Statute of Limitations

"Our sessions will work like this. On Tuesday evenings we will meet together and talk. I will set the guidelines for discussion each night and I can stop the discussion whenever I feel like it, or when time runs out. The one rule that must be agreed to by everybody here is honesty. If I get a hint of deception from either of you I'll be like a tiger and go for your throat unmercifully. I take no prisoners when it comes to our sessions. I'm not like a lot of therapists that treat everybody and every issue with kid gloves. I will call a spade a spade and you will not always be happy with what I say. But we will progress. We will find all of the truths that exist in your marriage. Some of the truths will be enlightening. Some may be extremely painful but we will bring them to the surface and we will deal with them. I won't take sides, even though it may look like I do sometimes. Remember this; I'm in charge for our hour each week."

"After our initial session I will meet with both of you individually for as many sessions as I need to get your entire story and your point of view. I may just sit and listen or I may ask questions. These sessions will be more flexible. But believe one thing. I will find the truth as each of you sees it. After each joint session I ask that you both reserve some time together at home, away from all distractions, to sit and talk about the latest session and what we talked about. Don't go into new areas just talk about that day's topics. From time to time I'll assign you homework. That will be a good time to do your homework. However, if you can't discuss something or start to argue or get upset then just stop and we'll pick it up the next time. This time is yours to further explore the topic of the day and to absorb whatever you need to. If you have questions that you can't or don't want to answer in your private time, or if you have a question that you haven't thought of before, then write them down and bring them to the next session. Everything is open for discussion here. There are no exceptions. At home you will want to be a bit more reserved."

"Do you have any questions at this point?"

Both heads are shaking no.

"OK then, let's get started."

The hour goes quickly. Neither Joan nor Richard says a word to one another on the way home.

Once home Joan asks "so how do you want to do this? I think maybe we could take the hour after we get home to sit and talk. Maybe we could have a little wine and sit in the living room. I'll need a box of tissue close by. How's that sound?"

"It sounds OK to me. I would ask just a couple changes. One, we should have soda or water, but not alcohol. I don't trust what I might say under the influence. Two, turn the telephones off. We don't need any stupid telephone solicitors disturbing us."

"That's fair. I'll get the phones."

Once settled in the living room there is a long silence before anyone speaks. It's almost as though neither one knows where to start. Finally Richard asks "today you said that you are happy with me, with us, and have always been. I don't understand how you can say that if the first thing you do after we're married is find another man and crawl into bed with him. How can you be happy with me? Didn't I give you everything you ever wanted? Did I not satisfy you? What did I do wrong that made you find somebody else? I just don't understand."

"Wait a minute! Dr. Brooks said to talk about only the things we talked about in today's session. At no time did we talk about anyone but you and me. We never mentioned another person. We only talked about how we felt about each other and our marriage. We need to wait to talk about someone else. We'll talk about it only after we've first talked about it in session. The one part I will answer, if you will too, is how happy I've always been with you and our marriage. That's no lie, Rich. From the day we met until today I have always been happy, no ecstatic, that I was married to you. I've never once wanted to not be married to you. Rich, I love you. I've always loved you and I plan to love you until the day I die. And, if you were no longer in my life I would die. As God is my witness this is true. What about you?"

"Yeah, you're right; I was getting a little ahead of things. You know that I can be impatient. Joan, except for the last couple months I've always thought that we had the ideal marriage. Sure we've had the occasional argument but nothing major. I've always wanted to be married to you. I've never looked anywhere else and have never had the desire to see if there is another woman out there better than you. You have always been my anchor. I've always been happy to be married to you. I've always loved you. But lately everything I've every believed has been tossed upside down. Now, I don't know what to think or believe. I don't know what's real and what's not. Most of the time I can't even look you in the eye, it just hurts too much. I can't get your letters out of my mind. I can't stop thinking of you with..."

"Stop! Don't go there!!. We'll talk about that, but not now."

"Well then just answer this; I'm sure this isn't off topic. How many others have there been? If I looked around the house would I find a shoebox with notes from one guy and a pocketbook full of stuff from another and shit from someone else on your laptop? How many others have you been with during our wonderful, happy marriage?"

"What are you accusing me of? You'd better not be saying what I think you're saying. I am not a slut! I've only been with two men in my entire life, you and Tim. Now you're accusing me of sleeping with everybody in town?"

"Well look at it from my point of view. You lied to me about one guy, how am I to believe that you didn't lie to me about others? How can I trust anything you tell me?"

"I'VE NEVER BEEN WITH ANYBODY ELSE! Let's talk about that after we talk about it in session."

"No! I can't. I need to know now. I need to fix this mess in my head. I hurt all the time. If we can't talk about this now then we're done here. I'm tired. I'm going to bed." With that Richard walks upstairs and goes to bed.

After the upstairs door slams, Joan says under her breath "Damn, that didn't go well." She gets herself a glass of wine, turns off the lights, and goes back to the couch to sit in the dark with her box of tissues.

**********

Four Weeks Later

The drive home from tonight's session is tense. You can tell that both Joan and Richard want to say something but are waiting until they get home to their private time to talk.

Once settled in the living room Joan speaks up first. "Hon, you never told me that you read all the letters, everything we wrote. I just didn't think about it. At first I was angry because it seemed like that was such an invasion of privacy. Then I was deeply embarrassed at being mad because I hid all of this from you, I deceived you. Hell, I couldn't tell you. If I had then there wouldn't have been an "us" anymore. I just never thought about your pain. I didn't think about it when Tim and I were together and I didn't think about what it would do to you if you read our letters. It must have been awful reading what we said. We wrote some pretty intimate things. Things that you and I did but we never wrote down for others to read. That must have hurt like hell. I'm so, so sorry. Rich, I can't change the past. I can't take away the pain you felt when you found out. I don't know what I can do to make you feel better. But understand this; I will do anything and everything I can to help you understand whatever you want to understand so we can put this all in the past where it belongs. Rich, I can't say it enough, I love you and I want you back. I'll do anything to get you to love me again. Please hon?"

"Joan, first I've never stopped loving you. I don't think that I could if I wanted to. The only way that could happen is if I were dead, but let's don't go there. That was definitely the most miserable few days of my life. I watched my mother dying in the hospital but this was much, much worse. It was almost like I was watching you and our marriage die right in front of my eyes. No, I guess you can't understand the pain I was feeling. It was awful. But the worst part was the images that I had in my head after reading the graphic depiction of your sexual escapades. I still can't get those images out of my head. They haunt me day and night. Seeing you in my mind with your legs wrapped around another man makes me physically ill. Even now I'm thinking of the quickest route to the bathroom in case dinner starts to come back up. It's unbearable. It's relentless. You'll never know this type of pain."

"Rich, we're going to have to talk to Dr. Brooks about what we can both do to get those thoughts to go away, or at least to put them in their proper place. We should ask her about that next time. But for now we need to focus on just being us. We could take a couple days off this week and get away and just be together. Maybe go to the mountains and watch Mother Nature do her thing. I won't hover and we don't have to talk or do anything but just be together. How's that sound?"

"I don't know. I'm still feeling a bit weird just being around you. The pain is sometimes manageable and sometimes I worry about what I might do. But if we want to get past this then we've got to be together and work together. So, OK let's go. We just won't take any sharp objects with us."

This is the first time in a long time that they both laughed at one of Richard's silly jokes.

**********

Two Weeks Later

Joan is staring at Richard all during the drive home. She has a question to ask but she knew that it was going to make Richard angry, but she had to know the answer. She would wait until they were home again.

"Rich, what is my Babe Period that you talked about?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Richard said tersely.

"Why?"

"Because it hurts too much to think about, let's just talk about something else."

"I don't understand. What is it that hurts so much? What did I do? Tell me."

"Let's just change the subject, OK?"

"No! I want to know. Tell me!"

Richard looks at her angrily as he replies, "OK, You really want to know? All right, I'll tell you. Your Babe Period, as I so cleverly called it, was that time a long time ago when you started going to Weight Watchers and lost all that weight. At the same time you started going to the tanning salon and getting your nails done and bought a whole new wardrobe, a sexy wardrobe. You changed a lot. You were no longer that overweight cutie that I married, you were a babe. When we went out men would turn and look at you giving you the eye. I was proud and at the same time a little jealous. I used to think that I was the luckiest man in the world to have this beautiful woman next to me. I was also worried that some rich, handsome guy would come and take you away from me. Me, I'm just an average guy with average looks, nothing special. You were special. You were a babe! And you were with me. I loved every fucking minute of it, because this beautiful babe of a woman was with ME. All of that lasted until you got sick and depressed that month. You started to change back into your old self. You gained back all of the weight and started wearing your conservative clothes again. Now, for as long as I've known you, you were a large woman. Your weight never was an issue for me. I've always loved your body, it's soft and smooth, everywhere. But the babe was gone. That whole time just pains me to think about now. Happy?"

"I don't understand. Why does that hurt so much? I don't see anything wrong with it. What?"

"Damnit Joan! Because you didn't do it for me. You did it for some guy you were fucking in a hotel every week. NOT FOR ME! NOT FOR YOUR HUSBAND! I always loved that time until I read your damned letters. Now, that memory is fucked. YOU DIDN'T DO IT FOR ME!"

There is silence. A very long period of silence.

"Oh, God, How could you... How could I..."

Richard gets up and goes upstairs to bed.

**********

Eight Weeks Later

Neither one says anything for a long time in the living room after today's session. There seems to be worry lines on both of their foreheads. Today's session was enlightening and disheartening at the same time. Dr. Brooks was not very gentle with her tone and said that they will continue this discussion next time.

"I don't understand when Dr. Brooks says that you were experiencing a common thing when you were in love with two men at the same time" Richard says. "It almost sounds like psychological mumbo jumbo when she talks about loving people simultaneously and sequentially. I can understand the physics of it it's just the emotions I can't get a grip on."

"What she was saying was that I loved both you and Tim at the same time. Usually a relationship like this is disastrous and eventually somebody gets hurt. In our case you and I were hurt many years after the fact. That's the simultaneous part of what she was talking about. The sequential part is very common and is an accepted part of life. When two people love each other and one dies the other moves on and falls in love again. This is common with divorced couples too. They were both in love with each other but after the divorce they then were in love with other people. I understand it OK but why don't you?"

"From my point of view I can't imagine myself not loving you or you not being there for me to love. But for you to not feel the same way is something I don't understand. If you love somebody it's completely and forever. There is no loving someone else without diminishing the love for both. You can't be completely in two places at the same time. You said that and that's what I don't get."

"Truthfully, sometimes I don't fully understand it. I can only tell you that when I'm with you, you and only you are my whole world. When I was with Tim he was my whole world. I never felt like I gave either of you less than 100% of myself or my love. And at no point did either of those two worlds intersect. It was like a light switch, in one position you and the other position Tim. I don't know the psychology behind it but I do know what I felt. I loved two men at the same time, completely and forever."

"I guess we're going to have to talk about this a lot more before I'll be able to see your side of things. For now we should just write down any question for next session."

Neither seemed satisfied but they went to their respective bedrooms afterwards.

**********

Six Weeks Later

Joan is crying a lot less now that they were sitting in their living room.

Richard starts. "Hon, I'm sorry I said what I said. I didn't mean it. Well maybe in some way I did but I wasn't trying to hurt you or be vindictive. I was just saying that I was glad he died because I didn't have to share you with him. Until Dr. Brooks explained that his dying was as hard on you as my dying would have been I couldn't see it from your point of view. I now understand it a little I think. The man you loved died and you didn't have anybody to grieve with. You were alone in the world with your grief. You had me but you couldn't tell me without losing me. I can see why you were depressed. I would have been too if you had died. I'm sorry I said it that way. I didn't mean it. Joan?"

"Oh, Rich you can be so damned hard headed sometimes. You've been trying to understand how I could feel the same way about two men at the same time and now you can't see how losing one or the other of them would be devastating to me. Well now do you understand? I loved him. He died. I died at the same time. I grieved. This is exactly what I would have done if you had died. It's the same twenty years ago as it is now. If you had died that day on the lake I would have died too. Do you get it now?"

Richard is a bit sheepish now but replies anyway. "I guess on some level I do. I said I was sorry for what I said. I didn't mean it that way. I can be selfish too."

"I know we just touched on it today but get this. When you found out about Tim it was as though I had to go through all of the sorrows of his dying all over again. I guess I still have feelings for him. I haven't thought of him in years but I can still see his face and he'll always be in my memories. Now that you know I've got to relive all of the agony all over again and it's killing me."

"Can we just let Dr. Brooks talk us through this one next week? I can see how it's going to be hard on both of us."

"OK but get me a glass of wine before you go to bed. I need to be alone for a while."

Richard gets the wine, turns off the living room lights, and heads upstairs. At the top of the stairs he hears sobbing coming from downstairs. He closes the door to his room quietly.

**********

Eight Weeks Later

Joan lets it all hang out. "I can't talk to you tonight. You make me so mad I could just strangle you! You wanted to divorce me without even talking to me? How could you? Are you nuts? We've talked about everything every day since we were married and at this crucial point in our relationship, our future, you want to go it alone? Are you out of your fucking mind? Shit! I'm going to bed."

Now it's Richard's turn in the dark living room with a beer. Richard doesn't like wine very much.

**********

Next Morning

Some say that the smell of coffee brewing can raise the dead. That is the first thought meandering through Richard's brain this morning. He opens one eye just slightly and sees the living room ceiling. The smell of coffee is still there. He opens the other eye and turns his head ever so slightly to look in the direction of the kitchen. There he sees a tall womanly figure dressed in a bathrobe holding a steaming hot cup of coffee.

"Breakfast is almost ready. Go clean up. Go!" Joan is the womanly figure dressed in a bathrobe that he sees. After all these years she still looks like a goddess in the morning, voluptuous and Mother Earth like. His heart beats a little faster and it had nothing to do with the coffee she was holding.

Up sits Richard and immediately knocks over the empty beer bottle on the floor. He plods up to the bathroom, pees, and washes up. When he looks in the mirror he sees bloodshot eyes and the impression of the couch cushion on the side of his face. Neither is pretty but he goes back downstairs to breakfast anyway.

After a great meal, after all he didn't have to cook it, he sits back and really looks at Joan for the first time today. She too has bloodshot eyes.

"I'm sorry" Joan says quietly. "I'm still having a lot trouble with this 'looking at something from the other person's point of view' thing. We're definitely going to have to write that down for Dr. Brooks for next time."

Richard smiles and that's something he hasn't done a lot of lately. "That's OK. I'm having trouble with it too. But for me it's when I say something I don't always think about how it will sound to you or how it will make you feel. I'm sorry too. How about if we have our conversation this morning? Hey, wait a minute, what are you doing off of work today?"

"I took off because it's more important that to be here and talk this out with you than to push a bunch of papers at the lab. They can do without me today."

An hour later they are both sitting in the back yard with another cup of coffee talking.

"Why did you ask Luke to write up divorce papers?" Joan asks.

"Well, I was so hurt and confused I guess I wasn't thinking straight. All I knew was that you cheated and I didn't want anything to do with you anymore. I've always thought that 'once a cheater always a cheater' and I guess that I thought that I didn't want to go through that shit over and over again. Like I said, I wasn't thinking too straight."

"But why did you not want to talk to me? Maybe we could have talked this out?"