It is over.

He said the relationship was over. But could I really trust that? He didn't end it because he loved me. Still he didn't leave me either. It was very confusing. I could only guess at what he was thinking. The last thing he wanted me to think is that I had won him back and so he just avoided the subject. And so it went from day to day, month to month. It nearly drove me mad!
It had been a year and a half since his affair began when a knock came to the door. Our Stake President handed him a letter explaining that a church court would be convened the following day. It said he could attend if he wanted to. It never occurred to me that perhaps I should go with him. He prepared a statement to read explaining why he did what he did. It didn't really contain remorse. Not that he didn't feel some kind of remorse, but it was more about trying to make 15 really strong, religious men understand where a guy like him was coming from. Here is what it said:
"Are you familiar with the word dissociated? Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that it is an emotional state that can be demonstrated by doing something that you do not personally believe in. Perhaps an example would be a real estate agent selling a home that he doesn't believe to be in particularly good shape and it is also at an inflated price but the salesman pushes it because it is his broker's directive to get this and all other homes moving. A more direct example is when I pretended to love people because the Savior did and it was a commandment and all. But you can't force love. You can't make your emotions be obedient by force. All you can do is pretend to be enthusiastic and maybe you will be enthusiastic eventually. It didn't work for me and I don't think it works for many people. All you get is people faking it.
"Kindness I can do. Listening I can do. Lending a physical hand to someone who needs some help materially I can do. I can't fake the feeling of love. I couldn't even love my family. I let my wife do everything in that department. I got tired of not being me when even my wife got tired of making me feel good, happy, entertained. I found someone else who would. Sex was a part of it. Not a big part but part of the attraction.
"I don't know if I can express myself unless I give you a little background. I know that if I talk in sociological terms most of you will get it but I have spent many years listening to people in church talk and [then] converting over into a form that I can understand. If I hear [our Stake President] or Marvin Ashton say, 'the restored Gospel here on Earth has brought joy and enrichment to the lives of millions of people worldwide,' I might express that by saying 'form adds meaning to life,' to myself. I personally like hearing 'the restored Gospel here on Earth...' version but part of my personal mission is my need to make sense of the world around me and this is how I do it.
"Several years ago, when I was only 17-18-19, I started to think about talents I had and talents that I thought would be useful to me and I figuratively started collecting attitudes, traits and ideas that were going to be useful. The ones I had that I couldn't use right now I put into a bag that I carried behind me. I got married and had two kinds and one of the traits I kept was my devotion to be an objective and dispassionate social scientist even though that wasn't my job for employment. I decided that the Church had all the elements I needed to help me through the ordeal of raising kids and marriage in general. Unfortunately for my wife I did not express feelings and thoughts at all. I kept them to myself for a variety of reasons. My wife didn't feel very nourished by this but threw herself into the task of raising the children wholeheartedly, receiving her social nourishment from Relief Society, children, friends. At the end of twenty years marriage, we had a boy on a mission and a daughter who wasn't interested in interacting with her mother on the same old terms. My wife became depressed and stopped struggling with me for a form of attention, a form of love. I missed the struggle, but to me this was a signal that I could at last start to be my own person and not be saddled with all of the old roles I had been forced to assume for the last 20 years. The tireless provider, the good father,the aloof but cheerful neighbor. At the same time, I turned 42 and it is an absolutely normal part of the male psyche to re-evaluate life at that time. There is only 10-15 years of work life left and sometimes, that bag that you have carried behind you for 20 years has things in it that want to come out. After being in the bag for 20 years, some of those things are not happy at being there for so long, festering in the darkness. Perhaps, these traits and qualities should not be brought out but once you do, you can either run away, wall them up or resolve them. since they were part of my soul, my newly discovered sense of soul, there was no way I was going to put them back in the bag.
"About that time I found someone else who was also going through some of the same re-evaluation. The relationship was rich, loving and full of fantasy. The most important part to me was not the physical, it was the relationship. The fantasy also had an unconscious agreement that I would have to give up my church membership. It didn't fit. She had a social definition of the Church that was somehow painful to her and she didn't want to have any part of it. My understanding level didn't differentiate between church and faith, so I gave up my faith in Jesus along with my activity in the church. I gave up my family and my wife's family in thought and deed. I gave up my interest in home and friends. I felt condemned by my own infidelity with no route home. Eventually I gave up my career momentum and took a lesser position where I could function on a lower level. The richness of the fantasy has also been accompanied by considerable psychic and emotional discomfort and in some ways it resembled an addiction.
"Through some outside coaching I have been able to visualize a loving God who will not let me into the Kingdom because I have not lived up to my covenant and at the same time, a loving, merciful Jesus who has taken on my sins and has said He will stand for me with Jehovah. I feel closer to Jesus at this time than I have ever been. I don't use the Holy Ghost or depend on it consciously, but I have a faith in God, Jesus Christ and the truthfulness of the interaction that occurred between Joseph Smith and the divine personage, Jesus. The church is true in all of its aspects, I just don't find it necessary for me to take part anymore than I want to or personally find value in. Wherever that leaves me, in your eyes, that's where I am."
He did not read the statement. What happened in that court upset him to a point of feeling utterly betrayed by what he considered private, confidential information he had shared with our Stake President being revealed and shared with all in attendance. He could not speak. While they deliberated his fate in the Church he sat in the hall pleading with God that he not be excommunicated. He sat and prayed for the 1/2 hour it took. Finally they called him back into the room and announced that the decision was that he was to lose his membership in the Church. Then they had him walk around the table so that each member of the Stake Presidency and High Council could express their love to him. He did not feel loved.
I sat at home feeling sick to my stomach. When he told me the decision I was deeply saddened but believed it to be Father's will, for these were all men I loved, trusted and revered.
I think he thought that stopping the behavior was enough. He did not understand a broken heart and contrite spirit. He did not understand a new start. Still, I had hope that he would continue to heal and would understand one day and return.
Happiness has to come from within. It has to come from a knowledge of, and reliance on our Savior's love. I know He loves me. I know He loves my husband.
My Stake President called me into his office. He asked me to trust him that if he ever felt inspired to tell me I should leave my husband that I would be able to do so. I was deeply troubled!
1 John 4:7 "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God."
I loved my husband. I loved my God.