Mulan,

He returned last night and said he felt bad that I had cut him off. If he walked out the door one day, I'd be prepared. I went to bed last night to calm down.

Our child's First Communion today brings up memories of the First Communion of the oldest, when I was doing my best to please him and he was in the his affair.

What was he thinking to threaten to leave the day before my parents meet him for the first time in seven years and, most important of all, an important day in my daughter's life?

What was he thinking?

It's a good question to ask of someone after an affair. The husband who has an affair even though considers himself a moral peson has somehow twisted his thinking into: This is OK. My husband summed it up once for me, "I had a crazy wife and a shi**y marriage. I had no choice but to have an affair."

That is weak character.

As for you, Mulan, your husband has worked in a business which is full of thieves, and the thievery is being exposed. My husband does not. In fact, I was very impressed by how the hiring went. As a condition of employment, we had to see all our stock in one company because of the potential for conflict of interest. I think it makes a big difference if the ocmpany you work for is above board. If you ever want to read a book on the relationship between personal morals and corporate ethics, there's a book called The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse. My first job after being a stay at home Mom for seven years was for a company that was blatantly violating the law. When I figured that out, I got myself out of there. It was the year I had four surgeries for a rare type of cancer, and at the time the filthiness I felt from having gotten into that situation without understanding it and then understanding it and trying to figure out how to get out was traumatic. I figured it out about late March and April and got myself on a different project but didn't leave until early June. My husband told me to quit, but I was tryig to figure out what to do -- call the government? call the ethics department? When a SrVP tells salespeople in your presence that something they do as a business practice is illegal, it's just shocking. Only I was the only one shocked. This was the company culture.

But I got out and am now happily employed with an organization that is doing its best to provide good value to its customers in an ethical way.

Is this similar to an affair and weak character? Yes.

When does a person get out of a relationship that has become immoral?

At first recognition? (Not my husband)

When someone warns him about it? (Not my husband)

When his wife is upset with him? (Not my husband)

When his wife threatens to call his wife and he breaks her arm to prevent her? (Not my husband)

When his wife calls the woman's husband and he gets the truth out of her and tells me and I expose to my entire family and his both the abuse and the affair? (Yes, my husband)

Why did the affair end, or did it?

I compare my husband's affair with my staying on at the company after hearing the Sr VP say it was illegal what they were doing. First there was disbelief, like the person heading into an affair thinking this was OK, it was just a friendship. Then there was recognition but what to do about it? I remember my husband saying to me things like, "We walked down this path together. I can't just end the friendship."

Once I realized it and decided not to do anything internally, I was gone. With my husband, the morals were abandoned in a justification "affair fog."

Do I claim stronger character than him? Yes I do. When I've gotten into situations that were headed to compromising, even a hint of it, I've gotten out of there. He did not.

Does that mean he'll do it again? No. He may be wiser the next time and less confident in his own ability to "handle it."

Cherished