February Sucks: Same Old Me (3of4)

"Jim. Our marriage. Our family. That was real. That IS real. That's what's important."

"It was an illusion. Our marriage and family took a back seat to you getting your freak on with your Asshole Boyfriend as soon as you had the opportunity. You knew what was going on with our relationship, but I didn't. I never knew where I really stood with you."

"That's not true."

"That's precisely what has turned out to be true. You may hate it. I sure do. But neither one of us can deny it."

"I'm denying it."

"Then you're in denial."

"Am not." She pouted playfully. I shook my head.

"Are too. Look. This isn't happening. Not tonight. Here's the deal. You get your half of the room to live in. That's your space. I get mine. That's my space. We don't have a shared space together, because we're not together. We're not going to be staying in the house at the same time. The house is a home for the kids. We'll take turns being there for them. We'll get an apartment or a condo. Two bedrooms, one for you, one for me. When one of us is there, the other is at the house, and vice versa. Co-parenting. Partnership. When the kids are grown, we can all decide what to do with the house, then you'll go your way and I'll go mine."

"No."

"What do you mean, no? That's the deal. That's how we can make it work."

"I don't accept it. We're staying married. Period. No apartment. No condo. I'm not going along with any of that."

"I didn't get a choice, Linda. You don't, either."

"This isn't fair."

"We're a long goddamn way from fair. I agree. Just look at how we got here and then talk to me about what's fair."

I pulled away.

"I'm going now. It's late, I'm tired, and this has taken a lot out of me. I'll keep my phone on and I'm not going to be a jerk and not pick up, if you quit blowing it up with the same goddamn non-apologies you've kept throwing at me, okay?"

"I... okay. I love you, Jim."

"I love you, too, Linda. Goodnight."

I wished I didn't still love her. I was still working on that.

***

The next few weeks were surreal. I was camping out in the Suites, and quickly wearing out my welcome. I was going to have to come up with something long-term. I never stayed at the house but I was there every evening and sometimes came by in the morning, too. I made breakfast and dinner and did the bedtime routine with Emma and Tommy, who adjusted to the 'new normal' more readily than I thought they would.

I somehow stopped living hour-to-hour, the way I had been. Life wasn't a steady onslaught of terror and anxiety anymore. Days became weeks, which began to go by like they had before. I somehow became resolved to estrangement and divorce, though Linda was still being muleheaded about it. She refused to spend even one night elsewhere and turn the house over to me, saying that she wouldn't be chased out of her own home. I resented her for turning me into a part-time Dad, but she insisted that was on me- she wanted me to stay in the house.

We continued our sessions with Susan Manette, which were unproductive. I believe she settled on the idea that reconciliation wasn't on the table, and things stopped being about me getting over my issues and became more about Linda's needs and desires. What led her into this? If she couldn't keep me, what did she want her life to be like? We were spinning our wheels in that mud. Linda claimed to understand that we'd have to build something new rather than pick up where we left off, but I don't think that point ever hit home.

I was right about Asshole having Linda's number. He'd called her several times, which she admitted. I think she was trying to show me that she wasn't hiding anything anymore. The son of a bitch even sent her flowers once. She said she sent them back with the delivery guy, but showed me the note. It was trite garbage. She also insisted on playing me the voicemails he'd left:

"Hi, Linda, this is Marc. I'd really like to see you again. Is this a good number to call you on? Call me back and let's set something up. See you soon!"

"Hi, Linda, Marc again. Sorry to call you twice, but I really do want to see you again. I think back to that night and the next morning, and I just knew we had something special. I know you felt it, too. You are an incredible woman. You may think I say that to all the ladies, but I don't. I would really like to get to know you better. I know you have kids. I love kids, and I'd love getting to know yours. I loved what we've done together, and I'd like to do all of that again and then some, but there's just something about you that makes me want to get involved with you as a whole person. I can't put my finger on it, but it's there. I know you're married, but we already know I can please you in bed better than your husband can. You told me that yourself. You know I can give you and your kids a life that he can't even dream of. Linda, you owe it to yourself and your children to explore what we could have together. You've already taken the first step, and you know you loved it. Take the next one. Please call me."

"If that Asshole ever gets near my kids," I heard myself say, "I'll shoot him. I'll stalk him. I'll vanish from society, live under a bridge, do whatever it takes and be as sneaky as I have to, and I will put bullets in the back of his head. I don't care if I go to jail. I don't care if I get the needle. Hell, I might eat a bullet myself just to save everybody the trouble. But he will not get my kids. Never. Not if he wants to live."

"Jim, God, don't even say anything like that. Marc has never met the kids, and he's not going to, okay? Don't worry about that."

"I will decide for myself what I need to worry about, thank you very much." I glared at her. "So. Did you call him back?"

"Yes."

"What did you say?"

"I... told him I was trying to work on my marriage, and I needed time and distance. I didn't tell him not to call me again. I thought that maybe..."

"Maybe... what? You'd get me on board with being your cuckold?"

"Don't say that. That's not a nice word."

"It fits. It's not a nice thing to do to me. Well? Was that the idea?"

"Not like that."

"Aha. So, more like 'What Jim Doesn't Know Won't Hurt Him'?"

"No, not... I mean, I was trying to be polite."

"Shows where your priorities are. This was before your bisexual orgy after the Irish pub, I take it?"

"It wasn't... god. Yes. This was before that."

"Had you arranged to meet him there?"

"NO. He was just there."

"Were you expecting him to be there? Or, no, scratch that. That's too deliberate for you to admit. Did you have any idea that he MIGHT be there, because that's one his pickup spots that you knew about?"

She was silent.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"He's not my boyfriend. Look. He kept calling me after that. I finally told him to go away. Here." She played me another recorded conversation. She hadn't shouted or sounded upset. She'd told him that yes, she enjoyed what they did together; if she tried to deny it he wouldn't believe her. But she wasn't interested in ever seeing him again for any reason, in any situation, and she wouldn't trade one day with her husband for a lifetime with him. He tried to tell her she didn't mean it. That was the wrong thing to say. "I meant exactly what I said," she responded forcefully. "You have nothing to offer that interests me. I never want to see you, hear from you, or receive anything from you, as long as I live. Now I will hold you to your word to never contact me again in any way." There was a pause. He replied "All right, babe. Your loss." and the call disconnected.

I took it in.

"Well. That was all very nice. But there's still a problem."

She looked at me with her questioning eyes.

"I don't trust you. That was the conversation you played for me. I didn't hear the conversations I don't know about. The ones where you might have arranged what to say in that little radio drama I just heard. For all I know, all these messages and conversations could just be theater. You could be trying to throw me off the track, or maybe you think you're 'helping' me."

"Jim. I could never do that to you."

"Again. I have no idea what you could or could not do to me. Neither do you, it seems."

She looked at her feet.

"You don't trust me at all, do you? You don't believe me."

"I don't, no. I can't. I shouldn't. I'd be a fool to try."

"I always thought of myself as a good person, you know," she said. "You've said that to me... I don't know how many times. But now I don't even know what's true about me anymore. Does a good person leave her husband sitting alone to go fuck another man? No. Does she buy a special dress for her husband, then wear it to go fuck somebody else? Hell, no. Good people keep their promises, don't they? What does that make me, then?"

She took a couple of breaths to settle herself and went on.

"I knew when we married that I wasn't the prettiest girl you had dated, or the best lover, or the smartest. But one thing I brought you was my fidelity. If I gave you nothing else, I could give you that. I would go to my grave a faithful wife. But now that's gone, and it's gone forever! I can never again say those words, 'However much I might have disappointed you, at least I'm a faithful wife.' Never, ever again! And worst of all, it's my own fault! You think that's easy to deal with?" She shouted before dissolving into tears.

"Even with all the games you played with Dee and the other girls. All that talk about cheating."

"I didn't mean it! I didn't mean any of it! It was all just fantasy! I mean, yes, Dee was doing her thing, and it was exciting to talk about, and yes, I helped keep her secrets. And Jane came close, but in the end, she didn't. I never did anything. It was all just talk. I swear it."

"I mean, it's not like you valued fidelity very much for all the years that you were doing that."

"Maybe that was the point. Maybe I valued my faithfulness because I'd spent so long dancing on the edge. Or maybe it was the other way around- it felt safe to get that close, to play that game, because I was confident I'd never actually go through with it. I don't know. I just don't know. But there is one thing left that I do know. I love you, Jim, heart and soul, today just as deeply and truly as I ever have. As surely as I have a heart or a soul."

She had settled down now. She sounded weary beyond the telling, as if that final statement had exhausted her last reserve of energy. Her eyes closed and she slumped against the chair and I bid her goodnight.

***

Our little friend group had shattered. The email I sent to the guys not only called them out for not telling me about Linda and Dee's latest adventure at the Irish pub, but I declared... or revealed... that our little clique was actually two different groups with the same set of members. The first was the secret group of women who'd been either cheating, helping each other cheat, planning to cheat, wanting to cheat, or talking about cheating, and playing the husbands as clueless chumps. That was the core reality. The second was all of us together, the social couples' group that the husbands thought we were in, while the wives put on smiling faces and pretended to be on good behavior while lying to us and manipulating us. I just wanted to let all the men know where we really stood. It could just as easily have been any of them. Each of their wives would have betrayed them, the other ladies would have backed them up, and they would have gotten the rest of the men in the group to go along with it.

Dave and Dee were done. The divorce got filed, and Dave moved in with Pete full time. Phil and Jane refused to speak to any of us anymore, though we agreed to let our kids enjoy playdates with each other. Gus prepared divorce paperwork for Helen, who was tearfully contrite and insisted that they go into counseling and agreed to cut off contact with the rest of the women. I don't know if they ever filed. Andy and Rose just kind of vanished, together. I hope they made it. I got some belated apologies and thank-yous from Gus and Andy, who were furious with their wives for not letting them tell me about Brennegan's. Gus was particularly mad when he realized that Helen would have gotten everyone to close ranks against him if she'd been the one messing around. She might have been messing around too, I guess, I don't know.

The outing to Cahoots never happened. Not with any of the group together.

***

I hadn't given up on the contacts I'd made with SmokeSignal. I'd actually expanded my network some. There was even a group chat or message board thingy about Asshole's comings and goings, so I ended up knowing a fair amount it, but I hadn't gotten any names. Then, one day, Robin, the desk girl at the Madison, came through for me and got me into contact with Alison.

I met her at Fortunato's, a pizza joint near the university campus. Red-and-white checkered oilcloths on the tables, wicker-wrapped chianti bottles decorating the walls, and entirely too much garlic everywhere for anything like a date. I hoped she got that message, anyway. Alison turned out to be a moderately attractive woman with straight blondish hair, but she looked hard. Bitter. She probably didn't trust men. I'm sure she had her reasons.

"Pleased to meet you," Alison said, shaking my hand while I was still sitting, as if trying to establish dominance. "So. Marc LaValliere, huh?" She slid into the booth across from me.

"Yeah."

"Let me guess. You were having a special date night. You were out at a club where there was drinks and dancing, and he came right up to her and grabbed her away for a dance. Didn't even really ask, just took her right away from you."

"Pretty much exactly. We were there with four other couples and he did it right in front of everybody."

"Ouch. Yeah, that tracks."

"What do you mean?"

"He likes to make a spectacle of taking a woman away from her husband. The more public and blatant he is about it, the better."

"So I've heard."

"It's true."

"And women actually go along with it? Even when they're supposedly in happy marriages? That's the part I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around."

"Well, he's very good. He knows exactly how to sweep a girl off her feet. He makes us feel the innocent giddy rush of a schoolgirl fairy-tale romance, with a powerful undercurrent of the promise of vigorous sex. It doesn't hurt that he's the healthiest specimen of manhood most of us will ever see. Or touch. It all starts off innocently with 'just a dance,' and for a few moments, we tend to just forget all about our husbands. Then he escalates and before you know it, we're in bed."

"Sounds like you still admire him."

"Fuck no. The very thought of the man makes me sick now."

The server came around and we ordered a pitcher of beer and garlic knots. The garlic knots at Fortunato's are kind of the whole point of going there. We hadn't given a thought to food yet.

"So, what's your story?" She asked.

I told her. You've heard it, and in a lot more detail, but I told her most of it, including my scheme of splitting the bedroom in half.

The garlic knots were amazing, they were the size of cinnamon rolls, steaming hot, dripping with chunks of minced garlic and oil and fragrant enough to fill the room. We ordered a New York-style cheese pizza, and when it came, it had the perfect sauce-to-cheese ratio and the crust was done perfectly. It would have been magnificent if we weren't so miserable.

"Well, you've done better by your wife than Barry did with me. He kicked me out of the house and told me to go to hell. Divorced me so fast I barely knew what happened. Didn't even matter that we have a daughter."

"Wow. Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"How? It couldn't have been any worse than what Linda did."

"It was EXACTLY what your wife did. LaValliere has this... ritual, I guess. I was out with Barry for our tenth anniversary. Marc took me away from our table for a dance. I was in heaven. I wasn't thinking about Barry at all, to my everlasting shame. We were dancing and dancing and I don't even remember leaving the club, just the feel of his body against mine, and the promise of more, and excitement like I hadn't felt in years. Somehow we ended up in his room at the Madison and I was having the strongest orgasms I'd ever imagined. I don't know how many times I came. I must have passed out at some point because suddenly I woke up in a strange bed with a strange man and I didn't even know where I was. It wasn't until that moment that I remembered Barry and our anniversary. I was mortified. I was in shock. I was so, so afraid. And then Marc was there, awake and in my arms and calming me down and telling me that I didn't need to worry, that he'd take care of me and he'd take care of everything. I'm sorry to say that it worked. We made lo... no, he fucked me, again. Three more times before breakfast.

"The thing is, it wasn't like any kind of sex I'd had before. I was there, participating, but I wasn't driving it. He was. I was the body he was doing it to. It was a performance. I felt like some kind of instrument, being played by a musician. There was a kind of an intimacy to it, but it wasn't romantic. I thought it was at the time, because I didn't understand what was happening. I put it all into the only context I knew. It had to be 'true love,' didn't it? Well, no. It wasn't. It was anything but that. It was an end-zone dance. It was Marc LaValliere celebrating his victory. I didn't understand it then, but I do now.

"When I finally came crawling home the next day, Barry was beyond furious. I mean, I knew he'd be mad, but I'd never seen him like that before. I had no idea about the depth of his anger... it shouldn't have taken me by surprise, but it did. See, I had it in my mind that I'd been on a grand adventure, like a little vacation from our marriage. The whole thing seemed so unreal, that it was almost like it WASN'T real, and therefore didn't count. But hey, I was home, and we could pick up right back where we left off, right?. My feelings for Barry hadn't changed. I knew I'd have to make it up to him, but we'd still be okay. A marriage doesn't have to end just because one person gets a little carried away. That's how I rationalized it."

She stared straight at me, stopping time with her gaze.

"I have never been more wrong about anything in my life."

"The Barry I knew was gone. There was nothing left. The man waiting for me at home was someone else, some part of him I'd never seen. He actually slapped me right across my face. It was the first and only time he ever hit me. I didn't know what to do. I ran from the house in tears. I mean, that's domestic abuse, right? That's unpardonable. I had nowhere to go. I had no one who would understand. So, let me ask you a question, Jim. Where do you think I went?"

"Oh, no. You didn't."

She nodded, ruefully.

"You got it. I went right back into the arms of Marc LaValliere. He flooded me with support and encouragement. He said he believed in me, and he believed our love was something rare and special, and it took courage for me to leave my abusive husband and come back to him, where I belonged. I fell for it.

"What I didn't understand at the time is that Marc is a narcissist. What he was doing is called 'Love Bombing.' It's a way of controlling people and bending them to your will. If they flood their target with emotion and support while also cutting them off from everyone else, they become the center of the universe. That's what every narcissist wants. If their victims slip away, or ignore them, or demonstrate any kind of independence, they fly into a rage."

"This guy sounds like a total monster."

"Jim, you don't know the half of it. He kills marriages for sport. He wasn't coming after me because he wanted me, he just wanted to fuck shit up. Barry changed the locks on the house that very day, as I later learned. He was finished with me. He had a lawyer drawing up the paperwork in a matter of hours. The divorce happened very quickly. I asked for nothing, not even custody of Jenny. I even ended up owing Barry child support. Marc told me he'd take care of it, and I didn't have to worry about anything. He was looking forward to our new life together. That's what the asshole said. Well, as soon as he had me, body and soul, and I felt secure in my new life... it was over. Marc had no more use for me. He had a new conquest in his bed- another married woman, of course, and I was out on the street."