My husband lied to me and lived a double life for 38 years, and I never figured that out. This appalling lapse in my perception has compelled me to ask what was missing in me and our relationship that I didn’t pick up the clues.

It has caused me to examine and search my own character to see the blind spots. Every person has their strengths and weaknesses; and both my strengths and weaknesses facilitated my husband’s lifelong deception.

Two of my strengths that Tom used to gaslight me are, one, that I am extremely loyal, to the point of complete gullibility to someone I believe in. And I believed in Tom. The second is that I am very independent and reasonably competent. Tom relied on me to come through for us.

What has haunted me, though, is that I so easily accepted Tom’s portrayal of theater and show business as a completely hostile and almost hopeless profession. Now, this is the general opinion of careers in the artistic professions and why everyone discourages their children from entering those professions.

I know many people believe that show business people are excessively immoral. I have worked in a number of professions over the years, and I don’t think show business people are any worse than average; their failings are just more public. (At least, they didn’t used to be worse than average. These days the best you can say is that Hollywood isn’t quite as bad as DC.)

Having worked as a model for nearly ten years before I met Tom, I was fully aware of the casting couch as one route to success. Due to my experience in the advertising world, I had a pretty shrewd idea of how hard it would be to become a real acting success without the casting couch. But I had become a successful model without sacrificing my integrity. So, the question I ask myself is why did I accept Tom’s steady drumbeat of discouragement about my chances as an actress?

That is the question about myself that has haunted me since his death, and since I knew that he was gaslighting me about show business for our entire marriage so he could pursue his secret life.

Trying to learn, belatedly, from my 38 years of marital experience, I asked myself what was missing in me that allowed me to succumb so completely to his admittedly clever and convincing lies, which he acted with so much sincerity. I believe in some ways he actually thought he was telling the truth. But that’s another story.

Why had I had so little faith in myself as an actress? The answer I finally arrived at was that I lacked faith in God. I know that sounds too easy, but it’s more complicated than it sounds.

I had gone into my auditions thinking that what I had to do was to deliver my performance. Of course, that’s true. In some ways it’s like interviewing for a job.

But good acting is like falling in love, you have to throw yourself into a role and trust your feelings, your true self and just give in and have faith that you have something interesting to say by acting this or that role.

There is something mystical about good actors. They may lack intelligence, they may be ignorant, they may be immoral, they may not believe in God, but they know that they know something about life that’s important; and they are compelled to share it by acting. They have faith that life means something, and that life is using them to express it.

In my many years on this earth, I have come to the conclusion that wherever and whenever you encounter any kind of faith in an unseen, but greater meaningfulness of life, you should respect it, cherish it, and encourage it.

I had gone into my auditions without God at my side. I had gone in as a professional, but not a lover of acting. I didn’t let myself fall in love with my role and have faith that sooner or later someone else would share my vision of acting.

Modelling was easier for me because I could see that I was photogenic. All I had to be to work as a model was to be photogenic and to be personable and professional. I have always been a very sociable person, so that part came easily. I like people and many of them seem to like me.

Acting wasn’t as tangible to me as modelling. Acting was a leap of faith I just never even thought about trying to make. And here’s what I figured out. I was probably born a Doubting Thomas. It’s just my nature. I need proof. Being photogenic was visible and proof.

Acting; where was the proof that I was doing it? I had a very good acting teacher tell me once that I had an overdeveloped sense of truth. She was right. Like Thomas in the bible, I had to feel the wounds before I could believe it was Jesus come back from the dead.

Faith in something greater was what I lacked and that was what hindered me, eroded my confidence in myself, and made me vulnerable to be gaslighted so easily by my husband. He always gave me the impression that show business was somehow not for me. And sadly, I accepted that.

Had I challenged him, I might have uncovered his secret life. I might have forced him to confront his mental problems and saved his life.

Well, maybe that’s why he was allowed to come back from the dead to PROVE to me that there is a God. Like Doubting Thomas, I needed to see it to believe it.

Need I add that due to some quirk of fate, I was also born in Missouri whose motto is the “Show Me” state? Yeah, that’s me all over.

For a Doubting Thomas, acquiring real faith was a many years journey of doubt and skepticism.

In the next posts, I will elaborate on some events that moved me, or should I say, removed the scales covering my inner eyes of faith.