About a year ago, someone asked me a question that I quickly answered with “no”. The question was “Did you ever have an affair when you were married to Eva?” I was not offended by the question nor was it difficult to answer. Our marriage was faithful for 58 years by both of us. However, the question did bring back memories of the early years of our married life.
I have written about my dating before getting married and at least two of those relationships ended due to trust issues. Eva knew I was dating other girls when we had our first date, and she also knew that I had been engaged to Emily before that relationship ended. I believe she may have had multiple friends who had raised concerns before our wedding day. Our engagement was only a short 36 days, so maybe I did not have enough time to mess up our relationship? From the day we got engaged to the day she passed away; we were true to each other.
There is one period that I have not written about that was important to our marriage because it could have produced a different outcome in our lives. I call these events “path not traveled”.
It was a Saturday morning in July 1966, we were still in bed when the phone rang. The phone was on Eva’s side of the bed, so she answered. It was a woman’s voice and she asked to speak to me. It was Emily, she was in town and wanted me to meet her to talk. I explained that I was married and that I did not think it was a good idea for me to meet with her. I asked her what she wanted to talk about, but she said she wanted to meet with me. I told her no; I would not meet with her. If she had more that she wanted to talk to me about, she could call me.
That phone call opened a trust issue that I almost took too lightly. My first efforts to laugh off Eva’s concerns just dug a deeper hole. My curiosity about what Emily wanted, almost set off a nuclear bomb. That day, the two of us opened our hearts to each other about our feelings. It was like Eva had been holding her breath for two years waiting for something she feared would happen. I had no clue. I had been so busy working so many hours and living the “dream” with a pretty wife, a new home, and a bunch of stuff we had been able to buy.
What I did not see from her side was how little time we had spent together during those two years as a married couple. I had not given her any reason to not trust me, but maybe not much reason to trust that our marriage was safe. I was working at Texaco and working nights four weeks out of every six weeks and Eva was working days at Gulf. It was better than when I was at NASA, but still a challenge.
It was a wake-up call to me. I needed to focus on our relationship. To treat her like she was my girlfriend and I wanted to get to know her better. I had to show her what she meant to me and not assume that she knew. A short time later, we learned that we would be having our first child in the coming months.
I learned so much about Eva over the years and then understood that she did not grow up with self-confidence or with trust of others in her life. That combined with what she knew about my other relationships, I can see how that phone call triggered her worst fears. I never heard from Emily again. I have wondered what she wanted that day, but everything happened the way God wanted it to happen. I was tested for a reason and that reason was to wake me up to what I had in my marriage.
A good marriage is not a guarantee, you must put the work into the relationship and be faithful in all ways.
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