There were other signs of a hidden problem: the times he would try to slip his wedding ring back on unnoticed after returning from an especially late night in the city...the way his eyes met with those of total strangers...the preoccupation he had with his outward appearance that had nothing to do with pleasing me.
I sensed a growing distance between us. Finally, after two years of marriage, I had to know the truth.
"Bill, there's something I must ask you." My heart was pounding as I paused to take a deep breath. "What keeps you at a distance from me day after day and night after night? Is there something deeply wrong?"
At first Bill said nothing-he just stared, without expression. Finally, he broke the incredible silence.
"There's something I haven't told you. I have this terrible battle raging inside of me all the time. It's not against you. It's just that I, well, it's just that I prefer to be with men."
"Do you mean intimately, sexually?" I asked, feeling my heart crushing inside me.
"Yes." He lowered his gaze toward the floor. "But recently, it's just been the thoughts."
The implication of his words sank in slowly. "You mean you've been involved sexually with men since we were married?" The tears were hot on my face.
In the days to come, I decided to stand by Bill, believing God could heal anything. Right or wrong, I trusted that fervent prayer would put this problem behind us.
A year later, we moved to Mesquite, Texas, where Bill and I enrolled in classes at Dallas Bible College. We found a new apartment near campus. I began my new job at the Central American Mission. Evenings were spent typing assignments and trying to keep the house in order. Our daughter, Debi, invited Jesus into her tender, three-year-old heart. Everything seemed finally to be falling into place.
But, by the second year, Bill's grades declined. He lost interest in his studies and any form of Christian service. Old patterns of anger and withdrawal resurfaced.
Late one afternoon, as I helped Debi in the door with her bag of toys, my eyes were drawn to a note propped on the kitchen table. "Did not go to work today. Am not going back to school. Bill." My heart sank.
For three days and nights I waited for some word from Bill. Finally he called me from the airport, back from a quick trip to San Francisco. My feelings were a mixture of relief and hurt.
As I groped my way through the unfamiliar, pitch-black streets to the airport, I had to wonder what hold Bill had on me. He had treated me so badly, yet I still felt compelled to come and get him. Maybe I felt sorry for him, or maybe I was afraid of him, or afraid of being left alone.
Bill's profuse apologies remedied the situation temporarily. But my dreams were being shattered. Soon we had moved back to California, where we settled in the San Diego area.
My relationship with God was crumbling. I didn't bother to look for a church. My Bible lay unopened in a box somewhere. I no longer wanted to talk to God.
Some radical changes began to take place in Bill. His taste in music switched from opera to acid rock. His ungodly attitudes and language pierced my heart. And he resumed drinking, which had actually begun long before I knew him. After that, he often came home at two or three in the morning, violent and drunk. I knew he was being sexually unfaithful to me.
September 1, 1976, marked a new beginning. We moved into a lovely home in Castro Valley, in the San Francisco Bay Area. I resumed regular church attendance with Debi, who was now seven years old.
Bill vacillated back and forth on a pendulum of good and evil. He got a job, then used his paycheck to nurture his illicit sexual desires. He spent the evening reading the Bible, then put it aside to ponder his own lustful thoughts. He consented to meet regularly with one of the pastors, but disregarded his advice.
After ten years of keeping secrets, I prayed fervently that God would send me a Christian friend to stand by me and uphold me in prayer. Soon my pastor's wife and I were praying regularly together, and I realized she was God's answer to my prayers. What an angel of mercy she turned out to be!
Over the next three years, the frequency with which Bill pursued his secret endeavors increased radically. Once a month became once a week, then two and three times a week he'd be gone. Eventually a pattern began when he would leave for days, weeks, or even months, then return with his story of repentance. I always accepted him back, and he would do well for awhile. Then the pattern would start all over again. This marriage is a joke, I thought one day. God must have something to say in the Bible about marriages that are a mockery.
I began an extensive study in God's Word on every passage I could find addressing the conditions of our marriage-perpetual adultery; homosexual behavior; and physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial abandonment. I also studied the nature of forgiveness, reconciliation, and legal responsibility as a believer.
Night after night I took my Bible and reference books and studied alone. When I reached a point of conclusion, I made an appointment with my pastor to clarify with him what I understood the Bible to say.
I told him I was intending to divorce Bill, then I asked him to confirm or reject my findings. I would abide by his counsel. My pastor heard me through, then confirmed my right under God to divorce and remarry. I confronted Bill privately, as directed in Matthew 18, then took my pastor and his wife as witnesses. Bill acknowledged his guilt and asked our forgiveness, promising to stop going to bars and doing homosexual deeds. But soon he was driving off into the night again.
"Bill," I finally asked him, "if you had to make a choice between God's ordained plan for marriage or the homosexual lifestyle, which would you choose?"
"Given the choice," he responded, "I would choose the homosexual lifestyle." My heart wrenched as I told him of my intent to divorce him because of his perpetual sexual sin and his subsequent rejection of Debi and me.
"I understand," he said quietly. "I don't know why you didn't do this years ago." On August 25, 1980, he loaded our station wagon with all the things important to him and slowly drove away.
Months later, our divorce became final. I felt a part of me was actually severed, like an arm torn from its socket. With a signature and a flimsy two-dollar receipt, thirteen-and-a-half years of marriage were over. The truth broke my heart, and my tears flowed for hours.
Four years passed. Periodically Bill would telephone me; once he even came to visit briefly. Then came an unexpected phone call one Monday at work. It was Bill, announcing he had admitted himself into a detoxification program. He went on to explain how, after a routine physical, the doctors had taken extensive tests.
"Sheila, I went back to the doctor this morning. He had all the test results. I have full-blown AIDS. I'm going to die!" I searched for meaningful words of comfort, then put down the receiver and sat in a daze. In the following months, I attended seminars to become acquainted with this disease. Bill and I talked semi-regularly on the telephone. And I, too, was tested for the presence of the AIDS virus. Thankfully, the results were negative.
Each time Bill called, I would wonder how much more time he had to live. Debi and I did our best to adjust to the emotional ups and downs related to his illness. Then the phone rang at home one Saturday morning.
"Hello Sheila. This is Bill." His voice was gentle. "I was feeling kind of bad, and just wanted to talk to a friend." "I'm glad you called," I said. "Is there anything I can do to help lighten the load?"
"No, not really," he responded. "It just helps to have someone I can call. There's a new lesion coming up on my leg and another one on my hand. I'm so scared. I'd rather die that have these ugly things all over me."
"We meet for staff prayer on Tuesday morning, so we'll be sure to pray for you then, Bill. And, of course, Debi and I pray for you all the time."
"Thank you for caring after all the times I hurt you and Debi. God's love astounds me."
"Are you sure you're ready to meet Him when the time comes?" I asked gently. Bill had called out to God on many occasions, but for reasons I could not understand, he never had felt the assurance of God's forgiveness and salvation.
"I believe God can forgive me, but I don't think I can forgive myself," he said. We talked a little longer, and I did what I could to direct his thinking toward God.
In the following months, Bill survived two threats to his life: a bout with pneumocystic pneumonia, a common illness in AIDS patients; and a life-threatening swelling between his skull and brain which required surgery.
Then, while I was on vacation, came the phone call I knew would eventually occur. "Hello, Sheila. This is your neighbor, Taso. I have some bad news."
"Has Bill died?" I asked, already knowing the answer. "Yes. I'm sorry. He died this evening." Walking away from the phone, I felt a deep sense of loss.
After Bill's death in June of 1989, hurtful memories of past disappointments began fading. Since then, God has continued to restore my life, one day at a time.
I have come through the deep waters of a marriage where every dream was dashed by an abusive mate. Even then, I discovered the continual care of a loving God. And now I am regaining peace of mind and self-esteem; the cutting knife-edge of pain has finally subsided.
Through God's truth, His Word, I have found comfort and strength. Shortly after Bill left me years ago, God encouraged me through Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you...plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Knowing God has a plan inspires me to look always in His direction, desiring only His purposes. I can face the future with confidence, because my life is built on the sure foundation of His love and truth.
Adapted from the book Double Life. Copyright 1991 by Sheila Hood. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Distributed by Love in Action, P.O. Box 753307, Memphis, TN 38175-3307 901 542-0250.
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