Recently I had a male friend come to stay with me for a few days. He and I have been friends for many years. It has been a long distance friendship. He recently became serious about our friendship and started talking about marriage.

I had never felt that serious about the relationship but I thought if I spent more time with him maybe my feelings of love would blossom.

The first day he was here I asked him to help me garden. I needed to clean out some overgrowth in my gardens and put some organic fertilizer on my yard. He had said that he knew I needed help to take care of my property and he would help me with that if we were married.

He was amazing that day. We both worked hard all day long in the garden and got a lot done. I was relieved to have him present because my garden gets to be a jungle and if I work in it alone who knows what may happen.

The next day he asked for me to take him to Southfork Ranch. I had only been there one time previously and had gone for a concert series so I was game for that.

We took the tour through the house and around the ranch. It was a lot of fun and I would recommend it to anyone who is visiting the DFW area. Then we stopped at a deli and my friend started talking to the deli lady about Larry Hagman. Apparently, my friend had met Larry and so had the deli lady.

I asked to look at the pictures he had taken of the ranch. He gave me his phone and I not only looked at the pictures but crossed over to the messages and saw that he was messaging other women the same kind of text messages he had sent me. I caught sight of that and kept my cool, never letting on what I saw.

It wasn’t long after that that I told him I did not intend to marry him. Why on earth would I?

It got me thinking about betrayal. In my novel, The Shattered Vase, I explain why this betrayal did not hurt me.

“Betrayal was powerless if love had not forged a path first.”

I did not love this man, I merely liked him and like was becoming a stretch for me at this point.

I prayed and reflected upon why this man was texting other women when he was visiting me and talking the marriage talk to me. I realized he was insecure and desperate. He didn’t want to grow old alone.

I have had other men lie and betray me and they too are insecure.

I have done my share of betraying also and I know during those years in my life I struggled with insecurity. So the cause of betrayal is fear and insecurity.

I thought about dropping him off at the airport a few days earlier than his flight after seeing those text messages. However, this man has hosted me at his home a couple of times and has been a good host. I couldn’t do something nasty like that and feel right about it.

Once I told this man that marriage was off the table he has been fairly nasty but I have remained kind and considerate of him. I have continued to provide a place for him to sleep and good food to eat. I have taken him to every blasted thing he has requested me to take him to.

I have prayed a lot about this and have decided that the way I should handle this is to pray that God would procure a wife for this man… anyone but me.