Blackness

The four months after Sheldon confessed his alter life were the longest of my life.  It was a roller coaster of ups and downs, hope and fear, optimism and depression. 

After meeting with our Bishop Sheldon agreed to try counseling, so we began going to a marriage and family counselor.  I was excited about the first session, hoping that the counselor would be able to tell us what to do to make our marriage work, but I was disappointed.  The counselors were awesome.  They were a married couple who first talked to Sheldon and I together, then split us up so I could talk with the wife while Sheldon worked with the husband, but they weren't miracle workers. 


When we went for our second session we switched counselors and I visited with the husband.  He told me about his visit with Sheldon. "I'm actually surprised he hasn't committed suicide," the counselor told me.  "He's been under so much strain for so many years, hiding his alter life from you and everyone else, that it is amazing he is still holding it together."

I wasn't as surprised as the counselor.  Personally, I felt that Sheldon was too selfish to ever consider killing himself.

"You're not going to want to hear this," the woman counselor told me later, when it was our turn to talk,  "but I think you ought to divorce your husband.  As long as you keep forgiving Sheldon he'll never feel the consequences of his actions.  By you loving him and always taking him back you are making it too easy for him to keep sinning. In a way, you are sinning by keeping him from having to repent and change."

She was right, I didn't want to hear that.  At the end of the session we met together with both counselors.  "There's no reason for you to keep coming," they told me then.  "Normally we work with both the husband and the wife because both of them need to change.  But in this case there's nothing you need to do, Gale.  This is completely Sheldon's problem, so he's the only one who needs to keep coming to counseling."

I was sorry to stop seeing them.  While I went I had hopes that I would learn something I could do to make things better.  Now it hit me that there was really nothing I could do but hope and pray Sheldon would want to change.

About that same time our Bishop asked me to visit with him one Sunday evening when I came to church to watch a special broadcast from the Prophet. 

"I feel like it's time to release you from being Relief Society President," the Bishop told me sadly, once we were in his office with the door closed.  "I really don't want to, you have done such a wonderful job, but I feel like you should be able to focus on your family right now, and not have to worry about the problems of the rest of the ward."

I was sad.  Being Relief Society President had been my favorite calling, and being able to focus on the sisters had helped me take my mind off my own pain, but I knew the Bishop was right.  We visited for awhile, and when we parted the broadcast was just ending.  It was years later before I read the Prophet's address.  He had spoken about the importance of mothers being in the home.  I believe it was another of Heavenly Father's tender mercies that I didn't hear him that night, or the next few months would have been even harder on me.

And so, time went by.  Day by day my hopes slipped farther away and the world got darker and darker.  Finally, one Wednesday evening, I asked if I could meet with the Bishop.

"I don't know what to do," I told him hopelessly.  "I keep trying to stay positive and do everything I can, but I feel black inside."

We talked for awhile, but eventually the Bishop said, "Gale, you have done everything you can, and you have given Sheldon every chance to change.  It's time, now, for you to let him go."

I looked at him sadly, but he went on, "I know Bishop's don't usually advise people to get divorced, but sometimes there is no alternative.  You really have done everything possible, but I don't think Sheldon is going to change now.  I hope, I think, that some day he will understand what he has given up, realize that he loves you, and he will make the changes he needs to make; but for right now it's time to let him go."

We talked for a few more minutes, then after getting a blessing I got up to go.  "So, what are you going to do?"  the Bishop asked.

I looked at him for a moment. I'm sure the hopelessness was apparent in my eyes. Finally I said, "I'm going to go home and try some more.  I don't know how to do anything else."

The Bishop smiled understandingly, gave me a hug, and said goodby.  I went out to my car with a heavy heart.  Should I tell Sheldon I was ready to get a divorce?  How could I?  But was that really what I was supposed to do?  Was that what Heavenly Father wanted me to do?

That night I prayed for the first time that Heavenly Father's will be done.  Up to that time I had plead with him to help me know what to do to save our marriage. I had asked him to help Sheldon's heart be softened; I had asked him to bless our marriage; I had thought I was asking him for what was right; but I had never actually said, "Thy will be done."  I'd just thought I knew what his will was.  That night, I finally asked, "Heavenly Father, what is thy will?"  It didn't take long for me to find out.