Dealing With Meanness & Sabotage – It’s a Matter of Trust

This morning I am thankful for the first step of my Al-Anon program in which I learned that I have no control over other people, places and things.  Sometimes I still struggle with this. My natural tendency is to obsess about challenges and it has taken me years to learn perspective. 

Last evening my husband and I attended the Master’s Flute Concert of our friend Kerri Kappler at Shenandoah University. The music was mesmerizing and set the tone for a lovely evening. Although invited to join our friends for a celebratory dinner, we decided to allow Kerri to enjoy the evening with her family and stopped at Roma on the Winchester, Virginia walking mall to try their wood-fired pizza. We shared pizza, a bottle of red table wine from Virginia’s Naked Mountain Winery, and walked arm n arm back to the car.

After we arrived home, my husband realized he must have left his cell phone in the car. Neither of us could find it. It had apparently slipped under the seats. So I called his number with my cell to confirm it was there and “voila’” he found it.

A few minutes later he walked into the kitchen and put a photograph on the counter that he said was under the driver’s seat of the car I usually drive. It had to have been a cruel joke or just cruel – a color photo of somebody’s man parts.  He had to ask if I knew anything about it. No doubt it looked incriminating. All I could say was I was just as flummoxed as he, that I had no idea how it had gotten there, and that I felt a hole in the pit of my stomach. The car is a BMW Z4 convertible and during warm weather I often leave the top down when I run errands. It does attract attention. It is a beautiful car. But why would somebody do that?  That was just plain mean.

Ultimately, I must rely upon our ten years of mutual love and trust, the knowledge that since the moment I first met my husband I’ve had eyes for nobody else, that being with him makes my heart sing, and that he knows that as deeply in his bones and heart that I would never jeopardize the glorious relationship we’ve shared and the future we’ve planned for anything. It’s a matter of trust.

And, I’m not stupid. If it were a photograph of awesome shoes, an Antebellum house in Natchez, MS, a winery in Napa, the seacoast of Santa Maria di Castellabate in Italy, a print of one of our wet-plate images, or my yoga friends at The Greenbrier – that could be me. But parts? Never!