Compassion Turns to Fury

After Brown confessed his big, monstrous lie, my first reaction was compassion. As he sat on the edge of the bed, head hanging low and pain dripping from his pores, I wanted to protect him. My man was broken, and seeing him broken broke my heart.

He claimed that this was the only lie he'd ever told me, and he explained the origin of the lie: Early in our relationship, I woke up in the middle of the night after dreaming that he had a child by someone other than his ex-wife. He knew by the tone of my voice that I would leave, and he didn't want to lose me.

I didn't remember the conversation or the dream, but I knew he was telling the truth. I frequently have precognitive dreams, and I'm also known to completely forget entire conversations that occur after I first wake up, along with traumatic events I don't want to relive.

Would I have left him if I'd known the truth up front?

Maybe.

My raised-Catholic sensibilities took marriage seriously. An ex-wife was unfortunate but respectable. A baby's mama was cause for concern. An ex-wife plus a baby's mama was a sign that the man was irresponsible and callous. (Which Brown often was.)

But in the moment that he told me these things, he was on the ground bleeding.

So my first reaction was compassion.

My second reaction was numbness.

I had a whole work day ahead of me. I drove to Burbank and did my job as if the earth hadn't just crumbled underneath me.

My third reaction was fury.

It started setting in at 1 a.m., when I started sorting out the incident in a long, tearful vent to my diary. Because when I wrote it all down, I had no choice but to admit how thoroughly Brown had duped me. Now I wasn't just mad at him, I was mad at myself for missing what had always been right in front of my nose.

He claimed it was one lie, but a multitude of lies were wrapped up in that one lie.

The preposterous notion that he would have had a child with his ex-wife years after they broke up. His lame explanations when I would ask why she never dropped the baby off when his two oldest kids came over. His inexplicable money problems over the last two months, which I had naively attributed to my half-promised engagement ring.

Instead of a man who made double my salary and paid one ex-wife child support, he was a man who was now handing most of his check to his Baby's Mama, even before his two legitimate kids saw a dime. He was now a man who made much less than me, with a much higher standard of living to support.

The shock was wearing off, and the confusion, anger and hurt that had been building up all day was starting to hiss and shriek like a teapot on full boil.

The elephant in the room was now trampling mud all over my tiny apartment and blasting dirty water in my face. If I stayed with Brown, I'd be barren by default – unable to have children of my own – but paying dearly in baby-mama drama with what were now the two mothers of his children.

How dare he hide the truth until I was so locked in, so completely in love with him that I couldn't run away?

(Brown Diaries Part 13 of 18: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | Lessons Learned 1-3: 1 2 3)

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