I’m surprised 5am is being nice to me. I usually don’t get along with mornings. I get close to it at the other end, like staying up until 3am, but not this end. The sun isn’t even up.

My online friend, Jenni Clayville, is hosting an ‘Affair Week’ (actually two weeks). I don’t know if she did this on purpose, but she chose almost every ‘affair’ perspective. (click the names to read their stories) The first day was Justin Davis. He had an affair, hindsight showed him the hole in the accountability part of ‘community’ and is now creating something to fill the hole for others. The second was Trisha, his wife. She literally opens up her journal so you can see her pain and shares her hope. Sarah Markley shared her story of how she and her husband, Chad, had to divorce who they were before her affair. The good and the bad… Cindy Beall added her own story. Including how she was able to make room on her lap for an innocent little boy her husband fathered with another woman. She also made room in her heart for the little boy’s mother. Alece Ronzino opened herself up and told you why she chose to divorce her husband and is healing from the damage. Not an easy thing to do when you’re among ’survival stories.’ Yesterday, Brian Clayville, Jenni’s husband, shared what it was like for him to not try to sweep his wife’s affair under the rug so they could be ‘normal’ quicker. He waited to say he forgave her until he knew he had so as to not make their connection emotionally cheap and forever wounded.

So, today is my turn. I am the adulterous woman in the worst case scenario. The scenario everyone wants to avoid or survive. Like a disease.

If grace wasn’t real, if the hell wasn’t so aggressive, if the hopelessness wasn’t so terrifying, I would live my life with a buried secret and let everyone think good things about me. The only problem with that is, I know for a fact there are others, like me, out there who are screaming silently to be saved and given another chance. I can’t leave them. I can’t let them feel alone. It was too real for me. Forget about what you think of me, I’m going out there.

Jenni is letting me take up two days on her blog. (I get long winded, so she had to spread me out.) Then, she’ll write her thoughts on my book and host a giveaway. Go check it out and, please, let me know you were there. If you need or want my book, then enter her giveaway. I have it sitting on my desk, ready to put your name on it with my fancy pen.

Have a good Tuesday, I’ve got to get moving!

my 5am moon

This isolation we feel when we’ve taken a departure from ‘normal’ removes us from the general rules of society. If you’re in new territory, then you’re a survivor in the wilderness.

If nobody understands, then it’s pointless to talk to them. You close up and your relationships start to suffer.

What if you knew that you weren’t the only one going through this? You’re a text book example. I could finish your timeline before you could act it out.

Most of your poor decisions come from feeling like you’re in new territory. They’re fueled by feeling like an isolated exception. There’s a split in your personality, much like someone trying to act normal when you’re incredibly distracted by something you can’t talk about. The distraction is so powerful, it starts to push the ‘normal’ out. Soon you have to explain where your head has been and you grab as many excuses as possible. Usually having to attack ‘normal’ in order to take his voice away.

When it doesn’t work and ‘normal’ still has a valid voice, it makes you feel agitated. Angry even.

You don’t want to be talked out of it. Starting fresh and breaking away into this new fantasy actually seems like a possibility. As much as you don’t want to be this way, you’re thinking about yourself more than ever. You think about your years of sacrifice…things you’ve settled for.

There is always a fight to continue in sin. You have to fight for it. You have to be brutal to the things trying to hold on while you’re slipping away.

The harder they fight for you, the harder you hit. This is why a person comes to a point down the road where they can’t imagine going back because of all the destruction they’ve done.

If you don’t connect with anything else I’m writing right now, please connect with this. The person fighting to move further into their path of sin will get so emotionally cold, brutal and heartless that it’s like taking a sledge hammer to the hallway photos and memorabilia of a happy life. Most people can’t take it and that’s why there are lesions in the Body of Christ.

We all have a nature within us that will fight to go it’s own way. It’s selfish, inconsiderate and doesn’t care about the walls it has to tear down to get out. If you haven’t met that part of you yet, you will. I’m not talking about the everyday head butting with your proverbial angel and devil. I’m talking about the destructive force that creeps like black tar over your toile throw pillows and gets caught in your children’s cornsilk hair. You’re lost in your own head trying to find yourself, meanwhile your ’self’ is destroying your home.

Something you can take away from this is the same thing you can take away from any relationship. You learn to recognize the voice. In this case, it’s the voice of your selfish nature. That’s something. If you can recognize it, you can ignore it. Also, God knew how destructive that nature is and wanted to make sure you could never look back at the damage you’ve done and feel like He’d never take you back. He’ll always be there, standing in your mess with a set jaw.

That’s when you’ll find yourself. And when you do, nobody can take that away from you. What you may not know, is who you are has nothing to do with what you’re trying to leave behind or trying to run to. You’re a wanderer in a desert running to and from mirages. Distractions. You, self-inflated delusions and all, are His child. Nobody can take that away from you. Not even you.

I don’t know how far down the road you have to go to see things clearly, but I promise you, you’ll always hit the dead end. People may leave you at some point, but He never will. Never ever, ever. You have the freedom to destroy and grace will give you the power to grow new life out of death. When you see your worst, be thankful. Seeing your worst makes it easier to let yourself go. To let ’self’ die. People who have been there will understand that the details are just details. What is the most important is your faith and your faith will bring you back to the path of life. New life.

Hopefully it helps to know that the sooner you abandon your self-searching mission, the easier the cleanup will be. It’s crippling when you finally find out that the answers and superficial happiness you’re seeking will not be what you’re really after. I’ve been there and nothing on this planet can ease the pain of breaking away from ‘right’ to find it.

You’re not alone and you won’t be abandoned. If it doesn’t change your course now, then hold on to it because it will help you when you’re ready to fight what you think is your ally right now. Hell gains your trust with a seductive, soft caress until it gets you settled in your new address and then it starts to eat you alive. A snake charmer bit by his pet. It’s a classic story of evil seduction and you’re not immune to the well practiced song of  the ‘father of lies.’

I’ve been there. I know that heartache all too well. I made it out. You can, too.

Until then…

Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. Keep your guard up. You’re not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It’s the same with Christians all over the world. So keep a firm grip on the faith. The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ—eternal and glorious plans they are!—will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, he does. -1 Peter 5:8-11

They pull in the attention of significant others and there is a delicate balance that may be hard to keep.

You confide in a friend. You build up a friend.
You experience certain aspects of life with a friend and those experiences make the friendship grow.
There are inside jokes. Feelings. Emotions. Bonds.
What if they’re better at being a friend than your significant other?
What happens when they start to become a distraction?
What about when something happens and you wish you could have the ear of your friend because they would respond better than your spouse?
Frustration digs his feet into your marriage.
Thoughts wander to the other side of your walls.
What if you find more in common with your friend than you do your spouse?
Disrespect leaves crumbs in your bed.
With the distraction of someone else to confide in, there’s no real reason to fix the parts of your marriage that are breaking. By the time you notice them, it requires too much attention. And by this point, you have to search for reasons to fight. Reasons that have nothing to do with love.
This is the point when you wonder how this happened.

What could you have done different?

Are you friends with their spouse? It doesn’t matter how you know your friend, when it spills into your personal life, you should be able to be their spouses friend, too. If you’re not their spouses friend, then you’re not their friend.

If their spouse doesn’t connect with you when you try, there is a reason for it. You don’t get to blow past it and you’re not entitled to an explanation. It doesn’t matter if they’re wrong or crazy. It ends there.

As a married person, your thoughts, actions and voice should be filtered through your spouse. Not because you’re co-dependent or insecure, but because you’re one.

You represent each other when you’re out in the world. Don’t divide yourself in public.

I cringe when women talk about their husbands like they’re children. I don’t care if you’re right. Don’t make a woman who sees the treasure you have feel sorry for him and try to sooth his bruised ego. You don’t know what people can see. You see everything, the rest of the world only sees a piece and it’s probably the best piece. Protect him. If he goes down, so do you.

I’m annoyed when men talk about their ‘nagging’ wives. Where does your marriage win if you succeed in making the rest of the world feel sorry for you?  Just because you don’t want to make her feel adored doesn’t mean that somebody else wouldn’t be happy to.

Don’t let anyone else see the gap between you. There are too many people who don’t see your spouse the way you do, they see your spouse the way they are longing to be seen. Don’t let a ‘friend’ in the vacant space. Fight to bridge it.

If you find yourself in the emotional mess I described in the beginning, try tracing your steps backward and make new choices. You’ll still suffer a loss. It’s your choice as far as what you want to lose.

‘Happiness: only real when shared.’ -Christopher McCandless

We need to be known. To be seen. There is a world of people out there who will never know your intimate details. The freckles, scars and shapes.

I asked my sister-in-law about a scar near her eye a few weeks ago. The look changed in her eyes and she stared at me for a moment and then laughed. She said that nobody had ever asked her about that scar before. It meant something to her. It’s simple and didn’t really matter to me, but it’s part of her story and she got to tell it. Now it matters.

I have a freckle on my left pinky. I’ve had it my whole life. Of every hand I’ve held, gift I’ve given, and gesture I’ve made, no one has ever noticed it. The only person who has is my husband. It’s so simple, but it’s part of me. No matter how old I’ve been or what I’ve gone through, when I look down at my hands, it’s there. When my husband tells me he loves the freckle on my pinky, I know what he’s really saying. He’s saying he sees me like no one has ever seen me and he gets to be the one who gets it.

If we could slow down for a second and take the time actually see the other person, our relationships would dig in so much deeper. We wouldn’t have the emotional void of feeling invisible.

Emotional affairs are had by people who don’t want to be invisible anymore.

Imagine the difference you could be making in your marriage if you made sure your spouse knew they were seen.

As the survivor (spiritually speaking) of an affair, I have a much different take on the foreplay of a full-blown physical affair than someone who hasn’t overstepped the more obvious boundaries of adultery. There are so many ‘first steps’ that people take regularly that have my antenna up. I’ll list a few of the ones I can think of and call on some of you to add to the list. The point is to educate people who could be traveling down that path and still think their behavior has no real destination and doesn’t hurt anybody. This list is only intended to make you examine behaviors and be honest about what is behind them. I’ll only put a few to start so that you guys can build on top of it. The video is posted at the bottom.

• ‘Harmless’ flirting (even if you make sure to mention their spouse in the banter.)
• Private, unnessesary messages (texts, emails, etc.) no matter how innocent the content.
• You should be aware when you can be friends with a member of the opposite sex, but not with their significant other. (Real and cyber life. I have a lot to say on this, but may have to devote an entire blog to it.)
• You should be aware if you notice yourself dressing up a little extra or getting a little excited if you know you’ll see a specific member of the opposite sex (or same if you swing that way).

I’ll end my list there to leave room to add your suggestions (or experience).

This weeks blogs will mess around in this stuff a bit heavier. Please share your thoughts (privately or publicly) because my blogs often feed off of them.

Here’s the video…