confession is good for the soul

I have a confession to make, here, in my last entry before hitting the triple digets. I did not come to FOD under the best of circumstances. I came to spy on someone else’s diary. My husband had an online relationship with another diarist. They emailed, chatted, phoned, and met each other twice (more than met each other). I was insanely jealous. I read her diary religiously, combing through it for indications that they were corresponding. Very often, conversations I had had with my husband would show up in her diary a few days later. I was so hurt. It is worse than mere physical intamacy. How dare he give to this woman things shared between us – even if it were just a joke or a discussion. They didn’t just break my heart, they stole some of my life, some of my memories. Things I used to share with him alone have been tainted by her. Books. Books that we read, that we discussed, conversations we had about them – he gave them to her; my only consolation was that all of the things they shared were hers secondhand. Still, I was reading her diary, and I kind of got to know her over time. I think if the circumstances hed been different, perhaps we could have been friends. You see, she was me. That’s why it hurt so much, I think. She was a younger, more naïve version of me – before my heart was broken, before I became practical, angry, fearful, paranoid, achingly lonely. Her dreams of being a secret agent, of writing, of adventures in the wide world, her love of books and new things. That was me. I have thought all of those things, felt all of those things. I think I almost feel more betrayed by her. I thought surely if I wrote and explained she would see and stop. But, no such luck. I don’t know if she got off on the “naughtiness” of it all or if she somehow felt justified as a homewrecker. Even someone driven completely batty can only obsess for so long, and I started reading other diaries. I came to care about the lives of others on FOD and started my own. By the 9th entry, I was hooked. The woman quit her diary months ago; I don’t know if it was because she was aware of my peeking, but I hope not. I hope she is writing under another name and doesn’t feel driven away. I also hope she saved what she had written, as some of it was very clever. My husband has vowed to me he’s given her up, and I have no reason to believe he hasn’t. I can only assume she has moved on to greener and unmarried pastures.