Code Red Alert Encounter

   Joe doesn't cry. Never has. All of the moving, happy, scary or touching moments in our lives have worn on his face the same. He laughs regularly - but he doesn't lose control of his laughter like I do. He's impossible to read. This has bothered me. I'm talking deaths in the family - no tears. Shawn's diagnosis of Down syndrome - no tears. When I told him back in the miserable years that I didn't want to be married - no tears. It has been difficult for me to know what and how he feels. His answer is always the same. He's fine. Like I said previously - no fun to fight with. 
  I got mad at him a few times in the spring of 2018...

- mad that the car needed repairs and he didn't seem to notice. A little mad about this and a little mad about that. Even voicing my stress over the fact that he doesn't take care of things - showing some moderate anger - he didn't flinch. No expression - just calm and gentle words. Pretty sure he's an Enneagram 9.
   Over the years, I have really enjoyed my girlfriends. GNO is a significant priority for me - whether it is one friend or 6, or 20. I have considered time with my girlfriends as part of my self-care routine. So last June I was out to dinner with one of my girlfriends in Franklin and code-red alert walks in. A guy I knew in my mid-twenties, now an actual man.... at first I didn't think much of seeing him. I had been attracted to him way back then but he never knew that. He had a girlfriend and I didn't get in the way. But I recall being pretty darn smitten. Our paths stopped crossing back then and that was that. I never even thought about him again. Not once. I didn't find him on Facebook - nothing. Out of sight - out of mind. But days after I was accepted to Seminary with plans to start that fall - there he was. And I'm not going to lie to you now - not after telling all this truth - he was aging very well. So handsome. We ended up talking for a very long time. All of the things I had seen in him 20+ years ago were still there. Charm. Wit. None of that alone would have thrown me off course - but you toss in a couple of significantly tight, long hugs - and you've got yourself a first class mess. He made a few revealing remarks about his marriage, a couple of reminiscent words about me - and I was a goner. We parted without much ado - but I was a wreck. For the next 48 hours, I barely slept or ate. Here's the part that is truly hard for me to confess - but if it helps anyone at all, I can survive. I found his email address - that was easy - and I began a dialogue with him. He had certainly implied some availability on his end, so I went fishing. Within a week we were communicating regularly and all was on the table and pretty clear. Praise be to the Lord Almighty that this man had only been in Franklin passing through - and that he now resides far away from Tennessee. I would have sworn on bibles that I wasn't capable of infidelity - and there I found myself trying to make a way. Not only was I toying with wrecking my own marriage - but his also - all while preparing to register for seminary courses. 
   We didn't see each other - but our communications were frequent and fun. I felt all the feels. But when I wasn't either writing or reading an email or text - I was in the most gut wrenching agony of my life. I explored every possible path in my mind. I lost sleep. I cried a lot when I was alone. I was the hottest of hot messes. It was a level of grief that I had not ever before felt. The grief had two sides - grief over the state of my marriage and how I had come to this point - and grief that there was no way I could be with that man without destroying something. 
   I told my best friend. Told her everything. Sent her copies of texts and emails. I didn't realize at the time that this was what I was doing - but by confiding in my faith filled Christian friend, I was allowing light to shine into the darkest places. She was a very good friend to me - in every way. She said everything that needed to be said - didn't say anything harmful to me. Most importantly, she began fiercely praying. I continued to keep her in the loop, but I also continued to communicate with Code-Red. As for Joe - I just kept getting pissed and more pissed. Everything he said and did made me furious - because the abandonment was now back in the midst - all of the pain and loneliness that I had long ago made peace with was jabbing me repeatedly like a devil's pitchfork. One night there was an issue with one of our vehicles that Joe neglected and it flew all over me. I lost it. I effing lost it.