A.I. and the Cheating Wives

"Wendy is very contrite and offering me everything she can think of on a silver platter. Mary is that way with Will, too. They've promised no more girls' nights out forever. That was already one of my demands of her before she made the pledge.

"My other demands are that she tells her parents what she was doing and that she goes into counseling with me. She's at her parents' home right now. I know this'll be a painful experience for her and she deserves it. I asked her to play the video of her behavior for them as part of my request. Actually, it wasn't so much a request as a demand. She knows that our marriage is hanging by a thread."

I said, "So, you possibly caught it early enough to survive this bump in the road?"

"I think so. We'll know more coming out of our first few counseling sessions. I need to get to the underlying cause of her flirting and potential infidelity. If she's hiding from the fact that she's fallen out of love with me, then we're through regardless of her behavior. I love her, but our marriage can't be a one-way street.

"Moreover, my trust in her is shattered beyond belief. I'm not sure I can regain that. We were about to start a family -- have children -- but I put that on hold. Wendy is crushed, but she understands that a serious redefinition of our marriage is needed."

I shook my head. "At least you've got some maneuvering room. It'll take a long time, but you can regain trust in someone, maybe never the total trust that you had, but enough to get by on."

Scott shook his head. "Every time she's out of my sight, I'm going to envision her flirting with some guy and maybe even fucking him."

I nodded, "I understand. Even though Cam and I are divorced, every time that I think of her, I suspect that she's in bed with some guy. The frequency of that thinking is dwindling, but the thoughts still occur. Maybe you can never be rid of them. I'm not an expert on that by any means."

We talked some more, and decided to stay in touch. I felt like I had a new friend and Scott agreed. He did mention that he'd told Wendy how he'd discovered her disloyalty, and she was actually grateful that I'd caught her and stopped her from getting in over her head with a more serious infidelity that a few kisses and some groping.

Scott and I stayed in touch. His marriage survived, but barely; so did Will and Mary's. Todd divorced Heather. He couldn't get over her infidelity.

Two years passed after my own divorce before I found somebody that I got serious about. I'd done a dozen counseling sessions, too, about trusting women and my view of relationships.

Ellie, Dean's wife, was the source of the introduction that blossomed for me. Jane was a stunning English woman with a rather firm moral compass that demanded fidelity and communication, amongst other values that we shared. Nine months after our first date, I proposed and she accepted. Six months later we married. We'd already agreed to start a family pretty soon after that ceremony.

Life was good.