John: How to Save a Life

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John

Visit with my Lawyer -- Roy, a week or so later

"Roy, I need your help." I went on to explain my situation in agonizingly great detail. Roy nodded his head, made 'un-huh' noises at frequent intervals and scribbled notes on his yellow legal pad, and then when I had finished, he offered, "Well, John, what can I say. That's quite an unusual story. I mean, I'm a divorce lawyer and I hear lots of tragic stories, but this is certainly a new twist on things."

At $300 an hour, this is what he's got? I got right to the point. "Jesus, Roy! What the hell can I do about this?"

He countered with, "What do you want to do about it?"

And there it was; what the hell do I do about my wife, and her boyfriend.

Then he looked really serious for moment, before he continued, "Now, first off, I can tell you that as your lawyer, my first piece of advice is that you don't do something stupid. Don't get physical with anyone and threaten them with physical harm. The courts take a dim view of that in New York State and you'll only end up in a jail cell. And we don't want that, do we?"

No, we certainly didn't want that. Being in a jail cell wasn't going to solve any of my problems. I know that violence is not the answer to this. Violence might be the answer to some problems, but what was it that I did want? I mean, I have to do something about this. I can't just let it go on.

"So, Roy, what are my options?"

"Well, there are a lot of things you can do, but I have to be frank with you, they all suck big-time."

I was astonished by this frank admission coming from the mouth of a highly experienced 50-some-year-old divorce lawyer wearing a suit with a vest, "What are you talking about?"

Roy got an even more serious look on his face, if that was possible for a man like him that lived and breathed nasty divorce cases. He was supposedly the best in the area and he didn't come cheap. But Roy was nothing if not a realist. Considering that I was only 34 years old, have three daughters and a career that is underway and with excellent prospects, now was not a time for me to fuck that up.

So, Roy outlined my options for me. His crash course in divorce was deeply depressing.

"In New York State there are essentially seven different grounds for divorce," he went on to list them

1) Cruel & inhuman treatment;

2) the abandonment of the Plaintiff by the Defendant for a period of one or more years;

3) the confinement of the Defendant in prison for a period of three or more consecutive years after the marriage;

4) the commission of adultery voluntarily performed by the Defendant with a person other than the Plaintiff after the marriage;

5) living apart pursuant to a decree or judgment of separation for a period of one or more years after the granting of such decree or judgment;

6) living separate and apart pursuant to a written agreement of separation signed by the parties for a period of one or more years after the signing of the agreement; and

7) the relationship between husband and wife has broken down irretrievably for a period of at least six months, provided that one party has so stated under oath.

So, what the hell was I to do? Number four, the adultery provision was, on the surface, my number one resolution to my little problem. Let's put a pencil mark beside that one for now and look at the rest. Living separate and apart for a year might be the thing. Let's put a pencil mark beside numbers five and six for now. Number seven was a well-used reason in divorces in this state. Roy had said that he had made a lot of money off of that one.

Barring me doing something stupid, like beating the living shit out of 'Rob,' or running away from my wife and family, to a Caribbean Island, there didn't appear to be an easy solution to the problem of my cheating wife. Number seven is the 'no-fault' provision and is the 'out' for one person or the other, when they don't want to remain married. But, on the surface of things, it would seem that number four, on the reasons to divorce list above, was my best candidate; at least for now.

Ah, but not so fast, thinks Roy. "My boy, the real devil in all of this is that you have three children. I'm assuming that you want to be a full-time father as opposed to being a part-time father?"

I looked at Roy with a puzzled expression that said 'what are you really saying, here?' "Well, of course I want to be a full-time father. That's my main reason for coming to see you."

Roy nodded sagely, again and did the 'un-huh' response to me. "My point in all of this, John, is to say that with a divorce, right now, all you are really going to accomplish is to turn yourself into a part-time father, living alone most of the time and without the financial resources at your disposal that you enjoy now, unless of course you start to make a lot more money than you currently do."

I sat there, stunned, as if I'd been punched in the head by Mike Tyson. One of those sucker punches that leaves you senseless and spinning around, about to go down. Unable to tell which way is up, or left, or right. Good thing I was already sitting.

After I took a drink of water and regained some ability to string together more than two syllables, I managed to look at my learned counsel and asked, "Jesus, Roy! What the hell are you telling me?" My eyes were bugged-out and I could feel the veins in my neck bulging. My blood pressure was approaching stroke levels.

In his calm and highly-controlled voice, as he looked over his glasses at me, he summed it up nicely, "Well, John, not to be too abrupt about this, but I would be less than honest with you to tell you anything other than the god's honest truth, here." He paused and swallowed before continuing. "You're fucked, my boy."

My mouth was hanging open and my jaw muscles were suddenly unable to function sufficiently to close my mouth. As the words sank into the core of my soul, I realized how the condemned, on death-row, must feel as they approach the final hour, looking forward only to the appointment with the executioner.

It was a grim realization that gripped me. To think that a cheating wife was going to get the best of me...well. The room seemed to spin on some unknown axis as everything was a blur for the next few minutes. Time froze, or sped up or halted in place; I had no fucking idea what it did.

The next thing I knew Roy was standing on one side of me and his secretary, Shirley, was standing on the other. She was holding a bottle of water, offering it to me. Water for the drowning man. Maybe I was in a desert, might as well have been Mars. Maybe I would see one of those expensive Mars Rovers and hitch a ride back to sanity. Maybe I would just drown. Maybe... who the fuck knows?

I was breathing into a brown paper bag, trying to recover some ability to breathe normally; seems I might have been gasping for air as I was hyperventilating. I took the bottle of water and drank most of it in one large gulp and handed back the empty bottle to Shirley.

When I had regained the ability to breathe somewhat normally again, along with the power of logical thought, I looked at Roy and revisited the seven reasons for divorce in New York, "So, why would I not look seriously at number four on your nice little list, Roy? I mean, my wife has been 'getting-it' from another man, now for some time. She even confessed it to me, in our kitchen, for Christ's sake. Why shouldn't I force this whole shit-show along due to her infidelity? This whole thing is really on her, not me. "

Roy nodded to me and his face said several things as the same time without having to say any actual words, but then he did speak. I wouldn't want Roy to have to represent me in a criminal court case. I mean, how much of a defence can you mount with your attorney shrugging his shoulders and grimacing in front of the jury and expecting them to understand just what that means. No. Roy was good at the divorce game, so I would stick to that with him as my representative.

"John, I don't want to sound overly...crass, here, but really, all you are going to achieve is handing Andrea your house, pretty much most of the furnishings, and most importantly, your children, and the control of the agenda. To put is very succinctly, you're going to get fucked in the divorce and then she gets paid, by you, to go ahead and fuck even more other men. And the really sad part is that eventually your kids are going to wake up some morning and there will be one of your ex-wife's boyfriends sitting at the breakfast table. He'll be chatting with them as if he was their father and slowly, they will start to forget that you're their father. And you're paying for it all."

Oh my God!! I couldn't begin to comprehend the nightmare that he just described. That was the wort possible outcome of anything imaginable. I'd rather just shoot myself in the head, than have my children forget me. But then if I did that they would forget me even faster. Fuck, NO!!

I made up my mind at that very moment that this stupendously horrendous shit-show, just described by Roy, would not be my fate, or the fate of my three daughters. No fucking way!

"So, Roy, please tell me that there is another way for this to turn out that doesn't involve me suffering the loss of my daughters other than for all but a weekend a month and two weeks in the summer? What I really mean is, just what is a realistic thing for me to do that sees me being the father that I am now and want to stay being? This is really fucked-up, do you understand what it is I'm trying, so un-eloquently, to say?"

Roy drew a large breath, "John, I know exactly what it is you want, and I would be a poor legal advisor if I didn't give you, my boy, the best plan to stay in charge of this unfortunate situation. So, listen carefully." And then he went on, in great depth, describing what he felt was a realistic course of action for me to follow to deal with Andrea and to keep my children and do it all from the comfort of my own home.

He also went into great detail about the seven reasons that he listed earlier, for divorce, and how none of them were going to get me what I wanted. He had a 'different' plan, his plan, according to him, would achieve pretty much all I wanted to achieve, keeping in mind what I told him my priorities were.

Roy's plan was very simple: do nothing. That's right: do nothing. Keep right on being married to Andrea and keep right on being the best father that I could be. Keep right on enjoying my family and enjoying the intimacy that I shared with my wife. Ignore, as much as I could, what she said in the kitchen, and get on with life.

Andrea had said that her extra-marital sex had nothing to do with us, and so why not trust that that was the case and continue to enjoy my relationship with my wife.

You're thinking that Roy is an incredibly incompetent attorney and that I'm a bloody fool, for believing him. Aren't you? Well, that was my reaction too. I mean, how could I look at myself in the mirror in the morning without being disgusted that I would put up with her cheating on me? What the fuck had my marriage, and my life become?

Roy let his sage advice sink in for a moment before he cleared his throat, took a small drink of water himself and went on. "I know you must believe that I'm not a very good divorce attorney, but I can tell you, from my vast experience, that in your situation, you will lose, and lose a lot more than you will ever gain. You might put right your wife's infidelity, but in doing that, you will lose your children, your home, your financial future and most importantly, your happiness."

The old bastard waited some more before continuing on with his lecture on losing. "I know that it must seem very unfair to you; and quite frankly it is enormously unfair. But it is the law that guides divorce and unless your wife is physically abusive to either your children or you, the court is predisposed to give custody to mothers."

He continued, "I know what you're thinking; infidelity should be a factor to be considered by the court, but it generally is not." Roy looked saddened by that fact. Like he was personally affronted by the condition of New York State divorce law. I'm sure that lots of his clients would wish that infidelity was taken into consideration when things like custody of the children and home were decided. But it's not.

I decided to breathe again. "Fuck me!" As I said this, my gaze wandered around the room before it settled on my attorney. I was lost. "So, let me wrap my feeble brain around this, Roy. Andrea gets to fuck other men at her leisure and I really can't do anything about it. That, and if I divorce her, she will be laughing all the way home as she takes my children away from me, takes our house, and I will likely be forced to pay to maintain her lifestyle." I wasn't sure if I was questioning what I had just heard or summing-up in some way that would nicely put it all together for easy comprehension. I knew in my small lizard-like brain that I was fucked. That I have wasted eleven years of my life on a woman that must be laughing at me every day, at least every time she fucks her boyfriend, Rob.

"What if I just kick her to the curb? I mean, I'm sure that if I were to admit to having sex with other women, she would be furious with me and try to force me out of the house. Why can't I try to do the same to her? Wouldn't the court be sympathetic to me in that case?"

Roy nodded his head, in his wise way and replied, "Well, John, you could certainly try that. I know that it has been tried before and overall, I have to report that it has met with a very low success rate. You see, your wife, Andrea, will tell the court that your forcible eviction of her from the home denies her right to be with her children. She would try to make the case that her custodial rights were being unjustly denied, for no good reason, and thus, she and her lawyer would petition the court to re-establish her custody of the children. Courts in New York State are firmly on the side of mothers. Of course, there are requirements that the mother meet certain standards and unless you have very clear evidence that Andrea is an unfit mother, then I have to tell you now that any attempt to deny her access to the house and the children will likely meet with failure."

Roy let that sink in for a few minutes before he continued. I sat still; my brain was in a flat spin. What the hell was I going to do? If I left, then I lose my children, my home, and a big chunk of my income and future, all so that Andrea can have as much sex with as many men as she wants and do it in my house. Even while my children are in the house. Fuck!

The other thing is that I can't really force Andrea to leave the house. All she has to do is to get a lawyer to run to a judge and get an order allowing her back in the house. All that would do is to make me the bad guy in the eyes of the court. Any judge, especially a woman judge, who is also a mother, would likely take a dim view of me trying to deny Andrea access to the kids. No, that wasn't going to work at all. So, what the fuck do I do?

I looked up and could see Roy's mouth moving but I had no idea what the man was saying. Eventually I heard, "John, John, John, are you understanding what I'm telling you?"

I shook my head, "Sorry Roy, but I didn't hear what you just said."

He looked at me in his stern but fatherly way and, I suppose, repeated, "My advice John is to go home and forget that your wife said anything to you about any extra-marital activity on her part. If you are unable to simply put it out of your mind, then I suggest that you visit a marriage counsellor and work out an agreement that will meet your needs as much as possible. If a marriage counsellor is not able to get the job done, then possibly I can help with crafting a post-nuptial agreement that you and Andrea can agree to and that will let you both remain in the home, and most importantly, with your children."

So, there you have it. Do nothing. And if I can't live with doing nothing, work out a written agreement that let's my wife continue to have sex with other men. Because if I couldn't do one of those two things, the alternative was not something that was going to do anyone, especially my children and me, any good whatsoever. Jesus!!

I went back to my office, closed the door and sat by myself, drowning my sorrows in an ice-cold bottle of water. I contemplated Roy's learned words and tried to visualize just how I was going live with this new...thing. I kept taking in huge breaths and then holding them for a few seconds before letting them out.

Andrea and I needed to talk. Again. Not sure when we would do that, but we would. Maybe a few times.

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Week 1

Life around our house was almost as normal as it ever was. The three girls were all busy at school and with sports and their individual activities. I didn't have time to dwell on the fact that the relationship between their mother and I had changed dramatically last week. My marriage was...different, now. It didn't have the same feel, for me that it had for the first thirteen years. It was a new deal. I wasn't sure that Andrea was thinking that things were any different for her, now that her wishes and intentions were out in the open.

My three daughters: Laura, age 6; Matilda, age 8; and Diane, age 11; were none the wiser about the new dynamic that existed between their mother and I. As far as they were concerned, life in the Stewart household was unchanged. At least for now.

Andrea acted as if nothing had changed and nothing was said between us. She greeted me at the door with a kiss on the lips and her normal warmth and concern. She asked me about my day at work and she shared what she was doing with her work. She took care of the kids, as much as she normally does. She cooked sometimes and she she did some of the chores around the house. It was all amazingly normal. As if there hadn't been a revelation of her having sex with another man for an afternoon, once a week. When she came home she looked normal, she smelled normal, she acted normal. What the hell. Was I dreaming all this? Was I just clueless John?

Week 2

Thursday night was soccer night for Diane. Her team practices once a week, usually Thursday night at 7 and then they have a game on Saturday, in the morning, at 10. This is a team for ten and eleven-year-olds. Laura and/or Matilda usually come to the practices with me, and the whole family go to the games. Right after the game, it's off to ballet for Matilda.

I had gotten used to Andrea not going to the practices. She had work things to get caught up on and I didn't think any more about it. But this Thursday was different now. This was the time that Andrea would spend with Rob, her lover of the past two years. They would spend time at his place, usually in the afternoon or after work that day (they would leave work early) and spend an hour or two together. Andrea would shower before she left for home and then greet the girls and talk about soccer, and school and anything else that the girls wanted to talk about.

But now, now I knew. I knew that my wife was not really my wife any more. She partly belonged to someone else now. She divided her life between her family and her lover; Rob. The realization of this had slowly crept in to my thinking brain. My rational brain knew that things had changed. The emotional brain was catching up with it. The emotional brain was looking for the great divide between Andrea, my loving wife and mother of my three children, and Andrea, the cheating slut that was fucking some other man, and trying to make it seem like it was okay to do that.

I had never met Rob. I didn't really want to meet him either. I'm worried that I would lose control and do something stupid that would land me in trouble with the police and I'd end up in jail. That would only make my life a complete hell. Not that it wasn't already. The words of my lawyer, Roy, kept coming back to me, 'don't do something stupid, John.'