Why Dad had Surgery

I have a new friend here in CDO. She is the Christian doctor that delivered Angela’s baby back in March, and her name is Elena. She is married to Dra. Mortiz’s brother. Over the past months I have spent time with Elena off and on. She is a dear believer and loves the Lord. She is very involved in her church, has many friends, and helps many people. In passing, she has spoken about her husband, and I was surprised when she made comments that indicated that she didn’t think much of him, didn’t seem to care much about his needs or where he was or what he did.

The night Dad had his appendectomy, I was sitting outside the operating room in a little waiting area. It is joined to both the operating room, the delivery room and the room where the doctors change into scrubs. A little after midnight a lady was rolled into the delivery room. Shortly after I heard the baby begin to cry, Elena came rushing in, changed to scrubs and went to the delivery room. She didn’t look very good. Her face was puffy and she looked pretty wiped out, but I figured she had been soundly asleep when she was called for the birth. When she came out, she sat down to talk and I asked how she was. She said she was actually not doing very well. She had just found out what just about everyone else had known for a long time, that her husband had been having an affair with a young employee for over a year. She talked for a long time about how upset she was, and how wrong it was and how it would affect their ministry... She was very upset that no one had said anything to her in all that time, and she was ashamed and embarrassed. She had gone to his siblings and had gotten responses that varied from “What's the big deal, all men do this.” and even “It’s therapeutic!” to “Maybe you need to have better communication in your marriage.” She talked for a long time, and told me she planned to go the next day to talk to the girl and tell her to stay away from her husband and that she had better quit her job at the family company. She asked me if I thought that was a good idea, and I asked if that would really help anything, since she could not control her husband anyway. Then I asked her if she had thought about what that girl gave to her husband that he needed. She suggested the obvious, but I said I thought he probably had found someone who looked up to him, who saw him as an important man, who was glad to see him everyday and appreciated his attention and affection. She made him feel important. I pointed out that Elena was a respected doctor, intelligent, involved in many ministry activities, competent, with many friends, and her husband was just an attachment to her life. I quoted back to her a few of the things she had said to me about him, one of which was that she didn't even know why she married him, that she had just felt sorry for him... I said that what he had done was completely wrong, but perhaps he was lonely and needed to feel important to someone. I pointed out that even when she talked about how upset she was, it was about the ministry, her embarrassment, etc., not about love.

Her face changed and she said to me, “You are right. I can see now what I have done wrong and this has all been my fault!” She confessed that she had never let him kiss her on the mouth (because she thought it was dirty and he had bad breath) and had rebuffed his affections for a long time. She agreed she had no time for him and had been perfectly content for him to be gone long hours, since he was more or less out of her hair. She was frustrated with his refusal to take his diabetic meds and eat the right foods and his refusal to see his doctor about it, and had sort of washed her hands of it (and him). But she saw how this had hurt him and was ready to change. I told her it would be hard work, and it would take time, probably more than a year, and she blanched, but said that she wanted to have the kind of marriage God wanted her to have. She went home that night and told her husband that she realized she had failed him and that through this she realized that she did love him and didn’t want to lose him. She hugged him and said she was going to learn to be a good wife to him. He was amazed! He even began taking a shower and brushing his teeth before going to bed! Since then I have been meeting with her once or twice a week, and I have loaned her a couple good books which she is reading. Last week she said she had a good quote from one of them, “If your husband has a Cadillac, he won’t go looking for a Volkswagen.” She has a lot of old habits to get rid of, and it is hard because even until now, her husband does not admit to the affair. He says it is just gossip. But she is working hard, and wanting to be obedient to the Lord in her marriage, and she is finding joy in this! Please join me in praying for Elena and her husband. So, Dad had appendicitis so that I would be in that anteroom at midnight when Elena came in to deliver that baby!