February Sucks: Same Old Me (1of4)

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"Hey, you must be Jim? Welcome to the International Brotherhood of Wronged Husbands. Sorry to have you join us, but what can I say, misery loves company." Pete was just a year or two older than Dave, but looked worse the wear from his divorce. His hair was lighter and thinner, and the skin of his face and neck had lost some of its suppleness. He shook my hand with a surprisingly firm grip and hustled me in the door where Dave was sitting on the sofa, beer in hand and clearly miserable.

"Pleased to meet you, Pete, wish the circumstances were better." I felt a thump against my ankle and looked down at the weirdest cat I'd ever seen. It looked like it was made up of parts of different cats. One side of its perfectly bisected face was black, with long fluffy black fur, long white whiskers and a greenish yellow eye. The other side was tawny and striped, with short hair and a bright blue eye. It had a big white bib on its chest, but the hair was long on the black side and short on the tawny side. Its front legs matched the respective sides of its face- its right leg was that of a Tuxedo cat, but its left leg was pale Tabby. Its body was colored in patches of black and cream and patterns of Tabby or something, and its back legs were longer and didn't match the front at all. It had no tail, or maybe just a stub.

"Mrow?" It said. Who invited you?

"Oh, hello."

"This is Frankie. Short for Frankenstein. She just wants to say 'Hi' and make sure you're all right, then she'll leave you alone. Sorry. You're not allergic, are you?"

"No, not at all. She's a girl?" I reached down slowly so she could smell my fingertips, then she accepted the polite head scritches according to her rights and my duties. She mrowwled again, plaintively, informing me that this well-fed, well-groomed monarch of a cat wearing a rhinestone collar with a shiny tag was actually a poor neglected creature starved for affection, and clearly deserving whatever treats I might be carrying. "Aren't you just the cutest thing? Delighted to meet you, Frankie."

She snerted demurely and wandered under the couch.

"Yeah, she's a girl. She's a Chimera. She's got two distinct sets of DNA. It happens when two kittens in a litter fuse together at some really early stage of development. She's basically a pair of twins that decided to be one cat before they were born."

"Huh. Like siamese twins?"

"Kind of the opposite. Conjoined twins are identical twins who never separated all the way. Chimeras are fraternal twins that merged."

"What happens if one of the twins is a boy and one's a girl?"

"Then the cat would be a hermaphrodite, and would probably be sterile. Frankie's fixed, but her ovaries were probably both from the same genome. All her kittens would have been bred from only one of the twins. But, no little kitties are coming from the woman in my life these days. One set of paws is enough to keep me company."

"You got her after the divorce?" I headed to the couch to sit by Dave.

"Yep, she's all mine. I'd lived with Sylvia for so long that it felt creepy being all alone. Frankie's no trouble, and she's a lot easier to deal with. I know what to expect from her, even if she is a fickle, unpredictable little weirdo."

"Dude." I clapped Dave across the shoulders as he saluted me with his beer.

"My brother's filled me in on what happened tonight," Pete continued. "I would ask if you're okay, but that would be stupid, because you're not."

"That is very well put. What have you learned so far?"

"I've learned that my dear, sweet, conspicuously busty, soon-to-be-ex-sister-in-law has aided and abetted your wife's blatant adultery, and she would gladly have participated in such a thing herself, if presented with the opportunity."

"She tried to poo-pooh the whole thing, Jim," said Dave, who had clearly had more than one beer, on top of what he'd already had at the club. "But yeah, what you said was right, she eventually admitted it. She would have ran off and fucked LaValliere, and she'd have expected me to wait at home like a good boy. After you dumped her drink down her tits- nice move, by the way- she chased me down and wanted me to grab you and make you apologize. I told her that she was the one who need to apologize to YOU for helping Linda run away to fuck another man. She said no, because men do that kind of thing, why shouldn't women get to do it, too? I asked her what the fuck she was talking about, 'cause you never did that to Linda, and I never did that to her. She just said 'men in general,' and women are expected to tolerate it, like, all the time. I said that's no excuse to be so shitty in a marriage to someone who's not being shitty to you. Things went downhill from there and she called me a stubborn asshole. That's how I ended up here, not talking to that bitch."

"If it helps, Jim," added Pete, "Understand that Dee's worldview is skewed because her dad left her mom for another woman when she was, what, how old, Dave?"

"Twelve."

"Twelve. And I understand she hasn't really talked to him all that much ever since. So, there are significant daddy issues involved."

"Well, that makes a little more sense now," I said. "I thought she'd suddenly turned into some kind of crazy cheating shrew. No offense, Dave."

"None taken. She is a crazy shrew, there's nothing sudden about it.. I mean, we all talked about this, right? Many times. Cheating ends the marriage. One and Done. That's what everybody said, including Dee. And Linda. I don't get it. It's like that Asshole found the magic slut switch."

"At this point, I have to wonder if I ever really knew Linda at all, if she had that in her to do."

"I know the feeling," added Pete. "Look. I thought I knew my ex-wife. I didn't. I had no idea. The version of her that I had in my head did not match who she actually was. The Sylvia that I married didn't exist. I made her up. The real Sylvia was a lying, cheating narcissist, and I refused to see it. Hell, maybe that's how all human relationships are. We can never really know anyone else. The 'relationships' we have aren't actually with other people, but with the versions of them we have in our own heads."

"Damn. That's probably the most useful thing anyone's said to me all day."

"Thanks." He shuffled in his seat. "We divorced almost two years ago. Sylvia dumped me for one of her co-workers, who she'd been seeing for quite a while. She'd tried to be discreet about it, but... well it's like this. I knew. Of course I knew. I'm not blind. I'm not insensitive. I'm not stupid. I just didn't let myself BELIEVE what I knew. I didn't listen to my feelings. I couldn't. The mental image I had of my wife didn't allow for the possibility that she MIGHT be cheating. It would have been easier to convince me that she was really five corgis in a trenchcoat.

"So, instead, I decided that I must be crazy. I couldn't believe that My Sylvia would cheat, but I COULD doubt MYSELF. I figured I had to be irrationally jealous and suspicious due to some kind of deep-seated insecurities I didn't realize were there. That meant I was a bad husband and a terrible person; a controlling, possessive monster. So, I tore myself apart inside telling myself I was nuts rather than admit the truth. I spent about eighteen months beating myself up every goddamn day.

"Sylvia's cheating was bad enough to end the marriage all by itself, of course, but her lying about it was ten times worse. That showed a total lack of respect, a disregard for me almost to the point of contempt. But the very worst thing of all, which was a hundred times worse than THAT, was that she'd manipulated me into being complicit with her lies. She used my feelings for her against me. She turned me against myself, and then watched me drive myself mad. I became unfocused. Dissociative. I wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't. I distrusted and second-guessed myself about everything. I found myself gazing off into space and becoming unresponsive to what people were saying to me. I was depressed. I was isolated. I was miserable. I broke out into tears, just for no reason, without knowing why.

"Sylvia saw it, of course. She saw the changes in me. She'd ask me 'what's wrong?' and I couldn't tell her, because my suspicions made me a BAD MAN. So I sucked it up, repressed it, and made it worse. She knew what she was doing to me, because she's not stupid, either... and yet she kept right on doing it. She watched herself torture me, encouraging me to believe I was crazy, and jealous, and WRONG to think the evil thoughts that I just could not keep out of my stupid, insecure head. Good husbands TRUST and have FAITH in their wives and would never, ever, EVER believe that they'd betray you like that... and she Did Not Stop. I mean, how can you claim to love someone, to care about them, and yet still do that? How could she keep it up, week after week, month after month, and keep on doing it with no end in fucking sight?

"The answer, as it turned out, was that she's a sociopath. Now, I've never met your wife, Jim, and I kinda hope I never do. If she had it somewhere inside herself to do that to you, and you didn't see it, then yeah. You don't know the real Linda, and you never did. Maybe you saw her, but refused to believe what you saw. Maybe you chose to see something else, something you made up, instead."

I sat there, stunned.

"That's... I mean, that's the worst part. I can't believe any of this," I said. "I literally CANNOT believe what's just happened. I would never have believed it if it hadn't happened right in front of me. Women don't do that. PEOPLE don't do that. Nobody just runs off and fucks someone else after ten years of marriage AND assumes it's no big deal. There's no such thing as a magic slut switch, is there? Really? It's not like she suddenly got infected with the whore-ona virus. And God Damn It, she could TOTALLY use that against me, wouldn't she? I can just see it. She'd say 'Don't be ridiculous, Jim, I would never do something like that,' and I'd fucking believe her. I'd be a good husband and I'd rely on my faith in my wife. She would exploit it."

Pete and Dave were nodding.

"Me too, Jim," said Dave. "I'd never believe it. Not Linda. Not Jim-and-Linda Johnson. Never in a million years. It's like... it's as if being who she is gives her an automatic alibi."

"Right?"

"Now, MY dear wife Dee, that's another story. I don't find it hard to believe that she'd be a skank. Not at all. And now she's said so, and she's fucking proud of herself for it. And she's happy for Linda, too, and maybe a little jealous that she's not getting railed by some strange football cock tonight."

"I don't know what the hell is going on with either of them," I said. "The only thing, and I mean, the ONLY thing that makes any sense at all is that there's a whole shitload of stuff going on behind the scenes that I've just never seen."

"That's got to be true," said Dave. "I mean, Dee and Linda practically had this choreographed. Like they'd practiced. Do you really think this is, like, the first time it's happened? Because it didn't look like that to me. It was way too smooth."

"Shit. I don't know. It's never occurred to me, I've never had any indication of this kind of thing before. Nothing. Zero. Maybe I wasn't looking. Now I'm going to spend the next ten years wondering about the last ten years. What did I miss? What did I ignore? What was there that I just did not see?"

"Don't drive yourself too crazy with that, Jim," said Pete. "Believe me, it's not worth it. That's a rabbit hole you'll never climb all the way out of. The important thing, as far as you're concerned, is that the line has been crossed. Period. Does it really matter how many times it's been crossed? No, that just makes you an idiot, and brings more shame on her, but you're already in the same situation either way. What's happened can't be changed. You saw what you saw and you didn't see what you didn't. The only thing that matters now is what you're going to do with yourself. The only thing that's under your control is you. But you DO have control over your part. You have TOTAL control over that."

"Wow. That's... that's good advice."

"I hope so. Look, if you want to stay married, I'm the LAST person on earth you want to talk to. You've got your own decisions to make, and I can't tell you what to do. Divorce is fucking awful, it's pure Hell. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Avoid it if there's any way that you possibly can. The only thing worse than getting divorced is staying married to someone who's no damn good for you. Only you can decide what THAT means."

"It's not just me, though. I have a family. I have Emma and Tommy."

"They're how old?"

"Emma's six. Tommy's four."

"Okay, it will affect them. Sure. But you know what? Everything will affect them. They're being affected anyway. There are no good answers here. There are only less-awful scenarios. Would it really be any better for them if you stayed in a toxic marriage where all you do is fight and resent each other? Do you want your son to grow up watching his mother walk all over his father like a goddamn doormat? You want your daughter to cheat on whoever she marries like she's entitled to? You want your kids to watch you fuming at each other every day for however many years? Is that the kind of behavior you want to model for them through their formative periods? Divorcing Linda is FAR from the worst thing you could do to them. Kids are resilient, and having divorced parents is normal. They'd much rather see you break up when you needed to, rather than stay together for their sake. They'd grow up thinking you resent them just for existing."

"That's how it was with our folks," said Dave. "Even when we were teenagers, hell, even before that, we were wondering 'Why don't they just get a divorce? Why do they put themselves through this? Why are they putting US through this?' We used to stay up at night whispering about it when we were supposed to be sleeping."

"That's right. We did. And I can honestly say they should have split up like ten years earlier than they did. The point is, Jim, you DO have options. You haven't even begun to think of what those options are. Happy kids need happy parents. Staying married when you shouldn't isn't going to help them."

"Okay. I guess that's fair. I just can't imagine it."

"You're still in shock."

"I am?"

"Yeah, of course you are. You're not thinking straight. You're just surviving from one breath to the next."

"Damn. I guess that's about right. What should I do?"

"First of all, keep breathing. Walk us through what you've done since you walked out of the club, okay?"

I did. I told them about the hotel, the lingerie, the shattered vase and the barf with the wedding ring, driving around like a zombie, and the message I'd left for Linda with Andy.

"Okay. Not too bad," said Pete. "Better than I did. You haven't done anything stupid or illegal yet. And yeah, you're right, you need space. This zero contact and third party idea is good. Let her stew. She's going to want to 'take control' of the situation and 'just talk,' right? Yeah, shut that shit right down. The longer you go without letting her get to you, the cooler your head will be, and you'll be less susceptible to her line of bullshit. Have you thought about who your third party will be?"

"No clue."

"Okay. Hear me out. I've been going to a counselor. He helps. A lot of people feel like there's a stigma about being in therapy, but honestly, it's some of the best time and money I've ever spent. So I'm going to suggest a marriage counselor. Not because you want to stay married, not because you want to work on the relationship, but because Linda will agree to it, and you're not going to look like a jerk for presenting an ultimatum."

"Won't someone like that try to get us to stay married? Like, at all costs?"

"Nope. That's the thing. That's the old way of thinking about it. They used to be like that, but not any more. There's a whole new approach that's not like that at all. Preservation of the status quo isn't the goal. They'll call you out on any bullshit. They want each of you to do what's right for each of you. They don't want to preserve bad marriages. They'll teach you how to build a new relationship, or else they'll advise you how to communicate and relate to each other and remain civil in the process of divorce, if that's what you need to do."

"I mean... that WOULD be something Linda couldn't possibly turn down. And they wouldn't put up with her fucking Marc LaValliere, or try to convince me to, like, get over myself and forget about it?"

"That's right. Your feelings are going to be valid, whatever they are. Think about it, okay?. My guy is part of a practice, I've got his card around here, somewhere. No, wait, the number's in my phone. They've got two or three people in the office that do this kind of thing, I think. What's your number? I'll send it to you." I gave it to him, and he pinged it to my phone a few seconds later.

"Thanks. I'll call them on Monday, I guess."

"Call them tomorrow. They'll have somebody answer."

"Okay."

"There's a couple of more things you need to do, you know, while you're in shock. The first steps you make are important. Whatever happens, you've got to protect yourself first."

"Like what?"

"Money. This is for both of you guys," he waved at me and Dave. "Are your bank accounts joint, or separate?"

"Ours are all in both names." I said.

"Not ours," Dave clarified. "We've kept our shit separate. Dee insisted. She's an independent woman, y'see. It's okay, I kind of prefer it that way. If I want to buy something with my own money, I don't have to explain myself."

"Okay, so Dave, you're cool for now," Pete said. "Jim, you need a checking account and a savings account in your name and your name only. I think you can set that up online, right now. Does your bank have an app on your phone?"

"Yeah. Hang on." It only took a few minutes, and the new accounts were pending.

"Okay. So the first thing you need to decide is how aggressive you're going to be. If you're going for a scorched-earth approach, pay off whatever credit cards you have in both names and cancel them, transfer whatever money's left to yourself, and close the joint accounts. If you're going for civility, just take your half, don't touch the debt, and leave the accounts open."

"I can't do any of that. The accounts are pending until the start of business on Monday. Besides, the mortgage autopays from the joint checking, and my direct deposit goes in there, too."

"Right. So, when the new accounts go live, do the transfers, arrange for your deposit to go into your own account, and auto-transfer whatever you need back into them to keep payments from bouncing. Can you wait for Monday? You don't think Linda will beat you to it and clean out the accounts first?"

"According to Dee, she wants everything to go right back to the way it was. So, no. I wouldn't expect her to do that. Not this weekend, anyway. Not until whatever lawyer she gets tells her to."

"Okay, if you're sure. I'd put in the transfers so they're pending now, but that's just me. Next. The kids. You're out of the house, and not going back there, correct? You don't want to give up any claim to them. Custody means they're with you. Where are they now?"

"The Porters are babysitting them, along with Phil and Jane Nesman's kids. We're supposed to pick them up in the morning and take them all to breakfast. I wasn't going to. I was gonna let Linda handle that."

"Bad idea. Get them first. Get them early. Get with them and tell them your side. Don't specifically try to poison them against Linda, that'll just come back and bite you on the ass. Just be fair and tell them as much of the truth as they can understand and handle. Now, you're not going to be staying at home, so do you have any relatives you can stash them with?"