Consequences of Chrissie's New Love

With a cashier's check in hand, I went down the street to another bank and opened up a checking and savings account in my name only. With that done, I headed back home. When I got there, I found the kids watching television, so I loaded them into the car.

When rolled up to my in-laws, I saw Sam coming around the corner of his house from his workshop. He waved and headed back around the house. The kids piled out and headed after their grandfather.

Once inside, Mary greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. A minute later, Sam came in, and after washing his hands, he came out to greet me.

"I'm sorry I have to tell you this," I apologized immediately. "This is hard for me to say." I took a deep breath and continued. "Chrissie is having an affair, and I'm filing for a divorce."

"I don't believe you," Sam said sharply. "Chrissie isn't that type of woman. What proof do you have?"

"She told me," I said softly as tears started to slide down my face.

At that point, the back door opened, and the kids came trooping in. "Please stay outside for a few minutes," I told the children.

"Why?" Ron-Ron asked.

"Because I'm telling you to," I said more sharply than I meant to.

At that point, Ron-Ron saw the tears on my face, and he turned immediately, pushing his siblings back out the door.

"She told you?" Mary asked in disbelief.

"Yes," I said firmly, "and a whole lot more."

I then recounted the story of the previous evening, including the part where she was having sex, and it was good. Also, I told them about how she said to me if I divorced her, she'd ruin me. And finally, I recounted how she didn't think any other woman would want me.

They were shocked, and Sam was angry "I still don't believe it. I'm going to call her and put the call on speakerphone."

After dialing his daughter's number and activating the speaker, Sam put the phone on the coffee table.

"Hey, daddy," Chrissie answered brightly. "What can I do for you?"

"Ron is here right now," Sam said and immediately asked the question. "Are you having an affair?"

There was a long pause. Then Chrissie demanded, "What did he say?"

"He said you were having sex with another man and that you were in love with this guy."

"It's complicated, daddy," she pleaded. "I'm trying to help this man. He's suffered a terrible tragedy, and I'm trying to help him."

Sam's face got bright red, and through gritted teeth, he asked, "are you fucking him or not?"

"We've had sex, but I still love Ron. I just can't abandon this man right now. I love him also."

I was totally stunned by Chrissie's father. She had always been a daddy's girl, and I just assumed that Sam would make excuses for her.

"Chrissie," Sam's voice was a bit strangled at this point, "I never thought my daughter would ever become a fucking slut."

"Daddy, please. . ." was all that was heard as Sam pushed the disconnect button.

A moment or two later, the phone began to ring again, and Mary went to answer it.

"Leave it alone," Sam commanded.

But Mary snatched it up and tried to answer anyway. Sam grabbed the phone out of her hand and threw it against the fireplace.

"I SAID LEAVE IT ALONE!" he screamed at his wife. She was totally shocked by her husband's anger and backed up. I was even more shocked.

Dead silence filled the room as Sam and Mary were trying to process what they had just learned.

Finally, Sam came over to me and hugged me. "Ron, I am so sorry. I don't even know what to say. I can't believe our daughter has done this to you. Anything that we can do to help you we will. And I mean anything at all. We will be there for you and the kids. I'll have Mary talk to our daughter later and let you know how that comes out. Right now, I'm too angry to talk to her."

After that, I had to leave, so I could get back to the house for the locksmith. After herding the kids into my car, I hugged Sam and Mary and invited them for dinner where we could talk more about my problem.

On the way home, Sally burst into tears. "Are you and mom getting a divorce?"

"Where did you hear that?" I demanded.

"From me," Ron-Ron said defiantly. "I snuck back into the house and listened. I figured it was something bad. I just didn't figure it was that."

I sighed and realized they had a right to know what was going on. But then the question was how to tell my kids about their mother without causing too much damage. Damn Chrissie, her selfishness was hurting the kids. I bet she never thought about that when she was climbing into bed with her new man.

"Unfortunately, it seems that your mother and I will be getting a divorce," I said softly.

"But why?" Kyle asked as he started to cry.

"Your mother has fallen in love with another man," I said simply.

"You mean, she's having sex with another man?" Sally said between her tears. "I hate her. She's a total bitch."

"Sally, don't say that about your mother," I admonished my daughter, but my words were hollow as those were my exact feelings right now.

The locks were changed and none too soon. Ten minutes after the locksmith van left, Chrissie came roaring into the driveway.

"You had to fucking tell my parents, didn't you? I'm sure that you told them that I'm a slut and a whore," Chrissie screamed. "I thought you loved me?"

"Chrissie," I said sadly, "I do love you with all my heart, but I will never accept that you are going to be fucking some other guy. And you have no idea how much you hurt me when you told me that I was just an ugly middle-aged guy that no other woman would ever want to be with. In essence, you told me, you're doing me a favor by staying with me. Your pity-love, I can do without. Not only did you do that, but you threatened to ruin me. Yet, you dare to tell me you love me. You really need to take a good hard look at yourself, Chrissie. People who love each other don't do things like that."

"As for telling your parents," I continued, "if you're so convinced that what you're doing is right, then it shouldn't matter that your parents know."

Chrissie looked stricken after I laid my accusations on her.

"Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say those things," she tried to apologize. "I was just angry at the moment because you called me a slut and a whore. Truly, Ron, to call your wife and the mother of your children those names. You promise to love, honor, and cherish me. Shame on you. If you truly loved me, you would accept the situation. I'm not leaving you for him, I just love him also, and I'm trying to help him. He's much younger than me and will eventually move on."

"Chrissie," I said, shaking my head slowly. "If you're going to quote our wedding vows, you should include the part where you promised to forsake all others."

Chrissie turned red and seemed uncertain at that moment. Then her eyes narrowed, and the arrogance was back. She was breathing hard, and I figured she was trying to figure out her next argument on why I should accept the situation. At that moment, I wished to God that I had no love for her at all. But I still loved her deeply.

"Look, Ron," Chrissie said with a tone that she used with the children when she wanted them to behave, "stop being an ass. I'm your wife. You know me. I love you, and I will come back to you when this man is well again."

I was so sad at that moment that I just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. But I steeled myself and shook my head. "No, Chrissie, I don't know you. My wife was a warm and loving person who would never cheat on me. You are a person I don't know. For all, I know, this is just one of many affairs that you've had over the years. I can't be sure of anything about you anymore."

Chrissie's eyes narrowed, and her face flushed. I could tell that she was furious at this moment and about to explode. "This is not an affair, and this is the first person that I've ever had sex with since we were married. This man has been badly hurt, and I am going to help him whether you agree or not."

"Well, just in case you are unsure about my feelings," I said as my inside turned to ice, "I don't accept this. Not only that but because I no longer trust anything about you, I intend to have a DNA test done on the kids to make sure that they really are mine."

"You are a total fucking asshole," Chrissie spit out at me. "I can see that you intend to make this into something very ugly. Just remember what I told you will happen if you try to divorce me."

Looking down, from the porch, at my wife, I shook my head. I could take very little solace from the fact that she had no idea of the "shit storm" that was probably going to descend on her. I think that she had convinced herself that she could have her cake and eat it too and there would be no consequences. It was at this time that the sheriff's vehicle pulled up. The Deputy got out of his car and approached Chrissie.

"Are you Chrissie Jamison?" the deputy asked.

"Yes, I am," Chrissie responded with confusion.

"Ma'am, this is a restraining order," the deputy handed her the court order. "It says that you cannot go into that house, and you have to stay five hundred feet away. Do you understand?"

"But that's my home," Chrissie sputtered. "All my things are inside."

"Ma'am, I'll allow you fifteen minutes in the house to gather your stuff," the deputy looked up at me, and I nodded. "Mr. Jamison will stay out here."

"Officer, I'd rather take my children out in the backyard if that's all right?" I asked.

"But I want to see my children," Chrissie was frantic by now.

"Ma'am," the deputy was getting nervous that this situation was about to get out of hand on him, "the reason for the restraining order is to protect, specifically, your children from you."

Chrissie wheeled around with anger in her eyes. "You did this. You're trying to take my children away from me."

"No, Chrissie, you did this," I said calmly. "I simply informed the court that you had abandoned our house and left our children, unattended, at your lover's house where you were having sex with him."

"I didn't abandon our house, and he's a wonderful man!" Chrissie screamed. "He's just someone I'm trying to help."

"By sleeping with him," I responded more for the deputy's benefit than my wife's.

I took the kids to the back yard and told them that their mother was gathering her stuff to take to her new man's house, but I would let them see her before she left.

I did not get any pleasure out of the meeting between Chrissie and the children. Kyle was crying so hard when I took them back out front. He rushed into his mother's arms and wept bitterly, begging her not to leave.

"Please, Ron," Chrissie sobbed. "Can't you see what you're doing to the children."

Anger flared in me, but I forced it down, and with ice in my voice, I told her, "I haven't done anything to the children. This is all on you. If you want to put an end to this, leave that asshole and come home."

"Ron, why can't you understand that I can't abandon him," Chrissie said through a torrent of tears.

"Chrissie, I'm sure you thought long and hard before we had that shitty conversation yesterday," I said sadly. "But in all of your thought processes, I don't think you ever considered the consequences of your decision. Now you're beginning to see those consequences. I hope you're happy."

Ron-Ron just stood there looking at his mother and then asked why? Chrissie fumbled around, trying to explain what she was doing to her son. Ron-Ron listened, but it was clear that he didn't believe any of it. Yet, it was Sally who really let her mother have it.

"You're nothing but a selfish bitch," she said as she spit on her mother's face. I had to grab my daughter because I thought she might hit Chrissie. I also demanded that she apologize. Sally flatly refused. Chrissie was totally blindsided and dropped to the ground sobbing. I wasn't totally shocked by my daughter's behavior. Sally and Chrissie had been going through a rough patch lately and seemed to be butting heads more and more. To me, it just seemed like the average teenage rebellious stage that I thought Sally would outgrow. But now, I could only hope that Chrissie hadn't permanently damaged her relationship with her daughter.

As I held Sally, Chrissie got up and ran to her car. As she drove away, I could see her banging the steering wheel furiously. Kyle tried to run after the car screaming, "Mommy, please don't leave us!" Ron-Ron finally caught him and brought him back.

The deputy looked at me sadly. "Mr. Jamison, I am really sorry for what you're going through."

That night, Sam and Mary came over for dinner. I was going to grill up some hamburgers and make some salad. But Mary chased me out of the kitchen and made meatloaf and her "world-famous" macaroni and cheese. The kids loved that.

While Mary was cooking, Sam and I sat in the living room with a couple of beers. I could see that he was really distraught over what his daughter was doing. I explained to him about the restraining order and that I had gotten it because Chrissie had left the children unattended at her lover's place. That saddened Sam even more.

"Mary spoke to Chrissie about an hour after you left," Sam said finally.

"How did that go?" I asked, hopefully.

"Terrible," Sam admitted. "Mary tried to reason with Chrissie to no avail. Chrissie is convinced she is right, and we are all wrong. She thinks we're horrible people, and that's when Mary got angry, really angry. I've never seen her that angry before. The conversation ended when Mary told her daughter not to call us anymore. Mary also told Chrissie that if it ever went to court, she was going to testify against her."

As you can expect, the meal was very subdued. The only bright spot was when Sam invited the kids over to work on their go-karts the next day. That, at least, brought smiles to Ron-Ron and Kyle's faces. Sally just sat there with a pissed look on her face. She didn't eat anything, but I decided to let that go. I think she was hurting almost as much as I was.

On the following Friday, Chrissie was served with divorce papers at the hospital. I learned from friends who worked there that Chrissie totally lost it. Apparently, she was really, really angry with me. She swore at the process server and vowed she was going to ruin me. Finally, they sent her home, or more accurately, to her lover's house.

Chrissie then hired a lawyer of her own. Her attorney was a woman that Dwight knew well as he had faced off against her several times. Her name was Amber Wright, and Dwight said she was not nearly as good as she thought she was.

Amber immediately tried to have the restraining order rescinded. Judge Johnson was not sympathetic. He said that the children were totally safe at the moment, and he would only modify the order. He told Chrissie that she could come to the house for supervised visits. But her boyfriend was not allowed to be within five hundred feet of the house at any time. He warned her that if she violated that prohibition, he'd rescind the visitation rights. Chrissie was ecstatic by the modification. For myself, I wasn't upset because I wanted the kids to see their mother.

However, Chrissie's joy was short-lived. The judge then ordered Chrissie to start paying child support. And the amount he stipulated meant that she was going to have to go back to work full time. Even with her blow up at the hospital, I knew they would take her on fulltime. There was always a shortage of nurses. Besides, she was an excellent nurse.

Sometime after the hearing, the DNA results arrived in the mail. It took me almost half a day to get up the courage to open the envelope. When I finally did open it and read the report, my heart was filled with pure happiness for the first time since this mess had started. My kids were truly mine.

I reread the report several times to reassure myself that it indeed confirmed that I was the biological father to my kids. Then I wondered what I would have done if the report had said that one or all of my kids weren't mine. In an instant of clarity, I realized that I would love them the same no matter what. At that moment, I would have been willing to forgive all if Chrissie would just leave that fucker and come home. But she refused to do that; she had dug in her heels.

I used up all of my personal days and my vacation time, so I could stay home with the kids. When that ran out, thankfully, Chrissie's parents were willing to watch them. Sam and Mary were still refusing to talk to their daughter until she came to her senses. Sam said she called three or four times a day for about a week. Then Sam blocked her number.

The visitation schedule was left up to Chrissie and me to work out. Actually, that meant that our attorneys would communicate what we wanted. Finally, it was agreed that Chrissie could visit Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between six and seven o'clock in the evening. Mary volunteered to supervise. However, I insisted that I be there for the first visit. I wanted Chrissie and Mary also, to know precisely what the rules would be.

On the first Monday, a car parked in the street, and Chrissie got out. I didn't recognize the car but quickly realized that it must be her lover's car.

Chrissie walked up the house nervously and smiled tentatively at us both. "Hello Ron, how are you? Mother, it's good to see you."

"Chrissie, you have to leave," I snapped at her. "The judge told you that your lover wasn't allowed within five hundred feet of this house."

Horror spread over her face. "But, but, but, but he was just dropping me off."

"Chrissie, are you brain dead or what?" I was furious. "The judge was quite clear, no lover here! Tell that asshole to leave now, and I won't tell the judge."

Chrissie nodded her head quickly and started back toward the car. Then a thought struck me. I walked out at an angle and pulled a pen from my pocket. As Chrissie was talking to her lover, I copied the license plate number down. Then I returned to the porch as the car drove off.

"Okay, he said that he'll come back and pick me up," Chrissie was now defiant.

"Well, tell him to meet you down the street because I don't want him anywhere near the house."

Chrissie's face filled with anger, "Ron, I'm really getting tired of how you're treating me. You didn't have to steal the money from our checking account or cancel my credit card."

"Chrissie, I didn't steal anything. The money that was taken from the checking account was used to pay off the credit card and then two mortgage payments. I wanted to be sure the kids had a place to stay while we sorted our situation out. As to canceling the credit card, I didn't want to be stuck with any expenses you might charge while you're running around with your lover."

Chrissie's face flushed red with, I assumed, anger and arrogance. "This is not an affair, and he isn't my lover. Ron, you're being an asshole."

Before I could say anything, Mary stepped forward and slapped Chrissie across the face. I was as stunned as Chrissie. Chrissie stepped back and stared at her mother, bewildered.

"Chrissie, if you ever disrespect Ron again, I will tear that dress off you and beat your ass red. Now, if you want to see the kids, they're in the living room. I want a word with Ron, and then I'll be in. But be forewarned, if you do or say anything wrong, I will bodily throw you out of this house.

Chrissie nodded meekly and went inside.

"Ron, I apologize for my "brain-dead" daughter," Mary said sympathetically.

"Thanks for sticking up for me," I said with real gratitude, and then I left.

Two weeks after that first hearing, as Dwight had mentioned, the restraining order was lifted. But by that time, I had established that I was the primary caregiver, and I was allowed to stay in the house since Chrissie was still seeing her lover. Chrissie's child support remained, but she now could have unsupervised visits with the children in public. However, the judge admonished her that she couldn't take them to her lover's house, and he couldn't be with her when she had the kids.