Love Letters in the Attic Ch. 01

I sighed and said, "I'm not really sure. I guess I want to get my head straight on whether or not I can forgive Diane and whether or not we can move forward as a family. I know that I still love her, and likely always will, but it all feels different now and I have so many doubts about us. Doubts about why she did it; did she really want to choose him but she settled for me; did she enjoy him sexually and she fantasizes about him when we are together? Did she do things for him she never did for me? I guess I want to know why, and if we can ever be the same again, and if I can ever trust her again." I looked over at Diane and she was shaking her head no and quietly sobbing from the things I had said.

"Well, James, let's talk about those things you brought up. Diane, can you try and tell us why you had the affair with Jake?"

Diane looked directly at me, and I assumed they had discussed this in their solo session. "Jimmy, I guess there are a few reasons that I have come up with, but none of them can ever come close to rationalizing what I did. I wish I could say exactly why I did what I did, but looking back and even at the time, it was happening it didn't seem like it was me. It was like a fog that I was in, and it now seems unreal and so disgusting to me.

"I think that when you and I started to talk about having a family, I started to feel like the freedom in my life was going to be over. My life was going to be lived for you and our family, and not for me. On the one hand, that is exactly what I wanted, but on the other hand, I think I felt a little trapped, like I was entering middle age and motherhood and that was going to be my life. The young, vibrant women I thought I was would be left behind. That made me anxious and I guess insecure. So, when Jake started to compliment me, and make it obvious that he found me desirable; I guess I started to flirt back with him as a last farewell to me being free, sexy, and living for myself.

"From there, I really don't know what happened and how I let it get out of hand: over the line of what any married person should do. The flirting started to make us seem close, and we had a naughty secret relationship. To be honest, that was very exciting. The first time he kissed me and I kissed him back, it was as if the part of me at work was single and unattached and enjoying being desired; while the part of me who was married and had a husband at home was ashamed and disgusted by my actions. But I couldn't seem to just wake up and break it off. At least not at first. The excitement, the desire, the lust, the feelings of freedom all were overwhelming. But the shame and the guilt were always there when I was with you and it was eating me up.

"When it seemed that you and I were drifting apart, and it was due to me, I felt so guilty and ashamed and started to wake up out of the fog I felt I was in. I knew that I loved only you and wanted to be with you for the rest of my life. I knew that I wanted a family with you. And when Jake started to seem to fall in love with me and wanted me to leave you and be with him, that really shocked me into what a fool I was being and how this had to end.

"I know this sounds so hollow and weak, and I know you can never forget what I have done. I am so very sorry for what I did and for hurting you. I wanted to tell you a hundred times but knew it was only to alleviate my guilt and it would crush you. I not only hurt you, but I destroyed part of me, too, and I have never and will never forgive myself for what I did. I can only promise you that I would die before doing anything like that again and before hurting you like this. I can only pray you can find it in your heart to forgive me at some point. I will do everything I possibly can to try and make it up to you and show you can still trust and love me, and I hope you can see that is what I've done for the last four years."

With that, Diane bowed her head down and started to sob again. I just looked away and was overwhelmed with sadness and depression. I just stood up, said I had to leave and walked out the door.

At our next Tuesday session, Dr. Walton looked questionably at me and asked, "Are you okay, James? I know last week's session was very hard for you to hear. It's okay to occasionally walk away in sadness instead of lashing out in anger, but ultimately, you are going to have to talk with Diane about how you feel and what you need to know to move forward. Why don't we start with you, James, and you can bring up any topic, feelings, questions or anything else that you want to talk about."

I turned in my chair, looked at Diane and decided I had to discuss the letters. "Diane, you gave him blowjobs, let him taste you and fuck you, and then you came back to me and lied and lived as if you still loved me. How could you possibly say you love me and do that to me? How could you just cheat and lie, and now, how can I ever erase the thoughts and images of you and him having sex and forget what you did to us?"

Dr. Walton jumped in at that point and said, "James, I don't think you or Diane ever will forget what she did. Forgetting and forgiving are totally different things. I think Diane has punished herself more than either of us could ever do with words or actions, so eventually you will have to decide if you still love her, can forgive her, and can let her earn your trust again."

"I just don't know how to answer that, Dr. Walton. Diane, did you love him? Did you consider leaving me?"

"Oh, God no, Jimmy. I always only loved you. He could never be a man I would love like I love you. It was just a feeling of naughtiness, freedom and sex for me, Jimmy. And I'm so sorry for it. But never love."

"Diane, he writes that he could bring out the wild side in you. Take you places that you never could experience with me. Is that how it was for you? Was the sex that much better? Was he that much better? Do you think about him whenever we are intimate? Did you keep the letters as a trophy or a keepsake to take out and read and relive your fantasy life every now and then?" Diane looked at me with shock, some anger, but mostly sadness.

"Oh, Jimmy, that makes me so sad you could even think any of those things. I never want you to feel that way or think that. None of that is true. It was sex, not intimate love that you give me. If I ever think about him, it is with anger, disgust, shame, guilt; never pleasure and never when we are intimate.

"I kept the letters as a reminder of how I lost my way and my self-esteem and my ethics. I haven't even brought myself to look at them until you threw the copies on the dining room table and walked out, and reading them then and knowing how much they hurt you made me hate myself more, even after all these years.

"You have to know that it was Jake's feelings and attitudes in those letters, not mine. I never loved him, and after a few weeks, I started to hate him as much as I was hating myself."

I looked at her and said, "Did you make him wear a condom? Did you ever come home after being with him and then have sex with me?" Diane looked away as the tears ran down her cheeks.

"Jimmy, I never ever let you touch me for days after I was with him. I spent hours trying to scrub away the guilt and shame in the shower, before I would be with you. I disrespected you and myself enough just by being with him, and there is absolutely no way I would do that to you."

"And the condom? Did you make him wear one?"

"Oh god, I'm so sorry. No, I was still on the pill and I didn't make him wear one. Then at the end of February when I let him fuck me in the conference room, I really was seeing what a slut and a despicable person I had become. I couldn't believe how horrible a person I had become and how I could do that to you and yes, to me, too."

"Why did you shave your pussy for him and did you do things with him that you never did with me?"

"I shaved my pussy after you mentioned it one day when we were talking in bed before we fell asleep. You said you thought it was sexy and wondered what I thought of it. I actually did it for you; maybe out of guilt at what I was doing and maybe because I was so caught up in naughty sex that it appealed to me, but I never did it for him Jimmy!"

Looking at Dr. Walton, I said, "You know the problem we have here is that I really don't know what to believe and what is total bullshit, for all I know..."

Diane stood up and yelled at us both, "Everything I am telling you is the truth. I betrayed you before and I lied to you by not telling you about the affair and what I did. But everything I have done for the last four years is not a lie, but an act of love for you. Surely you can see that I love you so much and would die for you, can't you? And now that you have found out, all the lies are gone and I'll only be honest with you, no matter what it makes you think of me. You couldn't possibly think worse of me than I do of myself."

"So, if you "woke up" as you say at the end of February, why did you let him fuck you in mid-march?"

"I told him that it was over. He told me that I was making the safe pick and that I should be with him, but I knew that was the furthest thing from the truth. I knew I loved only you. I had decided we were going to have a family and I would be the best wife I could be to you.

"He demanded that we make love one more time and I said I was done. He said maybe he should meet with you and discuss who you were better off with. I cried and pleaded and said no, and he said that he deserved one more chance to make me understand that a life of passion and adventure would be with him, not you. So yes, I fucked him one more time to appease him and made him promise that if my decision after that was you, he had to honor that and leave you out of it and leave me alone. He agreed, and that was the end of it. I chose you Jimmy, never him."

"Sounds like you made the safe and secure choice for good old stable Jimmy; but you fucked him like "an animal," as if you couldn't get enough!"

"No, that's not true. I walked out of that room crying and wondering how I could have ever let myself sink to the low-level piece of shit I felt like; feel like right now. But I chose you because I love you. You are my passion and my adventure and his words are bullshit, not mine. Life with you is better, time with you is better, sex with you is better; he never would or could compare. Jimmy, his words are his thoughts alone; not mine! Please, Jimmy; I love you and need you and you've got to just look at the last four years of our life to know that's true."

"Diane, you said you went off the pill in March and one week after you supposedly were done fucking him, you started to fuck me every night and any chance you got, at least that is how I remember it. I remember hoping and praying that the distance and awkwardness that had developed between us was going to go away and that whatever had happened to us was hopefully in the past. I guess it was that you were trying to forget your wonderfully naughty illicit sex experience with him and you were taking pity on me? Or maybe working off your guilt?"

"It was me trying to make it up to you and be the best wife that I could be after being the worst wife ever. And it was never pity sex; it was the pure joy of sharing our love, dedicating my life to you and coming out of the nightmare I was in. I always chose you and only loved you! The blessing was, that that was the start of us getting pregnant with Beth."

I wasn't sure, but something bothered me a bit about that statement, but overall, I think I believed most of what Diane had said. She might have put a bit of spin on it, but basically, I thought she truthfully told me the story, and I could tell that she felt great grief and guilt, not only at how she betrayed and hurt me, but how she had cheated on the person she thought she was.

I looked at Dr. Walton, and said, "I'm emotionally drained, and I guess I would like an individual session with you as soon as possible, to talk about moving forward." She nodded and I think she looked like maybe a breakthrough had happened. I looked over at Diane, and for the first time felt sympathy and more love than anger. She looked beaten; drawn out emotionally and physically. She had lost weight and she had bags under her eyes with a slight purplish tinge that she had tried to cover up with makeup.

"Diane, I'm going back to Jerry's, and I'll be over as usual on Saturday to see Beth and take her out for a while. Maybe you and I can talk more then."

*****

Jerry looked thoughtful for a minute as he digested my recounting of the counseling sessions I had gone through. "So basically, she was caught up in the naughty, secret sex, screwed him some number of times at four different sessions before the guilt and the shame in what she was doing started to overcome her lust for him. She also evidently was concerned that he was falling in love with her and wanted her to leave you, and that was never a consideration for her? Is that what you got out of it?"

"That's what she says. Then she jumps right into moving on from him and having a family with me. She says she went off the pill, told him the last time that they were done, but he threatened to talk to me about her leaving me for him, so she got panicked and let him talk her into one more fuck with the stipulation that she would then decide what to do. She tells me it was never her intent to leave me for him, but she felt she had to give him a last fuck to make him back off talking to me and to make him understand that she chose me, not him."

"So, then she leaves quickly after the last fuck, comes home, and a week later starts fucking your brains out in an attempt to get pregnant? Wow, seems like maybe she was trying to make sure you had reasons not to leave if you found out. Or, maybe she just really wanted to jolt herself into leaving all that behind and moving on with you. But I guess it all still comes down to if you can eventually forgive her and if you want to be with her or leave your family and start a new life. Man, you've got some heavy decisions to make."

"Yeah, I'm going to another individual session with Dr. Walton to have that exact discussion. The other thing I was thinking is that I can get back together with her, give it my best try, and if I can't let it go, I can still leave the marriage. There isn't really a "statute of limitations" on deciding I'm divorcing her, and since we have a no-fault state, the only leverage I have in the financial wasteland of divorce is threatening to send the love-letters to her friends and family. Not sure I would sink to that, but I'm also not willing to totally get screwed financially for life for something that she did that ruined our marriage."

"Jimmy, you are in a pile of shit and need to find a way to climb out. I think you need to put away all the financial concerns, hard as that may be, and decide what is best for you, what is best for little Beth, and I suppose, if you still love her, what is best for Diane. I'm more than happy to hear you out and talk with you about it; but I have zero skills at helping you decide what's right for you, so you need to do that on your own, with a lot of help from your counselor."

"Well, thanks for listening, Jerry; it helps just to talk about it and get the anger out and to try and think more rationally about what the right decisions are for me. There are some things that really puzzle and bother me; like you said, going off the pill and getting us pregnant without even talking to me about it. Not to mention letting that asshole fuck her without a condom. We are probably just damn lucky we didn't get any STDs and I'm amazed she didn't even think that through. She really was in a fog."

*****

At my next session with Dr. Walton, she was pretty direct and in my face about what it would take to make me decide to try and move forward. Some of the things we talked about were the last four years and if I felt that Diane had been faithful and shown respect and love to me. I had to agree that she had, and that we had been closer than ever; even more so than when we were first married. We were not only lovers, but we were partners and best friends, and family was always number one with both of us.

"So, James, moving forward, one of the main things you have to think about is your daughter. Diane would likely get custody of Beth; at the very best you might get joint custody, but you might only get visitations and every other weekend. Can you live with that arrangement?"

"I think that would kill me, to not be able to see my daughter grow and develop each day. It's the highlight of my day to play with her after work and on the weekends. To think that we created someone so beautiful and perfect still thrills me beyond belief."

"Well James, another thing to think about, is that Diane is a young and beautiful woman, and if you two divorce she will obviously get a lot of attention from other men. If she gets serious with one of those men, how do you feel about someone else, for example a step-father, having a major hand in raising Beth?"

That comment hit me in the gut like a brass-knuckle blow. I had never reasoned through that, and I had to admit that I would never be able to accept that, my own flesh and blood not getting her fatherly advice and development from me, but from some stranger to me. "Wow, Doc, that one really cuts. I don't think I could handle it."

"These are all things you need to think through. It seems like something else is bothering you, do you want to talk about it?"

"Yeah, I am perplexed by whether she chose me as just the stable, dependable choice or really loved me and was sexually and mentally satisfied with me versus him."

"You probably can never know unless you trust that she is being honest and open with you. But you should be able to tell if she is present, happy, satisfied with you both in and out of the bedroom. You'll probably need a bit of time to really answer that one for yourself, unless you look at the last few years. What do they tell you?"

"I guess they tell me she really wanted me and still does and has treated me with nothing but love and respect."

"Well then, put that one to bed and move on. What else, James?"

"I can't get my head around the end of her affair and coming back to me. She gets off the pill, fucks him one last time, waits a week to scrub him out of her system and then jumps into the most intense sexual relationship we had for years. I guess it was all about getting pregnant, or maybe make up sex for me, but she never even brought up getting pregnant and never told me she was off the pill. What's that all about?"

Dr. Walton looked at me for a moment and answered, "Yes, we discussed that a lot in her sessions. She subconsciously saw that as the decision to wipe him out of her mind and emotions and go full in 100% with you and your marriage. Kind of a risky move, both the unprotected sex and you being okay with getting her pregnant without any discussions, but apparently it all worked out and you have a beautiful little daughter because of it."

I thought about what she said, and it made sense about her subconscious commitment to me, but something about what she said really bothered me and I was going to have to think about it more.

*****

A few days later, I picked up Beth for our play date, and I just walked her up to the park. I had been fighting with myself for a few days, since my discussion with Dr. Walton, about getting back together and giving forgiveness a try; moving forward with my family. But one thing really kept bugging me, and that was Diane having unprotected sex with that asshole, and just a week before we started spending every free moment in bed; which I now knew was Diane's push to get pregnant.

So even thought I felt very unsure about doing what I was going to do; I knew I had to do it before I could move on.