She was a Ticking Bomb

When I read cheating wives stories, I find myself asking the same question the husbands ask: "Why?" The what, when, where, and how never really interest me quite as much as the why. Of course, how the victimized spouse responds is always interesting. I've read that women cheat because they are looking for the love they don't find at home. I don't know if I believe that, or at least it's only part of the story. I think that fear and unfulfilled dreams can play a big role. I do think that marriage is hard work and maturity can be painfully won. This is my attempt to explore one answer to the question "Why?"

There is no sex in this story. It's just a tale of love and loss. Last, this is not a BTB or RAAC story and if this story of a marriage in trouble moves you to call me "cuck", just save your breath.

*****

I was sitting in my favorite watering hole waiting to meet a friend. It's just a little covered deck off Spa Creek in Annapolis, but in the summer it can be the most entertaining place on Earth. The harbor is alive with people going ashore for dinner, the water taxis taking them between Annapolis and Eastport, and the occasional drunken celebrant stepping off the sidewalk and falling into the harbor. There's no end of entertainment and you get it all for just the price of a beer.

My friend Dave had called me that afternoon and asked me to meet him after work. It wasn't really like him. Dave is more of a homebody at night, but then I am as well, so his call surprised me. Something told me this was not going to be your basic social evening of beer, nachos, and bad jokes.

I saw him coming from a block away and he did not look good. Dave had that sad look like his dog had died, he'd lost his job, and his wife had run away. Well, one out of three anyway. He took a seat at my table and we just looked at one another for the longest time.

"You want to talk about it?"

He just sat there staring at the water with his mouth slightly open and slowly shaking his head. You know when a man shakes his head that way he isn't saying "No." He's thinking, "How did this happen to me?" He was silent for the longest time and then taking a breath he quietly said, "She's cheating on me, Steve." Then he looked me in the eyes and said, "I can't believe it. She is the last woman on Earth who I thought was capable of this."

There it was. I knew it was going to be bad and I'd hoped it wasn't this bad, but I'd heard it in his voice on the phone earlier in the day and I saw it in his walk along the harbor's edge. Either his wife was cheating on him or his doctor had given him a death sentence. Frankly, I was glad it was the former. Dave is good guy and the world would be diminished without him.

Dave proceeded to lay it out for me. He was the typical clueless husband, being lied to whenever it met her needs, his wife lying as easily as she drew breath with a smile and a kiss and a loving word to hide her betrayal. Unfortunately for her, Dave is a man of routine and when her routine began to change, and his wife slowly deviated from her normal ways, he noticed. That led him to wonder, to doubt himself and his marriage, until a remarkably big check written to a professional investigator soon gave him the answer he did not want to hear. An hour later he called me and now here we were, sitting by the water's edge, watching the crowds coming and going, and wishing we had a better reason to get together.

"You know you don't deserve this, Dave. This isn't something you did. I've known you for too long and I know this isn't your fault. There are rules in a marriage and no path that follows the rules leads to betrayal. A path can lead to unhappiness, it can lead to divorce, but there is no justification for betrayal."

"Then why do I feel like such a failure?"

"Well, I can tell you what I learned about myself if that helps. We go through life with bravado and stupidity, thinking we're fine, enjoying our lives, and then we meet someone who teaches us how incomplete we are without them. We let them in, we see ourselves through their eyes, and our worth gets tied up in their love for us. Then one day they teach us that we're not what they've always told us we were. We catch them lying to us, showing us disrespect, breaking their promises to us, finding with someone else what we thought they could only find with us, and it all comes crashing down."

My friend was looking at me in amazement. "You've been through this? You never told me."

"Who wants to talk about it? If I had divorced Debbie, I would have told everyone and cursed her name, but it didn't go like that. I got lucky. She had a brief period of stupidity, immaturity really, and when her head cleared, she knew she wanted her marriage above all else. It wasn't easy, but we slowly put things back together. I suppose it helped that she confessed, and I never caught her. If I'd seen her doing it, I don't think I could have forgiven her."

"You guys always seem so happy together."

"We were before, and we are now again. It wasn't that we were unhappy with each other. Debbie had self-doubts, some misplaced sense of inadequacy, and that bastard played on her needs and twisted her up until she did what she swore she would never do."

And with that I began to tell him my story, the story that I never told anyone because telling it made it real and I never wanted it to be real.

"Well, you know part of our story. We were high school sweethearts. We started dating in our junior year and we were inseparable from that first night on. You know us. She wasn't a cheerleader and I wasn't a jock. We were nerds, but we were also A students. I never liked that term 'nerd', but in the years since we both went to college where we excelled. We got great jobs, advanced quickly, and established ourselves in the community. Sure, we were nerds in high school, but like a lot of nerds we've done very well in our careers.

"There was one big difference between Debbie and me. Maybe it traces back to the need for women to belong, to be included. I don't know. You see, being nerds, we had our friends, but we were never included with the cool kids. I took the usual bullying from the jocks, like the rest of the ordinary students, but I just thought less of them for it. There were the girls who hung with the jocks and they got a good laugh at all the put downs and insults, but for whatever reason I never thought of them as being important or even that they were a part of my life. They were like the thistles and briars I had to pass through whenever I went for walks in the woods; they were just the price of moving forward.

"Debbie longed to be accepted by the 'in crowd'. She knew full well what they were, but she saw the attention they received from so many of the students and teachers. She just wanted to fit in, and she knew she didn't. There were a couple of times when one or another of the jocks would make a half-hearted pass at her. I never liked the way she would perk up when they did. I knew for them it was just for laughs, maybe a minor conquest, but she would brighten up and suddenly I wasn't there. She always came back to her senses, except for that one time when she went out with a football player and told me her family had plans. I froze her out for six weeks after that and I wasn't pretending. I was done with her. It took her all those six weeks to work her way back into my good graces and I thought I'd made my point.

"There's another thing about Debbie that you already know, although you would never hear me say it. She's flat-chested. I don't mean she has small breasts, or they aren't double-D's. They aren't even C's or B's. She's flat. My wife has breasts like a 14-year old boy, although just between us I do love those nipples!"

I looked at him and for a moment I regretted saying that. I felt I'd betrayed her.

"In case you haven't figured it out, I don't give one little shit about any of that. I wouldn't care if she were stacked like a marble statue or her nipples popped in when she got excited! I love that woman and all I have ever asked of those lovely flat breasts was that they were mine and only mine to enjoy and that she gets excited when I touch her. That's a big deal, you know? She may have a chest like a 14-year old boy, but that doesn't mean she goes out topless in the summer. It doesn't matter how she looks, it's what she is that matters, and my wife is all woman with all the modesty she or any woman needs.

"I do love that woman.

"Like I said, as the years went by and we advanced in our careers, we built our lives as adults. All that high school nonsense was far back in the rear-view mirror. At least it was for me and I thought it was for Debbie, too. I was wrong. All these years, through college and into our careers, she carried a piece of that high school angst buried deep in her psyche. It was like a ticking bomb and when it was jostled it went off."

I spent a moment to gather my thoughts. I was getting to the painful part.

"We planned our lives. Nerds do that. We had a five-year plan and a ten-year plan, and we were coming up on the end of our five-year plan. Soon enough, we were planning to start our family.

"Here is the thing about women that every man needs to understand: at any given time and for any reason, they can decide to have sex and if they do, they will. It doesn't matter if they are married or single, cute or not, stylish or heavy. They wake in the morning, put their feet on the floor, and if they say to themselves, 'I'm feeling a bit peckish today. I think I'll have sex.' they will. For all that men brag, they don't have that power. Men work for weeks or months to seduce a woman. I woman just decides and there is a man all too eager to oblige. If a married woman intends to be faithful to her husband and her vows, she needs to make that decision each and every day because there is always a wolf lurking in the bushes ready to take a run at an unsuspecting sheep. If she's having a bad day, if she's feeling unappreciated at home, if maybe she's put on a few pounds, or she's having an argument with her husband, that just makes her all the more vulnerable to his approach. He'll become her friend, flatter her, tell her she's not appreciated, and work on that little chink in her armor until she starts to believe him.

"The wolf outside my door was named Peter. We knew him from school, and you know the type. We've all met them. He coasted through school doing just enough to get by. He played football and he was a star on the team. He was the center of the social life at school, the man to know, and when he graduated, he continued that same behavior getting by on his personality instead of any tangible talent. He coasted through college with mediocre grades in an unchallenging major. Eventually, Peter got a job as a salesman, but what else would he be? He started visiting my wife's company on a regular basis, schmoozing the office manager, and establishing a personal relationship with upper management. He was alert to every opportunity and spotted my wife quickly.

"I'm only guessing, but it probably went something like this: 'Debbie? Debbie Allen? Is that you?'

"She probably blushed and looked away for a moment, then turned back in his direction and smiled saying, 'Peter?'

"He probably said something like, 'It is you! My God, you are even prettier than you were in high school!' God, I can hear his smarmy voice in my nightmares. Who knows what he really thought? The truth wasn't his weapon of choice. He would have talked with her about her work, flattered her a bit, and then very reluctantly headed off for his appointment. He might even have asked her to show him the way. Then, after his meeting, he'd return to finish their conversation, smiling all the time, complimenting her enough, but not too much, and ending with something like, 'I hate to leave, but I have another appointment. I'll be back next Tuesday. Will you be here? I'd love to finish our talk. It's so great to see you again!'

"Like I said, I wasn't there, but I'm sure it went something like that. He'd start out innocuously enough making sure not to set off any alarms that would make her uncomfortable. Seduction of a married woman is a gradual affair. It's all about making her feel safe and lowering her inhibitions. Real predators can spot their prey with just a glance. They recognize the weakest member of the herd and cut them out like they've done a hundred times before. He met her without making a point to meet her. He flattered her and placed himself in her debt by asking for help. He thanked her for her kindness. The initial invitation to lunch wouldn't come for several weeks. Of course, she's a married woman so she declined, but he became a regular visitor to the office. She knew him. He was safe. He was polite. He appreciated her. On good days he joined in with her mood and on bad days he was the bright spot that lifted her spirits. There was always some little help he needed, and he always wanted to thank her. Eventually, it was rude of her not to let him take her to lunch. It was all very innocent. At least that was how she eventually described it to me."

Just sitting there, thinking about it, the anger was coming back to me. You put these things behind you, but you never really forget. Betrayal by someone you love is painful and difficult, but that same love can get you through. What I never got over was that there was a predator out there who thought nothing of me or my marriage. My wife would be just another notch on his bedpost and if her infidelity resulted in the destruction of my marriage, then his accomplishment was all the greater. He reduced me to nothing more than one more humiliated husband that he bested and that I have never forgiven.

"The eventual how and what of her seduction isn't all that important. He was smooth and he took his time. Everywhere he went, the people seemed to know him. She was feeling like she was plugged into the center of the social world for the first time in her life and she liked it. It fed a long-suppressed need in her heart. For a long time, he did nothing inappropriate. It was all small steps, never anything to sound the alarm, but bit by bit she started failing the wife test. If she had ever asked herself 'Would I behave this way if Steve were here?' she'd have known she was crossing the line. That was his talent. He could work her so that she never asked herself that question.

"He made his move while I was away for work one week. She agreed to meet him for dinner. It was all innocent, after all, and nothing to feel guilty over. She just forgot to mention it to me. She never mentioned her plans for dinner or all those lunches. Dinner was delightful, so a little dancing wouldn't hurt. After all, they were in public. What could happen? She never told me how he closed the deal and to be honest I don't think I want to know, but she spent that night in his hotel room and everything we'd built together came crashing down around us.

"To her credit, her guilt overwhelmed her. I came home a few nights later to find her crying in the living room. She was a hot mess. It took an hour just to get an intelligible sentence out of her. She kept saying 'I'm so sorry... I love you... I never mean to...' and 'Peter...', but for the longest time I couldn't understand what she was trying to say. And who the hell was Peter? When she was finally exhausted and all cried out, she collapsed against me and clung to my chest like someone drowning in the waves. She continued to sob quietly and finally told me what she'd done.

"Every married man knows it could happen. It happens to others. It happens to their friends, but it could never happen to them. They married well. Their wife is a rock. She's not some slut. She knows what she wants, and she would never cheat. It's not in her nature. They are completely unprepared for it when it happens. They go into denial. They become enraged. They withdraw into themselves. They shut down. Eventually, they start looking for revenge. They want to make their wife hurt like they hurt because it's obvious she isn't hurting enough. After all, she's the one who cheated. They cry. They scream. They storm out and take a hotel room vowing to find a lawyer. I did all those things.

"If a man has good friends and a close family to bring them back to the world, and if they have a wife who truly regrets what she's done, then eventually they might find their way home. Their confidence in themselves is destroyed. Their trust in her has evaporated. They wonder how many times? They are starting over again with the same woman who has already betrayed them. It's pure hell played out in a house that can't possibly be big enough to escape the pain for even an evening. But love finds a way if they're lucky and if both try to make it happen. They work to heal the pain and rebuild the destruction.

"It took us a year. We slept in separate rooms for the first three months, then in the same bed without touching for another month. Whether it was modesty or shame, I never saw her naked body even once during those first four months. She would change for bed in the bathroom and wear nightgowns to bed. During the days and evenings, she would stand just out of reach, ask if I needed anything, offer to fix a snack, and just be there waiting for me to forgive her. It was not a happy house. In time, I could see she needed to be forgiven as desperately as I needed to forgive her. I wanted my wife back. We both wanted our marriage back, the old marriage where we were comfortable and happy together. We saw a therapist. We talked. We fought. Well, I fought. She mostly took the verbal beatings until I was too exhausted to fight any longer.

"One night I was just sitting on the sofa, thinking about how my life had turned to shit. She sat down beside me and cautiously, tentatively, laid her head on my shoulder. I smelled her hair for the first time in four months. It brought back a wave of memories and desires. I slowly moved to place my arm over her shoulder, but she jumped thinking I was withdrawing. When she saw I was not, she cuddled under my arm and we spent the evening just sitting there without speaking. When we went to bed, we cuddled again. There was still no sex. There was just being together, the first closeness we'd felt in four long and painful months. The sex came later, but it came.

"Six months into the healing we were enjoying our time together again. We were both nervous and unsure of ourselves, and the memories were still raw, but we knew the door was open and we were both walking through it together. We desperately wanted to be on the other side of healing, but something was holding me back. There was unfinished business and I knew that this was one time when I would not sit back and let the cool kid win."

I hesitated for a time before finishing my story.

"What I'm about to tell you is something you can't tell another living soul. I'm not proud of it, but I'm not ashamed, either. It's just that if you tell anyone I could go to jail."

Dave nodded and I looked around to see if anyone was listening. I dropped my voice so that only Dave could hear.

"I knew when Peter was in town. My wife made it a point to tell me. It was part of our 'no secrets' policy. Well, it was either that or stake out her office and I couldn't afford that. Telling me when Peter visited her office, when he spoke with her, and what he said was what I required to rebuild my trust in her. She was honest about it. He was working her, trying for a repeat of their night together. Despite that, I was relieved. She finally saw him for what he was, and I no longer feared he had sway over her. She told me that every time he worked on her she felt cheap, like she was just a piece of meat. I knew then that I had my girl back.