February won't Suck Again

The lawyer told me that she would have Linda served the next Tuesday, at home.

I spent the afternoon looking for apartments. I found one that I could rent on a monthly basis. It was small and somewhat old, but it would be available the next Monday and it was not too far from my work.

I had received many voice and text messages from Linda throughout the day. I read some of the texts but did not listen to any voice messages.

I sent her a text message: 'I will be home around 9 PM. We'll talk.'

Her reply was as simple as can be: 'Ok'

Just like the evening before, Linda was sitting at the kitchen table.

"Are the kids still with your parents?" I asked.

"No, they're in their rooms, asleep. I told them you had to go away on business and that you would be home very late," she replied.

She was awaiting my reaction to the bomb she had dropped the day before. I could see she was terrified.

"Linda, I saw a lawyer today. I filed for divorce," I said, as neutrally as possible.

She cried silently, for a few seconds.

"I was expecting this," she said. She looked at me with a sad, defeated smile: "I fucked everything up like a champ, huh?"

I nodded slowly, tears falling down my cheeks.

"I filed for irreconcilable differences. This is the simplest procedure. You will keep the house. I will continue to pay for the mortgage. Everything else will be split 50/50. You can have primary custody. I will pay maintenance for the three of you. If you need anything, I will be there to help you. I can even take care of the yardwork, which I know you hate like crazy."

She chuckled, still crying.

"I'm so sorry, Jim. I can't even begin to tell you how much I am. I love you so much. It hurts like hell," she said.

"I know you are sorry. I know you love me. So do I, Linda. That's why I want to make sure you will always have everything you need. And Emma and Tommy as well of course. But staying here and raising another man's child is beyond me, Linda. This child would always be a daily reminder of that Friday evening that I am still doing everything I can to put behind me.

"Yes, I still love you. But I can't be with you, Linda. I have been trying for almost two months to regain some trust in you. Unfortunately, I can't get past the betrayal and the humiliation. And it's become more and more obvious that I would never be able to go on with you without that fear that you would betray me again. I would always be watching you, asking for reassurance, even stalking you. That's not a life. That would be a nightmare for you. And for me as well.

"And now, you bearing that guy's child is just the final straw. There's no way I can be happy with that kid around me, even if I know that this poor baby did nothing wrong to be born in this mess. So I have to find a way of being happy without you."

***

Linda received the divorce papers the following Tuesday. She took them to my lawyer's office, asked to see her to because she had a few questions, and she signed everything without fighting.

I waited until Linda and the kids were away from the house to have my things moved to my apartment. That would be less painful to them.

Emma and Tommy were still young, so they started adapting pretty quickly to their father and mother not living together. I managed to see the kids as much as possible. Linda was beyond flexible to allow me to see them often. For the first weeks, I stayed away from Linda as much as possible, because it was too hard for me to be around her knowing she was carrying someone else's baby, and I needed to at least start the 'withdrawal' process. I did help her with the yardwork, but I made sure I did it while she was away.

I paid a visit to my parents and my siblings, and told them Linda and I were having a divorce and that I had moved out of our house. We had agreed to tell everybody that we still loved each other, but that we had realized we were no longer in love with each other. My family was devastated because they loved Linda, but they offered their full support to the both of us. Linda's family was also sad. Linda told me her parents cried when she broke the news to them. It broke my heart to hear that, because I had always loved them very much, even if they had never been very warm people.

I never mentioned the pregnancy to my parents or my friends. In my head, Linda's pregnancy was her problem and hers only to deal with, and she would talk about it when she was ready. Boy, was I ever stupid to think it could be that simple...

I was still in contact with Carolyn and I met her a few times after I had filed for divorce. Because of her professional engagements, she spent a lot of time around here, so it was easy for us to see each other. I also drove to her place a couple of times. I would not say that we were formally dating, but we were certainly doing good to each other. And sex with her was fabulous.

About a month after I moved out, Linda told me she felt it would be great for the kids to have a family dinner from time to time. I totally agreed with the idea, but I could not help wondering how this would work when the baby arrived. She invited me to have dinner at the house the following Sunday. The kids were ecstatic to have me and their mother at the table. They were so much into their telling everything about school and their lives that we had to remind them to eat their chicken. When they were tucked in bed and after I had read them their story, I went back downstairs and found Linda in the living room.

"Have you told everybody about your pregnancy?" I asked her. It had not really started to show, yet.

"No. I couldn't resolve to do it. I still don't know how to break the news. I'm so ashamed, Jim," she said.

By then, I already had a feeling of doom about all this. Something would eventually give way...

Life went uneventfully for another week. And then, the events started.

When I was in college, a teacher of mine used to say that physicists generally consider four fundamental forces in nature: gravity, electromagnetic, weak interaction, and nuclear. But unfortunately, as he said, the list is incomplete, because it leaves out the strongest of them all: gossiping. Especially with the use of specialized tools like messaging apps, and smart phones...

One Friday evening, I was having dinner with Carolyn at a French restaurant near downtown. One of Linda's colleagues saw us. I had known Connie for a few years. She was a nice person, and a good friend of Linda's. But she was also in herself a complete national news channel. I knew it would not take long before everybody learned about my dinner with Carolyn.

A week after, I received a call from a friend who told me that he was shopping with his wife earlier that day and that they had seen Linda browsing baby clothes in a department store. He was calling me to congratulate me on the good news. I thanked him but did not say a word. His wife was very good friend with my sister Heather, and she was also another world-class blabbermouth.

I should have done some damage control as soon as I saw Connie walking in on Carolyn and me at the restaurant. Maybe I would have been able to limit the downfall that followed. In less than a week, everybody had heard both anecdotes, fused them together, and a new 'official' story came into being: I had knocked up Linda, but I did not want another kid so I would not take my responsibilities and was divorcing her to be with Carolyn. I was an asshole, a jerk, a son of a bitch.

My family wouldn't talk to me. Let alone Linda's. I was a pariah among all of our friends. Even Emma heard bad things about me at school. She went home crying one evening. When Linda asked her what was going on, she told her that people said I was a bad guy. Even her teacher had told her that 'sometimes dads do bad things'. That same evening, my sister Heather had called Linda to tell her that no matter the divorce, she and the rest of my family could not condone what I had done, and that they would always be there for her and the baby. Linda tried to explain to Heather that there were a lot of wrongs in her version, but Heather would not let her finish. She told Linda that everybody in my family was siding with her, and that I was no longer welcome among them.

At the time, I was completely at a loss. No one would take my calls or answer my text messages, so I had no way of connecting the dots.

Linda called me that evening, after hanging up with Heather.

"Jim, have you told your family that you had a vasectomy?"

"Uh... no. That's kind of private. They didn't need to know that," I replied.

"Well, I think it's time you did."

She explained the situation, and the story that had taken a life of its own. We definitely had some serious damage control to do. Neither Linda nor I had wanted to tell people about that damn Friday. Now, our efforts to protect our private life and our reputations had just blown up. In MY face. How could we possibly think that nobody would come up with that seemingly logical explanation? Thinking back, I guess we were so caught up in our problems that we did not realize that our obsession to keep things private had created a timebomb...

I had trouble falling asleep that evening. I had no idea how I would clean up that mess. Last time I looked at my bedside clock, it was past 12:30 AM.

***

The ringing of my phone woke me up later in the middle of the night. It was Linda calling.

"Linda, what's going on?"

"Jim, I'm bleeding. I think I'm having a miscarriage. I don't know what to do," she said, almost panicked.

"Ok, call your parents and ask them to come over and check the kids. I'll be there in 15 minutes."

I was in Linda's house within 12 minutes. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a couple of towels between her legs. She had cramps. I packed a few clothes for her and had managed to bring her to the car when her parents arrived.

Her mother, Charlene, went to talk to Linda, while I tried to bring her father up to speed. Obviously, they had heard the made-up story as well, because her father was looking at me as if I were a dirt ball.

"Thanks for helping us, Clyde," I said.

"We're doing this for the kids and for Linda, am I clear," he seethed.

"Join the club," I replied, unflappable. He looked at me with a puzzled face.

We then drove to the hospital. It did not take long to confirm that it was indeed a miscarriage and they went along with a full procedure, because there were signs of slight complications. I spent the rest of the night with Linda at the hospital.

Linda was discharged around noon the next day and I drove her back to her home.

That night, I tossed in my bed as much as I tossed the arguments in my head. With the baby gone, should I cancel the divorce and try to reconcile with Linda? When I woke up in the morning, I had finally resolved that, baby or not, it was better to go along with my life. My trust issues were simply too deep. I brought my lawyer a copy of the papers that the hospital had given us and that showed that Linda had had a miscarriage. My lawyer was positive that the divorce could proceed.

***

Over the days that followed, the grapevine went hyperactive. A new chapter added itself to the story that had captured the hearts of everybody we knew. It was now obvious to all that Linda's miscarriage was due to the extreme pressure that I had subjected her to.

I had never felt that alone in my whole life. And I was divorcing the only person who was on my side. The irony of the situation was spectacular.

One evening, Linda decided that this had been going on for too long. She broke the promise we had made to each other to not reveal the events of that Friday evening. She wrote an email that she sent to almost everybody we knew, including her family, mine, our common friends, her friends and my friends, and some others that we knew had heard the story.

'Dear all,

A lot of rumors are being spread about what is going on between Jim and me. Everybody seems to believe that Jim does not want to have another child, so he left me for another woman, Carolyn, and that when he filed for divorce, I was so devastated by his ill-will that I went into miscarriage.

As convincing as this story may seem, THIS IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED. Let me please set the record straight. What I am about to tell you is extremely painful. It is by far the most difficult admission that I had to do in my entire life.

I AM THE ONE WHO MESSED UP EVERYTHING. WHAT HAPPENED IS ENTIRELY MY FAULT.

The story started the last Friday of last February. Jim and I were out with friends, in a club, to dance and have a good time. A guy came in, a famous football player (no need to say the name). He came to our table and asked me to dance. I was in awe. After a couple fast songs and a slow, I was completely enchanted, almost bewitched. To this day, I can't explain it, even to myself.

Then I did the worst thing a woman can do to her husband. I left the club with that man, dumping Jim, leaving him behind, humiliating him in front of our friends. I betrayed him, and abandoned him, to spend what promised to be a night of excitement with a celebrity. Jim went back, alone, to the hotel where we had reserved a room for that night. Taking a beer at the bar to relieve his grief, he stumbled upon Carolyn, a good friend of his who he had not seen in years and who was there on a business dinner. Fortunately, he found some solace with her that night.

Jim did all he could to get over the terrible thing that I did to him. Because of his love, his patience, his maturity, and his goodness, we were on our way to recover as a couple. Then, I learned that I was pregnant. I could not be pregnant with Jim's baby, because he had a vasectomy last year and he has since been confirmed sterile. So the father was that guy I had sex with.

Jim could not just put up with raising a child that was not his, so he filed for divorce. I was devastated, but I accepted his decision. I could not ask him to go as far as raising a child that was the product of my betrayal of him. We separated and from then on, we both were free to see whoever we wanted. He happened to meet with Carolyn a few times, and he was spotted having dinner with her at a restaurant. I believe this is what started the rumor machine.

The miscarriage was NOT due to any pressure from Jim. It just happened. And despite everything, Jim was by my side all along. He even spent the night with me at the hospital. As usual, he was a gentleman, and a rock. My rock.

I lost my husband because I cheated on him in the worst possible way. I humiliated him even if he had never, ever done anything to deserve this. Jim is never to be considered a cuckold, or any other disparaging term. He is the most wonderful husband that any woman can dream of having. Even through this shit storm I created, he acted with the dignity and the strength that only a real man can show.

I want to publicly apologize to him for everything that he went through. I also want to apologize to my children, who certainly did not deserve to have their family broken by my stupid actions. I want to apologize to my family and to my husband's family for all the disgrace that my actions have brought onto them.

I have one single request to make to all of you: please, give Jim Tobin the consideration and the love that he deserves. I can only hope he will forgive me one day.

I love you all,

Linda'

I got a call from my brother Blaine on a Saturday morning, a couple of weeks after Linda's miscarriage. When I saw that it was someone from my family, I turned off my phone and let his call go to voicemail. I didn't feel the need to hear another series of rebukes or insults.

I had had enough of all this. Even my male buddies were ignoring me. My brother, my brother-in-law, my father, my friends, my colleagues, no one would hear my side of the story. I was even cut out from the contact groups that had been created on social media to share jokes and funny videos. And the looks of contempt in the eyes of the women around me were unbearable.

I could not help thinking that life was a bitch. I was the victim here, and I was the one treated like the thief. The only reason I was not moving away to another city was my children. There was no way I would live away from them.

I finally listened to my messages the next day when I was back from my 5-mile run, around noon. I had missed quite a few, in fact.

"Hey Jim, this is Blaine. Listen, um... I just read Linda's email, and, geez, Jim, I'm so sorry for all the shit I told you man. Um.. gimme a call ok? Bye now."

'What e-mail?' I thought...

Erase.

"Jim, this is Charlene. I read that email from Linda, and I just hung up with her. Jim, I'm so ashamed. Can we talk, I'm sure there is a way of working it out for you guys, right? Linda was crying. God, you guys should have talked to us. Clyde and I love you, Jim. Come anytime, we want to see you."

I could not remember my mother-in-law being so warm and apologetic. And what the fuck was that e-mail they were all talking about?

I checked my e-mails. I hadn't received anything from Linda. I texted Blaine and asked him what e-mail he was talking about. He replied within 2 minutes that he had just forwarded it to me.

I was taken aback when I read it. A part of me was mad, because Linda and I had agreed never to reveal anything about that incident. But maybe at this point, it was the right thing to do.

All things considered, I was happy with what Linda had done. The next day, I sent her a text to thank her. She replied with a heart.

***

Apart from the fact that Linda and I were no longer a couple, things then slowly started getting back to normal. My family and my friends profusely apologized for the way they had treated me. It took me a few weeks to make peace with them, and with the situation. Linda's e-mail had helped me get over the humiliation part of the February Friday.

About three weeks after Linda's e-mail, I was invited to my parent's house for a Sunday brunch with all the family. It had been weeks since I had been with all of them. I brought the kids. I was happy to see everybody, and I was treated like the Prodigal Son, though I had not committed the sins. However, it did not take me long to realize that the whole family was now mad at Linda and as soon as the kids were playing together and out of earshot, everybody started to badmouth Linda.

"Ok, STOP! NOW!" I shouted.

Everybody went silent, shocked.

"You are defending her, now?" My mother asked, scandalized.

"YES, I AM!! First, she is the mother of my children, and I will not tolerate that kind of disrespect, even from you!

"Second, she made a mistake. Yes, a HELL of a mistake. But she admitted it. Publicly. It takes courage to do this. Well, she did it, and I owe her respect for this. We all do. She's been crying for months over this. I think it's safe to say that she regrets what she did.

"Third, that whole thing is between Linda and me. Do you really think I would have accepted what she did without saying a word? Do you think I crawled like a wimp in front of her after that night, begging her not to leave me? We addressed the situation like the two adults we are. Will you show some consideration for what I am and for how I handled things instead of thinking you would do better when you don't even know all the details?"

They were all silent, and suddenly very interested in the patterns on the tablecloth. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was the true grown-up in the family, even though I was the youngest among my siblings.

"Linda made a mistake, yes. But that does not make her a bad person, for God's sake!"

Everybody was silent for a while.

"You're right Jim, I apologize for what I said or did. I'll call Linda tomorrow and ask her out for coffee," Heather said.