February Sucks - Aftermath

"But Jim was always so good at his job," said Dee.

"I know, but that night did a number on him. My counselor tried to explain it to me."

"Have you ever heard guys talking about 'marrying over their head' or 'outkicking their coverage'?"

Dee looked confused.

"I think it has something to do with football. It means guys think they married women too good for them. According to my counselor, that's important to guys. Part of their confidence comes from being able to attract a woman that they see as higher status than they are. It's sort of, 'if I'm able to attract a woman too good for me, then I just might be better than I thought.' For a lot of guys, especially ones that marry young, they connect the growth of their professional confidence with the personal confidence they get from their marriage, partly because the two grow together. When I left the club, Jim's personal confidence just collapsed, and it took his professional confidence with it. It took him years to regain the belief in himself that he lost that night."

"That's too bad," Dee responded.

"Luckily, his new boss was really good, and she saw Jim's potential. She put Jim in positions to be successful, and he got his professional confidence back. It was his boss that recommended him for the department manager position."

Linda paused as she considered sadly what she had to say next. "The worst part is that it cost us both the marriage that was important to both of us."

"But you're still married," Dee said. "You didn't lose that."

"We did, because the marriage I have now isn't the same marriage we had before that night. Jim and I were madly in love and trusted each other completely. In a moment of weakness that I still can't explain, I threw all of that away."

"In counseling, Jim described the moment when he knew there was trouble. It was when I came back to the table after dancing with Marc, and I tried to smile to reassure him, even though I had already decided to leave."

"Jim described it as 'my second-best smile,' and he said that I had never given him my second-best smile."

"Well, now I live with Jim's second-best smile."

"What do you mean?" asked Dee.

"When you've been in love with a man for as long as I've been with Jim, you know the difference between his best smile and his second-best smile. I haven't gotten his best smile since Jim and I finished our last dance that night, and we were walking back to the table, me holding his arm and looking into his eyes, as happy as I had ever been. Then, within half an hour, I had thrown that all away for one night with an asshole who just got a thrill from stealing other men's wives."

"But I thought Jim forgave you," Dee protested.

"Forgiving isn't the same as forgetting," Linda said firmly.

"What do you mean?" Dee asked.

"Dee, do you remember that cat I had when I was in high school?"

"Yeah! That big calico that used to sit on the back of your couch and look out the window? When I would walk up to the door, she was so still that she looked like a statue until she would suddenly move her head to stare right at me just before I rang the bell. She was a beautiful cat, but a little scary."

"Well, did I tell you about what happened just after I got her? I was in seventh grade, and Bella had been a stray and was about a year old when I found her. She followed me home after school, and I fed her, and she stayed."

"Yeah, you loved that cat."

"Well, one night I was up late watching a movie and just absent-mindedly scratching her. I don't know what I did, if I touched her in the wrong place or if something in the movie startled her, but she spun around, clawed my arm, and bit my thumb. I bled all over, and I had to take antibiotics because the bite got infected."

"Yeah," Dee nodded. "I remember when you had your hand and arm all bandaged up. You got out of a pre-algebra test."

"Yeah, that's it. Did you know that I never completely trusted that cat again? I would pet her, but never when I was doing something else. I always watched her for any sign she might do it again. She never did, but I was always wary."

"I didn't know that," Dee said.

"Well, that's what I did to Jimmy that night. The thing he trusted most suddenly spun around and hurt him in the worst way possible. I think Jim is giving me all he can, it's just that somewhere, deep inside him, he feels like he always has to be wary, and the extra trust that we had was destroyed that night. Part of Jim knows that I can hurt him, in the most cruel way, no matter how many times I swear to him that I won't."

"I guess I get that," said Dee.

"In the early days, Jim would just say, 'You swore in front of our friends and family that you wouldn't cheat on me. Why should I believe you when you swear, now?' I never had a good answer for him. Luckily, Jim gave that up when he forgave me."

"So, I have a different marriage now than I had before that night," Linda continued. "My husband before was trusting, social, and friendly. He loved people and loved going out to dinner or to dance. My husband now is introverted and suspicious. He is uncomfortable in public places, and he would prefer to be at home or in the woods than anywhere else. He loves me, but it is different."

"I don't think Jim even realizes how he changed. Would you believe that we haven't had sex in a hotel since that night? Sexy lingerie turns Jim off. All my bras are plain, and my panties are cotton. If we are going to make love, I just come to bed naked."

Dee cocked her head in curiosity.

"Don't get me wrong. Our sex life is good. Jim is loving and attentive, and he pays attention to my needs. It's just that sometimes he gets distant, and we have never gotten back to the same level of intimacy that we had before. Most other women would be happy with what I have, but since I know what things were like before, I can tell the difference."

"Here's an example of how suspicious Jim is. When Michael was about five, I was looking in Jim's desk for some papers we needed to refinance the house. There was a brown envelope in the bottom of the drawer. When I opened it; it was a DNA paternity test for Michael. At first, I was shocked and hurt, but then I remembered what I had done. Old Jim would never have done that, but new Jim was something I created, and he needed the reassurance."

"Did you ever mention that you found the test results?" Dee asked.

"No. I figured it was just something Jim needed to do to quiet the nagging voice that I planted in him," Linda replied sadly. "If it calmed his fears and kept us together, it was worth it."

"So, has Jim been miserable this whole time?" Dee asked.

"Oh, no!" Linda protested. "If you asked Jim, he would say he is a very happy man. It's just that I have known him for a long time. The kids have gotten his best smile, so I know it's still there."

"When Emma pitched her high school softball team into the state finals, I've never seen Jim more proud; he was beaming from ear to ear. When Tom got the lead in the school's production of The Crucible, Jimmy was worried because it was a tough part, but Tom pulled off John Proctor better than any high school kid should have. When Tommy got a standing ovation, Jim cried as much as he did the morning Tommy was born."

"Michael started playing baseball when he was about seven, and Jim has spent most of the last ten years hitting fly balls and pitching batting practice helping Michael get better. Jim gets tremendous joy from his family; he just doesn't get the same joy that he used to from me."

"If Jim can't love you like you deserve, why do you stay married to him?" Dee asked. "Don't you both deserve to be happy?"

"Oh, Jim loves me," Linda replied, "Probably more than I deserve after what I did to him. I'm thankful for that every day. It's just that I know what 100% of Jim's love is like; that's what I threw away that night."

"But Jim has such a capacity for love that 90% is more than I could get from anyone else. And part of the reason that Jim forgave me was because he didn't want the kids to suffer because of our problems. I didn't want that, either, but I know that if it hadn't been for the kids, I would have been out on my ass on Monday."

"Jim chose to overlook the pain that I caused by my foolishness that night; I chose to accept that my behavior had injured Jimmy so badly that he would never completely heal, and he was giving me all he could."

"Any other woman who had gotten the love that I've gotten would feel lucky. We rebuilt a great family life, mostly due to the grace that Jim offered me when he forgave me that night almost twenty years ago. It's just that I know what unconditional love from Jim feels like, and I've never gotten that back, and it's my own damned fault."

"Then why did you do it?" Dee asked.

"You know, I've thought about that, a lot, and I really don't know," Linda ruefully replied. "I never have been able to explain it, and that bothers me."

"I hadn't had too much to drink because Jim and I had 'big plans' for the night."

"My counselor thinks I had my own self-esteem issues that played into it. I've always been insecure about my looks, and women respond more to compliments from strangers than they do their partners. I guess we think that our husbands have to say we're beautiful, so we stop believing them."

"She told me that women naturally respond to a powerful man, and I got caught up in Marc's masculinity, for lack of a better term. All those things that are threatening to a man are things that trigger a woman's interest. For some reason, that night I couldn't control it. She thinks it might have something to do with pheromones, but I can't find anything that says that humans really react to things like that. She even suggested that the cycle of my birth control pills might have made me more vulnerable that night."

"In the end, they all sound like excuses instead of reasons. It scares me that I don't know why I did it, because if I don't understand it, I can't be sure that I could keep it from happening again."

"I guess, on some level, my body reacted, and I just thought I could get away with it, but I didn't understand the costs."

"While I was doing it, I knew it was wrong, but I plotted to do it anyway, and then I walked out of the club and left Jim sitting there alone. I maliciously hurt the husband that I said I loved more than life itself. How could I have been so cruel?" Linda was starting to cry as she relived the pain of that night.

Dee wanted to soothe her old friend, reaching over to hold her hands across the table, "But you aren't malicious. There isn't a mean bone in your body!"

"You're right," Linda said sadly. "I was worse. You know how they say the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference? That's what I was that night, indifferent to the needs and feelings of my husband. I couldn't have done anything worse, but he took me back, even though I didn't deserve it."

"You made one mistake," Dee said. "Maybe you need to forgive yourself."

"Yeah, but it was a deusy," lamented Linda. "I had no idea how deeply Jim would be injured -- and believe me, it wasn't just pain that I inflicted on him but real damage. That's hard to forgive. It's one of the ways that I know that Jim is a better person than I am. Jim could never have hurt me the way I hurt him, and I'm not sure I could have forgiven him the way he forgave me."

"But, you didn't mean to hurt Jim," Dee argued.

"Like they say in the police shows, 'planning proves intent.' I conspired with Marc on the dance floor to leave with him. I gave you the signal to go to the bathroom with me to get away from Jim. Then, I walked out the back door on Marc's arm."

"During our arguments in those early days, Jim would say that I chose Marc over him, and I always tried to deny it, that I never stopped loving him. But Jim was right. From the time I left the table to dance until I got into Marc's car that night, I made multiple decisions where I chose my wants over Jim's needs. That was the real choice, and where I really betrayed him."

Linda looked up. "Did you know that our reconciliation is partly based on a lie?"

"How so?"

"Well, on my birthday, Jim tried to take me out dancing. Looking back, I think it was part of us trying to do things we had done before; trying to deny that things had changed."

"Anyway, while we were out, this beautiful woman asked Jim to dance. She gave us some story that she needed a nice guy to dance with so that the creeps would leave her alone. They danced a couple of fast songs, and then the music slowed down. I knew Jim was milking this, trying to make me understand what he was feeling while I was dancing with Marc, so I was trying to be patient and not get mad, but I was sitting there crying thinking about what Jim must have been feeling watching me that night."

"The woman whispered something in Jim's ear, took his hand, and started to lead him off the dance floor. Jim pulled his hand away rushed back to the table with the most horrified look on his face."

"He held me and apologized all over himself. I thought he was apologizing for being petty and trying to rub the dances in my face, but after that, things in our relationship started to get better."

"So, that was good, right?" asked Dee.

"Yeah, but that's not all of it. We went to our next counseling session, and Jim starts into the story about our birthday date and him dancing with this beautiful woman and almost leaving the bar with her. He said it made him understand part of what happened to me, and it helped him forgive me for being weak."

"Isn't that good," asked Dee?

"Let me finish," Linda replied. "So, Jim is in the middle of his story, and I gasped. I had a one-on-one session with the counselor a few days before, and I had told him the story. The counselor looked at me with a 'shut up, stupid' look, so I let Jim finish."

"Jim made it sound like he had followed the woman halfway to her hotel room with his penis hanging out of his pants."

"Do you know far he went with her?"

"How far," asked Dee.

"Three steps! Jim forgave me because he thought taking three steps before jerking his hand away from that woman was equal to me spending all night getting fucked senseless."

"At my next one-on-one session, I asked the counselor about it. He said that I should let Jim live his own reality, especially when it's to my advantage. He said that Jim really wanted to forgive me, and his mind created an excuse to do that."

"Maybe he was right," said Dee. "At least it worked out for you."

"Yeah, but it doesn't keep me from worrying that if Jim remembers what really happened, everything we have could go up in smoke. I like what we have now. We don't go out anymore, but we started hiking and camping with the kids. I miss dancing, but I love Jim enough that I don't want to hurt him worse by bringing up bad memories. I don't think I even own a party dress anymore."

"When Michael's baseball started taking off, we spent a lot of time following his travel team to tournaments. We spent lots of time in the car and took picnic lunches and ate in the park. That was nice together time."

"Depending on where Michael goes to college, we may still get to follow some baseball. Now we have our granddaughter, and I think Emma wants to have more, and Tom is getting serious with his girlfriend, so I hope that moving around to see our grandkids keeps us busy."

"A part of me worries about what will happen when Jim doesn't have the kids as a distraction, and he just has to look at me every day. I hope we have created enough happy memories that I'm not just a reminder of the worst day of his life."

Dee looked sad. "Listening to you now, I'm sorry I wasn't a better friend to you that night. I was caught up in the glamour and the risk. I thought I was doing what you wanted, but I guess I wasn't there to help you."

Linda looked at the table. "I was a big girl. I should have known better."

Linda looked up at her former friend, "Did you know that I offered Jim a divorce?"

Dee was surprised, "You were fighting so hard to keep your marriage together. What happened?"

"In February the next year, Jim started to get moody. I didn't notice it at first, but it got worse and worse. About halfway through the month, I got my head out of my ass and realized that Jim was struggling with the anniversary of that night coming up. I mentioned it to the marriage counselor, and he brought it up in our next couple's session. Jim talking about it that day was the most raw I had seen him emotionally. Jim cried -- I don't mean that a little tear rolled down his face, I mean he really cried -- it was the only time I have ever seen him like that. It was one of those big steps for me in understanding how much pain I had caused."

"So, the next February, it happened again, and watching Jim hurt just killed me inside. So, when we had our next couple's session in March, I apologized to him again for hurting him, and I said if it would make him happier, I wouldn't fight if he wanted a divorce."

"What did he say to that?"

"He looked sad and apologized for being moody. Imagine, him apologizing for being the victim of my selfishness. Anyway, he said that he did love me, and he didn't want to disrupt Emma and Tommy's lives any more than they already had been by the tension in the house."

"So, then I said, 'I know part of this is about you taking care of your children. If you want to wait until the kids are out of the house, the offer will still stand if it would make you happier.' He shook his head and said, 'Why would I want to disrupt our grandkids' lives any more than our kids' lives?'"

"So, that has been where we are. In some ways, I think we stayed together because we were too stubborn to let an asshole like Marc break us up and mess up our kids' lives."

"Sometimes being pig-headed works," chuckled Dee.

"Obviously, things changed when Michael came along, but my offer to Jim still stands."

"I'll keep my fingers crossed that he never calls you on it," Dee said in support. "How is Jim now?"

"He's better, but he still has his days. Februarys are always tough on him. I realized he got quiet whenever I wore blue, so I don't have anything that color anymore. It was a pain that summer when Michael's baseball team wore blue jerseys, but I was able to get a white polo with the team logo on it."

"Do you ever think about that night?"

Linda pondered for a second. "The only times I think about it are when I'm in the middle of something happy, and the thought that I could have lost it jumps into my head. It popped in during kids' birthdays, Emma and Tommy's weddings, when I found out I was pregnant with Michael, and when little Nancy was born, so it intrudes into my happy moments."

"I used to have nightmares that I was having sex with a powerful stranger, but I could see Jim's sad face across the room, and everything I love was sliding away from me, but I couldn't get away to stop it. That doesn't happen so often anymore, but every few months I will wake up crying. Jim just holds me until I calm down."

"There's nothing positive?" Dee asked.

"No. I had this pipedream that I would have this special memory that I would carry forever, but I didn't understand the cost. For every hour I was with Marc that night, Jim has suffered through more painful Februarys trying to deal with what I did, and I have had to watch the man I love hurt for days on end. For every orgasm I had, I lost ten because I hurt Jim's sexual confidence, and then there were the times that something reminded Jim of that night, and he would have to process it by sleeping in his den or by turning his back to me in bed."

"The worst was what it made me think about myself. I had to spend every day remembering that I was capable of hurting a man that I had claimed to love more than life itself, and that I risked every happy event that has happened in my life since for a few hours of sex with a stranger. I've had to rebuild my own self-image. My counselor says I'm still a project."