Breaching a Partnership

"You have nailed the problem - you just confessed my dear detective that you love me today as much as you loved me when you slept with Jim. You say 'I love you' in the same way you say 'good morning.' I don't think you understand the meaning of the word. Love means to act not for yourself but for your partner. Love requires burying self-interest and acting in the best interest of your lover. You acted in the best interest of Jim and not me. Thus, you manifestly love Jim, not me. Just like you kept secrets from and not from Jim. You don't love me, but Jim."

"NOOOOOOO" Amy screamed. That got the attention of everyone in the restaurant. The young server quickly came to our table thinking perhaps I was hurting my wife. I apologized and said that we were having an intense discussion. Amy was now visibly crying. I thought about leaving the restaurant, but we had already ordered and the food would be coming shortly.

"Amy, please show your detective face, or we can leave now without dinner. Please."

Amy answered, "I want us to finish our talk. Let's stay. I will try not to raise my voice again. I kept Jim secret to avoid hurting you. I let my guilt eat me inside, but I was not going to tell you about Jim just to relieve myself of the guilt eating me."

"Was your guilt eating at you when you calmly ended our phone conversation with 'I love you' while you were still in bed with Jim? Words are cheap. Actions are meaningful and have consequences."

"I am so sorry for what I did. I know these are just words, but in my infatuated state I thought I was being fair to myself and to you, because I never took anything away from you."

"You again say you took nothing away. But a true partnership in the legal world requires fair dealing and that the partners act in good-faith. You knew that I was exclusive to you, and that our partnership required you to be exclusive to me. But you broke that faith and gave me a raw deal. You shared secrets and intimacies that belonged to us together, and that a wife should never share with an outsider. You deliberately hurt me to satisfy your self-interest. You have proven that you do not love me."

"I don't know that I can convince you that is not the case. I did not think. I was stupid and acted foolishly. But if you truly loved me and would sacrifice anything for me as you said you would, why can't you forgive me for that stupidity. Why can you not sacrifice yourself for me by letting me prove to you what I good wife and mother I can be?"

"The Bible has multiple references to Jesus' teaching that God shows his love even to sinners and the importance of forgiving those that have hurt you. I have forgiven you Amy. But love is a choice and an emotion. To me, love between a husband and wife and their partnership are too intertwined to exist without the other. One cannot have a partnership without love and there can be no love without the partnership. When you gave away the partnership assets to Jim, you included the love that I had for you. So, even though I understand that you were infatuated and are now truly remorseful, and I forgive you, there is no longer any partnership and it is delusional to think that anyone can have a true marriage without a partnership."

Amy had apparently thought a lot during the day about what she would say now. "Michael, I sense that you see no hope for us. But I beg you, and if I did not want to create a scene, I would literally get on my knees before you right now. I want to beg you to give another chance. I have been reflecting on what I did to you and to us. It is hard to understand, but I don't think I was fully in control. I really moved as if everything I did was pre-destined. I did not feel that I had any choice. My rational brain no longer worked. I was seduced, and was being controlled by feelings stronger than I had ever imagined possible. I admit that I was narcissistic and self-centered and all the other bad attributes. I lost perspective. I did not see Jim for who he was, and was incapable of judging the stupidity of what I was doing. I was blind to what you have pointed was our partnership. Instead, I held unto the stupidity that you and Jim were simply separate worlds, which I now recognize was irrational. It was infatuation. I did not see the truth then, but see now. Now that I have the knowledge I can fight off those feelings. I have matured and grown from this experience. I can be the wife that you always wanted, and we have a whole future ahead of us."

"I understand you. I believe you described something that some people call 'limerence.' You will find it on Google. It is a period of excitement and intense emotions that can progress to a seemingly uncontrollable obsession for another person. It might even be backed by neuroscience. You really enjoyed your first kiss with Jim, perhaps in part because you knew it was wrong. But then you brain wanted more, and more you did, the more you wanted it, the typical dopamine self-growing reaction. But that understanding does not address my problems. Some of it is practical. I cannot unsee what I saw. Those images will always be with me every time I look at you, just as I am seeing the images of you fucking Jim as we are now talking. Is it fair to either of us to live with this between us?"

"My dearest Michael, Maybe over time you will focus more on you and me and the images of Jim and I will wither from your mind. We have our beautiful son that will always tie us. We can build on that. Is there any way out?"

"It's hard to see a way out. Your affair was only two weeks ago, and it would have continued but for Jim being arrested. I think that the events may have matured you, but I don't think that we can depend on such turn around-around in people. You may remain a faithful wife until death do as part but will being faithful be a struggle for you. Forcing someone to be good is not what we should want in life. You do not have the same love for me that I had for you because when I loved you, it was self-less, as my desire was always what I could do for you rather than what love can do for me. Your narcissism and selfishness did not permit that love. Have you really changed that quickly?"

We went back to the hotel, saying very little because there was really nothing to say.

The End Game

The next morning was where I did my ugly. I got up early that morning before Amy woke up. I went to the little Mikey's crib and carefully changed his diaper and packed all his paraphernalia. I then slowly opened the door, slinked out, and then placed the tyke in my car. I drove him to another hotel some distance away. That was where I had located my mother. She was already up and waiting for me at the entrance to the hotel. We took little Mikey to my mother's room where I left him in her care. I had barely walked out of the room when I saw Amy calling. Yes - she got up and found me missing, but more importantly, where was her baby. I told her that he was with me, and I would be returning shortly. I reminded Amy that she was on flight that day and should be packing.

On coming back to our room, Amy immediately asked "where's my baby?"

"With my mother. He is fine."

"What? You mother? What is going on? I need little Mikey. He needs me."

"Amy, please sit down and maybe take some deep breaths. In an hour, there will be a car to take you to the airport. You will be returning, but little Mikey and I are staying here."

"What? Staying for how long?"

"We are staying here permanently. I am taking a job here with the client that I was meeting, and the baby stays with me."

Amy was violently shaking her head no, but apparently was too shocked to verbalize.

"Amy, please listen. I do not feel good about this, but it had to be done. Your adultery caused the destruction of our family. One of us would get custody of the baby and the other would have to suffer the loss of our son. Damn you, I do not want to do this. I wanted a marriage. But I am not going to lose my son because you decided to step out of our marriage. If you think about, my taking little Mikey is really fair. The guilty does not profit and the innocent is protected."

Amy was now bawling and screaming, "NOOOOO." She was wildly throwing her fists, but was too distraught to actual connect with anything than taps. "You cannot kidnap my baby... I will call the police... I will take you to court....."

More to prevent her from hurting herself, I wrapped my arms around her trying to get her to calm down. I needed to have her get on the plane, and that needed a little TLC. "Amy, I am sorry, but you know there is no other choice. You can call the police but they will know nothing except I am the father who works here, and the baby is my son. The police are not going to turn him over to you to take back to the States. You can fight custody later in court, but you will have a hard time, particularly as I have possession of Mikey and am in a different country and can start my own proceedings here. Amy, I don't want to hurt you. But if you force the issue, I may have no option but to fight dirty and start showing the videos of you committing adultery with Jim, while he was under Federal Homeland investigation. Do you want that? I would hate to do it, but I will do whatever required to not lose my son." I could never share the videos, but Amy did not know that.

Amy was now on her knees with her arms wrapped around my legs, crying "please don't take my baby from me, please...."

I sat on the floor with her and again wrapped her in my arms. "Amy, you are not a bad person or a bad mother. I am not taking our son from you. You will always be his mother, and you can see him anytime that you come back here to France. But I cannot let you have custody because you must bear the consequences of your actions. This is the best that I can do."

"But how often can you expect me to be here in France? He won't remember me. I will no longer be his mommy." Amy was still crying, but had now put her arms around me also and place her head on my chest.

I was still debating whether to bring up the option that my mother had pushed on me. Perhaps there was a code that one mother would protect other mothers. "What I am doing now is one option. Your mother-in-law has asked me to agree to another option which I am unsure that I can accept, but I will tell you for my mother's sake. Do you want to hear it?"

"Of course, yes. Anything."

"You should not get your hopes up that my mother has forgiven your adultery. But my mother also thinks that, as heartbreaking and hurtful, and as selfish and horrible, were your actions with Jim, you might have been seduced, not truly competent and had truly viewed your relationship with Jim as disconnected from me and our marriage. Maybe it is a Venus-Mars thing. Anyhow, the option is for you to prove your commitment by resigning from the police force and moving permanently to France. I am unsure that your resignation would actually prove much more than that you would give up your career to be with Mikey. But, on the other hand, Mikey will have his mother full-time, which is a powerful incentive for me to consider the option. I want our baby to have his mother."

"Under this option, would you and I remain married and living under the same roof?"

"Right. But I don't want to mislead you. Living under the same roof does not necessarily mean living as husband and wife. For example, I do not trust you at this point, and so we would have to arrange some security so that you would not be able to fly back to the States with the baby. How can you have a true marriage if one spouse has such distrust of the other that these sorts of security precautions would have to be taken. We would be more like frenemies than partners. But, again, Mikey would have his mother, and perhaps we could find some way to make life more friendly and maybe return to something normal."

Amy was now whispering. "Sounds like the option basically asks me to fall on my sword... become a virtual slave."

"Two answers. One is that you will recall joking with Jim that he was your master, and so maybe there is a God that makes come true your thoughts while fornicating with Jim. More seriously, either option is asking a lot from you. But you breached our partnership. The cost of making things right may be high, but that is the cost of fixing the problem that you created."

"Your solution is to kidnap my son and then blackmail me into conceding your custody. Did I create this monster or did I just awaken the evil in you, Michael?"

"The options are not the best, but they are a necessity. Amy, remember that you destroyed our family. I will not lose my son because of your selfish actions. If one of us has to suffer the loss of Mikey, it needs to be you who breached the partnership and created the problem."

Amy started to verbalize some thoughts and questions. I interrupted, "Amy, this is a longer conversation after you get back to the States, finish testifying and have given it some thought. Nothing will happen here in the meantime. But if you go out with Jim or another man in the meantime, then even my mother will not push for the reconciliation option. Please appreciate that."

Amy face was twitching with stress, and her voice sounded defeated, "I promise you that the only men in my universe will be you and our son." She tried to present a smile. I helped her pack and we took down her luggage to the car which would take her to the airport.

Epilogue

I do not know whether a chapter 2 would be helpful, and certainly do not have a story line for that. If anyone wants to write an epilogue to this story, you have my permission if you stay true to the characters.