Beans on the table - Part I

In my prior post "Guess What?" , Happywithhislot was right on the money.

The beans are on the table, and I spilled them. After eight years of secrecy, I unburdened myself and came clean with my wife. I had thought I would take this secret to the grave with me. Just a mere few months ago, I wrote why I did not want to tell my wife. Those reasons still apply, but God has a way of making you eat your words.

For many years, my skepticism was locked away into a little chamber in my brain. Having no one to discuss this with, it was all repressed. My own little secret. There was nothing to obsess about. It was compartmentalized and controlled. I thought I was the only frum person in the world in my situation. "Baal Habos, you're crazy, just forget about, just keep it to yourself. The Baal Habuste would flip if you told her."

If God appeared to me in a dream and told me to sacrifice my son, I'd keep that to myself too. My skepticism about Orthodox Judaism was just too irrational to be valid. I carefully looked around me at my relatives & friends and I saw a disturbing trend; almost everyone without exception was getting Frummer. More observance, more shiurim. There was more conspicuous consumption too, but that has long ago been rationalized into frumkeit. It's simply called Baale Battish and I fit in like a glove. But without question, it was not a show, society really is frummer than a mere 25 years ago. Yeshiva boys are more ehrlich, people are more tsniusdig, many have tossed their TV. Their weekly Saturday night at the movies had turned into Rabbi Reisman's Novi shiur. I was all alone in the world; Me and my heresy. So I simply went along with the flow.

Around six months ago, I accidentally stumbled into a new world - Blogs and Yahoo TFSG. It was wonderful. It validated my beliefs that it's possible and even OK to not believe. It's ok to deny. It's even ok to question God. I made some wonderful friends in the process, people from Blogs, people from Forums, some who I've spoken with and some who I have met anonymously at a Makor event.

But like everything in life, these blogs and contact with other skeptics had a serious side affect, a cost, a penalty. It brought my skepticism to the forefront of my daily life. I was obsessed. I had let the genie out of the bottle.

And I felt this was beginning to impact my relationship with my wife.

To be continued....