Finding Happiness After Love Dies

As I rolled out of bed I thought 'God how I want to sleep in' but I knew couldn't. I had reserves again and it was going to be a busy day.

Once again I pushed back from my desk. Finally I could call it a night and head home. I was getting ready to leave when one of my few friends came by my office. "Hey Ron you still on for supper? You look like you need some cheering up tonight."

We normally dined together Saturday evening and chewed the fat. Unfortunately this evening I was planning on just sneaking out and heading home if he hadn't caught me. I sighed and said, "Sorry Dude. I had forgotten about that. I'm afraid I won't be very good company tonight but I am hungry."

He always stayed at the Holiday Inn so I said, "I'll meet ya there. Let's go." We had a couple drinks and visited then ordered our supper. As we were eating my friend sighed and pushed back slightly from his plate. He said, "Ok Ronnie. You've been acting strange all day. Are you going to tell me what is going on now?"

I don't know why but I began talking. It was almost cathartic. I let all my frustration out both with my job and with my wife. I spilled my guts about my lousy life, loveless marriage and murky future. I suppose part of my willingness to unload was the ton of alcohol I had ingested but, whatever the reason, I really unloaded on poor Jeff. I ended my diatribe by saying, "In fact the only bright spot in my life right now is the reserves."

After I finished Jeff leaned back into his chair and said, "Well Ronnie. I don't know your wife, never met her but what you have described is not normal and definitely isn't a loving relationship. Hell, I thought I had it bad when I found out what my first wife was doing but now I almost think what you have is worse. At least I was happy until the very end. It sounds like Beulah is trying to avoid you for sure and even like she doesn't care for you any longer. My first thought would be she has another lover but you would know more about that than would I."

"Thank God Abby isn't like that. You know it's been a long time since you came down to the place. Why don't you come down to your cabin and we can get together and fish, drink and act crazy. I know Charlie would enjoy visiting with you again. Besides, you've not met his new wife Amanda yet have you?"

"No, I don't think I have met Abby. From what you have told me about her I would really like to meet her too. She and Amanda both sound like special ladies. Hell, I know they must be since they married you and Charlie."

"As for Beulah cheating on me, I just don't know. I really don't think she is but hell most dumb shit husbands who get cheated on are surprised when they find out about it. I really think I may have driven her away instead. Crap, I haven't had time to really do anything with her for years and when I try it seems like she has something she wants to do alone or with her friends or something came up and I had to cancel."

"I wondered about her cheating on me once before though and when I followed her I didn't find anything. I don't even know what I'd do to find out now though. You know with my work it will be hard to follow her. I guess I could hire someone but I hate to spend the money. I just don't know. What I'd really like would be to get back where we were right after we married. If we can't do that I think I just need to cut her loose and see if I can find happiness somewhere else or with someone else. Shit, I sure wouldn't want to impose my crap life on a new woman though. Hell as busy as I am now with work and the reserves I probably couldn't find a new woman to put up with my crap anyway. I just..."

"Well, Ronnie. My Cousin and brother in law are retired Highway Patrol. They do a little investigating on the side to stay busy and keep from being bored to death. I can ask them if they would like to take your case. They don't charge much and since you're a friend I might even get them to give a discount...Of course they don't live near us so you would be out a lot of expense for rooms, meals and so forth."

I leaned back in my chair and killed my glass of Glenmorangie. I let the chair fall forward and almost slammed the empty glass down. I stared into space for several seconds then leaned forward, rested my arms on the table and said, "Go for it. Have them call me. If we can agree on a price I'll hire them. I need to know what's going on. If she's cheating I'm done with her. If not, she'll either have to change or I'm still done with her. Something's just got to give. I can't keep on living like I have been. Here is my work number. Have them call me there please." We visited a lot longer. I woke up in Jeff's room sleeping in the second bed the next morning. My head was killing me and I felt like something had died and rotted in my mouth. My stomach was rolling—yeah, I know. You know the feeling. In short, I had a HELL of a hang over.

I thought the Sunday reserve meeting would never end. I returned home and Beulah never even asked me where I had been the night before. I'm not sure she even missed me. I tried once again to talk to her but she let me know right off I was bothering her and she didn't appreciate it. I finally quit trying to talk and went upstairs. I cleaned up and fell into bed. I have no idea when Beulah came to sleep.

Monday afternoon Jeff's brother in law called and I agreed to terms for the surveillance of my wife. The two men were going to live in my river cabin during the investigation. It was about 40 miles from town and about six miles from where Jeff and his family lived. I would furnish food for them and gasoline for their vehicles. In addition I would pay each of them $50.00 per day for their services. They began working two days after we reached the agreement. They were to make interim reports every Sunday morning.

They put a bug in Beulah's wallet; they put GPS and a bug in her car. They put devices in her cell phone and in the house phone to record phone calls. Somehow they even managed to plant a bug on her desk so they could hear her conversations at work. They followed her but loosely because of the devices they had planted. With those devices if they heard something untoward they could go to the scene and perhaps get pictures. If not, at least they would be aware of her dalliances and begin to follow her more closely.

The first week all they could report was she went out every evening with the women she worked with. They went to a local piano bar, a sports bar and a Jazz bar alternating between the same three bars every third day. They had a few drinks, visited about famous people, work, and loudly trashed their men; hell they trashed men in general. I was surprised to hear they even trash talked about their male children and how they didn't know how to treat a woman or leave a house. They visited about movie stars, sports figures and their torrid relationships more than anything else. They talked about books, particularly romance novels. They never even went to a bar that had dancing, one that was a real pick up place. One evening Beulah went to the public library and spent over 4 hours picking out books, magazines and newspapers then sitting and reading. One of her friends accompanied her but they did almost no visiting while there.

The first Saturday of surveillance Beulah was followed to a private residence. She and several other women, most of them from where Beulah worked, went inside and they had a party. Some alcohol was consumed but in limited quantities. They watched some chick flicks and talked about what they would want in a relationship. The only man present was the husband of the woman who lived there and his wife invited him to leave after all the women arrived. To the surprise of the investigator and to my surprise also, he did leave.

The surveillance went on for six weeks. The results were the same as during the first week. The consensus was Beulah was not having an affair, even one with a woman. The women all seemed bored with their relationships and some of them were having an affair but every time they told Beulah how exciting one was and how great the sex was she changed the subject or moved to another conversation. She just did not seem interested in sex unless it was vicariously. She loved to talk about other people's affairs if they were rich or famous and she got totally starry eyed over her romance novels but that was the extent of her actions. She did say from time to time, that she would kill to be romanced like some of the characters in her novels were.

About the third week of the surveillance I decided Beulah wasn't cheating probably so I tried to woo her once more. I had listened to what she said she wanted in her conversations. Hell, I even got a couple of her books out and tried to find out how her book suitors romanced their women. I began to bring her flowers and candy. Sometimes I would call her at work to tell her I loved her and missed her. I would compliment her on her dress or hair. I would ask her to come home early and we would go out to eat. I made special meals at home that I knew she would like. I tried to kiss her more and I told her how much I loved her when I did. All my efforts were met with disdain. She got angry when I would bother her at work. Many times when I tried to kiss her she would turn her head. She just was not interested in my attempts to rekindle the romance, to reconnect.

Tuesday afternoon of the seventh week after I hired the investigators they called me at work. My caller said, "Ronnie I think you might want to get home early today. I just overheard a phone call Beulah made. I don't know what the call was about. The phone rang and a man answered. It was apparently in her companies Human Resources branch because he answered the phone 'Human Resources'. All she said was, "This is Beulah Stevens. Lets do it tonight. I'll get home early and we can do it while Ronnie's still at work if you can come over."

Naturally since I wanted to get home early I couldn't. I had a meeting until nearly 4:30 but left right after. That got me home about thirty minutes early. When I arrived there was a strange Lexus sitting in the driveway. I parked on the driveway beside the Lexus and walked around the house to enter through the kitchen. I was as quiet as I could be, hoping to catch Beulah in a compromising situation and scared to death I would! I heard voices coming from the Den so walked in that direction. I walked into the room and saw Beulah sitting in her favorite chair sipping on a glass of wine. There was a distinguished looking, expensively dressed man sitting in my chair. From the looks of things he was sipping on a glass of my scotch. At least there was a bottle of my brand beside the wine bottle on the serving tray. There was also a notebook computer and printer on the coffee table. They had the name of Beulah's company on them and an inventory number.

Beulah looked up when I came into the room and said, "You're home early. Good. I thought if I made that phone call I might get you to come early. This is one of the attorney's from our personnel services section. We can get this over with now."

Beulah looked over at the man and he stood. He had a large envelope in his hand. He walked over to where I was standing and asked, "Are you Ronald Stevens?"

I was somewhat surprised but said, "Yes. What's it to you?" He handed me an envelope and continued, "You have been served. These are divorce papers. I am Mrs. Stevens's attorney. We request you read and sign these papers today. She is being very fair in her request for property settlement. If you wish, of course, you may have your attorney review them."

I admit I was shocked even though I, too, had considered divorce. I stood and looked at Beulah. She seemed embarrassed. She was looking down at her hands that were clenched in her lap. I sighed and sat on the couch. I looked at Beulah once again and asked, "Why? Why don't you even want to try and fix what's wrong?"

Beulah looked up and began speaking. She said, "Ronnie I don't even know where to begin. I suppose the short answer is we don't fit together any longer. We have grown in different directions over the years of our marriage. If you want the long version I can give it but you won't like it."

Just her expression and the way she spoke made my anger surge. I clenched my jaw and said, "Yeah, why don't you give me the long version. I know you aren't cheating, that you don't have another man in the wings so please tell me where we went wrong and why we can't fix it. I need to know why a love so strong, so right so fulfilling as we had once could now be dieing with a whimper. Now give me more detail. Please tell me where we went wrong and why we can't fix it or at least why you don't want to fix it?"

Some fire came into Beulah's eyes when she heard that. She began talking; she was almost shaking in anger as she spoke. "WE didn't go wrong Ronnie. YOU did. You were right. When we were first married we were perfect together. We loved madly, spontaneously and strongly. We were interested in the same things. There wasn't anything I wouldn't do for you. Hell look at how I dressed, where I let you make love to me, how I cared for you. We clicked and meshed at many levels but you weren't happy with that, you changed. You got too busy with the reserves, you didn't keep up as my interests changed. You stayed in the same old rut."

"Ronnie I have noticed you have tried to be nicer to me the last several weeks. You have tried to talk to me and have brought me presents but you just didn't get it. Ronnie you have become so damn boring. You don't ever have anything interesting to talk about. If you try to talk it is always about local news, one or the other of our jobs, our investments or national and international events. You even try to talk about where we could go on a trip, as if we ever have time to go on a trip. Hell, you even try to talk about our neighbors or about Charlie and his college courses."

"I've tried many times through the years to get you to read things of interest but you just make fun of them. All you read is professional publications, newspapers or business magazines. Not once have I seen you read the National Enquirer. When you pick up my People magazine or Cosmo or US you just move them out of your way. I have tried to talk to you about some of the books and articles I read and you almost fall asleep. I tried for years to talk about the actors and sports figures I read about and you got huffy and said they deserved their troubles. You just don't get it at all. Hell NO ONE wants to be reminded of the troubles in this world."

"Over the years I have began to spend more and more time with my friends. At least we can have an intelligent conversation about interesting topics. We discuss news articles, books and our friends. We even discuss work problems and I get insights on how to handle them. When I have tried to talk to you about them your advice usually runs to ignoring the problem, working harder or telling management. You advise me to follow the rules and if I disagree with them to try and get management to change them if my way is better. You know how entrenched management is. They refuse to change even if a new way is better. If they do change invariably the new way of doing things is rammed down our throat and is worse than the way we are doing the job. My friends and I discuss how to correct the problem and find a solution that works for us. Our solutions are much better than the ones management dictates so we go with them. You seem to always take the management side of things and don't consider our feelings and wants."

"It has got to where I just can't stand to even be around you. You are gone so much I even thought you were being boring and ignoring me because you were having an affair. My investigators did not find that to be a fact and I know yours didn't find I was having one either." She laughed a short barking laugh and continued, "I am so tired of being alone I could scream. Damn it Ronnie, I knew about your investigation of me about two weeks ago. I don't know how long you were having me followed before I found out but I know you didn't find anything because all I do is visit with my friends."

"Oh, don't get me wrong. I am so damn horny if I could have found an interesting man, one who understood me, I might have cheated but most of them are either like you or so damn arrogant I don't know how their own mother could put up with them. At first I thought about letting you know you were wasting your money on the investigation. Then I decided to let you see what was going on so you would understand how out of touch with reality you really were. Do you understand how normal people live now? I was glad to see you investigate me really. I thought you might learn something from the investigation but you didn't. All you did was try to get me to have sex with you using the same sappy old tricks you have used in the past. I finally decided we just needed to end it so I can try and enjoy my life without worrying about your sorry ass any longer. Maybe next time I can find a man who is interesting and willing to love me the way I deserve."

"Now, will you sign the divorce papers or do you want to have an attorney look them over? I have been very fair. You make a little more than I do but I don't care about support from you. Our pension funds are similar so I have proposed we split the investments and bank accounts evenly, each keep our own retirement accounts and I get the house and you get the cabin and land. I know the house is worth more than the land and cabin but you have never liked the house. I feel the difference in value would be fair since you do make more than I do and you will also have your military pension when you get to be age 60. I haven't asked for any of your military pension but if you don't accept my settlement offer I will ask for some alimony and half of your military pension."

I sat in shock for a moment. I was so shocked in fact my mouth was hanging open. I said, "No I won't sign right now. I'll have an attorney look it over and let you know." I looked at first her then her attorney then continued. "Since you want the house and we are separating what are we going to do about living arrangements? What about furniture? You know there isn't much in the cabin and the bed there is shot. Do I get some furniture or do you expect me to buy it?"

"I..Well I never thought of furniture and things like that. How about if we just divide what we have. I'll be generous and let you take what you need. I have been living with your sorry ass for years now and you haven't raped me. I guess you can stay here until you get the cabin the way you like it or you find another place—oh, up to, say a month?"

Beulah turned to the attorney and said, "Can you modify the agreement to show that before you leave tonight?" He nodded his head and turned to his computer.

That night after I went to bed I lay thinking. I thought 'what a sorry assed wimp I am. When the end of my marriage came I didn't even care enough to fight it. I just let her dictate terms and I crawled out of my marital bed into the guest room.' You know though I felt a strange sense of contentment, almost of release as if I had a great weight lifted from my shoulders or I was out of confinement and free.

The next morning I went into work and immediately asked for and was granted a weeks vacation. I spent some time working the phones until I found an attorney that could see me and consult about the divorce. I really wasn't too worried about it but I did want to make sure the divorce paperwork said what I was told it said, including the property split. If it did I knew I would sign it because it seemed fair to me. Oh, sure the house was worth about $60,000 more than the land and cabin was but Beulah was right. I made more than she did and I would have a nicer retirement package because of my military pension. I had to wait two days for an appointment with the attorney but that didn't bother me. I spent the time going down to the cabin and looking it over to decide what I wanted to do to it.