I’m reminded of the lyrics to a song by The Fray — How to Save a Life.
********
“What were you looking for Dear?” Andrea said, calmly, as if having a box of condoms in her bag was a normal…thing.
I couldn’t seem to form words with my brain right at that moment and mumbled something unintelligible. “Your, ah, key, ah, I need to, ah, move your car, ah…why do you have a box of condoms in your handbag?”
“Because.” Again, it was said nonchalantly, as if my question was somehow ridiculous.
“Because, why? Why do you have condoms in your handbag?” I was starting to regain my ability to think and speak.
There was a long, pregnant pause before she replied. She screwed up her face a bit, inhaled deeply and then said, “Well, you wouldn’t want me to have sex without them would you.”
It was as if I had been hit with a truck. I staggered back and sat in one of the chairs at the kitchen table. I had no idea what to say. No idea what to think. The air had been sucked from my lungs and I couldn’t breathe.
Andrea continued on, “I use protection with him all the time. I’m pretty sure that he’s very clean but I’m also sure that you don’t want me bringing home any unwanted germs.”
Andrea said this as if it was the most natural thing in the world to say. It was as if I was the one being ridiculous for questioning why my wife was packing a box of condoms in her handbag. Stupid me.
**********
Now before I go much further, I suppose it might be useful to tell you a bit about me, Andrea and the Stewart family. I’m John L. Stewart. I’m thirty-three years old. I’m married to Andrea P. Stewart (nee Leighton) and she is the same age as me. We met in university and married just after we graduated. I’m a mechanical engineer and Andrea is a real estate agent. We have three beautiful daughters; I told you about them earlier, and we live in a very upscale neighbourhood of Albany, New York State. The house is a two-story colonial with a three-car garage, a circular driveway and a pool in the backyard. The house is five bedrooms and six bathrooms. It’s actually way more house than we need, but Andrea found it and at the time it was a bargain, so we bought it.
We’ve lived there for about three years now and gotten to know the neighbourhood and people that live around us. The schools in the area are very good and we both have an easy commute to work. Overall, I could say that life was just about perfect. Just about. If it was perfect, I wouldn’t have to work 60 hours a week and Andrea would not have to work all hours of the day and night and weekends, too.
We manage to make sure that the kids are taken care of first and foremost and that we eat dinner together, at least three times a week. Sundays are always a time for us to be together to do something together and afterward, sit around the dinner table and eat, talk, laugh and get caught up on what everyone has done the past week and what is happening for the next week. The dinner-table is, for me, one of the hearts of the home. My mother and father taught me that. We gathered there to eat, discuss things, tell stories and laugh, sort out problems and make plans for the future.
That’s why when Andrea and I had ‘the talk’, it was in the kitchen; we eventually sat at the table.
“This has nothing to do with you, John. This has everything to do with me. This is just something that I need, and it is separate from you and I and our family.”
Well, you would have thought that the woman saying those words was a complete stranger from the woman that I had been married to for eleven years. A woman that I shared a family with, a home with, a bed with.
She continued, “Don’t fixate on it, John. In fact, you can really forget about it, because it will not affect you in any way. Our life is unchanged. Our family is unchanged. It hasn’t affected you in any way yet, and believe me Sweetie, it will not in the future. ”
I drew in a large breath because I realized that I wasn’t breathing. “Really? You’re serious? I should just forget about it? My wife is fucking some other man and I should just…forget about it? OH MY GOD!”
I exhaled. Breathing is such a difficult thing to remember to do. “And you just told me that you’ve been fucking ‘Rob’ for two years! What the hell, Andrea!”
She looked at me with an expression that said I was being ridiculous, “Sweetie, you’ve been very busy with your work, and so have I, and the kids are at the stage that their lives are very demanding on our time, and so this is just a little thing that takes the pressure off for me.” She paused to let that bit of wisdom sink in, “If you think about it rationally, our sex life has been reduced quite a bit from what it was, but there isn’t really anything we can do about it at this stage of our life. I mean, unless we can somehow add hours to the clock or pause time so that we can spend time fucking like we used to,” She paused for effect again. “So, what I do is really not important to us. It is selfish of me, yes, I confess that, but I get to scratch that itch and come home to you and our daughters and be a good mother.”
My mouth was open as I listened to this…nonsense. “Wait, you’re equating infidelity with being a better wife and mother?” I turned my head a bit so that I could hear her better. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing from the woman that I had been married to for eleven years. Suddenly the room began moving and it was as if I was on a fairground ride that was spinning out of control.
I dropped off the chair onto the floor managing to catch myself with one hand and then the contents of my stomach unceremoniously made an appearance. I projectile vomited on the kitchen floor. After a moment I staggered to my feet and as quickly as I could, made my way to the bathroom off the master bedroom, to finish the job. I was on my hands and knees with the dry heaves, and my face poised at the entrance to the porcelain bowl, trying to regain my self-control, when Andrea poked her head around the corner.
“I’m really sorry Sweetie, I didn’t ever plan for you to find out this way. I figured that it was best that you not know. What good would come of it?” She watched me heave again and then got a face-cloth and ran it under cold water and passed it to me. I took it and wiped my face and mouth. Slowly, on very wobbly legs, I stood. I could see the expression on her face. She truly looked concerned. That was the mystifying part. That was what I couldn’t figure out. Who was this woman? What had she done with my wife? Where was the real Andrea?
“Sweetie, I’ll drop the girls off at school and I’ll see you after work. I’ll make supper and then after the girls are in bed, we can have a drink and talk, okay. ”
Sweat was rolling off my face and I couldn’t seem to muster any words that would express, in any measure, just what I wanted to say. I mean, Jesus Fucking Christ!
I could hear doors closing and her car starting so I slowly made my way off the bathroom floor, flopped on the bed and closed my eyes. I had to concentrate on not trying to throw up anymore. There was nothing left in my gut to come up, except may be what was left of the shattered pieces of my heart. The rest of the day was a blur. I remember calling in to my boss and telling him that I was sick and couldn’t come to the office. I had some things that had to be rescheduled but nothing that couldn’t wait a day or so.
The house was quiet and so I knew that Andrea and girls had left. I looked at my watch and realized that it was past 10 o’clock. I got undressed and stood in a hot shower for an eternity. Maybe a half-hour; but my ability to tell time was somehow impaired. I got dressed in some jeans and a shirt and went back to the kitchen. My earlier efforts had been cleaned up. The window was open and the smell had pretty much gone away.
I sat at the table, staring at it, hoping that it would give me some great revelation as to what the fuck had happened this morning. I began to formulate questions. So many things that I needed to know. But I really wanted to rewind time, to make the day better by not having found a box of condoms in my wife’s handbag. Maybe she was right; maybe it was better that I didn’t know. But now I do know. And she is the one to tell me.
My head started spinning again and I had to go lay down.
Move this paragraph….
Fuck. The ‘talk’ did not go well. This whole fucking mess started with my discovery of an unopened box of condoms in my wife’s handbag. I was looking for her spare car key (she often ends up with both of the keys to her car in her bag) so that I could move her car. Her handbag was stuffed full of the detritus that occupies women’s handbags. Finding a box of condoms there was…well, a million things went through my mind at the same time. While I was looking at the box of condoms, Andrea appeared in the kitchen and she merely took the box from my hand and put it back in her handbag.
*********
Later that same day
After my attempt to lay down and regain some semblance of…ability to think, I got up and went back to the kitchen. The scene of the crime, as it were. I got a large glass of ice water and went and got a pad of paper and pen. I downed three extra-strength Tylenol and drank the water as I started to make notes. I’m an engineer and we make notes about everything, at least the important things. I had a hard time focussing on the fucking paper. I started to make notes, but they were incomprehensible gibberish. I ripped the page off, balled it up and threw it into the corner. I started lots of points but always came around to the central issue of: what the hell happened to my marriage?
I got up and put the pad of paper away and figured that I needed to get outside and get some fresh air and maybe that would give me some clarity and an idea of what to do. I walked for almost two hours, to the point that I felt faint. I realized that what little food I had tried to eat at breakfast time had disappeared all too suddenly and I’d only had a glass of water since. I stopped at a diner and managed to get a bacon, tomato and lettuce sandwich into me, washed down with a diet cola. I did feel a bit better with some food in and me and then on the walk home I did come to some idea of what I wanted to talk to Andrea about.
I wanted to know why she had replaced me as her lover and what were her plans for the future? If she was leaving me, I was very certain that it would be without my daughters. I was very determined that they were not going to be victims here, and that I would fight for them with everything I had. Just because their mother couldn’t keep her legs shut around men, was no reason that my children or I would suffer needlessly.
I love my wife, at least I did. Now, I’m not so sure. Where had things gone wrong? I was, in my own mind, thinking that, clearly, I wasn’t enough husband for her. If I was, then why was she looking for love and sex with other men? Was her plan to leave me? Was she intending to take my children? Was the box of condoms in her handbag a slip-up on her part to keep her secret or was this an opportunity to bring it all out in the open and then make her moves. Jesus, this is driving me crazy.
*********
Andrea
I made sure that I was home a bit early, I wanted to make a nice meal for us and spend some time after supper with the girls and John and be a family, all together.
John wasn’t home when the girls and I arrived but his car was there. I figured that maybe he went for a run to get his head wrapped around what we had talked about earlier this morning. I had tried to be a bit flippant about it and make a joke of it, but John wasn’t laughing and his reaction, when I thought about it, was certainly normal. I mean, how do you react when your wife says that she is having sex with some other man? I suppose I could have handled it better than that, but John finding the condoms threw me off my guard; thus, my feeble attempt to make a joke of it. I needed to get a grip on the situation, before things got out of hand and we headed into problems.
When John got home he was very quiet. He watched me like a hawk, circling to pounce on its prey. He said very little to me other than muted grunts and the occasional ‘yup’ or ‘nope.’ I wore one of my tightest pair of jeans and a sleeveless blouse and had pinned my hair up, just the way that John likes it. I even spritzed on some of the perfume that I know he really likes. I wanted to be attractive to him and let him know that what we needed to talk about wasn’t going to threaten him in any way.
After supper the girls did their homework, I tidied the kitchen and then we went outside for a bit of fresh air, shooting some baskets in the driveway. John is always up for that, but tonight he sat inside and didn’t say a word as we went outside. I was really starting to doubt the decision to indulge my fantasies outside my marriage. It was only once a week and during the afternoon, and I always, always, always made sure that we used condoms and I was clean, outside and in, coming home. I never allowed my Thursday indulgence to interfere in any way with John and the girls.
There were lots of times that I had cancelled my Thursday. Work, family and personal reasons sometimes affected what I did. But every single time I made sure that my family came first. Thursday was to indulge that ‘itch’ that needed scratched. It was something that just happened. Rob and I got to know each other after I went to work at the real estate agency. He’s married and has a family about the same ages as my kids. I found that John and I never had time for just us. We almost had to schedule sex. That made it really exciting. I’m being sarcastic now. But I know, you’re thinking, that I’m a slut for cheating on my husband. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re wrong.
John is a great husband and father. He works very hard to make sure that he provides for his family and I know that he does that with the understanding that if we had to live off just his income, we could it. So, he thinks of my income as a bonus, and we bank a bunch of it. A big chunk had gone to pay down the mortgage early and some for renovations to the house, but our savings and investment account is also healthy. Problem is, that with a demanding career and three busy kids, there isn’t time for us. There isn’t time to indulge ourselves and connect as a couple, as lovers. We used to be at each other almost every night. Now, it’s lucky if we have sex once a week. I need more and I know that John wants more, too. Sex with John is great, why do you think we have three kids; and we’re only just past thirty years old.
My Thursday indulgence was something that I wanted to feed my needs. I didn’t want to make John feel bad by pestering him for sex that was going to be rushed and unfulfilling. Who wants that? I decided a while ago that I needed to do something that would give me what I wanted but, I had to make sure that it didn’t impact in any way on my family. Really, they do come first, but I figured that there was a way for me to get what I needed and not put my future at risk. So far, I was right. But now, the challenge was to protect my family and give me the ability to keep doing what I was doing. That was the tricky part; how to not make my husband feel threatened and allow me to keep having my Thursdays.
*********
‘He walks, you say sit down, it’s just a talk.
Let him know that you know best’
Andrea
The kids were in bed and now was as good a time as any to talk. I got some wine from the refrigerator and poured some for me and got John some of his favourite beer. It was an IPA from a local craft brewery. My heart was beating pretty fast and I had to admit to myself that I didn’t really have a lot of confidence that this talk would go the way that I wanted it to. A lot was at stake here.
“Sweetie, sit down, we need to talk.” John looked at me sideways and slowly sat. I pushed the glass of beer to him.
I started, “I have to tell you that you have nothing to worry about. I’m not doing anything that will impact you or the children. No matter what you may think, you and they come first in my life.”
John looked at me like I had two heads. I pressed on. “Really, Dear. This is not something that you need to worry about. I’m your wife. I love you, very much.”
Then John countered with, “Yes, I suppose that you love me, but are you in-love with me?”
He was good. “Yes, Dear. I’m very much in-love with you. I have been since I met you and my love for you has gotten bigger every day and then it leaped again with every child we have had. I’m so happy with our life. Our children are perfect and you’re perfect.”
His mouth was open a bit and when he tried to speak, but his words wouldn’t come out. He took a small drink to lubricate his throat. “So, what the hell are you doing having sex with some other man?”
I looked at my husband, “Well, that’s a bit hard to explain, but I suppose I need to try. I owe you that.”
I took a small drink and started. “It started as a fantasy, we all have them, I know you do, we’ve even talked about some of them when we have sex. And then it grew. It got bigger as we got busier with our lives. Your work, my work, the girls, life. We spent less and less time with each other. I wanted you so much that it hurt. But I knew that it wasn’t going to happen. I had an ‘itch’ that needed scratching and you weren’t always here to scratch it for me. You were busy with work, taking the girls to their activities, I was busy with work. My schedule is crazy. How many evenings and weekends have I had to work and you have had to work and it was impossible for us to be together?”
There was a pause, I needed a small drink. “So, I came to the conclusion that I needed this. I know that it might sound ridiculous, but it’s what I needed. I needed the satisfaction that having sex brings to me. It calms me down, makes me feel good. Rob is able to help scratch the itch that I need scratched. We meet only once a week and we limit it to just an hour or so. It’s just enough to make me able to get through the days and the week. I can’t get enough of you, so, I substitute him for you.”
John was staring blankly at the table in front of him. I could tell that he didn’t know what to say or do. I pushed on.
“Sweetie, I want nothing more than for you to take me to the bedroom and fuck the living daylights out of me. That’s what makes me feel like your wife, your woman.” I put the emphasis on ‘your.’ With a quieter voice I said, “But I need this, for me. Right now, and for just a while longer, until our lives change a bit and we have more time for each other. So, please be patient with me and know that I’m yours. Totally. And I always will be. ”
I got up from the table and took John by the hand and led him to the bedroom. He walked without saying a word. I undressed in front of him and then undressed him and got on my knees and took his cock in my mouth. It gave him away. It wasn’t long before he was hard and then I went-to-town on it taking all seven inches of him so that my nose was nudging his pubic bone. He grabbed the back of my head and pulled me into him and fucked my mouth. I wanted him so much; and this was only the start.
You’re thinking that I was a cheating bitch but that I professed to love my husband. Well, I suppose I was cheating, but I do love my husband. But I need him to give me this for a little while longer. I need him to give me the space to get what I need and I can be an even better wife for him and mother to our children. My happiness was the key to making me that better wife and mother. My Thursday afternoon was something that I intended to keep doing, for a little while longer. After all, I do know best. I know that this is what I need, for now. John will understand. He will let me do this. He loves me enough to understand and to let me do this.
*********
John
Visit with my Lawyer — Roy, a week or so later
“Roy, I need your help.” I went on to explain my situation in agonizingly great detail. Roy nodded his head, made ‘un-huh’ noises at frequent intervals and scribbled notes on his yellow legal pad, and then when I had finished, he offered, “Well, John, what can I say. That’s quite an unusual story. I mean, I’m a divorce lawyer and I hear lots of tragic stories, but this is certainly a new twist on things.”
At $300 an hour, this is what he’s got? I got right to the point. “Jesus, Roy! What the hell can I do about this?”
He countered with, “What do you want to do about it?”
And there it was; what the hell do I do about my wife, and her boyfriend.
Then he looked really serious for moment, before he continued, “Now, first off, I can tell you that as your lawyer, my first piece of advice is that you don’t do something stupid. Don’t get physical with anyone and threaten them with physical harm. The courts take a dim view of that in New York State and you’ll only end up in a jail cell. And we don’t want that, do we?”
No, we certainly didn’t want that. Being in a jail cell wasn’t going to solve any of my problems. I know that violence is not the answer to this. Violence might be the answer to some problems, but what was it that I did want? I mean, I have to do something about this. I can’t just let it go on.
“So, Roy, what are my options?”
“Well, there are a lot of things you can do, but I have to be frank with you, they all suck big-time.”
I was astonished by this frank admission coming from the mouth of a highly experienced 50-some-year-old divorce lawyer wearing a suit with a vest, “What are you talking about?”
Roy got an even more serious look on his face, if that was possible for a man like him that lived and breathed nasty divorce cases. He was supposedly the best in the area and he didn’t come cheap. But Roy was nothing if not a realist. Considering that I was only 34 years old, have three daughters and a career that is underway and with excellent prospects, now was not a time for me to fuck that up.
So, Roy outlined my options for me. His crash course in divorce was deeply depressing.
“In New York State there are essentially seven different grounds for divorce,” he went on to list them
1) Cruel & inhuman treatment;
2) the abandonment of the Plaintiff by the Defendant for a period of one or more years;
3) the confinement of the Defendant in prison for a period of three or more consecutive years after the marriage;
4) the commission of adultery voluntarily performed by the Defendant with a person other than the Plaintiff after the marriage;
5) living apart pursuant to a decree or judgment of separation for a period of one or more years after the granting of such decree or judgment;
6) living separate and apart pursuant to a written agreement of separation signed by the parties for a period of one or more years after the signing of the agreement; and
7) the relationship between husband and wife has broken down irretrievably for a period of at least six months, provided that one party has so stated under oath.
So, what the hell was I to do? Number four, the adultery provision was, on the surface, my number one resolution to my little problem. Let’s put a pencil mark beside that one for now and look at the rest. Living separate and apart for a year might be the thing. Let’s put a pencil mark beside numbers five and six for now. Number seven was a well-used reason in divorces in this state. Roy had said that he had made a lot of money off of that one.
Barring me doing something stupid, like beating the living shit out of ‘Rob,’ or running away from my wife and family, to a Caribbean Island, there didn’t appear to be an easy solution to the problem of my cheating wife. Number seven is the ‘no-fault’ provision and is the ‘out’ for one person or the other, when they don’t want to remain married. But, on the surface of things, it would seem that number four, on the reasons to divorce list above, was my best candidate; at least for now.
Ah, but not so fast, thinks Roy. “My boy, the real devil in all of this is that you have three children. I’m assuming that you want to be a full-time father as opposed to being a part-time father?”
I looked at Roy with a puzzled expression that said ‘what are you really saying, here?’ “Well, of course I want to be a full-time father. That’s my main reason for coming to see you.”
Roy nodded sagely, again and did the ‘un-huh’ response to me. “My point in all of this, John, is to say that with a divorce, right now, all you are really going to accomplish is to turn yourself into a part-time father, living alone most of the time and without the financial resources at your disposal that you enjoy now, unless of course you start to make a lot more money than you currently do.”
I sat there, stunned, as if I’d been punched in the head by Mike Tyson. One of those sucker punches that leaves you senseless and spinning around, about to go down. Unable to tell which way is up, or left, or right. Good thing I was already sitting.
After I took a drink of water and regained some ability to string together more than two syllables, I managed to look at my learned counsel and asked, “Jesus, Roy! What the hell are you telling me?” My eyes were bugged-out and I could feel the veins in my neck bulging. My blood pressure was approaching stroke levels.
In his calm and highly-controlled voice, as he looked over his glasses at me, he summed it up nicely, “Well, John, not to be too abrupt about this, but I would be less than honest with you to tell you anything other than the god’s honest truth, here.” He paused and swallowed before continuing. “You’re fucked, my boy.”
My mouth was hanging open and my jaw muscles were suddenly unable to function sufficiently to close my mouth. As the words sank into the core of my soul, I realized how the condemned, on death-row, must feel as they approach the final hour, looking forward only to the appointment with the executioner.
It was a grim realization that gripped me. To think that a cheating wife was going to get the best of me…well. The room seemed to spin on some unknown axis as everything was a blur for the next few minutes. Time froze, or sped up or halted in place; I had no fucking idea what it did.
The next thing I knew Roy was standing on one side of me and his secretary, Shirley, was standing on the other. She was holding a bottle of water, offering it to me. Water for the drowning man. Maybe I was in a desert, might as well have been Mars. Maybe I would see one of those expensive Mars Rovers and hitch a ride back to sanity. Maybe I would just drown. Maybe… who the fuck knows?
I was breathing into a brown paper bag, trying to recover some ability to breathe normally; seems I might have been gasping for air as I was hyperventilating. I took the bottle of water and drank most of it in one large gulp and handed back the empty bottle to Shirley.
When I had regained the ability to breathe somewhat normally again, along with the power of logical thought, I looked at Roy and revisited the seven reasons for divorce in New York, “So, why would I not look seriously at number four on your nice little list, Roy? I mean, my wife has been ‘getting-it’ from another man, now for some time. She even confessed it to me, in our kitchen, for Christ’s sake. Why shouldn’t I force this whole shit-show along due to her infidelity? This whole thing is really on her, not me. ”
Roy nodded to me and his face said several things as the same time without having to say any actual words, but then he did speak. I wouldn’t want Roy to have to represent me in a criminal court case. I mean, how much of a defence can you mount with your attorney shrugging his shoulders and grimacing in front of the jury and expecting them to understand just what that means. No. Roy was good at the divorce game, so I would stick to that with him as my representative.
“John, I don’t want to sound overly…crass, here, but really, all you are going to achieve is handing Andrea your house, pretty much most of the furnishings, and most importantly, your children, and the control of the agenda. To put is very succinctly, you’re going to get fucked in the divorce and then she gets paid, by you, to go ahead and fuck even more other men. And the really sad part is that eventually your kids are going to wake up some morning and there will be one of your ex-wife’s boyfriends sitting at the breakfast table. He’ll be chatting with them as if he was their father and slowly, they will start to forget that you’re their father. And you’re paying for it all.”
Oh my God!! I couldn’t begin to comprehend the nightmare that he just described. That was the wort possible outcome of anything imaginable. I’d rather just shoot myself in the head, than have my children forget me. But then if I did that they would forget me even faster. Fuck, NO!!
I made up my mind at that very moment that this stupendously horrendous shit-show, just described by Roy, would not be my fate, or the fate of my three daughters. No fucking way!
“So, Roy, please tell me that there is another way for this to turn out that doesn’t involve me suffering the loss of my daughters other than for all but a weekend a month and two weeks in the summer? What I really mean is, just what is a realistic thing for me to do that sees me being the father that I am now and want to stay being? This is really fucked-up, do you understand what it is I’m trying, so un-eloquently, to say?”
Roy drew a large breath, “John, I know exactly what it is you want, and I would be a poor legal advisor if I didn’t give you, my boy, the best plan to stay in charge of this unfortunate situation. So, listen carefully.” And then he went on, in great depth, describing what he felt was a realistic course of action for me to follow to deal with Andrea and to keep my children and do it all from the comfort of my own home.
He also went into great detail about the seven reasons that he listed earlier, for divorce, and how none of them were going to get me what I wanted. He had a ‘different’ plan, his plan, according to him, would achieve pretty much all I wanted to achieve, keeping in mind what I told him my priorities were.
Roy’s plan was very simple: do nothing. That’s right: do nothing. Keep right on being married to Andrea and keep right on being the best father that I could be. Keep right on enjoying my family and enjoying the intimacy that I shared with my wife. Ignore, as much as I could, what she said in the kitchen, and get on with life.
Andrea had said that her extra-marital sex had nothing to do with us, and so why not trust that that was the case and continue to enjoy my relationship with my wife.
You’re thinking that Roy is an incredibly incompetent attorney and that I’m a bloody fool, for believing him. Aren’t you? Well, that was my reaction too. I mean, how could I look at myself in the mirror in the morning without being disgusted that I would put up with her cheating on me? What the fuck had my marriage, and my life become?
Roy let his sage advice sink in for a moment before he cleared his throat, took a small drink of water himself and went on. “I know you must believe that I’m not a very good divorce attorney, but I can tell you, from my vast experience, that in your situation, you will lose, and lose a lot more than you will ever gain. You might put right your wife’s infidelity, but in doing that, you will lose your children, your home, your financial future and most importantly, your happiness.”
The old bastard waited some more before continuing on with his lecture on losing. “I know that it must seem very unfair to you; and quite frankly it is enormously unfair. But it is the law that guides divorce and unless your wife is physically abusive to either your children or you, the court is predisposed to give custody to mothers.”
He continued, “I know what you’re thinking; infidelity should be a factor to be considered by the court, but it generally is not.” Roy looked saddened by that fact. Like he was personally affronted by the condition of New York State divorce law. I’m sure that lots of his clients would wish that infidelity was taken into consideration when things like custody of the children and home were decided. But it’s not.
I decided to breathe again. “Fuck me!” As I said this, my gaze wandered around the room before it settled on my attorney. I was lost. “So, let me wrap my feeble brain around this, Roy. Andrea gets to fuck other men at her leisure and I really can’t do anything about it. That, and if I divorce her, she will be laughing all the way home as she takes my children away from me, takes our house, and I will likely be forced to pay to maintain her lifestyle.” I wasn’t sure if I was questioning what I had just heard or summing-up in some way that would nicely put it all together for easy comprehension. I knew in my small lizard-like brain that I was fucked. That I have wasted eleven years of my life on a woman that must be laughing at me every day, at least every time she fucks her boyfriend, Rob.
“What if I just kick her to the curb? I mean, I’m sure that if I were to admit to having sex with other women, she would be furious with me and try to force me out of the house. Why can’t I try to do the same to her? Wouldn’t the court be sympathetic to me in that case?”
Roy nodded his head, in his wise way and replied, “Well, John, you could certainly try that. I know that it has been tried before and overall, I have to report that it has met with a very low success rate. You see, your wife, Andrea, will tell the court that your forcible eviction of her from the home denies her right to be with her children. She would try to make the case that her custodial rights were being unjustly denied, for no good reason, and thus, she and her lawyer would petition the court to re-establish her custody of the children. Courts in New York State are firmly on the side of mothers. Of course, there are requirements that the mother meet certain standards and unless you have very clear evidence that Andrea is an unfit mother, then I have to tell you now that any attempt to deny her access to the house and the children will likely meet with failure.”
Roy let that sink in for a few minutes before he continued. I sat still; my brain was in a flat spin. What the hell was I going to do? If I left, then I lose my children, my home, and a big chunk of my income and future, all so that Andrea can have as much sex with as many men as she wants and do it in my house. Even while my children are in the house. Fuck!
The other thing is that I can’t really force Andrea to leave the house. All she has to do is to get a lawyer to run to a judge and get an order allowing her back in the house. All that would do is to make me the bad guy in the eyes of the court. Any judge, especially a woman judge, who is also a mother, would likely take a dim view of me trying to deny Andrea access to the kids. No, that wasn’t going to work at all. So, what the fuck do I do?
I looked up and could see Roy’s mouth moving but I had no idea what the man was saying. Eventually I heard, “John, John, John, are you understanding what I’m telling you?”
I shook my head, “Sorry Roy, but I didn’t hear what you just said.”
He looked at me in his stern but fatherly way and, I suppose, repeated, “My advice John is to go home and forget that your wife said anything to you about any extra-marital activity on her part. If you are unable to simply put it out of your mind, then I suggest that you visit a marriage counsellor and work out an agreement that will meet your needs as much as possible. If a marriage counsellor is not able to get the job done, then possibly I can help with crafting a post-nuptial agreement that you and Andrea can agree to and that will let you both remain in the home, and most importantly, with your children.”
So, there you have it. Do nothing. And if I can’t live with doing nothing, work out a written agreement that let’s my wife continue to have sex with other men. Because if I couldn’t do one of those two things, the alternative was not something that was going to do anyone, especially my children and me, any good whatsoever. Jesus!!
I went back to my office, closed the door and sat by myself, drowning my sorrows in an ice-cold bottle of water. I contemplated Roy’s learned words and tried to visualize just how I was going live with this new…thing. I kept taking in huge breaths and then holding them for a few seconds before letting them out.
Andrea and I needed to talk. Again. Not sure when we would do that, but we would. Maybe a few times.
**********
Week 1
Life around our house was almost as normal as it ever was. The three girls were all busy at school and with sports and their individual activities. I didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that the relationship between their mother and I had changed dramatically last week. My marriage was…different, now. It didn’t have the same feel, for me that it had for the first thirteen years. It was a new deal. I wasn’t sure that Andrea was thinking that things were any different for her, now that her wishes and intentions were out in the open.
My three daughters: Laura, age 6; Matilda, age 8; and Diane, age 11; were none the wiser about the new dynamic that existed between their mother and I. As far as they were concerned, life in the Stewart household was unchanged. At least for now.
Andrea acted as if nothing had changed and nothing was said between us. She greeted me at the door with a kiss on the lips and her normal warmth and concern. She asked me about my day at work and she shared what she was doing with her work. She took care of the kids, as much as she normally does. She cooked sometimes and she she did some of the chores around the house. It was all amazingly normal. As if there hadn’t been a revelation of her having sex with another man for an afternoon, once a week. When she came home she looked normal, she smelled normal, she acted normal. What the hell. Was I dreaming all this? Was I just clueless John?
Week 2
Thursday night was soccer night for Diane. Her team practices once a week, usually Thursday night at 7 and then they have a game on Saturday, in the morning, at 10. This is a team for ten and eleven-year-olds. Laura and/or Matilda usually come to the practices with me, and the whole family go to the games. Right after the game, it’s off to ballet for Matilda.
I had gotten used to Andrea not going to the practices. She had work things to get caught up on and I didn’t think any more about it. But this Thursday was different now. This was the time that Andrea would spend with Rob, her lover of the past two years. They would spend time at his place, usually in the afternoon or after work that day (they would leave work early) and spend an hour or two together. Andrea would shower before she left for home and then greet the girls and talk about soccer, and school and anything else that the girls wanted to talk about.
But now, now I knew. I knew that my wife was not really my wife any more. She partly belonged to someone else now. She divided her life between her family and her lover; Rob. The realization of this had slowly crept in to my thinking brain. My rational brain knew that things had changed. The emotional brain was catching up with it. The emotional brain was looking for the great divide between Andrea, my loving wife and mother of my three children, and Andrea, the cheating slut that was fucking some other man, and trying to make it seem like it was okay to do that.
I had never met Rob. I didn’t really want to meet him either. I’m worried that I would lose control and do something stupid that would land me in trouble with the police and I’d end up in jail. That would only make my life a complete hell. Not that it wasn’t already. The words of my lawyer, Roy, kept coming back to me, ‘don’t do something stupid, John.’