Silent Cry (12 page)

I had hoped I was being a positive influence on Nate, but I was finding that the
more time we spent together, the more his behavior slipped. His language went from
being always respectful to an occasional slip of the tongue to regular use of profanity.
He drank beer too much and too often. He sometimes said mean things. I had never
experienced him that way before, and I didn't like it. Warning signs were flashing
red in my mind and spirit, but somehow I always managed to shrug away his troublesome
behavior:
No one changes overnight, after all; it takes time.
Again, I decided to
be patient with him in the hope that if I could continue being a good influence,
it would make a difference. I encouraged him to be better, to be his best. When he
behaved badly, I told myself he was wrestling with his old nature, that it had a
firm grip on him but would release him when he committed his life to Christ.

Over time, my patience with his behavior slipped into compromising my own standards.
Little by little, Nate was changing, but not in the ways I'd hoped. Still, I continued
to excuse his behavior by telling myself that a change for the better was coming
soon.

As time went on, however, the open, free-flowing communication we'd once had began
to dwindle. I could tell that something was bothering Nate, but since he wouldn't
open up to me about what it was, I couldn't seem to help him through it. His behavior
grew more reckless, and he was agitated and angry more often. Instead of sharing
his most personal thoughts with me and taking me into his confidence, he now seemed
guarded. I tried to write it off to the stress of so much publicity and the growing
pressure to perform well at every game. But there was no denying that Nate was changing
— and not for the better. The change was apparent to everyone, and it troubled me.
But every time a black cloud hovered over our relationship, Nate found a way to make
the sun come out again. I was determined to be as supportive as I knew how to be,
and Nate seemed calmer when I was around, so 1 took this as a good sign. Things would
be okay.

CHAPTER 13

Love Is a Wonderful Thing

When a heart finds another, what's a cloud more or less in the sky.

Peter Wolf, Ina Wolf, and Martin Page

N
ate and I were better than ever. We were meeting each other's friends and getting
to
know
each other's families. I believed he was the one I would spend the rest of my life
with. More and more, I could look at the future and imagine growing old with Nate
Newton at my side.

Still, I was plagued by a nagging unrest about where he was in his relationship with
God. I knew he believed in God, but when the conversation turned to salvation, Nate
would always say he wasn't good enough yet. He hated hypocrites and vowed never to
be one. He didn't want to pretend he was a Christian, and since he was straddling
the fence with one foot securely in the world and the other uncomfortably entertaining
the possibility of being a Christian, he wasn't ready to accept Christ.

I loved God deeply and wanted to please him in everything I did, but there was a
tug-of-war in my heart. When I was alone with God, I was totally filled with peace
and secure in his love for me. When I was alone with Nate, God receded to the background.
My connection to Nate increased my physical attraction, and all I could think about
was sexual intimacy with him.

When I was a young girl, I made a conscious decision to wait for sex until I fell
in love and married. My mom had warned me about the dangers of being unequally yoked,
and I knew better than to marry a man who was not a Christian. Nate clearly felt
differently than I did, but he respected my position. He thought it was okay, even
good, for dating couples to engage in sex. I believed it was wrong. I had remained
pure. Now here I was,
still a virgin and deeply in love, but beginning to feel guilty
for making my future husband wait when I was the one who wasn't ready yet to be married.
My resolve wavered and then gave way.

I made a decision to go on birth control pills. I decided that if I was going to
betray my morals, the last thing I wanted was to bring a baby into the equation.
My doctor was a wise, kind, Christian man. He counseled me to wait, even as he reluctantly
wrote out a prescription. Even there in the doctor's office, I had second thoughts
about it. Going on the pill was deciding to have sex outside of marriage. I knew
I was making a conscious decision to sin.

Nate and I planned it. It was anything but a spontaneous burst of passion. It wasn't
a magical night in which we lost control and were swept up in the heat of the moment.
In truth, “the moment” had been building for months. Looking back, it's hard for
me to reconcile these two things: I wasn't ready to commit to Nate in marriage because
he had not yet made a commitment to Christ; yet somehow I did feel ready to commit
to the acts of marriage with Nate. It no longer seemed important to wait until the
wedding bells had rung. I was an adult after all. I was in love. We were in love.
Wasn't that what really mattered?

Nate and I were playing house. It was like a trial run to see if marriage would work
out. I never wanted to be in a situation like my mother, financially dependent on
a man and unable to escape if things went wrong. As much as I loved Nate, I wasn't
ready to walk down the aisle and commit my life to him forever. I needed some measure
of control. I didn't want to be married. Things were good just like they were for
now. Nate seemed content to be with me on these terms, and in my mind, this left
me free to walk away if I needed to.

I often traveled to be with Nate for away games, and sometimes his family would
join us. One weekend, they came to Dallas for a home game, arriving on a chartered
bus from Florida. I went to the hotel with Nate to greet his family. I had met several
people from his family at previous games, so I was excited to see them again and
interested to see who else came along that I had not yet met.

To my great surprise, a long-lost girlfriend had come to town to see Nate. I was
shocked. Nate's family was clearly embarrassed by the situation. They apologized
profusely. They knew Nate and I were close. They knew how important I was to Nate.
Why this woman had chosen to come along, knowing I would be there, is a mystery I
have never understood. Of course, this all happened the day before the game — after
the Cowboys had sequestered all their players in a hotel to keep them focused on
the task at hand. They didn't want their star athletes distracted by anything that
might hinder their performance in the game. So Nate was not around to see me in my
misery or to answer my questions. He wasn't there to face the music, own up to his
deceit, and explain his lies.

I felt so betrayed. I thought I was special to him. I had been totally faithful to
him. He was the only man I had ever given myself to, and the thought of him being
with someone else felt like a kick in the stomach. I felt ill.

Nate's family was sensitive to my struggle. I could tell they were sincere in their
concern, so I dug down deep, found every ounce of kindness I could muster, and pressed
through the game rituals with a pasted smile on my face to support Nate. I don't
remember much about the game because I was too busy working through all the things
I wanted to ask Nate on the way home. The more I thought about it, the more I realized
this was an opportunity to make a clean break and get out.
I recognized how much
I had lost my focus — on God, my career, and even family goals. I had become totally
absorbed in Nate's world, Nate's future, and Nate's needs, and I had lost myself
in the process.

After the game, Nate's family said good-bye and got back on the bus headed for Florida.
It was time for Nate and me to have a heart-to-heart talk. I decided I didn't want
to have anything to do with him anymore. I had been with him for almost two years,
and he never mentioned he had a girlfriend during the same time he was dating me.
I was hurt and angry. I didn't want to talk about it — no explanations; I just wanted
to make a break from Nate and move on. I should have done it long before, and this
was the jolt I needed to wake up from my fairy tale and enter the land of reality.

Instead of confronting Nate and asking him to explain his deception, I chose to distance
myself from him. I refused to accept his phone calls. I wouldn't answer my door.
I was devastated by his betrayal.

I decided that this might be a good time to move back home to Louisiana. Because
I still had three months on my lease, I gave three months' notice at my job, packed
all my things and placed them in storage. I would use only the bare essentials in
my apartment until my lease expired and I was free to move home. I hadn't made any
plans about where I would go in Louisiana, where I would live, or where I would work,
but I was focused on this new course of action and determined that everything would
work out just as it should.

I stopped taking the pill. I regretted I had ever started taking it. I regretted
surrendering my virginity. I made the determination that I was through with Nate
Newton — for good!

Nate kept dropping by my office and coming to my apartment trying to talk to me.
He was doing everything he possibly
could to stop me from leaving. I felt like he
was stalking me; every time I turned around, there he was! After four solid weeks
of this, I relented and let him in one night. I wanted him to see I was serious.
I thought if he saw my apartment bare and knew I was resolute in my decision to move
away from him and move on with my life, it might make him realize our relationship
was truly over.

Nate asked me to just listen to what he had to say. He was so earnest that I didn't
have the power to refuse. He told me he had not been spending time with the young
woman and had not seen her for a very long time. They had bought a house together
and he was helping her out financially. He told me they were no longer in a relationship
and that he was as surprised as anyone that she showed up at the game. He was sorry
I was hurt — that he had hurt me. He was desperate for me to believe him and forgive
him.

For days, he kept coming to my apartment and stopping by my office, and each time
he always seemed to have just the right things to say. To put me at even greater
ease, he communicated with the woman on the telephone in my presence, so I could
hear what he said and be assured there was no relationship between them. My resolve
wavered.

Nate produced receipts to show me he had given this woman a lump sum of money to
help her out. He assured me over and over again that it was me he wanted to spend
his life with. He was so sincere and took such extreme measures to prove himself
that I couldn't help but believe him.
Maybe I wasn't being fair to Nate
, I thought.

I took my things out of storage and weighed my options. What should I do? Before
this incident with the woman, our relationship had its ups and downs, but there had
been nothing like this — nothing that made me lose trust in him or feel
betrayed.
I still loved Nate, and part of me wanted to forgive him and move on.
Was my love
strong enough to overcome the pain? Could I trust Nate? Should I stay in Dallas and
give our relationship another chance
,
or should I move home to Louisiana and forget
all about Nate Newton?

I decided to stay. I withdrew my resignation from my job, and they were thrilled
I was staying. Nate and I started seeing each other, and things were good again.
I forgave Nate, and he went out of his way to make sure he didn't hide things from
me. He knew I was serious enough to leave my job and move away from him, and this
had a profound impact on Nate. He didn't want to jeopardize what we had and grew
more determined for us to be a lifelong partnership.