I began to well up with regret as I put down the list of boundaries and expectations. The consequences for my actions were not something I wanted to do.
“How could she be so strict”, I thought to myself.
I am not the kind of guy who likes rules and boundaries, but despite my irritation and frustration with my wife as she laid them before me, I knew I had no other option. This was not her fault.
Abusing my freedom to betray her, was most definitely my fault.
I wasn’t even sure that I could live up to these newly enforced standards, but worse than the doubt, was the anger I felt.
Everything was being stripped from me! She cut off my personal phone line and it felt like a limb was being torn from my body. All of my social media accounts were deleted, contacts were lost, and I now had zero privacy in my marriage. Surely she was on a mission to punish me and get her revenge!
It only got worse.
I sat there listening to her read the phone records aloud, each one revealing all the minutes I had spoken to the other woman in totality (24,615 to be exact). Everything that I was hiding was being dragged into the light, and the “casual conversations” I told myself I was having, proved to be much more severe than I realized.
Here she stood, exposing me for the man I was.
Those beginning days after receiving the list were intensely hard for me.
She kept my phone and restored many texts and emails that I am ashamed of. It wasn’t pretty.
But there was also this other part of me that felt, hope. As nervous as I was about her having access to everything, I knew that safety laid in the boundaries. I sensed that true freedom would be had by being completely open and honest with her from here on forward. I wanted that opportunity, and she deserved that from me.
Looking back, I can see how enslaved I was to the things that were being taken away from me.
I was addicted to social media and addicted to privacy in my marriage (social media is not bad in and of itself). These boundaries exposed so much hurt within me, and today I am thankful I get to address it.
Who knows how long these “rules” may be enforced, but as someone who has had a taste of what our marriage could be like someday, I’d be fine having them in place for the rest of our lives.
”they are no longer two but one flesh.” (Mark 10:8)
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