Don't Ever Tell: A Message of Hope, Healing, and Redemption After Adultery

By Christy Neal

A collection of stories and wisdom from the journey of a Christian woman who finds herself lost in adultery.

The story of Scarlett addresses the taboo topic of Christian women and adultery, giving those women who have been silenced by their past sexual sin, a voice. This bold adventure of an unsuspecting Southern girl next door helps women realize they should never say never. Christy Neal walks readers through the darkest moments of Scarlett’s life, traveling the lonely road of failure and despair, to reveal that God can indeed take people’s ugliest messes and turn them into beautiful messages of hope, healing, and redemption. When all seems lost because of her choices, and when others look down on her, Scarlett chooses to continue looking up. Her heartfelt journey challenges the reader’s thinking and transforms critical judgment into a compassionate connection, teaching them that when all is lost, everything becomes gain.

“In Don’t Ever Tell, author Christy Neal takes the reader along on her faith-filled journey from heartbreak to hope. Told with honesty and candor, this book will be a lifeline for women who are struggling to forgive themselves for infidelity and will thoughtfully guide them from regret to redemption.” —Mary O’Donohue, former post producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show and best-selling author of When You Say “Thank You,” Mean It

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781631951596

Book preview

Chapter 1

Peek-a-Boo: Hiding from the Truth

There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience.

—French proverb

Josie Rose is two and a half years old.

As my lover quietly rolled out of the back of my SUV, I entertained my sweet baby girl with a game of peek-a-boo. I strategically placed the fuzzy blanket over her head so she wouldn’t notice the man who wasn’t her daddy exiting our vehicle. Peek-a-Boo! I would say loudly as he closed the hatchback door to muffle the sound of the latch. I removed the blanket playfully. She giggled. I sighed with relief. Another visit was successfully hidden from my toddler and from the neighbors.

Tate would sometimes come to my house and visit during Josie’s naptime. While she was slumbering, we were escaping reality and frolicking in our personal fantasy land. Everything was peaceful there. No responsibilities or expectations. No bills or jobs or parenting or discussions of needs going unmet. Just two lost souls accepting the other fully. It had become our bliss.

Just moments earlier, Tate was hiding in the back of my SUV for the short ride up the street to his truck. Now I could see him in my side-view mirror as he crouched down beside my vehicle, waved, and snuck off to his truck. My heart sank to see him leave. Not for what I had done, but because I wasn’t sure when I would see him again. He had become my lifeline. My source of survival in a marriage that was as lifeless as my rose garden in the backyard. Just like the roses, my marriage had been left to die a slow, painful death from neglect. Being starved of attention and affection, I felt as lifeless as those once-beautiful petals.

But when Tate was there, I felt renewed, fresh, vibrant, sexy, desired, adventurous, appreciated, and loved. I felt alive! And in a way, I had never felt alive before. I felt like I had been starved of food for months, and finally, someone noticed me and cared enough to throw me a bag of cookies. But not just any cookies—the best darn cookies I had ever tasted!

These cookies were my new truth. In fact, these newly discovered cookies made me feel lied to. In all my years of Sunday school, youth group, church, devotionals, and Christian college, no one ever told me this type of cookie even existed—the sweetness of a passionate romance, the feeling of my thoughts, my desires, and my heart truly being known. I thought this kind of relationship was only found in the movies. Where had it been all my life?

It didn’t matter now. All I knew was that this was exactly what I needed to survive my stay-at-home haze.

Of course, I would only do this for a season. Just a season. I needed something to break up the monotony. Just a season, I would tell myself.

Deep in my heart, I wanted Christian Robert, my love, my husband. But he had disappeared. The man I’d fallen in love with had left—vanished. And there wasn’t a trace of him anywhere to be found.

After the birth of our daughter, Josie Rose, instead of becoming a playful new father, Christian seemed to turn more serious and fatherly toward me with every passing month. Further still from the goofy, fun-loving, all-American boy I fell for in college. When our daughter was only several months old, I realized I didn’t even recognize the man I had fallen in love with all those years ago. He had lost his smile and his energy. He didn’t laugh anymore, and he made it a point to not look at me when I was being silly. He acted as if he were a seventy-year-old elder of a conservative church and not a thirty-something-year-old husband and new father. In fact, I felt we hardly talked anymore unless it was about Josie or other people and their goings-on.

I didn’t understand why. What could have created such a change in his personality? Was he not thrilled with being a new father to our beautiful daughter? Did he no longer find me attractive now that I was the mother of his child? Was I no longer enthralling because I wasn’t working outside of the home? The personal rejection, along with the silence, became too much to bear.

With no answers from him and none to be found on my own, I cried a lot. I missed my Christian Robert. I missed how he enjoyed me. I missed his laugh and his silly grandpa jokes. I missed him being interested in me.

He was great with Josie, and he did help around the house, but as she got older he seemed to slip further into depression. I felt like a single mother when his work was particularly busy. Other times I felt completely alone even when he was home. I don’t think Christian realized how absent he was.

I was dying a slow emotional death, starved of attention that my inner child so desperately needed. It was all too familiar of a feeling, and those deep-seated insecurities crept back to the surface.

As a child, I hadn’t received much attention from my father. I remembered how alone and confused I felt. Now, more than twenty years later, I felt those same fears again. It was as if I were drowning in silence and no one saw me or could hear my cries for help. And in the months of being ignored, all of those disappointments and fears created the perfect internal storm—I fell prey to the one sin I swore I would never commit. The sin of my own father, and the sin of my mother’s father. I committed adultery. I betrayed my husband, my family, and worst of all . . . myself.

Looking myself in the eyes in a mirror became harder and harder. I was beginning to no longer recognize myself. The woman I was proud of. The woman I had worked so hard to become.

The devil had lied to me. And I believed every deceitful whisper.

Christian may never cheat on me with another woman, I thought to myself, but he cheats on me daily with his computer, with TV, with fantasy football, with sports, with poker, and with finances. I nearly felt justified in my actions. I felt so alone. My husband was a robot, and a shell of the person I married. He was under the same roof with us, but he walked around without showing any emotion. He didn’t see me, and he was missing out on our beautiful baby girl.

I couldn’t reach him. I didn’t understand what had happened to us. I started to seek help yet again. Despite earlier failed attempts, I had to continue my quest to find a counselor who could save our marriage.

Chapter 2

2x4

You will always pass failure on your way to success.

—Mickey Rooney

Josie Rose is just shy of two years old.

I sat on the counselor’s couch like a scared rabbit. I had to sign several papers before we began. It felt more like I was at a legal office. She seemed so business-like, drilling me with questions from across the room about who I was and why I was there. There were no warm fuzzies with this counselor, unlike the two before her. No small talk. It all seemed so impersonal.

When she finally finished filling out her paperwork on her new prospective client, she took a seat in front of me. Then she looked me straight in the eyes and asked, So, why are you here? It was very direct. She wasn’t looking for my childhood history, my family dynamics, or any Southern sugar-coated answer. She wanted to know exactly why I was there. It was a Let’s cut to the chase kind of question. Before I answered, I remember thinking, This is the woman my mom suggested I go see? This is the Church of Christ Christian counselor who has helped so many hurting couples?

At the moment the thought of her being able to help anyone was hard to fathom. I sat staring at a very cold, very direct woman who was on a mission for truth in forty-five minutes. So I decided to lay it on her. I had not tried that approach so far with the other counselors, but I vomited out my situation like soured milk. I told her all of it: Christian’s neglect, his rejection, my abandonment issues from my father and stepfather, including all of the times I had directly told Christian Robert that men were giving me attention and that I was starting to like it and that I didn’t want to cheat on him, that I didn’t want to be like my dad. And how the next morning it would be like we hadn’t talked about anything. I told her how I felt like I was going crazy. Then I told her about my friend, how I met him through church, how our marriages were both so alike. How we connected and understood each other because of our similar dysfunctional family dynamics. How I didn’t want to stop seeing him but I knew I needed to. About how we were becoming close friends, and about how I just couldn’t reach Christian, and how I had tried everything except blatantly hanging a sign across the house that said, Hello! I am about to have an affair!

She sat quietly, intently looking at me as if she could see through me. She jotted down a few notes. When I was finished dumping my internal baggage, she barely paused. As if she had heard the story many times before, she said, Well, it appears you need to hit your husband upside the head with a two-by-four. He will either listen and change, or he won’t. If he doesn’t, then you chalk it up to a failed marriage and move on.

I thought I was going to fall off of her quack couch! Chalk it up to a failed marriage?! I thought, This woman is Church of Christ? Who was she to talk so nonchalantly about my situation? Did she not hear me? I was about to start a full-blown affair. An affair with someone at church!

And then, as if she saw the utter terror and confusion on my face, she said this: Do you understand what I mean by ‘hit him with a two-by-four’? I see this a lot, Scarlett. And unfortunately, they either listen and change, or they do not. If you are as desperate as you say you are, you need to decide what your two-by-four looks like. Use it and see if it takes. If it doesn’t, you have a decision to make. I have been doing this for over twenty years. Sometimes marriages fail. I wish I could say they are all saved, but it just isn’t reality.

Needless to say, I could not get off her couch fast enough. I felt like I handed that woman $100, told her my life story, and then she hit me with a Mack truck!

I was in complete shock. A failed marriage? That was not in the plan. That was not an option! I thought she would have the answers. I thought she would tell me this was normal and just do X, Y, and Z, and I would get back on track. I am not sure what I expected from her . . . but it wasn’t what I got!

I crawled back into my car, shaking like an abused puppy, and sat there unable to move, trying to grasp reality. Had that really just happened? Did I hear what I thought I heard? I was dumbfounded.

A two-by-four? What did that look like? She mentioned leaving him for a period of time to get his attention, and then he would either listen or he wouldn’t.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, gripping my steering wheel, I realized I had, in fact, gotten my money’s worth. I was suddenly tired of opinions. I just wanted God Himself to come counsel me, comfort me, keep me, and tell me exactly what to do. But He