All Comments on 'Degrees of Separation'

My wife and I were enjoying a bottle of our favorite wine, when I hear her say "I love you" I replied " is that you or the wine talking" " Oh its me" she replied "talking to the wine".

This is to real, some other LW stories make the other option sound so sexy, or tolerable. I wonder if I could handle that, and I am sure I could not. Not sure why I like reading thes3 stories so much

"Nothing's changed honey. It's just that I'm getting older. At the moment I feel that I could have any man I want, just by flashing a bit of leg at him or giving him the eye. But how long is that going to last Mark? How many men are going to chase after me in another five years or so?"

Why should she care if men chase after her in another five years or so? Presumably she plans on still being married so what difference does it make?

Very well-written. If I was his age, I'd also probably attempt to talk my wife out of doing this. Being older and wiser, I would tell her (Once I had calmed down.) that I could not forbid her intended behavior but there would be consequences if she followed through.

that is a 180 and the choice is ????????TK U MLJ LV NV

Hi Brit,

I've loved all your stories. It seemed that your ending to Degrees of Separation was a bit of deus ex machina, a last minute wrap-up when you couldn't think of anything else.

Could I suggest an alternative? Just before the party scene, have husband suggest the following: neither one can tolerate cheating. Husband says, you can do whatever you want on this one condition. We enter this plan as equals. We first see a lawyer and file for a formal separation. After that is official I will move to an apartment; you stay in our house. We are BOTH free to date and party as if we had never met. We will create separate checking accounts, with 2000 each taken from our joint account to see us through to our next paychecks. We will not communicate with each other unless its a matter of actual life or death. And then only through our lawyer.

At the end of six months we will meet and see if we cancel the separation or carry it through to a no-fault divorce. That's the only way I could tolerate you dating - as if we had never yet met.

You are forgetting that you want to have an adventure while relying on me as your "rock" - a safe place to come home to. All the while I sit home crying, wondering if I will lose you- not touching you. You'd be killing me!

If we both decide to cancel the separation we will both see a clinic and get certified as free of any STDs before we even touch each other. If we decide to get back together let's then talk about whether we share our "adventures" totally or say nothing about what happened during our "single" days.

Will you agree to this or forget your idea entirely?

I'll leave it to you to develop these ideas further, but don't just leave us readers hanging!

Thanks!

Why is it ok for a Woman to explain away her behavior as a hormone imbalance, yet a man have a mid life crisis and he is some kind of low life bastard? Why is it that women don't seek out help, medical or otherwise, before making an ass of themselves? It would seem to me that the most valueable thing we have is each other and to throw that away without seeking help first is down right foolish.

Scottish men arnt that wishy-washy. A Scotsman would have walked at her first "I want other men" comment.

Maybe this is just an English thing.

The first exchange is enough for any sane man to say "you can go fuck anyone you want after we're divorced"

Your right its your story, but with that said its my rating

1/5 for a douchebag protag and being a douchebag author

When she told you she wanted a separation that was "woman speak" for she wanted to screw around for 6 months then come back to the safety of her marriage. And you don't THINK she cheated? How dumb can you be? And while I appreciate a good BTB story, a happy ending works too. Author's prerogative. I still think she did you wrong and your reaction was codswallop.

I do believe this story was worth * * * *.

While I cannot believe or align myself with the BTB crowd I am afraid I would have walked long about the first week of their exchange. Anything else leads to nasty ulcers.

I doubt I will ever understand the British male mind. All these stories make someone from my side of the pond think that British men don't have all that much between the ears. My father once told me "A stiff dick has no conscience." From what I gather from these stories (Britease you are not the only author like this) males in your country only have a dick for a conscience. Very weird indeed. Well that and the insistence that gold plated pussies do exist. But on the "Bright side" I do love your impromptu sporting events. One of my fondest memories on the Salisbury Plain was playing rugby with a pony keg at the RAAF Nether Avon NCO Club. And the Empire did retain honor against the Colonials. But hell, it was fun.

So why the mealy mouth stories????

Thanks for damning The Parachute Regiment with faint praise...

A good story well written,but what about the (temporary?) loss of Trust ?

That must surely rankle in his mind,read ''Cant buy my Love's'' comments, as he says it very well...

Finally,as a Paratrooper,the actions you attribute to The Parachute Regiment,would perhaps be better aimed at The Royal Marines...your one saving Grace is,you didn't trash my beloved Arsenal !!!.

It is good to read a story about reconciliation and not BTB. As in real life people do make mistakes, though in situations like this story it should be only the once !

As for the husband I think in the story he should believe her but verify as much of her story as possible.

Even go as far a DNA testing the children just to make sure.

Strangely enough a friend of mine his wife has made similar comments like the wife in this story. She meet him as a virgin and wanted to test other men before she dies. She goes out with girly friends who are a lot younger than her, and regularly comes home late hours of the morning. Mostly drunk by the way, so has she done the deed, I am not sure and I think her does not ask just in case he does not like the answer.

Oh yes, it does not help he has had 3 affairs in their marriage ! !

with only one really unbelieveable segment-There are no red double decker buses in Dubai for the para/bohunk to get run over by (are there?)

*****

Very suspenseful right up to the end, and nobody got hurt. Thank-you for restoring my faith (at least for now) with Brittan and it's inhabitants.

Or one just like it. It talks about the reproductive cycle in the human female. How there are four separate stages that can last anywhere from 18 months to 7 years depending on the situation. It starts with those couple who are so sickening in love it makes their mates want to toss cookies, and with in two years, they hate each other with the same passion, due to the lack of fulfillment in the reproductive cycle.

And you are very correct. In the states, you can't fling a dead cat without hitting some kind of headshrinker. They even have specialties, like pre, or post menopausal marital issues. Or like my wife, who has her mastery in Holistic Child Development.

Keep up the good words

Myhands316

This little passage in your story:

"Why the hell didn't you just go off and cheat on me and get it out of your system without me knowing for God's sake Julie? Why did you have to be so bloody honest?"

"I couldn't Mark, not behind your back," Julie mumbled quietly. "I couldn't cheat on you."

Actually she did in fact cheat on him. Mentally and physically. Mentally in even bringing the problem to light. Physically is follow a man out of a party where she allow him to kiss and feel her. Does this all rise to the level of divorce no by clearly the wife is in the wrong and must make all the moves to repair the damage. But the fact that the author has stated she didn't cheat is factually incorrect. I gave this a ****

Interesting bunch of comments, and I particularly like the humor from DeYa Ken and Fanfare - thanks. I really did think I made the point that hubby still wasn't 100% sure about the doctors advice being genuine, but decided to ride with it. I can't spell out every emotion in fine detail or it would get terribly boring, and surely have to leave something for the readers to interpret? Oh, and Harry, if you weren't so bloody rude all the time, then I might take some notice of what you say. Some of it does make sense, but you get so excited that it tends to come out as gobbledygook. Calm down a bit.

Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to your next submission.

But I feel I must to appease the woman-haters. Julie's actions as a faithful wife are COMPLETELY consistent. She was honest about her feelings from the start: check. She couldn't bring herself to cheat-both words and actions: check. She was honest about the bohunk: check. She was honest about wanting to go on a date afterwards: check. Everything about this story screams honest woman trying to deal with understandable urges.

The fact she also replaced those unacceptable urges with stronger maternal instincts is also believable. No, having a baby won't fix most problems--lack of communication, different goals, personality conflicts--this couple didn't have those. The wife had an urge for something different, which she got.

Wouldn't work for all (or most) couples, but it worked here-with the personalities the author constructed.

Well done.

Hormones being misinterpreted as desire for other men? A few conversations with a psychologist straightening everything out and saving the marriage? Would that it could be so. But I like happy endings as much as you, so five stars.

Just a couple of questions. Why was he still there when she came back early from the conference? Didn't you have him half packed and out the door? And why would he believe her story about the Doctor? A fancy piece of stationary and a phone call from some man? And he suddenly regains all his trust? Other than those questions, well written and entertaining. The Bitch doesn't have to be burned every time. You Brits do tend to have too much of the jolly ole stiff upper lip sometimes.

Now Brit, get real here! Obviously the BTB lynch mob know the story so much better then you, the actual author. And I love how they throw in all those extra details, no where to be found in your story.

My favorites being the flying saucer propelled by Elvis music that beamed up the wife and Judge Carter impregnated her with a tentacled monster that is at this very moment devouring all the Yew trees of England so none of you can make a longbow to defend yourselves against the onrush of Virginian virgins, rusty dragons and all the other anonymousie pests that threaten to overrun the digital age.

Interesting twist. Difficult to be original in this category; Britease has accomplished that and within a well-written story as well.

it makes it hard to categorize and have closure, TK U MLJ LV NV

Maybe this is 'Deus ex spermatozoa?'

The baby will cement your marriage ... better than Loctite! Runs contrary to majority of 'shaky marriage' cases, but not impossible. Anyway, that's the way BritEz wanted it, so there!

DeYaKen the issue I have with this story and it seems a good few others did as well is down to the little matter of a lack of trust.

Wife admits to wanting to take a break from her marriage to fuck around with other men, she admits to cheating on her husband with a guy at a party and while she chickened out at the last minute she had planed on fucking the guy. She also knew how much damage this had already done to their marriage but still she wanted to go to dinner with a guy from work. By this point it comes across that hubby is pretty sure at this point their heading to a divorce.

Then all of a sudden like a fairy godmother waving her wand, hubby is 100% trusting in her when she tells him that her one night chatting to a doctor has cured all the problems she caused to the marriage? No fucking way can trust be repaired so quickly and like so many commenter's mentioned a DNA test makes a hell of a lot of sense considering how the characters acted in this tale.

5*

Really Britease! How dare you say that you know more about what your characters did, than certain readers do. In the absence of a large number of witnesses it's obvious that the wife was fucked in the garden.

She went off to her conference and she must have fucked the doctor. How can I say that, simple. Her husband wasn't there to see that she didn't so she must have done. You can't take the doctor's word for it, even if he is a man,

I find it amazing that you don't realize that you wrote all that. I mean you didn't reveal the explicit tests our hero carried out to determine his wife's fidelity so she must have cheated.

You really must to grips with the fact that the words you write are no necessarily the ones that some folks will read.

Hubby is sure she didn't cheat,but it is narural to think otherwise.Maybe the story about the psych is true but she also had her fun,knowing she would then go home to hubby and have kids.Obviously Brittease wrote the story and I assume meant it to be read as written,but I can understand the comments,especially when she wants a break but doesn't want him to have one,classic storyline...that said,nice little tale,well written,enjoyed it.

This author hones his skill with practise. Branches out, experiments. Fucking wonderful storyteller. I'm taking a star off cos i'd prefer him to have a neutral voice rather than the belligerent Brit style. So that's only seven stars. Thanks for writing.

At one point her name changed ...

"What are you talking about?" Jenny asked

The happy ending was fine with me.

You are missing the point about the DNA. The DNA thing is symbolic of the issues the husband had with the wife. And once again you dont get it.

You did A GREAT JOB showing how the husband could not accept what she was asking or wanted to do.

But as I pointed out she did LIE -- even if by omission- about a few things. To then suddenly have the husband accept her story without ANY suspicions strikes some of us as being Inconsistent. No one is telling you HOW to write your ending.

I'm also a sucker for happy endings. This also was well written and very believable, especially the husband's reaction. I liked him confronting her at the party. Well done!

5* from me.

It is nice to see that Britease has been bitten by the writing bug again.. It seems to me that he did all that was possible to create a high tension ambiguous story. Personally I would have bailed the first night. If my wife wanted to take a vacation from our marriage then that would be a permanent vacation. As she pointed out, really once she said that all trust would evaporate. But, of course, that would not make a good story!

You pulled us one way then the other and did a good job. All the anguish and heartaches was well explained. Trust is something that is difficult to rebuild.

Never understood trust but verify. It's a contradiction in terms. If you have to verify it's because you don't trust. The minute you go down that road the marriage is doomed.

Well-written, complete story. Author built up a frustrating conundrum, ramped up emotion, then developed a nice twist. I call it a successful execution. Not sure if I buy the premise or not, but it is plausible so it doesn't matter. I think the epilogue made the story better and more complete in this case.

Trust But Verify. Happy endings are all well and good, but to trust her again so quickly after the stuff she said and did was a bit much, IMO. She might not have actually cheated, but still. Peace of mind would be worth a little DNA test, as far as I'm concerned.

Brit, I like your stuff, most of the time. You're a great writer. I just took a little issue with this one. Keep up the good work.

She was very clever, under any circumstances.

Was the baby his? I choose to go with Brit's story.

The guy at work - I wonder about lunches and the fact that she never brought him up again?

The party animal, I wonder if he actually did get it in her and if she stopped him for reasons of size or someone coming close to them...after all - she was hot to try something on the side and THAT we know because she repeated it over and over.

Thanks Brit, your usual controversial and very entertaining story telling. As for hubby, ignorance is bliss!

Then he would be as bad as she was - and would ruin the trust implicit in the resolution (and the trust issue was reiterated by the author, who seems to know what he wrote).

Good tale. I thought that it was a bit short, and deus ex machina for there to be a doctor in the house with just the right answer (and it affords little growth to the main characters, other than that of parenthood)... but still, much better than most.

Greensomething

the moment she started her wishes about leaving. The marriage was over then.

DNA??? I go to great lengths to point out that the first child was clearly conceive two months after the wife's aberration, and the doubters out there still shake their heads in doubt. If it makes you happy (I know it won't), then I forgot to tell you about the DNA test he had done, and it was OK. Happy now?

Loved it. You managed to bring a sense of reality to the situation. The anger, the emotions all seemed very normal and not contrived which is key to a good story.

great story, love your happy endings, thanks, please keep them coming

At least partially. Get a DNA test on the kid. After all the shit that Wifey put Hubby through, that's the least he could have done. Otherwise, who's to say that all the stuff she said after "talking" to the "psychologist" wasn't just bullshit?

Granted, I like a happy ending, but the trust issue was never really resolved either. Still good stuff, but there were a few too many unanswered questions for my taste.

4 Stars.

someone other than the Hairy Vagina points it out

asking you for CONSISTENCY is NOT the same thing as telling you who to write your own story. It speaks volumes that you cant see the difference.

If in the story the author writes about how angry the husband is over the wife's cheating and the author goes on and on about how he wont stand for it.. then 3 paragraphs later he suddenly IS accepting... it is not unreasonable for the reader to says ... "what?"

wow.. gotta wonder if this sort of mindless stupidity and gullibility must be a a British thing. The Husband is NOT wimp... but his willingness to accept her story at face value excuse is absurd.

even at the party ... she lied about what eh told the other women THEN it turned out she lied about what she told her husband about what REALLY happened.

maybe she did fuck him. OR maybe she did NOT.

but surely most readers see that there is REAL suspicion here.

its quite POSSIBLE that given everything that happens.. that the reason she wants a baby is that she is already knocked up.

A DNA check is needed. And the wife has to agree to it . She started this

and the husband has a RIGHT to know.

Not bad but not great. No questions about "did you guck other men" just nothing at all. 4

An excellent story with a happy ended. Five stars.

I'm not sure about this. Did he check the DNA? Anyway, she wanted to play around but when he mentioned about the cute girl at work she freaked. So I end this as I began.

Hmmmm....

More then a bit dubious about having children by husband being the.cure to wife wanting to take sabbatical from marriage vows & frolic with other men. In end analysis, this is just a story". Britease really excels in laying out female circular logic which is hilarious, frightening & infuriating by turns.

The husband exasperated me almost as much as the wife ....HEY ! maybe these two are meant to be together. I thought the ending was a bit flip, if only Ohio could have been dragged out of retirement to add concluding nuances to make this fully five star-worthy.

I will say this is the sole Loving Wives story since cpete's last one found worthy of perusal & comment in last four days and by applying curve system of rating I'm giving this full marks for breaking quality drought. *****

Sorry I can't agree with him. No doubt in my mind that she cheated. There might be something to the pregnancy need but I think she filled another need(s) first. Good story, stupid man.