Week 3
I went to work every morning with a knot in my gut. I had to really concentrate on what I was doing at work. My boss, Ron Walton, noticed that I was frequently not tuned-in to what was going on around me. He’s a really nice guy and very much a father figure and mentor to me. He invited me for coffee and in his very quiet way tried to get me to tell him what was bothering me. I pretty much dodged the issue, but Ron wasn’t going to let it go quite so fast.
“John, you’re not yourself lately. Whatever it is, I have to be honest with you that it’s starting to affect your work. You’re making little mistakes that you normally never make. Others are catching them before something big gets screwed up, but, darn-it, you got to get your head back in the game, Bud.”
There it was. Plain and simple. I exhaled and looked at the cup of coffee in my hand. “I’m sorry Ron, I know that I haven’t been giving you my best for the last few weeks.”
I exhaled, again, “I have a personal problem that I’m trying to deal with. I don’t know what to do about it and, yes, it is affecting my work. I’ll get my head out of my ass and I promise to do better.”
He looked at me with a look of genuine concern, “John, whatever it is, I will do anything I can to help. All you have to do is ask, okay. If you need time off to work on it, just say so and it’s yours. You’re a good guy and I want you as part of the team so if you need anything from me, just name it.”
He stood up to go and put his hand on my shoulder, “I’m serious, whatever you need.”
He left me to think for a while. I knew the Andrea and her revelation of her extra-marital relationship with her lover had affected me to the point that I had a hard time sleeping, concentrating at work and just functioning.
Maybe I can’t get her to stop her affair, but I had to do something for myself. I had to keep my sanity and keep my focus on what was important. I kept thinking about my three daughters.
I went back to see Roy. I had him start on that post-nuptial relationship agreement that he and the marriage counsellor talked about. What did I have to lose?
********
Week 4
It’s Tuesday and I got home about 6 o’clock. Andrea was there and I figured that tonight was as good a time as any to talk to her. The kids were doing homework at the dining room table and Andrea was in the kitchen whipping up some food to eat. She’s a reasonable cook and tries to make sure that we all eat a sensible diet. Tonight, was meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green peas. One of the kids’ favourites.
After we had eaten and cleaned up the dirty dishes, I sent the girls out to the backyard to kick around a soccer ball. Tonight, wasn’t a practice or activity night and Andrea hadn’t told me that she had to go back to work. I went out and played with the kids.
The feeling of gloom that had enveloped my brain was slowly lifting as I resolved to take control of the situation and do something to make me, at least, feel better about Andrea’s matter-of-fact statement to me about a month ago that having a lover on the side was something that she needed and that she would continue to make certain that her family always came first in her life.
Her devotion to me and to the children was, indeed, admirable. Yeah.
Once the kids were in bed, I went to the refrigerator and got out a bottle of Andrea’s favourite white wine and got myself an IPA. I poured them and put them on the dining room table. It was the same thing that Andrea had done a few weeks ago when we had had out ‘talk.’ I went to our home office, where she was doing something on her laptop and stood in the doorway. “Andrea, could you come out to the dining room please, we have to talk about a few things.”
Her head snapped around to look at me and I turned and walked away. A moment later she came out and I was already seated at the table. When she sat down, she looked a bit pale and I slid the glass of wine over to her. “You might want this.”
Andrea picked the glass up and took a small sip. “What do you want to talk about Sweetie?”
I took a small sip of my beer and then I started. “A few weeks ago, you surprised the hell out of me with your admission that you were having sex with another man. Since then, you told me that you intended to continue. I have to be very honest with you and tell you that I still haven’t wrapped my brain around the idea of sharing you with another man.”
“You’re not sharing me with anyone, John. I’m your wife, and you’re my husband. That’s it. What I do once a week with Rob is purely outside our marriage. It’s strictly recreational. No different than you playing racquetball with someone other than me.” She took another drink.
“I understand that that is the way you look at it. But I don’t look at it quite the same way. To me this is about intimacy, that I think should only be shared between you and I.” She started to say something but I held up my hand to stop her. “Let me finish please.”
She took another drink.
“I have been to see two different people to help me deal with this issue and I have to tell you that a big part of me wishes that you had never told me that you were having sex with this guy.”
“You mean Rob?”
“Yes, him. Are there other men? I’ve never asked you that. Do you have more than one boyfriend?”
“No, Dear. He’s the only one.”
“Have there been others, before him?”
“No, Dear.”
I looked at the large grey envelope on the table that held the document that Roy had prepared. I took a large drink and exhaled as I made a mental note to get my children DNA tested to see if I was actually their father; who knows, she could be lying to me.
“What’s in the envelope, Sweetie?”
“I’ve been to see my lawyer, Roy, you know him.” Immediately Andrea’s expression got very serious and she paled just a bit more.
“I went to see him and a marriage counsellor. Both recommended that we have some sort of written agreement between us that would give us both some ‘guardrails’ to operate within, for our marriage. The marriage counsellor told me that more and more couples are using this sort of agreement to bring out in the open many things that get left unsaid between them. When I first started to read about this, I was certainly floored by just how specific this sort of thing can be. It talks about lots of things that we don’t actually talk about!”
I took another drink of my beer. I wasn’t really sure that a Relationship Agreement was what we needed and I wasn’t at all certain that Andrea was going to go for it, either. But frankly I didn’t know what else to do, other than stick my head in the proverbial sand and ignore everything that she did. Could I do that? Could I just ignore what she was doing with another man? I knew that it would ultimately fester and eat away at me to the point that I would just lose it and do something stupid, like try to kick her to the curb, or hurt her and him in some way.
I had let Roy, and the marriage counsellor, try to convince me that using this Relationship Agreement as a tool to try to get Andrea to see just what impact on our marriage that her behaviours had created, would give her pause to re-evaluate just what she wanted. Would she decide to end her affair or would she decide to leave me and the kids? A third course of action for her might be to accept this agreement and then carry on with things just the way they were. If the third option was what she wanted then there were bigger consequences that she would see later on.
This Relationship Agreement, sadly, provides for a third party in the relationship. For Andrea, it gives her the ability to have her boyfriend ‘Rob’ on a regular basis, but she has to be honest with me and tell me what she is doing. I have to agree not to freak-out and do something to interfere with her and him.
The flip-side of this agreement is that I can do the same thing. There are consequences for what we both do, and this is one of them.
“So, I asked the marriage counsellor to put together this draft document and then I asked Roy to review it to make sure that this thing was fair to both of us.”
Andrea looked at me and then the envelope and then took a gulp of her wine. Her eyes were a bit wider and the expression on her face was…surprised.
I continued on, “Since you told me that you need…more than I can give you, I was concerned about our situation, as a family. I want to make sure, first and foremost, that the girls are the first thing in our minds for decisions that we make as individuals and as a couple. They deserve that and they’re my first priority, no matter what else happens with us.”
Andrea took another gulp. “John, you’re scaring me a bit, is this your way of saying that you want a divorce?”
“Oh, no! Quite the contrary Dear. I want us to stay married. I don’t want to lose you. I love you very much and want to keep loving you. I just want to make sure that the girls are protected no matter what we do.”
I paused. Not out of any dramatic necessity, but to take a drink. I needed it to keep going. “I know that things have changed a bit for you but if you’re agreeable, I want this agreement for both of us to give us some rules to operate within so that the girls have a mother and father and they see us being just that. I want them to have a stable family to grow up in.”
The look on Andrea’s face brightened quite a bit. “I was a bit worried that you were telling me that you wanted a divorce. You know that I love you. You know that the girls and you are the first thing in my mind all the time.”
I thought, how could she have her family at the top of her priority list on Thursdays when she was fucking her boyfriend? That didn’t make sense at all. I looked her square in the eyes, “Thank you.”
After another short pause I forged on, pointing at the envelope, “So, this is a draft Relationship Agreement. I want you to look at and tell me if this is reasonable. Everything in here is negotiable. Anything can be changed. We just have to agree to what it is.”
Andrea frowned slightly, “Do you really think that we need a written agreement to manage our marriage? We’ve managed well for the last eleven years and three children, without one.”
I looked square at my wife, “Since your revelation to me a month ago about ‘Rob’ and your intent to keep having sex with him, I thought it best that we set some rules. I mean, if you want to keep seeing him, or someone else, and if you want me to keep agreeing to it, then I think we need to make sure that our marriage pays attention to those things that give us stability. I mean, I don’t…I can’t…I can’t just sit here and not say something that lets you know that I’m concerned about us. About our future as a couple and as a family. I just can’t do nothing to protect what we have.”
********
Andrea
My god, I had no idea that John felt that threatened by what I was doing with Rob. It had nothing to do with him. I took nothing away from us to give to Rob. Rob is just sex. Mindless, yes. But, good for me. I tried to dismiss it, as if it should mean nothing to him. And I didn’t want it to mean anything to him. I wanted him to not think about it at all. I’m John’s wife. I love him. Full stop!
Now this whole thing has started to get out of hand. I know for the last month that John has been cool to me. I thought that once he forgot about it, that we would get back to normal. I know that we haven’t been intimate in any real way for the last month. I realized right then that he hadn’t so much as touched me unless we were with the children. And then only as little as possible. Oh, fuck!
We haven’t had sex for a month. Oh, oh! What the fuck does that mean? Is he afraid of me? Is he pulling back from me? Is he pulling away from our marriage? Is all this a lead-in to kick me out the door? Jesus!
I need to do some damage-control now, before this whole thing gets away from me. What the hell is this relationship agreement thing he has?
*********
John
“So, Andrea, I want you to look this over and then we should talk about it. I want us to agree to everything before we decide to live by this agreement. What do you think?”
“John, I don’t need some piece of paper to tell me that I love you and our daughters.”
I looked at Andrea, “And you know that I never figured that I needed a piece of paper to tell me that I loved you. But when you brought another man into your life, and my life, well that changed things.” I let that sink in for a bit and took a sip of my beer. “I need to know a few things. That includes knowing what you’re your long-term intent is. Are you planning on eventually trading me in for a new guy? Are you looking to move on, at some point? This thing you have with ‘Rob’ has got me very confused, Dear. Part of me says that you feel that I’m not good enough for you anymore. I don’t fulfill you enough.”
“Oh John, no! That’s not it, at all. We talked about this before. Rob is just something that I need to scratch an itch that is…just there, and we have so much to do as a couple and a family that it just doesn’t get touched. That’s why it’s during the afternoon. I scratch the ‘itch’ and then get cleaned up and come home to my real life and family. I’ve never, not even once, given any thought that I want a different life than I have with you and the girls. I’ve even thought that we should have more children.”
That surprised the hell out of me. “What?” I took a drink. A million thoughts shot through my brain in an instant.
“You want more children?”
“I think it’s a possibility. We need to talk about it, but what’s wrong with making our family bigger? You and I love children. Our daughters are the centre of our lives. Have you ever thought about a son?”
I was taken completely off guard by this announcement by Andrea that we should have a fourth child. I mean, when would we, she, find the time to wedge in another child. She was already very busy with her work as a real estate agent and on top of the three children we had now, how would she deal with being pregnant. Oh wait, was this her way of saying that she was already pregnant? Fuck. And was Rob, the Thursday afternoon itch scratcher, the father?
“When would you want to have this baby?”
“We could start any time. Hell, right now is just as good as any. Let’s go.”
Andrea put down the wine glass, grabbed my hand and pulled me towards our bedroom. It wasn’t Thursday, so I wouldn’t be getting sloppy seconds. The sex with my wife was always great, but this night she put in an extra effort. We started out in the shower and then moved to the bed and then all around the bed for what seemed like hours. The sheets and the duvet were on the floor in a tangled mess when we finished. I was physically exhausted and in a state of confusion.
**********
The next day
At breakfast I told Andrea to take the envelope with the Relationship Agreement with her and have a look at it. I still wanted to get a few things sorted out before she carried on with her ‘Thursday’ activity. I wanted there to be some recognition that there might be some consequences. That we couldn’t just pretend that we had an open marriage and everything would be hunky-dory. Nope.
********
“Relationship Agreement
This document is a Relationship Agreement between Andrea Stewart and John Stewart. It is effective from the date of their mutual signatures and provides for the tone of their marriage and the relationship between them and most importantly those rules that they agree to live by for the betterment of the marriage given that they have three children and that they both recognize and agree that the welfare of the children comes before all other considerations in their marriage.
Both Andrea and John agree that the outcome of any infringement of this agreement will not necessarily result in the end of their marriage and relationship, but will signify the need for a review of this agreement and some action to correct their individual behaviours or they will both agree to a change to this agreement.
The items of this agreement are not necessarily in order of importance, and are not all inclusive of those things that comprise a relationship or a marriage, but are listed to draw attention to them and bring a measure of importance of them to the relationship:
— We agree to never threaten the relationship either in passing, during disagreements, arguments, or in the presence of our children, families or other people. Serious disagreements will be discussed in private between the two of us;
— We agree to take responsibility for our own individual emotional responses, our fears and anxieties, and for ourselves in general;
— We agree to consciously take time for ourselves as individuals (whether alone, with friends, and including on separate vacations, if we agree to do that);
— We agree to maintain a weekly, distractions-free, no cell phone, date night;
— We agree to remain growth oriented, while remaining patient with ourselves, and each other, and not expect growth to happen on any particular objective timeline. This recognizes the need to be cognizant of the others career aspirations and needs;
— We agree to invest heavily in our own individual self-care, in order to be able to bring our best selves to our relationship. This acknowledges that we individually have a responsibility to be healthy and fit, as much as possible, and to ensure that the impacts of physiological issues do not impact the other. Further, while we are in any sexual relationship outside of each other, we agree to be tested regularly for any possible sexually transmitted diseases and to report the results of the testing to each other immediately following receipt of the results;
— We acknowledge that we don’t necessarily make each other happy, but rather, that we bring our individual happiness to the relationship to be shared with one another;
— We agree to tell the full truth to each other, even when it’s difficult to do so;
— We agree to assume that the other partner always has our best interests at heart;
— We agree to allow the space for the three separate entities in our partnership: you, me, and the other relationship;
— We agree to have one day together per week where are phones are off and we can be fully present with each other, this is separate from the date night;
— We agree to engage with each other sexually a minimum of once a week;
— We agree to welcome and honour any and all emotions that come from each other, and we promise to do our best to not take those displays of emotions personally;
— We agree to de-escalate our fights with a “Time out, I love you” whenever one or both of us feels like we are too far down the rabbit hole of defensiveness/feeling triggered or scared;
— We agree to love and cherish every emotional breakthrough that comes up for us and to honour every tear that needs to be processed, in the safe space of our relationship;
— We agree to keep any and all of our birthday/anniversary/holiday gifts under a $200 value; and
— We agree to do our absolute best to uphold all of the intentions given in this agreement to the best of our ability, and we will be patient and loving with ourselves and each other when we will inevitably momentarily slip-up.
This agreement is an expression of intent and commitment to each other. It is not all encompassing and can be altered and changed through discussion and consent by both Andrea and John.
This relationship agreement is not intended to limit the commitment we make to each other. Our signatures below, signifies our intent and commitment.
John Stewart. Andrea Stewart
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Week 5
Andrea
This…relationship agreement, was a stupid idea. I don’t know why John listened to the lawyer and that marriage counsellor. Neither of them knew me, at all. I had met old Roy once and had never met the marriage counsellor. It was a woman and by all accounts she was of the opinion that I could be corralled, by this document that she helped craft. I didn’t need some ‘agreement’ to help me run my marriage to John. John was mine and I am his; plain and simple. We have children and we are a family; plain and simple. We’re staying together; plain and simple.
On the weekend I’ll sit with John and we can talk about this. I’m not living by some ridiculous written agreement to tell me what I can and cannot do.
**********
Week 6
John
Andrea did a full-frontal attack on Sunday and refused to sign the relationship agreement that I gave her to look at two weeks ago. We talked about it and I asked her to make whatever changes that she thought were appropriate. I told her that I wanted this to be something that would remind us of our responsibilities in the marriage. Also, if we were going to incorporate others into our lives in an intimate and sexual way that we needed to be very specific about what was allowable and what was not.
Andrea finally figured it out. She realized that having the ability to have sex outside our marriage was a two-way street. If she could do it, so could I.
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Week 10
John
Work and life are slowly killing me. I have very little time for anything for me. I need to get out for a run and blow off some steam. My tension level is slowly going up and I have to do something to get it under control.
My home life has been…cool, to say the least. My attempt to get Andrea on board with a relationship agreement got off to a slow start. Eventually, after some back-and-forth between us she, grudgingly, came to an agreement. It was dramatically pared-down from the original document that Roy drew-up for me. The agreement said that we would make room within our marriage for each of us to pursue extra-marital relationships as long as they did not interfere with the marriage and our family. There was to be no emotional aspect or romantic involvement. If that were to happen it would signal the end of the marriage and then the real fighting would start.
I quietly went back to Roy and advised him of the new agreement and asked him to put together a contingency plan for me to fight for custody of the girls should the marriage break down. He’s in the process of doing that now.
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Week 12
Andrea
My Thursday itch-scratching sessions are still going on and I plan to continue for a while longer. John and I are starting to have sex again. We had a dry spell there for about three months. It was terrible. I actually need my husband for more than he thinks. He thinks that I don’t love him, but I do. He loves me, I know that. That’s why he’s gone to all the trouble of visiting a lawyer and marriage counsellor and creating that ridiculous relationship agreement. I suppose he could have tried to force me out of the house, but he knows that it would only serve to harm the girls and create a lot of problems. No, I don’t have to worry about that.
What I do have to worry about is making sure that my husband is well aware of how much I do love him and how much I love it when he makes love to me. John is wonderful. He’s a great husband and a great father. What more do I need? Besides, my Thursdays are taking up the slack in our sex lives so that for now, my life is going well.
This weekend I’m going to fuck my husband to the point that he will know that I’m his and he’s mine. The man will be exhausted after I’m through with him. Yeah, then we can get back to normal.
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Week 16
John
I decided some time ago that I needed to do something recreational for myself. Separate from my family. I used to do a lot of running in university and for a while after and then life and family got in the way. I decided that I wanted to try my hand at kayaking and biking. So, I did some research and found a few local clubs that had meet-ups and had a good database of lakes, rivers and trails.
I invested in a Trek, mountain bike, and a 13-foot-long sit-in kayak. It has both a rudder and a skeg, to give it stability and manoeuvrability. I took two nights of kayaking lessons to get me started and started riding my bike early in the mornings and on the weekends.
Sunday last, we had a family outing day planned to go for a hike and a picnic. Just as we were about to go, Andrea got a call, from a client, that meant she cancelled out at the last minute. The girls and I went without her. We went in my Subaru Outback and I let Diane sit up front. She’s now plenty big enough to sit up front. She is so mature for her age.
We hiked for about three hours to get to the mountain look-off. I broke-out my good Nikon camera and the girls all got a chance to take photos. We ate our lunch and then hiked back to the parking area. There was a rain shower on the way down the hill but we had all packed rain jackets so it was no big deal.
It was after seven o’clock when we got home. Andrea was waiting for us. She had changed into jeans and a blouse and had some dinner started. We had a very nice family meal and the girls proudly displayed their photos on an old laptop that we have for that purpose.
The girls were all tired after a day of fresh air and exercise and so they didn’t argue much about having to double-check homework for school, getting washed up and then off to bed. They were all sound asleep by not long after nine o’clock.
Andrea fussed around the house doing some picking up and getting ready for Monday morning. Then she looked at me and said in a very sweet tone of voice, “I need your help with something in the bathroom in a minute, Sweetie.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
A couple of minutes later I went to the master bedroom and not seeing Andrea, poked my head into the bathroom. She was there, naked, and turning on the shower faucet. She gave me a come-hither look and stepped into the shower. She looked absolutely gorgeous. Even after carrying three babies, my wife of eleven years was still the woman that got me turned-on instantly. Seeing Andrea naked like that made me stop. I stood still and my face got a bit red thinking about some other man touching my wife, enjoying her body. And the hard part was that she wanted that.
In an instant I knew that I was in a very important competition. A competition to take back my wife from that other man and make her just mine again. If she wanted sex, well, by-fuck, she was going to get sex. And I was going to work like a demon to let her know that I was in this game to win. I also wanted sex. I was increasingly frustrated and even my increasing workouts weren’t able to reduce what I wanted. In fact, getting in better physical condition only made it worse. I needed to get fucked. I intended to fuck my wife.
Without saying a word, I stepped into the shower. I looked at Andrea like I was a starving man and she was supper.
The rest of the night was a blur for me. All I remembered the next morning was being incredibly satisfied. I fucked my wife for what seemed like hours. I ate her pussy until she was almost shouting for me to make her come and then just before she did, I stopped and mounted her as quickly and forcefully as I could.
I came in her pussy so many times that I my body couldn’t produce any more semen and sperm. My cock was almost raw from the workout it got. I fucked Andrea in every conceivable position and hole that she has. She sucked my cock at least three times and every time I shot my load in her mouth. I took her on her hands and knees, my old favourite, the missionary position, and even with her sitting in my lap with her legs wrapped around my waist. She bounced up and down on my cock until she damned near passed out.
I took her in her ass and then we showered again and then I fucked her on her back once more. At about four in the morning, I woke up and went to the washroom to empty my bladder and then came back to bed. Andrea was still sleeping and naked. She was on her side in the bed. I ran my hand over her hip and my cock was almost instantly hard, again. I slowly lifted her leg and the head of my cock was pushing against her pussy. She started to come around as I slowly entered her from behind. I took my time to slide into and out of her. I wanted this to be about what I wanted. I held her leg in the air and started to push in and out a bit faster. Andrea was fully awake by then and she was making little noises as I increased my tempo of pushing in and then slowly pulling out. With just the head of my cock still in the entrance folds of her pussy, I pushed back in, as far as I could get in her. It wasn’t long before I knew that I was ready to unload inside her. I was ready and with one final big push, I stayed all the way in and shot my load. I was gritting my teeth and my jaw was clenched as I came inside my wife. With that last final push and then exploding inside Andrea, I slowly pulled out of her, wrapped my arm around her middle and then fell off into sleep.
Monday is always a busy day at my work and this one was no different. I got off to a busy start to the day and concentrated on getting my many projects onward. That is, after all, how we make money in this business. A couple of times I thought about calling or texting Andrea, but didn’t; I got busy with other things and time marched on.
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Week 17
Andrea
Last week was the hottest sex that I think that I’ve ever had with John. My God, he was more forceful and demanding than I have ever seen him. Normally, he’s very loving and makes sure that sex is love-making. I feel cared-for with him. I’m the centre of his universe. When we make love, its slow and tender. We take our time with each other and at the end we are…well, I know that he loves me and that he knows that I love him. He is my world. He and our three daughters.
This past Thursday, I was actually comparing John to Rob. Rob is slightly taller but certainly no better in the sex department that John. I don’t have sex with Rob for love. I have sex with Rob because he is somewhat dominating and I like to be dominated, to a certain extent. I like the urgency of Rob. He wants control. I pretend to give it to him. I’m really in control and that part is what feeds my psyche. I can control Rob so easily to get what I want.
My husband is another deal altogether. He and I are a team. I don’t take control from him so much as share it. We both have things that we’re good at and so we divvy-up the work of being a family so that we get it all accomplished with a minimum of fuss. For the most part. We’re not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but we do all the important things that we need to do, first and foremost and then we plan for the fun bits. Sometimes the plain facts of life get in the way and there isn’t as much fun as we would like. That includes sex with John. At the end of the day, both of us are usually exhausted and so we end up in bed, with him behind me and his arm around me. That, to me, is really comforting, having my husband tucked up behind me and knowing that this man is mine.
Having a side-thing with Rob scratches the itch that John isn’t able to scratch. And by the time that night rolls around during the week, who has the energy. Damn it. So, I need Rob. To fulfill my greedy needs. It makes me happy and a better wife and mother. I come home on Thursdays happy and with a smile on my face as I greet my husband and children. Thursdays give me the boost that I need for the week. Then it’s back to the reality of life, family, work and the other things that need to be done.
I can’t wait until the weekend and John and I can make love. I want him inside me so much that it’s all I can think about all day Saturday. The girls are our priority for most of the weekend, but after they are in bed it’s time for John and I to have fun. My nipples are hard just thinking about him.
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Week 22
John
My bike meet-up group is having a weekend ride. It starts from a place about an hour outside the city and is on a series of trails and roads out in the country. I’m planning to go and have signed up. They’re having a supper on the Saturday night and a big meet-and-greet kind of thing after. There will likely be a beer or two consumed by most. I’ve been trying to stay away from all alcohol for the last few months. Both to reduce the excess calories and to make sure that I keep control of my emotions. When you’re angry or upset, alcohol is not your friend. So, better to stay away from it and keep my wits about me.
Overall, my fitness level has increased quite a bit. I’m still running almost every day and by adding the biking I’ve really increased the strength of my legs. I noticed that my pant legs are tighter than they used to be so I got a couple of new pairs to pants that are tailored for a more athletic build.
Just about a hundred people signed up for the weekend ride, so it should be a great time.
Andrea
John is spending more and more time out of the house riding his mountain bike and kayaking. He gets up at 5 AM and runs for over an hour and then showers and gets ready for work. His breakfast consists of some fruit and yogurt and a cup of coffee. I walk the kids to the school bus stop and then head to work. John will normally be here when the kids get home, or they go to the neighbour’s house. We have an arrangement with them so that the girls can go there for the hour, or so, until John or I get home.
This weekend John is heading off to a group ride thing somewhere out of town. He told me that he is leaving on Friday and will be home about 7ish on Sunday. A new bike got delivered here on Wednesday. It was dropped off by a bike shop. I was here when the guy brought it to the front door. It’s red. That’s about all I know about bikes. When John got home, he dropped everything, got changed into his riding clothes and immediately took it for a ride. An hour later, when he got back, he was smiling and raving about what a great bike it was.
John
I had a great time this weekend. My new Trek Marlin 6 is a fantastic bike. The pace was very fast and the terrain just about killed me. I was sweating like a dog (do dogs sweat?) and starting to cramp-up a couple of times when I was pushing it hard. I wiped out on a turn but luckily both me and the bike escaped with only minor scratches. I had a flat tire on Sunday morning. The support truck was close by and I got it fixed pretty fast and got back in it.
Saturday supper was a buffet at the hotel where we all stayed and there was a bonfire after. I did have a beer. It was an opportunity to talk to a lot of the people that I see at the weekly rides and share riding stories. I met Jane and her sister Judy. Or Judy and her sister Jane. Either way, they’re both in their early 30’s and are very good riders.
Judy lives with her boyfriend, who works for a company that makes skateboards and market them to dealers. She revealed that they’re actually made in China, painted in a warehouse in some part of the US and then shipped out to retail stores and sold online. Jane indicated that the guy is a bit of a flake. Judy scowled at her sister. Judy is an elementary school teacher.
Jane is a new lawyer working for a firm in the city. She is single, again, since her marriage blew up two years ago. The guy, one day, decided that he wanted other things than Jane. She didn’t say that much but if I read between the lines correctly, I figured that she had made a mistake getting married to the guy and a divorce was fixing the mistake. Aren’t all divorces about fixing mistakes?
Anyway, I enjoyed the weekend. Particularly meeting Jane and Judy. Especially Jane.
**********
Week 25
John
It’s starting to get cooler at night now that Fall is almost here. The kids are back in school. My work is ramping up with some new projects. I discovered that the law firm that my company uses is the same one that Jane works at. Her full name is Jane Francis. I also found out that she’s doing a rotation in contract law. I saw her at a meeting in the building where my office is located. She spotted me passing by the conference room that they were using and waved at me. I caught her out of the corner of my eye and for a second didn’t actually recognize her. She looked so different in a light brown business suit with her hair in a bun, as opposed to a biking outfit and her hair in a ponytail. She had some light makeup on her face and immediately I was struck by how gorgeous she is. She cleaned up really well.
I wrote a quick note ‘If you have time, I’m in an office on the 4th floor (just ask for me) and I can buy you a delicious lunch of a sandwich and a coffee from the 4-Star coffee shop downstairs.’ I also wrote my office phone number on the note.
As quietly as I could I opened the conference room door, walked in, and put the not in front of Jane. She looked over her shoulder at me and then I left without interrupting their meeting. An hour, or so later, I heard a knock on my open door and she was standing there. “So, I hear that through a reliable source (she was waving the note) that a girl can get a sandwich and something to wash it down with, close by.”
I stood up and grabbed my jacket, smiling I said, “The tuna sandwich is especially great and if you don’t like tuna, they have an egg-salad that is top-notch.”
On the way to the Deli, I complemented Jane on her different look from the biking clothing that I normally see her in. Mind you, the biking shorts that she wears are spandex and hug her ass like a second skin, so I know just how great her bum looks. The skirt she was wearing now was quite modest by comparison.
Lunch was just talk between two biking acquaintances. A couple of the people that I work with came in to get food and I could see that they were looking over at us to see if they could see something going on. I was sorry to disappoint them.
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Week 27
The biking club had its final event for the year. It was a 100-mile single-day event. It was mostly on road but with about 15 miles off-road. Most of the actual roads were dirt and so with those conditions and the off-road part you were guaranteed to finish with a few pounds of mud stuck to you and your bike.
I wiped out four times, so along with the mud I had a few scrapes and scratches to contend with. Nothing like mud to disinfect your open wounds.
The bike performed really well without so much as a flat tire. I made a mental note to look at a more competitive bike for next year. Lighter, but lighter was also more expensive and I wasn’t prepared to spend the price of a small car on a mountain bike; just yet.
At the finish point, they had a crew with water hoses to wash off the bikes, and the riders, so I managed to shed most of the dirt. Jane finished just after me and we shared our stories of a challenging ride. She had wiped out a few times and had her share of scrapes. Her sister, Judy, finished ahead of us and she was already celebrating her top 20 placing. It was already cold and we all had foil blankets wrapped around us to keep warm.
There were a number of RVs there (there were quite a few racers who owned RVs and knowing what to expect from this event, they brought them to get cleaned up in afterward before the drive home) and Jane pulled my hand towards one of the bigger RVs. “Did you bring a change of clothes?”
“Ah, yeah.” I looked towards my car as a reaction.
“Well, go get your things.”
I walked my bike to my car, got my bag out, and put my bike on the rack. I didn’t even bother to lock it since it was one of the cheaper bikes that were here and it was unlikely that anyone would take it. I’d realized over the last few months that the true biking fanatics spent thousands of dollars on high-end bikes without so much a blinking an eye. Some of these folks would rather go without food than not have a top-end bike.
Jane was talking to the owner of one of the RVs and introduced me to her and her husband/boyfriend. They were about the same age as us and told us to go inside their RV and get washed up. They told us that the water tank was almost full, so go ahead and shower off. It was warm as we stepped inside. We peeled off our shoes and socks and I looked around thinking that this was really nice. Jane walked to the back of the RV and opened the door to the bathroom.
While I was pulling out some clean clothes she said, “Come here, John.”
“Just a second.”
I looked up and Jane was standing there naked. “Get your dirty shit off before I turn on the shower. The two of us will get in at the same time, to save on water.” She had a very sly smile on her face. I didn’t know what the fuck to do. And then it all hit me in an instant.
I quickly got undressed.
Jane turned on the water and stepped into the shower stall. The nozzle had a shut off valve on it and she pointed it at the wall and adjusted the water temperature. She reached out and pulled me in to the shower. Suddenly I’m standing, naked, with a beautiful, and muddy, woman in a stranger’s RV and taking a shower with her.
You know what happened. Yes, I got an erection. What red-blooded heterosexual male wouldn’t. I was rock-hard in a matter of seconds.
It was a tight fit for the two of us in the shower. Jane used the shower wand to wash her hair and then pointed it at my head. There was a swirl of mud going down the drain. Then she turned and asked me to wash her back. Oh my god. My dick got harder. It was almost embarrassing how hard it got.
“Turn around and I’ll do your back.” I turned, my shoulder rubbing against her breasts. She washed my back. I could feel her hands rubbing my neck, shoulders, back and my ass. Her hand came around and grabbed my cock and she stroked it twice. “Gotta get that clean too,” she laughed. “Turn around.”
As I turned, my cock was pointing straight up. She said, “bend your knees just a bit.”
I did that and Jane grabbed my cock and pointed it at her pussy. She stood on her tip-toes and in a second, I was inside her. She wrapped her arms around my neck and we were kissing. Our tongues duelled as her breasts were pushed against my chest. I had my arms around her middle and was cupping one of her ass cheeks in my hand. I pulled her towards me and worked my cock in and out of her as much as the confines of the RV shower would allow.
I was in a fog as I realized that I was having sex with this beautiful woman that I had secretly desired now since meeting her in the summer.
It didn’t take long for the passion of the moment to push Jane to orgasm. She whispered on my ear “I’m about to come, don’t stop.” I stepped up the pace as much as my limited space would allow. The shower wand had dropped to the shower floor when we started. Jane’s back was against the end of the shower and my ass was touching the opposite wall. I could feel the hot and cold knobs digging into my back; but right at that moment I didn’t really give a shit.
Jane’s chin was resting on my shoulder and she whispered, “Oh yeah, keep going, don’t stop!” I kept going as long as I could and then without any ability to change the course of my life in that instant, I started shooting my load inside Jane. “Oh Fuck, I’m coming, I can’t stop, I have to, come now!”
She was gasping and said “I’m coming, I’m coming, keep going!”
I heard some knocking on the RV door, “Hey, you two, don’t use all the water, some others want to get cleaned up too.”
I shouted back, “be right out.”
We did turn on the water for a few more seconds and rinsed-off a final time. We got out of the shower, dried off and got into our clean clothes. We both quickly packed our dirty stuff and went outside to the smirking looks of the couple that owned the RV. The look he gave me said it all; ‘you lucky bugger’ and ‘what the hell’ all combined in one knowing look. What he actually said was, “I hope you enjoyed the shower?” I just nodded and replied, “thank you very much.”
It was announced that there was an informal gathering for food at a pub not far away and that anyone that could was encouraged to join in. I just looked at Jane and she looked at me and said, “we’ll be there.”
After making sure that I had all my gear secured and stowed, I got in my car thinking to myself, ‘what the fuck just happened?’ I let out a big breath and realized that I just had sex with one of the few women in my life that I was truly mesmerized by. Andrea was the original, but in the heat of the moment with Jane, I had not given her a second thought. Was this how she thought about me, or more likely, didn’t think about me, when she was having sex with her boyfriend? Wow, I didn’t know at that exact moment, but I did realize that my life was eventually going to change.
I drove to the pub and went in. The place was starting to fill up with people and they were loudly exchanging war-stories of their ride today. Stories of wipe-outs were the biggest hits and got lots of laughs as people showed off their, in some case, still-bleeding arms, legs and faces.
My cellphone was turned off so I figured that I should turn it on and send a message to Andrea to let her know that I was stopping to eat before I left for the drive home. I would likely be quite late getting back and to put the kids to bed and not wait up for me. She texted back ‘okay’ and asked how I did in the race. I told her that I finished it and sent a picture of the scrape on my leg. She sent back an ‘unhappy face’ emoji and said ‘drive safely.’
After a meal and two Cokes I figured that it was time to hit the road. Jane was nearby and she looked around and realized that Judy had abandoned her. She asked if I could give her a ride home.
On the drive Jane wanted to know more about Andrea. I didn’t know where her questions were leading to, right at that moment, but I also realized that I had little to lose by talking about my life.
We talked. We both talked about our lives. I told her about my three daughters. How they were the singular most important thing in my life. But I also told her that I had realized last year that my life was passing me by and that I needed to do some things for just me. That’s why I took up biking and kayaking. I needed to get out, work up a sweat doing something other than yard work and challenge myself. I stayed away from talking about Andrea as much as I could. The last thing that I wanted to talk about was that my wife was getting fucked by some other guy on Thursday afternoons.
When I pulled into the driveway to Jane’s condo, I got out and got her bike off the bike rack. She got her bag out of the back seat and stood looking at me. “Would you like to come in?”
I knew that if I did go in, what would happen. Right at that very second, I wanted it more than anything. After what seemed like an hour, but was only a few seconds, I nodded ‘yes.’ Without turning her head, she pointed to the right and said to “park over there.”
**********
Week 34
Andrea
My Thursday activities have been continuing. I really enjoy the couple of hours that I spend with Rob. I try my best to not let my indulgence with him affect the rest of my life. I try to be a good mother and a good wife. I love my children and I love my husband. He works very hard to make sure that his family are well taken care of.
I have noticed for the last few weeks that John has a bit of a different attitude. It’s subtle, but it’s there. I didn’t really notice anything until about a month ago. And I wouldn’t have noticed then except that I have a mental checklist that I go through after my time with Rob and make sure that there are no tell-tale signs of my time with him.
I began to see some similarities. John is a very serious sort of guy. Always focussed like a laser on his objectives and rarely gets distracted. Because of his serious attitude, it’s sometimes hard to get him to be relaxed and carefree. He does be like that, but in a very controlled way. The wild and crazy side of him comes out infrequently and only in circumstances that he thinks are appropriate to be that way. Consequently, my girls are always trying to get him to laugh at silly jokes and antics. John does laugh at them, but the girls know that their dad is a pretty serious man.
But lately John has been smiling much more and making jokes with the kids and trying to play jokes on them. The girls love it. So, what’s going on?
John spent a lot of the summer and fall biking and kayaking, but now the weather isn’t good for either of those activities. He still gets up early in the morning and runs for an hour. Is that it? Is that making him happier? Our intimacy level has been…less than what I would like. What’s going on? Oh, Fuck!
I just realized it. He’s found another woman that is giving him what he thinks he’s missing with me. Fuck!
**********
Week 36
John
I had some time in the afternoon and planned to meet up with Jane at a diner not far from my office. We go there regularly, for a quick bite to eat, and then we go to her condo. It’s the highlight of my day when we get to spend some time together.
I hate to say it, but I see what it is that Andrea enjoys with her weekly visit with her boyfriend. No wonder she comes home happy. I know that I come home happy. So, we’re even. We’re both getting what we want.
I do wonder just how long this will go on. I mean, at some point Jane will get tired of recreational sex with me and want to move on to a man that can make a commitment to her. And I couldn’t blame her. Just look at her; she’s gorgeous, very fit, and a class act. The woman has it all.
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Week 40
Andrea
Not long until Thanksgiving and our time with my family, my parents that is. They live about an hour’s drive from here and we see them quite often. Thanksgiving and Christmas are two times of the year that the girls enjoy their grandparents. They get spoiled with all the treats and sweets they can handle.
John has been noticeably happier lately than I can recall in the last couple of years. He barely touches me unless the girls are around and the sex we have is not love-making. It’s fucking. John is not the tender and caring man that he used to be. He’s much more physical than he used to be. Now, it’s his chance to take out his frustrations on me by jamming his cock in m pussy as hard as he can. Now, his favourite position is when I’m on my hands and knees and he holds my hips as he slams his cock in me. As well, he makes a point of starting by pushing my head to his cock to suck him. He always wants me to take him in my mouth to start and finish. He likes to have me swallow him with his cock deep in my mouth. It’s hard not to gag, sometimes. John bought some KY lube and told me that he wanted to try anal sex. We haven’t done that before and I’m not sure just how much I’d like it.
But I promised John that I would never deny him. Is this the sort of marriage I want? Have I fucked it up to the point that the man that I love is going through the motions with me? Maybe Rob was a bad idea, after all. Maybe that ‘itch’ that I need scratched needs to be scratched by John. I need to figure out a few things. I hope I’m not too late to sort it all out.
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Week 43
Jane
I love the time that I spend with John. He makes me feel like I’m the only woman on the planet. He strikes the right balance with sweaty sex and love-making, that I need. I love the feel of his skin next to mine. His mouth finds all of the places that trigger my orgasms. My lips, my breasts, my nipples, my navel, my clit. Now that is the best. His mouth works its way down and up my body and I can’t get enough of him. I orgasm from the time that he touches me until I finish with his cook buried deep in my pussy and in feel him come. His cock pushes on my cervix and that makes me come even more. Some women find it painful when the man’s cock hits her cervix, but me, I just orgasm.
We spend a couple of hours together and then we get back to work and our lives. I know that he has a wife and children and I respect that he has to do what is best for them and him. I manage my expectations with John. I tell myself that I shouldn’t let this relationship get beyond the recreational; and so far, I haven’t.
I’m just not sure how long this can survive; for either of us.
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Week 48
Andrea
Christmas was a busy time. All the normal things that the kids love about Christmas meant that we took the time to spend with family and do the things that make us who we are. Lots of food, laughing and winter activities. We went skating and skiing. We watched a lot of movies and enjoyed leisurely days. Both John and I took a few days off from work.
I made a point of trying to reconnect with John. There had been a distance between us since the Spring when I had revealed that I had a weekly session with Rob. I tried to hold hands with him at every opportunity. He would hold my hand for a few seconds and then slowly drop it. I told him that I wanted to talk to him about ‘us.’
Two nights later, after the girls were in bed, John surprised me, pouring me a glass of wine and getting himself a rare beer. He has seldom had alcohol in the last eight months.
“Andrea, I have a question for you. It’s something that has been troubling me now since you told me about your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend, Sweetie. He’s just someone that does something for me once a week to satisfy a need that I have.”
John took a sip of his drink. He said in a very quiet and somber voice, “So, tell me, how have I failed you? What does he do for you that I don’t, or cannot? What makes you want sex with another man?”
He asks hard questions.
John continued, as he looked me square in the eyes, “What is the ‘need’ that you have that I can’t fulfill?”
Shit, what the hell do I tell my husband. I don’t even know why I do what I do. “It just crept-up on me over a long period of time. I began to want sex, with you, but it was during the day, when we were both at work and there was no way that the ‘itch’ was going to get scratched.”
I was looking at the floor and the table and the ceiling, trying to find the right answer to tell my husband that what I did with Rob had nothing to do with him and wasn’t a judgement on him. “I’d come home and there were the girls and all of the things that we had to do. By the time that we got the girls in bed, one of us had yet more work to do. Something kept getting in the way. I thought that I was having a nervous breakdown. I kept thinking about sex all the time. I wanted sex. I needed to have you between my legs and I couldn’t get you there when I needed you.”
I took a gulp of my wine and looked at John’s face. He was hurting, I could tell. John took a small sip. “Andrea, I have to tell you that even though you say it has nothing to do with me, I feel like it has everything to do with me.”
“No, Dear, you haven’t failed me in any way. You’re a wonderful husband!”
“So, why do I feel the opposite? Why do you think that you have to have sex with that guy, just so that you can feel like you’re…fulfilled, satisfied…happy? ”
I was quickly digging my own grave here. When I started with Rob, I tried to make sure that that-part of my life was well insulated from my family life. Rob understands that what we do is just casual and that there are no commitments between us. We use protection and we get tested to make sure that we don’t have anything that would endanger each other or my husband. Out time is limited to once a week for about two hours. But at the end of the two hours, I leave with a degree of satisfaction that carries me over to my husband. I’m able to be a better wife for him. I’m happy with the feeling that Rob is able to give me. I’m a happier wife.
I realized that it was all coming down. My carefully crafted life was crumbling right there and in this moment.
And then John threw me a lifeline.
“I don’t own you. I can’t tell you what to do. I can only tell you that what you do has consequences. Consequences for you, me and the girls. I can’t make you stop having your relationship with that man. I can only tell you that I…well, I will do what I have to do to survive. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a divorce or to separate or to live like we’re just friends under the same roof. I want my wife.”
He took another sip of his beer. “I want you back, all of you, but I’m prepared to take what I can get. So, if you’re planning on continuing on with your Thursday afternoon time with him, well, I will just have to adapt and get over it.”
Wow, I dodged that bullet.
**********
John
Andrea and I had a hard discussion about our marriage. I wanted to know what the hell was going on in her mind that drove her need to have sex with another man. How had I failed her as a husband and lover? What was I failing to do for her? What didn’t I see? Am I that clueless? Probably I am.
I also wanted to tell her that there were consequences for what she was doing. But at the same time, I didn’t want to threaten my own wife with something that I had no intention of doing. Divorce, separation, it all would look like I was giving her an ultimatum. And I didn’t want to do that. I wanted Andrea to change because that’s what she wanted to do. I couldn’t tell her that she had to change. I couldn’t tell her that she had to stop having sex on Thursdays with another man, or else. That wouldn’t work.
I fell back on the relationship agreement that we had.
I was almost going to tell her that I too, was getting something that she couldn’t give me. I too, had decided that I needed something else. I too, well…I was enjoying the ability to have a relationship with another woman who wasn’t judgmental of me. I wasn’t sure just how long it would continue, but right at that very moment, I was satisfied with the fact that I knew Jane, beyond being a biking friend. She had become, for me, someone that I was able to share intimacy with, maybe only for a few hours a week, but certainly it was something that I looked at as being good for me. If it worked for Andrea, it would work for me.
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Week 52
John
It’s been a year since the great revelation. That’s what I call it. A year since my marriage changed. Not all for the better, mind you. But it did change. The change wasn’t my doing; well, not all of it. Some of it was because of Andrea and then later, some of it was because of me.
Andrea had revealed her secret lover to me. But I hadn’t revealed my secret lover to her. There was some measure of payback there, I suppose. I was sad that she felt the need to have a lover in the first place. It said to me that I wasn’t a good-enough husband to keep my wife satisfied. Oh, she swore, up and down, that it didn’t have anything to do with me, but I know that it does. She might be trying to save my feelings, but really she’s just avoiding the consequences.
It took a few months, and the advice of a few others, for me to realize that for my own survival, I needed to make some changes in my own individual life. This was separate from Andrea and the girls. I started doing some things for just me. I still had all of my family commitments, that didn’t change, but I did make a point of taking time to do the things that made me feel good about myself.
I bought a mountain bike and joined a biking club. I bought a kayak and started taking lessons in kayaking and white-water paddling. I was running more. I dropped a few pounds from my middle and added a bunch of muscle in my legs and upper body. I even thought about taking up boxing, as a way to burn off frustration, but I figured that I would start with running and biking and work outward from there. It worked.
I also met a someone that was also a biking enthusiast and we hit it off. We have what I would call a friends-with- benefits relationship. We see each other at biking meet-ups almost every week, during the good weather, and we get together for lunch another day of the week and stop off at her condominium for a couple of hours afterward.
She has helped me deal with Andrea in ways that I couldn’t begin to explain. Andrea says that her Thursday sessions with her lover make her a better wife; well, my time with Jane makes me a better man. I’m still not sure it makes me a better husband. I think of it as ‘what’s good for the goose is good for the gander’ kind of thing. Or what was the popular phrase this year: Quid Pro Quo. Yeah, that’s it.
**********
Jane
Hi there. I have to tell you that a year or so ago, I would never have thought that I would be in any sort of relationship with a married man. I mean, only incredibly stupid women get involved with married men. Women who are looking for trouble of the worst kind. We’ve all heard stories of women who have affairs with married men and then get dumped when the woman gets too serious and expects the man to leave his wife. Really, is that an expectation that anyone with a brain would think is going to happen? Sometimes it does, but that is a rare occurrence. So, the best policy for single women is to avoid married men.
But that doesn’t always happen. Occasionally one of them slips past your defences and before you know it, you’re in a relationship with him. You think, ‘shit, how did that happen?’ But then, you go ahead and get involved. But you set limits for yourself. You think like a mature adult and you tell yourself not to let him work his way past a point where you think that he is something more than just a good recreational fuck. Friends with benefits. That’s a thing nowadays.
But after a while, when you get comfortable with him and you start to have pet names for him: Sweetheart, Sweetie, Dear, Darling, Hon, Babe, and a plethora of other names that your imagination can conjure, you get reckless with your emotions. You start to think in longer timelines and what-ifs. You start to make plans that you really cannot make come true in any concrete sense. You begin to fool yourself. But then you snap back to the here-and-now and remember that you are the ‘other woman.’ You’re the woman that he didn’t promise to love, honour and cherish until death do you part, or a court order says different.
But then you also remember why you got involved with him. That his wife is getting ‘it’ on the side with some younger guy with a big dick. So, who is fooling who here? Am I fooling myself or is his wife fooling herself? Is she being even more stupid by putting into jeopardy her marriage to him? Is she giving him away? Is she saying to him, and others, I’m starting to make my exit from this marriage? Marriage, to him at least, is not what she expected it to be. The life that she wanted isn’t coming real for her. The drudgery of a family and work and life is not how she expected to spend her life. Where is the excitement? Where are all the endless orgasms that she had when she was young and carefree and didn’t have endless commitments and demands and schedules to be attended to? Where is her life?
Wait a minute. Some people want that life. Some people want to have the banality of a family and the security of knowing ultimately there will be children that will look to you for…life, liberty and happiness. You’re the parent, the leader, the setter of the example. You’re the one that the family will come to for all the things that define what a family really is. You’re the stability that is the backbone of the family. The patriarch or the matriarch. The parent, the mother, the father; you’re the one that the children will come to for the rest of your life. What could be better than that?
I want that. I’m young and I’m healthy and I’m smart and talented. I have a lot of energy and I have a strong work ethic and a very good grounding in what is right and wrong. I’m probably too loyal, sometimes, and I like the security of a sure-thing. I like the idea of normalcy, regularity, to my life. I want to come home to a house of people that depend on me. But I also want to teach them to be independent. My mother and father taught that to me. It was a lesson well learned. But lately I’ve been feeling the need for closeness. Closeness of a family of my own. I want a child, my own. It’s time.
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Week 60
John
Biking season is finally here. I can’t wait to get out there, work hard, sweat, get dirty and have fun.
Andrea and I are still…managing to remain as a couple. Her career in the real estate world is keeping her very busy and she continues to rave about how great it is to be in the real estate business. I guess she enjoys her work. She’s out with clients at all hours of the day and night. I’ve long ago taken up the slack with the kids and spend evenings and weekends with them. We are busy with their sports and artistic activities and I swear that the engine of my car rarely cools off before 10 o’clock at night. When the girls are in bed, I get caught up on some of my work, tidy the house, load the dishwasher, take a shower and collapse in the bed.
Andrea and I are spending less and less time with each other. I know that she is still having sex with her Thursday boyfriend, Rob, or whatever his name is. I can’t really do anything about it. If I do take action, the biggest losers will be my daughters, and then me. But, right now, they see so little of their mother what will be any different? Even if I launch a divorce, she will still be working all hours of the day and night and I will be the primary care-giver.
Jane and I are still seeing each other. She’s an amazing woman.
What the fuck do I do? That question keeps pounding around in my brain. I need to get some perspective on all this.
*********
Week 63
John
My boss met with me and told me about a new project for the company, that he wants me involved in. It’s going to mean some travel away for two or three days every other week, for the next few months. I went home and told Andrea about the new project and her reaction was…indifference, to a degree. I mentioned that this was a possible path to a move up in the company, if I did well with this challenge. She merely nodded her head and kept on doing what she was doing at her laptop. I don’t think she was paying attention. After supper, on my way to one of the girls’ basketball practice I told them that I might be away, every once in a while, with work for a night or two.
“You guys are going to have to help Mum a bit more on those nights. You know, tidying up the kitchen and making sure that you get your homework taken care of. And not staying up later that your regular lights-out time.”
They all kind of laughed at that comment. My kids are good and I knew that they could be counted on to help out and do their part. My oldest, Diane, now 12 years-old, and seemingly going on 32, gave me a ‘Hmmm’ as we talked.
“Dad, does this mean that Mum will be getting babysitters to stay with us?”
I thought for a second, “I suppose she might have to from time-to-time, because of her work. But I hope that she doesn’t have to, very often.”
My daughter is a very smart little ticket and quickly came back, “Well, it’s not like we see her that much now.”
That comment by a 12-year-old stuck to me hard. She realized that she saw little of her mother. It wasn’t all because of her Thursday afternoon hook-up with what’s-his-name, but it was about her overall attention to her real-estate business and how it ruled her. In the back of my mind, I knew that I has to figure out what to do. At the very least I figured that I needed to talk to Andrea and make sure that she had a good appreciation for what the next few months would mean for her.
*********
John
My talk with Andrea went about as well as expected. She agreed that my job demands would be a good career opportunity for me and that she would, of-course, pick up the slack with the kids. She looked at me with an amazed expression on her face. “Don’t you think I know how to take care of my own children?”
“I’m not saying that at all.” I was a bit exasperated by her tone. “What I am trying, so ineloquently, to say is that you need to be prepared to spend a bit more time with the kids on those nights I’m away. That’s all. Just be aware that I’m away. I’ll share my plans well in advance and we can set up whatever help that we’ll need to take care of things.” I went on, “I know that your schedule is all over the place but you might sometimes have to reschedule or delay some things. That’s all.”
Andrea just nodded at me and went back to her cell phone and the text or e-mail that she was taking care of. And that was the end of that.
**********
Week 68
John
A few things to share with you that are important. I’m getting deep into my new project and while it’s a challenge I know that if I keep my focus on engineering and technology parts, I can do this and do it well.
I was meeting with my bank personal accounts representative and we were discussing all the normal things that we do twice a year. I was working to try and pay down the mortgage faster than the payment schedule called for. It would ultimately save a bunch of interest. Leeann mentioned that our ‘other’ account was doing very nicely and had a healthy balance. I wasn’t sure which account she was talking about; I figured that it was our investment account that I started three years ago. I put some money in it every month and invest it in the stock markets. She looked at me funny and said it was the account that we deposit bonus checks into.
My mind was turning over trying to figure out what the hell she was talking about. She reminded me that this was the account that Andrea makes deposits to. Not regularly, and never the same amount but it had built up over the last three years and now there was over $180,000 in the account. Then it hit me like a tractor trailer.
My mouth was open as I realized that Andrea was trying to hide money from me. The long hours were to cover the fact that a good portion of her commissions were being funnelled off and put in her ‘secret’ account.
Leeann was looking at her computer and suddenly her eyes got very wide and she realized that my name was nowhere on the account and that she had just violated some banking rule regarding customer privacy. She had the ‘oh-shit’ look on her face. She changed the subject very quickly and told me that the bank would be happy to drop the rate on my mortgage by another half-a-percentage point, considering how much they valued me as a client. I got the message. Say nothing about Leeann’s slip-up and save myself some more money. I was fine with that.
**********
Week 70
John
I’m back into the biking season and enjoying it even more. I splurged on a new, more high-tech bike. This one is a red Trek Procalibre, lighter than my other bike and ready for both trails and roads. It will let me take my rides to a new level. I’ve been working out to increase my stamina and am running up to 10 miles a day. I get up at 5 AM and run and then shower and get to work after I drop the girls at school. My old Subaru also got traded in for a new one that is designed and kitted-out for more off-road driving. Aggressive tires, black wheels and a dark green paint job along with some other things make this a really good adventure car.
Jane and Judy are back biking this season. Judy and her boyfriend split. He moved to another part of the country, someplace in California, to pursue his work passion; that and another girl that he had hooked up with. Judy is none-the-worse for it and seems happy. Jane is another story.
She and I are still FWBs and still having fun. But she is changing, in very subtle ways. Also, Andrea is changing in a similar, but different (if that makes any sense) fashion. I’ll try and explain as best I can.
I’m no psychiatrist, but if anything, the last year has taught me is to be extra observant of people. Now, I’m an engineer, and we, collectively, are frequently accused of being clueless when it comes to people. We’re good with machinery and technical issues, but when it comes to figuring out human psychology and what makes people the way they are, well…let’s just say we often miss the obvious. I mean, that’s why Andrea was able to fuck around with her Thursday toy-boy, and I never clued-in until the evidence fell out of her handbag. I wasn’t watching for anything. I didn’t notice the little things about my wife that might have told me that something was going on. But now that I was a bit more educated, I was noticing things.
First, I noticed that Jane was starting to be much more…intimate, with me. It wasn’t about the sex; it was about the level of familiarity that a couple shares. It was the little things; now she called me Dear; more often than she used my name. She knew me well enough to know the kind of foods that I liked and if we were meeting at a café or a restaurant, she might even order one of my favourites for me before I got there. She knows that I drink diet cola and once-in-a-while I like a beer, usually an IPA. She knows how much I weigh and what my clothing sizes are. She knows that I like both pop music and classical.
I noticed that Jane is making more-and-more references to others and their families. One weekend when I was with the girls, we went out to the RV show. Jane knew that I was taking the girls there and asked if she could join us. We had a great time exploring the campers and RVs and it gave Jane a chance to meet my daughters. After, we went to fast-food place and the girls were putting questions to her. I told them that Jane and I had met at the biking club that I belonged to. I told them that she was a really good bike rider and she is much faster than their father. They laughed at that. My oldest, Diane, even commented that their mother would never ride a mountain bike on muddy trails. That comment got me a tiny smirk from Jane; almost unnoticeable, but it was there. It was more of a ‘un-huh’ thing, than anything else.
On the way home, Diane mentioned that Jane seemed like a very nice person.
I mentioned earlier that I sensed that Andrea was changing, in very subtle ways. She was spending more and more time at work and booking new clients, well beyond her time availability. She had hired an assistant, a new agent, and given her the job of doing a lot of the paperwork. This gave Andrea more time to spend to meet people and supposedly to show properties.
Her time with me and the girls was becoming less and less. She worked most evenings and a good part of every weekend. Our intimacy was near zero. She rarely ate supper with her family. She would frequently get home late, shower, make herself a drink, and then launch into her laptop to do more work.
I tried to talk to her a few times, but she was always distracted by her phone or laptop. Just to find out if she was listening at all, I said to her that I had booked a three-week vacation for all of us to Europe, this summer. She nodded and gave me a ‘that’s nice.’ I knew then that it was time to take some kind of action. I needed Roy and his expertise, again.
**********
Week 73
John
I pulled out the relationship agreement that Andrea and I had signed, a year ago. This thing really was a joke. I mean, how can you negotiate a marriage that has any meaning? I think, now that it is almost impossible. I was in love with Andrea when we got married and my love for her grew after each of our daughters were born. I figured that I had the world by the tail. I had a near-perfect family and a growing career. We lived the good life and our future was looking good. So, what happened?
Life happened. That’s what happened. Did I take Andrea for granted? Did I ignore her to my detriment? Did I fail her as a husband? Did I put my priorities in the wrong order? Why did things get so fucked up? And the worst part was that my wife wasn’t interested enough to talk to me about our marriage, and when she did she dismissed my concerns, telling me that she loved me and the kids and that everything was just fine just the way it way. No, it wasn’t just fine. If our marriage was just fine there wouldn’t be Thursday afternoon ‘itch-scratching’ with what’s-his-name. There wouldn’t be the giant elephant in the corner of our marriage.
I decided to go and see Roy. He would know what to do, or at least have a better sense of what I should be doing. I took a copy of the relationship agreement with me.
When I got to Roy’s office, he greeted me with his usual warmth, which is to say his normal very serious expression. Even his handshake tries to convey confidence, but I’m not sure if the man ever actually smiles. “So, how are you, John?”
I sat down, “Well, where do I begin. I have been worse and I have been better. Last time we spoke, over a year ago, was when Andrea and I agreed to this relationship agreement.” I held it up to show him. He nodded as he said ‘Hmmm’ and held up his copy; I should have known. “Things have been going pretty much the same as they were before. Which is to say that she is still seeing some other man once a week. I’m seeing a woman once-in-a-while; she’s become a very good friend.”
“Hmmm, I see,” was Roy’s response to my opening statement. But did he really see? “Things in my life have become…complicated. I sense that Andrea and I are growing apart. She is more distant and preoccupied than ever. She is hard to talk to, by times, when she is actually home. She is working more hours than ever before and a few weeks ago I discovered that she had been putting money in secret account. There is likely over a quarter of a million dollars there. What the hell does this all mean?”
I pretty much knew the answer to my own question, but I needed to hear it from someone that had dealt with cases like this in the past.
“Well, John, all this is troubling, indeed. I think it’s time to bring in a person that can help to answer some of your questions. I have a very experienced investigator available to me who can help you get information that will assist in your decision-making process.” With that he reached over to his phone and buzzed his assistant and asked her to call Bob.
A couple of minutes later the phone buzzed and Roy answered and talked to his man Bob about some surveillance work. After a couple of ‘un-huhs’ Roy turned to me and said, “he’ll be here in about 10 minutes.”
After bob came in and introductions were made, Bob explained what it is that he does for a living. He also explained that he has worked with Roy, amongst many other lawyers, for a few years now. He also explained what it would cost to find the information that I needed. Basically, I wanted to know just what the hell Andrea was up to. I wanted a better degree of knowledge about her extra-marital sexual activities and about her secret bank account and what it was for.
Bob took notes. Lots of notes and I could see that he was making a plan. He told me that everything I wanted to know was possible to find out. He had the ability to discretely ‘find’ information that many of us take for granted is secure from prying eyes. I just wanted to know what the fuck my wife was doing. On the flip-side of that I suppose she might want to know what I know about her and what I was planning on doing. Fuck me, this is getting complicated and ridiculous.
I wrote a cheque to Bob as a retainer and after some further hand shaking, I left to ponder my future.
**********
Week 75
Two agonizing weeks have gone by and finally Roy called to tell me that Bob had a report to share with me. We scheduled a time for the next day to go over the information that he had managed to find, dig up, whatever. My gut was in a knot the whole night. I couldn’t concentrate on much, to the point that my girls reminded me for the umpteenth time that they needed help with some homework. I shook my head and tried my best to do what I had to do. Andrea wasn’t home, as usual.
The next day, I rushed to Roy’s office to find out what Bob had to tell me. After the greetings we got down to the reason for the meeting.
“Well, John, I have been busy doing what you asked last time we met. I have to tell you that your wife is a very busy woman. I’ll get right to the important parts. She is seeing two different men. She meets with each of them once or twice a week, no set pattern that I could find and spends a couple of hours with them at a time. Usually she is at the same address to meet the two men. I found out through the land and property registry that she owns a condo in a residential building close to her office. She bought it almost two years ago and has just about paid for it. She has a bank account, at that bank that you told me about, that has a current balance of $321,000. She is depositing 75% of her commissions from her work as a real estate agent. She’s made big sales in the last three years, mostly commercial stuff, and by the looks of her sales she is the top grossing agent at the company. They’ve offered her a partnership but she refused it. We can’t find a reason why she turned that down.”
Bob took a drink of water before he continued. “I have the names and backgrounds of the two men she is seeing. They’re likely the latest in her…history, with other men. Both men live in the city. One is married and has a family and the other is single. I get a sense that your wife is planning a move, of some sort, in the next few months. While I don’t have any concrete information on her exact plans, it looks like she is preparing for something. The hidden condo and the hidden money are all tell-tale signs that a person is planning for a big change. Just when she is planning on revealing that to you is unknown. It could be soon, it could be months or years or it could be never.” With that he looked at me and handed me a folder with his written report and the other information that he had been able to gather.
Roy said, “Good work, Bob. If we need anything further I’ll give you a call.” With that, Bob left us. I sat there dumbfounded that Andrea had expanded her extra-marital sex to two men.
“What the hell do I do, Roy?” I looked at him as if my life had taken a further turn down the road to hell.
Roy looked at me with a studied countenance, that said that he was likely going to suggest that he get the divorce paperwork ready to go. After some discussion, we agreed that divorce was likely getting closer; but I wasn’t ready to pull the trigger just yet. I still had my three daughters to worry about and I wanted to make very sure that I was in a position to have full custody of them post any divorce or separation. That was not a negotiable part of any of this.
Roy exhaled deeply and opened his mouth to offer his advice. “John, what do you want to do?” That was it? “You have a lot to think about, here. I recommend that you mull this over in your mind for a few days. There is no rush. If Andrea does something drastic, then we can get the divorce petition filed and delivered to her in a matter of hours. Unless you have major changes to make, I know exactly what you want and in fact, the documents are already drafted. All you need to do is call me and in a matter of a few hours, the poop will hit the propeller.” Roy actually smiled when he said that last part.
I nodded my head, thanked him and left his office. Indeed, I had a lot to think about. I would think of nothing else for the next three days.
All the while that I was thinking about what Andrea was actually doing, I was watching her closely to see if I could notice anything, anything at all, that was different about her. She still greeted me every time with a kiss on the lips and she still mothered the girls in the same way that she always does. There wasn’t a thing that I could identify that would explain the fact that she had bought a hidden condo downtown. I figured that she wanted it as a love-nest, of some sort. A place to hide her activity from me.
We still had that relationship agreement in place. I mean, we hadn’t actually talked about it for months, but I suppose it meant that she had the right to have a lover. That I had agreed to it. It also meant that I had the right to have a lover. That Andrea had agreed to it.
So, where does that leave us?
**********
Week 83
Jane
Okay, this is new. I stopped taking my birth control pills a couple of months ago when I made the decision that I wanted a child in my life. I really want a husband and father to go with that child, but for now I’ll have to make do with just the baby part. The husband part will follow, I think, when all the dust settles.
Now, I’m not stupid and I have resources available to me in the legal world. I also have lots of colleagues that are able to get me other resources when I want them. One of those resources was able to tell me that John had already contacted a divorce lawyer some time ago and had gotten the preliminary work done to put together the outline of the potential divorce between John and his wife, Andrea. I had made some discreet inquiries about Andrea and it wasn’t long before I knew pretty much what she was up to.
I knew that she had bought herself a place to live in the downtown, not far from her office. I knew that she paid cash for the place and that meant that she was squirrelling away money from John. I knew that this was the work of a woman who was planning on ambushing her husband. This was what people did to hide their true intentions.
I also knew that John was going to be the father of my child. He knows that I want a child. He knows that I want him to be the father. I want the man in my bed for more than just a few hours at a time. I want him there permanently. I don’t want to share him with another woman, a woman that wants more than one man in her life at a time to satisfy her sexual needs. I can’t for the life of me figure out why she needs that. John is all man. He is already the father of her children. The man is a tiger in bed and also knows how to make love to a woman. He can be rough and he can be gentle. I can’t get enough of him. He’s smart and talented and loves children. He loves me. I love him.
**********
Week 85
Andrea
Why can’t John just accept that I need more than him. I plan to continue to be a good wife to him and mother to our children; but I need more than what one man can give me. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s a craving that has to be satisfied in order for me to be happy. If I don’t get my craving satisfied, my itch scratched, my universe is not spinning the right way. When I do have my needs met, I function at a much better level. My brain makes decisions quickly. I’m making a shit-ton of money. The little place I bought downtown was to give me a more secure place to enjoy myself as I get my needs met with Rob and Tom. Oh yes, forgot to mention that Tom is also one of my afternoon pleasures. Tom is a new real estate agent at our company and just moved to the area. I’ve been letting him stay at my downtown place until he gets his own place to live in.
John and the girls don’t see any difference in me. I’m still his wife and their mother. I still love John and I know that he loves me. So what if I manage to get my other needs met in a way that doesn’t impact my family. John understands, he and I have a written agreement. We worked out the logistics of it all. I got to have my fun and he gets to have his. I’m not sure if he’s seeing anyone. With our busy schedules we hardly get a chance to talk at all most weeks. If he is seeing another woman, then that’s so much the better for both of us. I get mine, he gets his and we carry on with our daughters.
Someday, I’ll give it up and we will be just for each other. I know we will. John understands. I think.
**********
Week 92
Jane
The last few mornings I woke up and didn’t feel well. I normally love my morning cup of coffee to start my day, but lately the coffee has been going down and coming right back up. I knew what it meant. So, I stopped at my local pharmacy on the way home from work and picked up a test kit. It would confirm what I already knew. I called John to tell him that I was going to take the test and I wanted him to come over. He was at my door after supper, amazingly with his three daughters in tow. I suppose it was fitting that his children be there for the unveiling of the test to see if they were going to have a half-sibling.
John’s daughters were no strangers to me. We had done activities together many times in the last year. I knew them well enough to know about the activities that they were involved in and how they were doing in school. John’s oldest daughter, Diane, was, in my estimation far more mature than her 12 years. She was smart and had an ability to see and understand what was going on in her father and mother’s life. She was a keen a observer and knew that her family was slowly changing and that something big was in the works for them all.
After the girls got settled in the kitchen, I took John by the hand and we went to the bathroom off my bedroom. I pulled out the test kit and and said, “Okay, the moment of truth.” We both looked at each other and I sat on the toilet and peed on the test strip. After washing my hands I took the piece of white plastic and handed it to John. “Well, what does it say?”
John looked at for a few seconds and then, “What it says is that you, and I, are gong to be parents to a baby. Congratulations Mom!”
**********
John
Jane and I went to see her doctor and she confirmed that Jane was indeed pregnant. She calculated about six weeks. It was a signal to me to get my shit in order and do some things that were needed. It was something that was a long time in coming, but it was now very necessary.
**********
Week 94
John
Bob, the investigator updated me on what Andrea was doing with her stable of lovers. There really wasn’t any change in her behaviour. Now was the time for me to act.
I knew where her condo was located and had done a reconnaissance of it to see how to get in the place without being obvious. She had underground parking and you needed key fobs to get in the building and the parking garage. I went with the straight-forward approach, no need for subterfuge. I went to the building and waited until I saw her drive in. I gave her time to park and go up to her unit. I went to the front door entrance and scrolled through the directory until I found her name. She was listed as A. Leighton. She was using her maiden name. I rang the phone and waited for an answer. It took a couple of minutes but a man answered.
“Hello.”
“I’m looking for Andrea Stewart.”
“Ah, no one here by that name.”
“Yes there is. How about Andrea Leighton, then.”
“Ah…”
“Just tell her that it’s her husband. I’m John Stewart, in case you weren’t aware. She is the mother of my three daughters.” My frustration level was going up fast and I had to tell myself to be calm and not do, or say, something that would make things worse.
I could hear whispering in the background and and an audible ‘oh fuck’ that came through, loud and pretty clear.
“Just put her on the phone, or intercom, or whatever-the-fuck you’re talking on.”
There was a further delay and finally Andrea spoke. “John, what, what are you, doing here?”
“Never mind Andrea, just unlock the door so I can come up and we can talk.”
It took a minute but finally the door buzzed. I took the elevator to her floor and looked for her unit. I got there and knocked on the door. I could hear some muffled voices and figured that there was a lot of scrambling to get dressed and for her to try to figure a way out of the confrontation that was about to take place. Finally the door opened.
I was greeted by a young man with very big eyes. He was looking at me, clearly fearful that I had a violent intent. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to do anything to you. I want to talk to my wife and it might be best if you were not here. So, why don’t you go somewhere else for a while. I’m sure she will call you when you can come back.”
The man looked at Andrea and she looked back, “It’s okay Tom, go and get some coffee. I’ll call you.”
He looked at me with his worried expression and grabbed his suit jacket and left the apartment. I walked in and looked around the living room. After a few seconds, I gestured with my right hand, “nice place.”
Andrea was looking at me as if she was the cat that ate the canary. The look of guilt on her face told me pretty much all I needed to know. “Do you have something to drink?”
Finally she nodded. I said, “Why don’t you pour yourself something and I would like a glass of ice water, please.”
She was looking at my left hand like I was carrying a bomb or a big gun. I was holding a large envelop. Our future was in that envelope.
I took off my suit jacket and put it over the back of a chair and sat down. Andrea went to her kitchen to get her wine and I could hear ice being put in a glass and then the faucet running. She came back and handed me the glass of water. “Sweetie, why did you come here? Being here isn’t going to do any good for you.”
I looked at her with an expression that said ‘really?’ “You know why I’m here. Stop fooling yourself that you can be married to me, have a family and have two lovers, all at the same time, and there not be consequences. You’re not that unaware.”
She took a sip, a gulp really, of her wine. I looked her square in eyes. She was noticeably uncomfortable and looked at the table for the longest time. The silence in the the room was deafening. Finally she spoke. “What’s in the envelope?”
I was channelling my inner Roy and looked at Andrea with my sternest expression. I wanted her to be very afraid right then. “I’m really disappointed by you. I expected better. You took me for a fool. Last year I gave you what you wanted. I made it okay for you to have a boyfriend on the side. I looked the other way. I did nothing to jeopardize our family life. I went so far as think that eventually you would get it out of your system and we could be a regular family again. But…that didn’t go very far. You decided that I wasn’t the husband that you wanted. That our family life wasn’t what you wanted.”
Andrea interrupted me, “No, sweetie, that’s not it at all!”
“Oh come on! That’s bullshit, and you know better than try to sell that story!” I was getting worked up at that point. “If it’s not ‘it’ at all, then what is this place? Tell me.”
Andrea was looking at her hands.
“And then I find out that you’re building up your secret bank account.” Her head popped up like a jack-in-the-box at that statement.
“How, how, did you find out about that?”
“I have friends at the bank, too, you know.”
She stammered, “It was a fund for us to retire on and for the girls education.”
I gave her my incredulous look to say that what she was trying to sell was more bullshit.
“Please! Be honest with me. You fully intended to hide money from me. You have another life, here, with your boyfriend and your ‘itch-scratchers’ and it sure looks to me that you fully intend to bolt and run from your family. We hardly ever see you at home anymore. You come and go at odd hours, I guess I know why. The girls never see you. They’ve been asking me where you’ve been.”
The expression on Andrea’s face said it all — busted. She knew that her game had been exposed. She knew that the consequences of her decisions were coming back to her. Her game-plan was now out-the-window so she made the decision in an instant to stop tying to bluff me. She knew it would do no good.
She took a drink. “What do you want to do John?”
I picked up the envelope that I was holding and pushed it across the table to her. “Have a look.”
Andrea looked at it, for what seemed like an eternity, and then slowly picked it up and stared at it. She unwound the string that held the tabs at the top together and pulled out the contents.
On top was the relationship agreement that we had signed last year. I’d taken a black marker and made a line across the front page and wrote ‘VOID.’ She put that aside and then looked at the next document: Petition for Dissolution of Marriage. Andrea sat back in her chair and took a large drink of her wine. She looked up at me with a deer-in-the-headlights look that said that she didn’t really believe that this was happening.
She looked at the top page for a moment and sighed. I quietly said, “I’ve had my lawyer work out what is a very favourable resolution for both of us.” I paused for a few seconds. “It’s pretty clear to me what your intent is.” I left that hanging out there to see what Andrea would say. She was quiet. I pushed on, “The girls and I will stay in the house. I want to make sure that they’re as unaffected by this as much as I possibly can.” I let out a big sigh. I was waiting for Andrea to say…something; to react in some way, but there was only silence from her.
We sat at her table for a few minutes and then finally I had to push a bit, “Say something for god’s sake! What the hell is going on in your mind? Why are you doing this? I realize now that you don’t love me anymore, but at least your children! You must care about them.” I was pleading with Andrea at this point to say something. I needed to understand just what I had done to drive her away. How have I failed her as a husband? Nothing.
Without looking at me she said, “I won’t agree to a divorce. I still want you and my children. We’re still a family. This is all just something that I need. It’s separate from you and me.”
I laughed, “Really? You think that you can live here with your lovers and pretend that we still have a marriage? When was the last time you and I had sex?”
Andrea stammered a bit and tried to come up with a time. “It was just a few weeks ago.”
I grimaced. “No it wasn’t. It was months ago. In fact it was eight months ago. That’s how little time you spend with your family. When was the last time you had sex with Tom?”
I waited for an answer. There wasn’t one. “I’m betting you were just starting when I came here to your condo. I bet you had to get dressed before you let me in.” No reply.
“So, don’t give me your bullshit about loving me and wanting to to keep our family as your priority. Your actions speak louder than anything you say and you have told me and the girls, loud and clear, that we’re not your priority.”
I took a big gulp of the water. “So, have your lawyer look at the divorce agreement and talk to my lawyer, his card in in the envelope.”
I stood up to get ready to go. “I’m not going to say anything to your parents, so you can tell them whatever you want to tell them. Just don’t make me out to be the villain here or I will make sure that they get told the truth.”
I got to the door. “You have a week to get your lawyer to talk to my lawyer and then we file with the court.” I opened the door to leave, “You can call your boyfriend and tell him he can come back now.” I closed the door and went home to my daughters.
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Andrea
I don’t know how John found out about the condo and my secret bank account. I’ve been building it up now since I went back to work after our third daughter was born. I added most of my commissions and bonuses to the account and it wasn’t before long that I had over $400,000 built up in it.
I decided at first to buy the condo as an investment and when I was making Thursday afternoons a regular thing with Rob we started meeting there. There wasn’t much furniture there but over time I bought some things to make the place comfortable. When Tom and I started seeing each other and he needed a place to live, I let him move in there. I figured that it would only be for a few weeks, until he found a place to live, but it’s been a few months now, and he’s still here.
John surprised me when he turned up here with that damned envelope with the divorce papers. He wasn’t supposed to know about this place. I had my lawyer look at the divorce agreement and she was surprised that John wanted full custody of the girls. Normally in this state the courts give custody to the mother. She would try to get that fixed and threaten John with a counter proposal that would essentially bankrupt him once the house, mortgage, child support and alimony were paid. I didn’t tell my lawyer about my condo and other financial resources that I had. As well, I played down my income showing her only my official tax returns. I know that if the firm has to produce their records I will get screwed in the deal.