Cliche Ch. 04

This was so far from normal for Julie that I suspected she'd become unhinged. Then I remembered the wine. After she slammed my door, I had another sleepless night. She was still at home when I went to work the next day but didn't come home that night. I checked and some of her things were missing. She reappeared three days later with no explanation but with a black eye and swollen lip.

The reason for the first part of this became evident later that night. I'd taken to checking our bank balance online every night. I noticed an electronic transfer to a local law firm for about the amount of a retainer. I figured she'd seen a lawyer who advised her that by leaving the family home, she'd put herself in a disadvantageous position.

The email that arrived that night cleared up the rest of the mystery. It was from Rob's wife.

"FYI. I went to the hospital today to discuss my divorce with Rob. Your wife was there holding his hand. I'm sorry, but I lost it for a while."

Could it be that realising she'd blown her last chance of reconciliation; Julie was hoping to run off into the sunset with lover boy? From what I'd heard, he was unlikely to have functioning privates ever again. I went to Julie's room for the next phase of discussions.

"Julie, after the other night it is fairly obvious our marriage is over."

For the first time in a long time, she looked me in the eye before nodding slightly.

"We both saw how Karen's divorce went. By the time the lawyers were finished, no one but the lawyers had anything. I may not be able to stay married to you but that doesn't change the fact that I still love you and the idea of us ending up hating each other makes me sick. We need to end this process with a united front, if not for us, then for the sake of the boys. How about we give the lawyers a miss and come to a mutual understanding on a divorce settlement. That way we can both come out of this with all our assets intact."

I saw the wisdom of this dawn in her eyes. We had enough that we could both live frugally but well. Give a big slug of it to the lawyers and at least one of us was going to have to take a major haircut. I'm guessing the lawyers she'd seen hadn't convinced her it wouldn't be her.

"You'll have to do all the work, Dave. I don't want a divorce. I don't think I can raise enough enthusiasm to do any of it."

"Don't worry, Julie, I'm happy to do the leg work."

I left the next discussion for two days. I didn't want to let on that I'd already done a considerable amount of research. Again, it was me that initiated the discussion after the boys were in bed.

"Right, Julie, I've looked into it and there seems to be two ways we can go. Either we can live apart for twelve-months or we can go to three compulsory sessions of government sponsored counselling. If the counsellor is convinced after three sessions that our marriage is irretrievable, then they issue a certificate that we attach to the divorce application."

I saw Julie's eyes light up with hope at the mention of counselling, then dull as she realised what she'd be asked to publicly admit to. Eventually, she just nodded.

"Okay, as I see it, we both fill in the divorce application and register it with the Family Court and they arrange the counselling. Along with the divorce application, we lodge a child support agreement that must be approved by the Child Support Agency. They just want to know that there will be enough to support Pete and Mick, so they won't be stuck having to fork out for them. A parenting plan is a common law agreement between us on how we intend dealing with the kids. The last thing is not compulsory, but highly recommended. It's a separation agreement that details how we split everything else. If we do it all ourselves and use friends as witnesses, it should be very cheap and simple. Are you willing for me to start drawing them up?"

I eventually received a reluctant nod. The next night we jointly filled in the online divorce application. Julie didn't help much but didn't hinder either. The next day we received an acknowledgement, and the following week were contacted by a counselling company.

The counselling lasted two weeks and was a lot more interesting than I expected. The counsellor was a lady and while it was clear she was just doing a job; it was also obvious she was good at it. The first session was just us handing over the facts. Julie didn't say much, leaving me as the main speaker. The lady pushed fairly hard on Julie to list her reasons for her transgression, but Julie remained silent. I think she had it in the back of her mind that if she could come up with a good reason, I'd forgive her. The counsellor then scheduled a solo session for Julie, then one for me two days later.

Julie's session was supposed to be two hours long, the following Monday. She was increasingly withdrawn up till the day and it turned out the session lasted three and a half hours. I examined her demeanour when she returned for some clues, but if anything, all I saw was an increased reluctance to make eye contact with me. She didn't volunteer anything about her session with the counsellor.

My session was also scheduled to be two hours long but lasted only an hour and a half. The counsellor was very businesslike.

"Mr. Brown. You should know that your wife has authorised me to tell you anything I like about our session Monday. Firstly, can I confirm what she told me, that you would be willing to continue with your marriage if she gave you a reasonable justification for her actions?"

"Yes, that's what I told her. I have to tell you, though, that the burden of proof was always going to be very high. Something that would make me forget that she split my heart in half, put one of the pieces in her hand and then had me watch her piss on it."

The counsellor just gave me a hard look, then sighed.

"Why do you people always come to me when it's too late?"

"I can't answer you generally on that, but I can on my specific case."

She just raised an eyebrow. I took that as an indication she wanted me to keep going.

"I imagine people come and see counsellors when they think their relationship is in trouble. I never had a clue. As far as I was concerned, we had a wonderful family and a perfectly happy marriage. She'd never complained about anything to do with me or our relationship. Why see a counsellor when nothing is apparently wrong?"

"Yes, that conforms with everything Julie said. Of all the justifications she gave me, she never once raised an issue about you. In fact, when I probed about your relationship, it sounded almost idyllic. In my experience with similar cases I know those types of cases hit the husbands the hardest. They find it hard to get over the shock of being blindsided."

She paused to sigh deeply again.

"Let me preface my next statements by saying that I am aware that you aren't communicating very well."

I nodded.

"Your wife loves you very much and deeply regrets what she did. The guilt is killing her, and she just doesn't have the strength to face you at the moment. It would be fair to give her some more time to process this."

"I'm sorry, the moment she let me know she was capable of that much deceit, was the moment I stopped fighting fair."

"I understand. Julie is also aware that you know she went to see her lover in the hospital. She is scared that you may have interpreted that as her wanting to continue a relationship with him. She sees it as just common decency on her part. She wants you to know that she defended you when he accused you of permanently destroying his testicles deliberately."

My shit eating grin brought a smile to her face.

"Thanks for that, Mr. Brown. Us counsellors, more than anyone else, need a good laugh every now and then. Now, where were we? That's right, her justification. I will tell you what she said, then give you my analysis but I just wanted to pre-warn you, none of it is very convincing. In cases of previously happy marriages, it never is."

"Why don't we just get on with it, Doc?"

"Right. Well, Julie must have repeated about fifty times that she knew what she was doing was wrong and you would never accept it. As in every case like this, she never worried about how you would react because she never dreamed you would find out."

She paused, half expecting me to fill in that knowledge gap. I stayed silent.

"Well, the underlying reason is almost as old as time itself. Your wife was starting to fear middle age, when along came a younger, attractive man who showed sexual interest in her and pursued her. As a woman she was extremely flattered. She resisted for a long time until he appeared to give up. That is when she gave in. On a subliminal level, she thought that meant she was no longer attractive and that hurt her ego. I think she finally justified it by convincing herself that she loved him. She insisted that he always took her to lunch first. It made it appear that the sex was him getting lucky after a date. She was escaping to her younger days when life was simpler. In my opinion, it was never about the sex, Dave. That was just the price she had to pay for the continued romance. Your wife stressed that she never had unprotected sex with him and never disrespected your marital bedroom and all their, er, activities, occurred on the couch. Of course, you know that she used your house, so no motel expenses ever showed in either of their credit card records. Their lunch costs were modest and paid for in cash."

I just nodded. It all made sense so far.

"Your wife was genuinely horrified when she realised that she'd stopped having sex with you, pretty much for the duration of the affair. She was even more devastated when I prompted her on other aspects of the intimacy between you and she suddenly realised you'd stopped kissing her a month before the end. I presume that's when you first started suspecting her.

Again, I nodded.

"I was forced to point out to her that because she'd convinced herself she loved him, then subliminally, any intimacy with you would feel like cheating on him. It's bizarre what castles some people build in the air."

"What is it they say, Doc? Neurotics build castles in the air. Psychotics live in them; and psychologists collect the rent."

"Ha, ha, ha, touché."

"Was there any other justification, Doc?"

"No, nothing worth taking seriously. I did promise you some analysis, though. In my opinion, your wife cheated on you for the same reason most do. She had an opportunity and didn't have the strength or the will to resist it. Also in my opinion, your wife suffers from mild depression or even a low form of psychosis. I've recommended she sees a professional about that. Most depressives have self-destructive tendencies. I will finish by saying that with the remorse she is showing and the genuine regret she has, then with the correct medication, she is highly unlikely to ever be unfaithful again. Is any of that good enough for you?"

I didn't hesitate.

"No. Not nearly."

She smiled, reached into a folder and handed me an envelope.

"What's this?"

"It's a gift certificate, good at any courthouse for one divorce."

I knew then that this charade was over much less painfully than I'd expected.

"Now, Mr. Brown, I sure would appreciate knowing how you caught her. I'm doing a dissertation on cheaters and trying to compile some statistics."

Perhaps I felt grateful for her not trying to guilt me or pressuring me to stick to a suddenly loveless marriage. Whatever the reason, I told her about Robert catching a cab to my place because his wife was tracking his car, and them driving Julie's car to their lunches. The counsellor smiled at the seat adjustment and spark plug deductions.

"Well, that's an original one, thanks."

We parted and I went home. I got there before the kids returned from their after-school activities. Julie was waiting with a slightly expectant look on her face. I'm not a cruel man, so I simply sat opposite her and placed the envelope in front of her. Her face fell as she read it, then took on a resigned look.

"I guess that's it then, Dave. I'm sorry and I know I've lost your respect, but please believe me when I say that I still love you. I can only think of one way of proving it to you and that is to not stand in the way of what you think you need to do. I won't oppose the divorce and agree that doing it ourselves is the best way to go. I hope you can get over my betrayal and have a good life with me as a friend. You don't have to move out straight away, do you?"

At that point, her emotions were starting to get out of her control. She stood abruptly and started to walk away but stopped before she was out of earshot.

"I don't know if our counsellor said this to you today, but I really didn't realise that I'd cut you off so completely. I regret that along with everything else. If you feel like using me, you know, in the bedroom, I'm just across the hall."

With that, she left. The whole episode would have been very touching if I hadn't been expecting it. You see, I was still monitoring the tap on our phone. I'd heard her contingency planning with her best friend, Cheryl. Keep the relationship friendly, try to fuck her way back into my good books and lull me into giving her more than her fair share of our assets. The whole conversation reminded me of one of those cliché stories. Brothers and sisters existing in friendship and fraternity until their parent's will is read out and they promptly dissolve into a feeding frenzy.

I made dinner for the kids. We'd finished and cleaned up without Julie putting in an appearance. I decided that the kids had been kept in the dark long enough. I went to Julie's room to request she join me in updating the kids. Her answer made me angrier than I'd been since THAT day.

"You do it, Dave. I can't face them yet."

"You cowardly fucking bitch! You fucking caused this, now you want to hide your fucking head in the sand like an ostrich while I do all the painful work with our two innocent children."

This was so far from how I'd ever spoken to her before that her jaw dropped. She made the mistake of looking in my eyes and saw the depths of my disdain. She covered her face with her hands as I stormed out. Four minutes later she joined us very sheepishly in the lounge. As she was the last there, she was forced to sit by herself on a chair while the three of us sat together on the couch. I'm guessing that between this conversation and our last one they'd done some research on what adultery actually was. They kept interrupting my explanation by asking Julie really hard questions. Why? How could you? Did you think of your family when you did this? Did you think of us? Julie couldn't answer any of them, her gaze just got lower and lower as the questions hammered in.

Finally, when I'd made them understand that soon their parents would be living apart, they both expressed a wish to stay with me. Let's face it, I'd always been fun, the one who took them to do things - parks, camping, sport - and their mother had been emotionally absent for a long time. Teenage boys have the memory span of a boiled potato. Their desire to live with me made Julie sit up and take notice.

"Boys, the mother is almost always given custody of children in cases like this."

She glared at me. I could almost smell the lawyers. It surprised me so much that I didn't respond immediately, which allowed Pete to get in first.

"That doesn't seem right, Mum. Dad did nothing wrong, you stab him in the back, and he's the one that suffers."

Julie didn't say anything. There was no viable answer to that simple statement. I dispelled them with the fact that their mother and I hadn't started discussing details yet. I went on to tell them that the courts always had the best interests of children in mind and committed to going along with whatever that august body thought was best. The welfare of his children is the highest duty of a father, I stressed.

The next night, Julie surprised me again by volunteering to do the Child Support Agreement and the Parenting Plan, leaving me with the Separation Agreement. I thanked her for her offer and, after I reminded her that everything we did should be in the best interests of the children, accepted, inviting her to use my laptop. We tentatively made an appointment to talk to each other in a week.

For the next week we alternated, with one of us looking after the kids and the other working on the laptop. On the second day of that week, she came to my room while I was reading to get sleepy and reminded me of her offer. I politely declined. Two days later, she slid into my bed naked after I was asleep. I again rebuffed her for sex but agreed to cuddle her until she went to sleep. I left after she was asleep and the next morning she found me in the master bedroom. She took the hint after that.

Exactly a week later, we had enough to start negotiating. I went first with the separation agreement. I told her that it was a common law contract, nothing to do with the family court. I then ran her through the salient points. The house was to be controlled by the primary caregiver, no changes to wills, no debts to be incurred in joint names, keeping own retirement plans, and pre-nups to protect our family's assets if new partners were involved. I was agreeing to cover the children under my more generous health insurance, Julie was dropped. There was the usual catchall of the agreement being final and binding and that in the case of a dispute, the losing party was responsible for all court costs. All liquid assets were split 50/50.

Julie was happy with all this but did raise her eyebrows when I read the sentence where we agreed not to pay each other alimony. She started to argue but I pointed out that it was linked to the other two agreements, so it was inappropriate to discuss it yet.

She kicked off by saying that the Parenting Plan and Limited Child Support Agreement were interlinked. The Parenting Plan, another common law contract, spelled out who was the primary caregiver and the proportion of time the children would spend with each parent. Julie handed over an academic paper that concluded that children were generally better off with the mother in cases of separation. I let the fact that the paper was written by a woman from the Melbourne Centre for Women's Studies and, thus, of obviously feminist influence, pass and said that I'd heard similar reports. Julie was pleased at that. She then trotted out another paper from the same institute saying that it was emotionally unhealthy for the non-primary caregiver to have more than two days per fortnight custody. I said I'd defer to the experts on that one. I suggested putting in the same legalese about court costs as my agreement and also stipulations that the children wouldn't be removed from the state and conditions about Christmas, birthdays, and holidays.

Pleased at my acquiescence so far, Julie went on to the Child Support Agreement. This was the only agreement that had to be ratified by a government agency. She explained there was a formula that was based on our combined incomes, the age of the children and percentages of time the children spent at each separated parent's house. The result of the formula was that the non-custodial parent owed the primary caregiver $1,200 per fortnight. I told her I trusted her on this one. I did suggest more words on what expenses were covered by the payment.

We then returned to the subject of alimony, the only disputed point thus far. I pointed out that with such a high child support payment and the other terms, the inclusion of alimony meant that the primary caregiver would be living high, fat, and happy, while the other was doomed to a poor, lonely life. She relented and the subject was over.

Julie was obviously surprised by my lack of fight, but when I told her I was acting in the best interests of the children, she understood. I suggested that if we typed up a new CSA, we could sign it now and I could drop it off. This we did. We broke for the night, thanking each other for making it as painless as possible.