Weigh the stakes, wait, and break...

I told you immediately after it happened, almost twenty years ago. You married him anyway, with hardly a flutter. I suspected, but I didn't put it together then.

Later you told me about the first wife, the thirteen-year-old daughter, the "felony sexual intercourse without consent". That you knew about all this before he proposed. I felt something click--and sick--and I thought I understood.

He tried to ingratiate himself to me; you groomed his trail to me just as hard--or harder--as he tried to groom me. You shamed me for not accepting him, not embracing him. You ignored my unease. You deliberately put him next to me. You violated my trust. I knew--I thought.

He moved on other women, and you wouldn't have it. It never happened, you said. They were mistaken. They misinterpreted. The picture filled in, gained resolution. I held.

The family took your side, and shamed me for not "forgiving", for being "too rigid", "too cold-hearted". Made me the bad guy. The picture got a lot wider. I thought I was seeing everything. Still I held.

Then you--saviors, Samaritans that you are--invited a traumatized, exceptionally vulnerable eighteen-year-old girl to live in your home.

And that's when the mirror finally broke--and I saw.

I will be the bad guy. I will lose my family. My friends will not understand. I will gain a cadre of detractors who will cluck and shake their heads as they murmur about my failings. Your screeching ghost will follow me...but you're already dead to me.

And I will start looking over my shoulder for the man with the gun, the impulse control problem, the twisted ideas about machismo, family, and sex...and the chip on his shoulder.

All this I choose, over proximity to your profound disorder.

Zero tolerance begins now.

It's not always linear. It's not always timely. It happens how, and when, and why it happens. And when it happens, it is well.

Don't shame. Don't throw shade. Listen. Accept. Support.