the pillory and taking stock

uncomfortably often, the g.c. used a trained dog analogy to express my progress. the old-timey-days fable of the *gypsy dog* also pleased him then; that fur suit still fits and i'd heel to command, but it's apparently irrelevant. as far as my own dog, i always knew there had to be a difference between a walk with me and somebody else. angle, pace, pressure, give-and-take.

the g.c. had my collar, both around my neck and in my head. at this point it may make him incredulous but the internal collar still gets pulled. i felt it *hard* the day after my birthday. yet i knew the pull was different. yeah. fucking horribly different.

there she was, striding through the place she'd only observed ex post facto. the bile rose so fast i thought i would faint. in a heartbeat, i retched into the basket, and had to lie on the floor. (such immediate manifestation of my distress makes me know i have a very long way to go here...)

when the shit hit, one of the things he asked was i avoid posting on what had been our shared outlet, and was now the forum for her revulsion. it would never occur to me to air dirty laundry, but he seemed uncertain how i would behave since she was acting in ways he'd never foreseen. we also both knew she'd be watching and anything i might post she'd construe as relative to him, or to us. out of a sense of personal privacy and respect for both of their dignities, i wrote nothing and grieved alone.

now, all these months later, she has dragged him out into the virtual town square to shame him.
in the scarlet letter, hawthorne wrote, "this scaffold... the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. the very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron. there can be no outrage, methinks -- against our common nature -- whatever be the delinquencies of the individual -- no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame."

a sentence to the pillory was rarely more than 2 hours, for it was very dangerous. no physical harm could come, so she hung him out for not quite 3, then completely revised her post. he has been gone from the site for quite a few months, and she posted at a slow time of day, so it's questionable how many readers made the connection. however, she seemed satisfied through her redaction.

a virtual hanging certainly provides humiliation, but here is where i get lost. what he did was horribly wrong. the lying and deceit for those many years -- terrible. both before and with me. now forced to confront what her husband had been doing, every kind word and every tender moment they ever shared seem a lie. it's a dark, lonely, painful place. in her place, hell, in my place, i'd prefer privacy because of how this all reflects upon me. she still sees no personal culpability, so i guess doesn't own a mirror like mine. he was always adamant about being responsible for one's actions. but she apparently gets a free pass. he will carry her burden and his own.

she claims the discovery came as a complete surprise. she had no idea he had been unfaithful for 12 of the 15 years they'd been married. even when, in a very invasive letter to me, she expressed dire unhappiness and dismay at his lousy husbanding and bad parenting. how could she possibly have been so unaware? she couldn't sense his difference when he came home after a blissful day of utter indulgence with me? their oldest son *knew*, but she holds fast she did not.

she has a right to all the indignation she can muster. but by holding fast to unawares, she only looks disconnected and uninvolved. by painting him with the broad brush of oh-so-very-bad, she looks to be the martyr, and the robes are not very flattering. airing this in public makes her look small and mean. she included links to videos of betrayed wives going berserk, trashing their husbands' stuff. she thinks they're funny. courtesy of friends, i'd seen them before. to me, there is no humor. i find them scary and very sad. they make me feel profoundly uncomfortable and i honestly can't watch them. her anger is still so palpable even after all these months of headshrinkers and him crawling for forgiveness, when will she reach the next phase and let the fuck go of me?

all week at work, i've searched the eyes of every petite blonde for either suspicion or gloating. i spent far too much time barely holding on and tamping down panic attacks.

all week i grappled with this post, because i sensed *it* wasn't over. i was right. her outting was a walk in the park compared to what came next.