A final thing I realized after seeing the June 20, 2012 segment of “American Greed” is that watching a television show about your former life and the crimes of your former husband is not conducive to…romance with your new one!
My husband and I watched the show together. I don’t know what he was thinking or feeling during the whole thing, but a part of me felt sicker and sicker inside with every commercial break. It was a strange experience to “relive” portions of the Ponzi scheme nightmare and it was surprising to learn new things about my former husband, truths about aspects of our previous life, things I’d always believed based on what he’d told me—only to find out from a television show that I’d been lied to about something else! (Even before the Ponzi scheme started.)
My husband was unusually quiet throughout the whole program and when it was over, without a word, turned out the light, rolled over on his side, and was silent. I was stunned! I felt pretty sick inside myself, but I was surprised at my husband’s unfriendliness toward ME. The show hadn’t been about me; I hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Are you going to sleep right now?” I asked through the darkness.
“Yes,” my husband answered.
“Without even saying goodnight?” I questioned.
He replied, “Watching a TV show about your wife, her former husband, their life together—seeing the family pictures, vacations and everything else, isn’t exactly conducive to romance.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
I felt pretty sick myself.
So I willed myself to stop thinking—about the show I’d just seen, about the actions of the man I’d been married to, about the response of the man I am currently married to and about men in general (lets just say I wasn’t thrilled with any man, in general, that night! haha) But in the morning, I had a new and better perspective on the whole thing:
“A woman has got to love a bad man once…in her life, to be thankful for a good one.” (Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings)
Color me thankful.
And remind me to be more careful of the TV shows we watch together in the future.
