Lying by omission?

A journal entry from January 28, 2015

                I’m glad I did all that searching earlier because it got tested right away.  When we were on the way home from 180 and Hearts Restored Joe made a comment about strip clubs.  That had come up a number of times recently.  I asked, “Did you go to them while we were married?”  He said, "Yes," and once again I didn't get the response I had expected and hoped for.  I was shocked.  I knew they were part of his past but by past I thought he meant Marines past, before marriage.  


               Satan immediately came after me. He wanted me to look at it closely, to imagine Joe in a place like that.  Create the pictures, come on you can do it.  No, I was not going to do that to myself.  I have enough bad film in my head.  I do not need to add to it.  

              This sounded like lying by omission to me.  I told Joe he had lied to me again.  He got angry.  He started talking about how hard he has been working and he still failed.  I wanted to jump out of the car.  I felt sick with the pain of fear.  I will never be able to trust this man.  That is the one thing I want.  I want to be able to trust him to tell me the truth even if I don’t want to hear what he has to say.  I felt that he had intentionally misled me.  He said he thought I knew.  

              I put on my headphones and worked hard to calm myself.  When we got home I told him he should be comforting me.  He said he couldn’t, so I said then I guess that means I should be comforting you.  I wrapped around him on the couch.  I knew we needed to focus on what mattered but I couldn’t quite figure out what that was.  The present of course but this felt like deceit in the present.

                Sometime in the night I realized that I may have been wrong.  I may have misunderstood that when he mentioned strip clubs, that he meant that they were in the dumpster with the rest of the betrayal.  It was possible that he thought I understood.  He may have just been relieved that I hadn’t asked more about it.  What matters is the present moment.  I thought for a while that being right mattered.  I’m glad I was able to quiet myself enough that night to not say any more than I did. 

                The next day I was still shaky.  I had trouble concentrating at work.  I knew I was okay, that we were okay but I felt like I was back in the fog.  I had felt fear again.  I know that I can trust God but I had started to feel like I could trust Joe too. I really want to be able to trust him but it would be creating another mirage to give my trust so easily.  The truth is that I can’t trust him.  He says that if he slips he will tell me.  He hasn’t volunteered anything yet.  He has answered my questions but I’ve had to ask the right ones.  Only time can rebuild the trust.  Joe has no way of knowing what he will be able to do.  I don’t even really know what he might consider acting out.  How far will he let something go before he feels that he has to report it to me? I think that is a discussion that we should have.