The Balance

It is hard for me to reconcile the Jake I love with the one who did all those things. A list of crimes and character flaws is deceptive. There is a good man, a valuable man attached to that man in the mug-shot.

Jake puts on this front in public. He jokes and seems infinitely confidant. But then, in a quiet moment with me, he's emotional, sensitive, full of indecision and doubt. Soft-hearted. It was easy to be emotionally intimate with him. We shared so much of our inner workings with each other that I couldn't imagine he was hiding anything from me.

I had my complaints about him as a spouse, but very normal ones. He forgot important dates and gave tasteless gifts, like a typical man does. But then he'd do subtle things in our everyday life that made me thankful I had someone who knew me so well. He'd record a show I liked, or email me a news story he knew I'd be interested in, or cook something I liked even though he didn't like it.

He knew my talents and encouraged me in them. He was proud of me and would brag about me because he knew I never would.

He gave me the opportunity to stay home with my daughters - possibly the most valuable experience of my life to date.

He wasn't a bad father. He loves both his girls very much. He just wasn't always there when you needed him. Even when he was there, his mind was elsewhere.

Life was getting confusing in the year before he was arrested. He had a lot on his plate, so it seemed to make sense that he was stressed out and distant. He did a lot of traveling. He confessed to me once that he went to a massage parlor (the kind with happy endings). I forgave him, it didn't seem that serious. It became a kind of joke. But then he told me about another one and then a trip to a bath house. I was dazed and unsure what was happening. I tried to talk to him about how this affected our marriage, but he seemed to just not get what I was saying. I kept thinking that things would improve after we had the baby, after he settled into his new job, after we payed down some of our debt . . . Then we wouldn't be so stressed. Then we'd have the time to figure our marriage out.

We never made it there. And now I see that we never would have. He was a sex addict. I just couldn't see it at the time. Some days I'm thankful he was arrested because I was just seeing the tip of the iceberg. I'm glad things didn't spin more out of control.

And some days I wish I could go back and fix things so we wouldn't be here. What would I have done? Would I have gotten mad at him about the massage parlor? Would I have made him get counseling? Would I have refused to marry him and miss having our precious children? That wouldn't really stop the problem. I would have to go back further. I would have to go all the way back to when Jake was three-years-old and stop the man who raped him. That's where all this started. But then I'd need to stop whoever victimized that man as a child and back and back and back. There is no end to it.

But I hope you have seen the other side of the coin.