Et Tu, Lanna?

She was my best friend. The woman I chose to share most of my deepest, darkest secrets with. The woman I cried with, rejoiced with, and laughed with. And then she stole my husband from right under my nose.

Joke’s on her, though. She made her bed with a professional gaslighter, a classically trained covert-narcissist, and master of manipulation, and now she’s gotta lie in it.

Our story starts back in 2021, where I met Lanna…at church. A safe place, you’d think. I knew her husband, I helped teach him in Sunday School when I was a teenager, he was eight years younger than me, Lanna was only four years my junior. To be honest, I hadn’t recognized him until I saw his parents with him, and as we caught up, I was introduced to his wife, Lanna. We realized we were going to the same “Friday-night hang-out” at church coming up, and we were excited to hang out.

She was everything I was looking for in a friend, which I had slim-to-none of. We enjoyed the same type of music, we were both very strong in our faith, and we were both married women trying to be better wives to our hard-working husbands. As odd as it seemed back then, our husbands were eerily similar, too, with their hobbies, work ethics, and character. 

The more we were able to hang out, the more I realized I had in common with Lanna, as if we were meant to be best friends. But then it happened.

Lanna’s husband Alan was leaving her. He wanted a divorce. She was crushed, I was heartbroken for her, and my own husband, Derek, tried his best to reconcile them, but nothing worked. She quickly spiraled, and it became clear to us when she confessed that she didn’t feel safe from herself anymore. Together, we decided to bring her into our home. We had the room, and our son, 12, was on board, excited to have Lanna staying with us for what we agreed would be 3-6 months, until she got on her feet financially and mentally.

It was amazing, the bonding, the family dynamics shifting ever-so-slightly to include what Derek and I jokingly referred to as our adopted daughter. Lanna was naive in many ways, and as the months passed by, she became more and more comfortable with us. She became a part of our family, included in everything from holidays to family decisions.

Derek, though I didn’t understand at first, was fighting to hide his midlife crisis from me. I should have seen it when he was willing to up and quit the family-owned business that he had given fifteen years of his life to, I could have seen it when he adopted two puppies at once, but I don’t know how I missed it with the homestead purchase. We went to look at an estate property; a friend-of-a-friend needed someone to buy this old farmhouse with acres of farmland and timber. He jumped at the quarter-million-dollar opportunity, citing the three acres we currently resided on growing too cramped for our four mini-goats and handful of chickens. He wanted it, and I knew that when Derek wanted something, nothing and no one was going to steer him any other direction, so I knew I was just along for the ride. When he asked me if I wanted my name on the purchase alongside his, my heart was full. He wanted to share this huge part of our changing lives with me? I lovingly signed my name to the mortgage paperwork next to his own.

Let’s go back a-ways and review the red flags.

The first red-flag that I chose to ignore was Derek assuring me that the people at church wouldn’t understand our obedience to God in bringing Lanna into our home, and it was our business, not something we should be sharing, because people would automatically assume that it wasn’t a good idea. Even though I knew, trusted, and loved these people with all of my heart, I pulled back from them and kept this a secret for almost six months.

Red-flag number two was the TV time. Derek was never really a snuggler, but as soon as Lanna moved in, after a month or two, after we would put our son to bed (the routine that quickly included Lanna with hugs and nighttime prayers), the three adults would go back downstairs and watch TV, usually binging something with ‘bad words’ and ‘grown-up things’ that we would never allow our son to watch. As time passed, my husband became the middle section of two grown women snuggled in on either side. How did I ever not understand how inappropriate this was? By the time I’d gotten the guts to speak with Derek about how I didn’t exactly feel comfortable with it, he had scoffed and told me she was like a daughter to him, that for me to say something, especially after all this time, was completely unfounded and weird.

Red flag number three was the big one. The moment she set me up and I didn’t even know it. After a long, hot, and exerting day of yard work, preparing for house showings that could happen at a moment’s notice, I had grown so frustrated with Derek’s lack of sympathy or affection toward me that I vented to Lanna. Outside, while Derek took truckloads of tree brush, branch, and limb to a community recycling area, I unloaded to Lanna that I felt that Derek didn’t really love me, that he never showed me any real affection. I didn’t know how I could love him any differently, and I wasn’t sure how I could get through to him, because he never listened to me. As I poured out my pent-up frustrations, she nodded, shining big, sympathetic eyes on me. The back door slammed shut, and I realized instantly that Derek had come back, and was only a few feet away, listening in through the open kitchen window as he had gotten another beer out of the fridge.

One yelling match later, of which Lanna had retreated inside to avoid, I begged Derek to hear me out, and try to understand that my venting had been just that, and that it was never something meant for him to hear, because some of it was just my own projected insecurities.

∞∞∞

Two days later, the two of us sat on the front porch, a beautiful wrap-around with flower pots hanging from the rafters, and he told me he wanted a divorce, and had wanted one for a while. I cried, he drank, and I begged him to reconsider, to go into couples counseling, and he said, “No. I’m sick and tired of trying something I know won’t work.” When I replied that we had just bought a new house together, his words cut me to the bone. “I never asked you to do that. That was your choice.” Over the next few weeks, I (stupidly, albeit) cried and shared my fears and emotions with Lanna, who patted my back, hugged me, and cried with me as Derek moved into the home we had purchased together.

My breaking point was having Lanna still living in the house, after two years. Struggling to potty train the two puppies, homeschool our teenager, maintain a healthy home environment for him, and keep a five bedroom farmhouse show-ready at all time, I broke, and I let it all out on her, and told her she needed to go, and she needed to go a long time ago. She said she would start looking for places that day.

Our friendship had gone from rock-solid to gravel dust in a matter of months, and I realized that since we had told her about our own divorce, she had stopped pining for her now ex-husband and had considerably distanced herself from me. I knew she was mad at me, and I didn't care. She had long overstayed her welcome, even Derek had admitted that long before the divorce announcement, citing every one of her flaws and irritating quirks.

I had been sleeping alone for about a week, and Derek and I had been talking on the phone, more than we ever had, and a tiny flame of hope still flickered in my heart. Lanna, who had recently found a little house to rent, was across the hall, packing and organizing. My phone pinged, and it was a text from Derek. I was gutted as I read the text, over and over and over.

“Lanna May, I, Derek James, love you with all my heart.”

I called him, immediately, demanding an answer, and he said it wasn’t what it looked like. Lanna, he explained, was going through a really dark time and just needed to know that someone was there for her, since I had made her feel so unwanted lately. I hung up and marched across the hall, knocking and opening the door as she tossed her phone on her bed. I asked for an explanation and she denied everything under the sun, stammering innocently that she still loved Alan and prayed that they would be reunited someday.

Why would I ever buy that crock with hard evidence in the palm of my hand? Because reality is a stone cold bitch, and I didn’t want to face it.

∞∞∞

Fast forward to today, March 15, 2024. Lanna and Derek are engaged. Though they adamantly deny that they were ever together before they officially announced that they were dating, we all knew. Collectively, with lies, manipulation, and stonewalling, they’ve alienated themselves from an entire group of people that had known Derek and I for over a decade. Despite so many pleas for Derek to think about what he’s doing, to consider the example he’s setting for his son, he states he’s finally happy with his life. Together, they have no friends, no family who’s willing to accept his decisions, and no church to belong to.

Good for him. Because now, he’s marrying a girl who matched his wife’s personality because she didn’t have her own. A girl who has a pair of farm boots that have treads that have never seen cow shit, goat shit, even dog shit. A girl who whines and cries and flees from conflict. A girl who slowly turned her best friend’s husband into a replica of Alan. A girl who can’t cook, clean, or care for anything, including herself.

But…she’s marrying a man who always has and always will put work and money in front of his family. She’s marrying a man who has such a deeply-rooted addiction to pornography that he can’t have a normal sex life. She’s marrying a man who would rather lie constantly about nothing that would even constitute falsehood than have a conversation about it. A man who would rather lose his relationship with his only child than listen to his son’s feelings about Lanna. A man who would rather start over with a cheaper, younger model than do the hard work to save a fifteen year marriage.

Who’s got it better?

Me, that’s who. My relationship with our now-15-year old has never been stronger. My relationship with Scott, my boyfriend of ten months, is healthy and vibrant; full of conversation and emotional vulnerability. My son adores him, and realizes that he can show and say his feelings, thoughts, and opinions without worry of berating, yelling, or dismissal. I’m happy, he’s happy, and I’ve realized that shattering my future was the best thing that could have happened to me, and the worst for Derek and Lanna. Happy trails, you two.