair is the fatal blow to your marriage. I think that the hurts, disappointments, failures and mistakes that you BOTH made have inflicted tiny wounds over time which have threatened, in their cumulative effect, to become fatal wounds to the marriage.
Forgive my ramblings,
Chris

From: PorterB @ CalArtsCtr.com
To: ChristineK @ NoISP.com
28 May 2004 6:17 am
Chris,
Thank you for sharing something so personal. I know that weve gotten to know each other only through your visits to Tina and ours to you. I feel as though I have developed you as a friend through these circumstances and I thank you for that.
Your thoughts were very insightful and I shall continue to ponder them. You are certainly right in that our relationship had become flawed along the way. However, it was my final and unforgivable act that set off the explosion. I dont know that Tina will ever want to see past that in order to examine whether we can fix the other problems in our marriage.
I wish it were as simple as it sounds: I love her, she loves me and the rest is just details.
Your thoughts on our insignificance seem to fall within the sphere of the humility that I am learning. I thought that I was so important, that Tina couldnt live without me. Apparently, she can and therefore, I am not that important. I can only hope that my worth to her is exceeded by her love for me – if there is any love left.
Thank you again,
Bette

From: ChristineK @ NoISP.com
To: PorterB @ CalArtsCtr.com
28 May 2004 7:37 am
Bette,
There is love left. She is too angry right now to clearly see it, but I know that it is there. Maintain hope that, like the sun on a cloudy day, it will eventually shine through the gloom.
Chris