Don’t Judge Me

My husband told our kids about the affair, needing them to know the facts before the news of it had spread and like the old “telephone” game it became even more terrible than the truth. Would he have prefered to lie and keep it quiet? I honestly don’t know because he never asked me to take that route. I think he knew I wasn’t willing to be anything but brutally honest. I am a rip the band-aid off type of girl, it hurts less in the end and just gets it over with.

My promise to my kids since that day has been simple “You get to say and feel However and Whatever you want. You get to be mad or sad..angry or hurt..if you want to yell and scream, I will stand beside you and listen or just scream with you. If you are mad and just want to sit in the dark not talking, I will sit there with you. You get to feel and I will not ever tell you how to feel.” See in our house we have a saying “We don’t judge” it started before “the whore” had ever set her sights on my family. We would joke when someone said something silly or wrong “You’re so lucky we don’t judge…but we do make fun of and laugh at and ridicule…but We Don’t judge” We were a happy family full of smart asses and teenagers, our Sunday family breakfasts always ended up with us laughing till we cried, and no one was safe from “burns” or after Laney was born “baby burns”. That motto became tested after the affair.

I remember sitting at the kitchen counter reading “emails” trying to put “days” with “events” and match “times”, I was literally going insane when a young friend walked in…I saw the look in her eyes as she scanned the room. Instead of being up, dressed, house clean, Laney with her hair fixed/outfit on, something baking and obsessing over my cookbooks and what to make for dinner, I was in my pajamas, hair uncombed as Laney ran through the house dirty faced, chasing a puppy and the house was DISGUSTING. That became the first of many real “We Don’t Judge” moments, and little did I realize the lesson I was trying to teach my kids would be taught to me…

My sin of judging? Well let’s be real for a minute because on here…on my blog, my platform, my story…I don’t have time to try to be anything else. Little life lesson I learned? Life is too short to be anything but real”. So “maybe” I was a slightly judgemental bitch..it’s okay to gasp and argue ” Now Kelly you were sweet and funny and nice” I won’t disagree with you… I was all that but also a slightly (not a major…that point I will argue) judgemental bitch. Now if we are all being honest, we have all been guilty of it (except my Grandma Totman, she doesn’t have a judgmental bitchy bone in her body and I will fight to the death anyone who tries to say different…seriously To The Death)

So here I sat at my kitchen counter and my teenage friend instead of judging me… wiped Laney’s nose and washed her face, and didn’t point out the mess my life had become. Instead when I started explaining, she said “It’s a good thing we don’t judge” with a smile. The simple rule we had said to each other in jest became a promise in my world. It has been repeated so many times with laughs and through tears…

My husband and I were walking through Lowes together on his first visit home after the affair came out. I’m sure we were a sight…both with bags under our eyes and pain etched in our faces… when a salesperson asked “How are you today?”…In my exhausted state and just because I have a weird sense of humor it struck me as funny…”Wonderful” I said giggling…my husband looked at me and laughed (our first post laugh together) “Absolutely Great!!” he chimed in…as we rounded the corner I began to giggle hysterically “He’s been having an affair” and he grabbed my hand “and she”, he laughed almost screaming “is still with me”

Crazy? Yeah…but “We don’t judge”

“Just let the past
Just be the past
And focus on things
That are gonna make us laugh
Take me as I am, not who I was
I promise I’ll be, the one that you can trust

So please
So please don’t judge me (don’t judge me)
And I won’t judge you (I won’t)
Cause it could get ugly
Before it gets beautiful (before it gets beautiful)
Please don’t judge me (so please don’t)
And I won’t judge you
And if you love me
Then let it be beautiful
Let it be beautiful”
-Chris Brown-