Hi all,

I was reading Heavenly's post on finding old love notes from exOW and old Mr. Heavenly and I thought of another reason to get rid of affair stuff. Someday someone else will clean out our houses when we have died. None of us know when that will be and we can't say that it won't be tomorrow or that it won't be both of us at the same time. Think about our children, grandchildren or other relative stumbling across this land mine that will forever taint their impression of our marriages. Even if a child knows about a parent's affair, I imagine that being brought face to face with the evidence would be horrible.

This isn't the situation for any of us, but I have read stories of the absolute fury and impotence a spouse (usually a wife) feels to stumble across evidence of an affair after the spouse (usually the husband) has died. Imagine having thought that you had a faithful marriage only to find out, when your spouse is gone, that your life was a lie. Talk about crazy-making! To have all of those feelings and have no way to resolve any of them or even divorce the cheater. All the pain we have and no chance to reconcile or resolve.

As for me and my household, we are going to get rid of some of the junk piling up in our house so that people won't think I am a crazy woman addicted to buying fabric and making nothing out of it. Oh yeah! cross-stitch pattern books too. At least they are all organized and filed by type and subfiled alphabetically. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

I cleared out all affair materials before we brought the boys home. Even though we have contact with Precious, we will tell the boys in our time and we will keep private the awful pain that this caused.

MJ

<small>[ September 24, 2002, 09:38 AM: Message edited by: MaryJanes ]</small>

Amen, MJ.

Look. I've got that box in the guest room closet filled with stuff from four years ago that I have been saving for that book I've been writing (on and off) for reference points. If anything should happen to me, you know my name and where I live. You are hereby in charge of getting that box out of my closet and shedding every piece in it!

Good Lord, MJ...now you've got me running scared. You can bet I'll make sure to buckle my seat belt, obey traffic signs and drive defensively and not run down the back steps at 100 mph like I normally do. No airplanes, no tall buildings, no phone calls during thunderstorms (ZAP!) and no contact with small children (carriers of every disease on the planet)

My hypochondria is kicking in now.

Catnip =^^=

Dear MJ,

I had a very dear male friend in the office who was having a long-term affair with another office mate.

My friend was having chronic stomach aches and finally after some weeks decided to go to the doctor. I remember him leaving for his doctor's appointment that day and waving to me as he passed my office.

My friend never returned to the office. He was diagnosed a few days later with cancer that had metastasized and spread to his liver. He died six weeks later.

Two other colleagues and I went to his office to place his personal belongings in cartons. We were shocked to find love letters and photographs of him and the other office mate in compromising positions. We promptly collected everything and destroyed it to save his wife the horrible shock of coming face to face with her husband's infidelity.

Couldn't agree with you more -- you never know what may happen and who will be holding the most intimate details of your life in their hands.

love,
heavenly

Heavenly,

Ewww...what a horrible thing to come face to face with. Was this before you knew of Mr. Heavenly's affair? If it were after, I have no idea how you would have gotten through this.

I think that I will start a poll on this topic...

MJ