Ted and Kate

Ted and Kate

will gossip kill a marriage.

I arrived home at 7pm after a three-day trade show in Brisbane. It's only a one-hour flight but you have to be at the airport and hour beforehand and then the trip from Sydney airport to our home in a small town to the west of Sydney in the Blue Mountains meant two trains, a hassle but less stressful than driving in Sydney's rush hour. I had told my wife, Kate when to expect me and I hoped she would have a cold beer and a hot meal ready as usual for my return.

I'm Ted by the way, age 42 and married to Kate also age 42 for the past 20 of those years. We are both what you would call average in looks both having dark brown hair, mine cut in a standard "short back and sides" and Kate's just over her shoulders. Neither would win any beauty contests but neither would we be considered ugly, far from it, as I said, pretty average. I am six foot and have a slight, even skinny build which I maintain by visiting the gym regularly. Kate is five foot nine and, after two children has managed to retain a slightly voluptuous figure, which is kept by joining me at the gym. We both also spend a lot of time walking the many trails in the area. Both of us are what you may call outgoing types of people. We have twin daughters both in uni in Canberra, 200km's away, and sharing student accommodation in the town. They come home about every second weekend as it's only just over a two-hour drive. I am a sales rep with an electrical goods supplier of cables and switches to the building trade I sell to retail electrical shops and to tradespeople on sites. Kate works for a small publishing house as a graphic designer and mostly works from home with only occasional forays into the city. We have had our ups and downs during our marriage but never anything serious and tried to follow the old adage of not letting the sun go down on an argument. Our love life was, to be honest, probably in a bit of a rut and I think we both knew it but didn't know how to voice it. We both found it difficult to talk about such things so have tended to let it slide. In retrospect, not a good idea. One thing I was sure of is that we loved each other.

Have you ever entered a house and had a feeling that it was empty, no-one home. Still, I called out "Kate, I'm home." Silence pervaded the house, so I dropped my bags and went searching through the lounge, kitchen, bedrooms and Kate's office. Nobody in so I went out to the back garden, where she had a beautiful collection of roses, thinking she might be there. No sign. I went back inside and looked to see if she had left a message and on finding none, I rang her mobile phone. It went to voice mail, so I left a message asking her to call me. It was most unusual for her not to be home when I got back from a trip, we miss each other and feel the need to reunite when I return, usually in bed.

I got a beer from the fridge and started to unpack my suitcase and put the dirty washing in the laundry and my briefcase in the corner of the family room where I have a desk, Kate's work takes up the whole of the bedroom we converted into an office.

After the beer I again called Kate's phone and left another voice mail. I was beginning to be a little concerned as this was so out of character for her. We had spoken the day before and everything seemed normal and happy. I had told her which train I would be home on so I thought she would be waiting as always.

I was concerned enough by nine-thirty to call her boss who lived in the city, thinking she may have gone to the office and gotten held up. She had spoken to Kate a few days ago but not seen or heard from her since. I next called our local hospital, but she was not there. By now I was worried enough to call her parents who lived in the next town eight km's away. I didn't want to worry them, but I was concerned by her silence, hoping she hadn't had an accident.

What they told me rocked me to the core. Kate had told them I was cheating on her and had gone to stay with a friend, Debbie, in Sydney. She intended to get her own back on me. They could not tell me where this friend lived, only that they were at uni together, that was 20 years ago, and I knew she kept in touch with a couple of those friends, I had even met them on occasion but did not have any of their addresses or phone numbers. I went through her desk hoping to find some contact details for them but came up empty-handed. I phoned her again and left her a message that I had never once cheated on her and asking what it was all about. I begged her to talk to me.

It was a long, lonely night. I'm not much of a drinker so didn't dive into a bottle but did not sleep much imagining what Kate might be doing and who she might be doing it with.

The next day was Friday and my boss had already told me that since I had been away all week I may as well spend the day at home to write my reports and come back in on Monday.

Friday dawned after a sleepless night and as I stumbled down to the kitchen for coffee, I again rang Kate but, again, no answer. I sent her a long text asking her where she got the idea that I was cheating and again told her that, whatever she had heard was totally untrue. I didn't think that either of us had any enemies, we got on with all of our neighbours and the local townspeople and went to BBQ's and events at many homes and hosted some ourselves.

Due to the shock of not finding Kate at home I had skipped dinner the night before so made myself a breakfast of eggs and toast. Whilst eating I picked up our copy of the local free paper which is delivered on Thursday and noticed it was open near the middle. An article caught my eye as it was circled in green pen. Kate habitually uses green pen for some reason lost in time. The article was part of a column written by a local gossip columnist, Marsha, known for adding two and two and getting five. She never let the truth get in the way of a juicy piece of gossip and had been threatened many times and taken to court on several occasions, always skirting around with innuendo and never naming names. The article was damning.

"A friend of mine, on holiday in Brisbane told me she chanced to see a local "Live Wire" salesman from our small town who was having lunch in a hotel restaurant in the city on two consecutive days with a young, attractive redhead. On the second occasion he was seen to enter the hotel elevator with her, both looking very cozy. Just because you are 1,000 kilometers away you cannot escape my all-seeing eyes."

This was going to upset my plans and I needed to take swift action to get Kate back on side without telling her the truth about these meetings.

I took the paper with me and drove to her parent's house. At first, Bob and Doris would not talk to me even though we had always got on very well and treated each other as family. Finally, I persuaded them to listen to what I had to say. The redhead is Sandra, the daughter of Kate's sister, Tracy, who had a falling out with the family many years ago and had left home, causing much distress to her family who thought she had overreacted to events that had occurred.

Over the past few months, I had hired an investigator to find Tracy and I had contacted her and spent hours on the phone with her trying to persuade her to reconcile with her parents and sister. She knew that she had been wrong in leaving but was too embarrassed to contact them, fearing that they would reject her. I had finally persuaded her that they all loved and missed her and would love to see her again. My meetings with Sandra were to arrange a date for both Tracy and Sandra to come to Sydney and meet up with the family. I had taken her to my hotel room in Brisbane, to show her a couple of albums of family photographs. Sandra was all for re-connecting with her grandparents and aunt whom she had not seen since she was very little and was pushing her mother to take a trip to Sydney to visit us all. I was trying to keep this reunion as a surprise for the family but felt compelled to spill the beans to mum & dad. Kate's parents were over the moon with my efforts and thanked me profusely for taking the trouble to try to reunite the family. They immediately phoned Kate but only got voicemail as I had. They left a message saying that what she had read was all a misunderstanding and I had not done anything to harm the marriage. By this time, it was late afternoon so I went home and waited for Kate to call either her parents or me.

Friday and Saturday nights were both long and lonely with still no contact from Kate to either her parents or me.

Sunday morning, after trying once again unsuccessfully to reach Kate I tried to keep busy by doing the regular household chores, mowing and weeding, washing the car and then started on those reports for my boss.

Late Sunday evening I had a call from Bob to say he had received a call from Debbie who Kate was supposedly staying with. Apparently, Kate had spent the weekend with a man who worked in the same building as her office and had been flirting with her for months during her occasional visits to the office. Wanting to get revenge on me for "sleeping with that redheaded slut" in Brisbane. Bob and Doris explained to Debbie that it was all a mistake caused by a scandalmonger but Kate refused to believe this and would now not talk to either her parents or me. Talk about Déjà Vu, Bob told me that this was a similar scenario to the one that happened with Tracy many years ago and led to her divorce and separation from her family.

After hearing this I was in a pretty bad state. How could my wonderful, loving wife, be so taken in by a gossip columnist who dealt in rumour and innuendo that she would run off with another guy without confronting me first. She was prepared to throw away the 23 years we had been together on a rumour, which made me think that our marriage may not be that wonderful after all.

Sunday night was not a good one but why should it be any different to the previous two nights.

Monday morning, I rang my boss and explained what was going on and asked for a weeks leave to sort it out. He said that as long as I emailed the reports from last week to him that was fine. I did have a few appointments booked so I spent an hour on the phone rearranging those and then tried to think about how to sort out the problem of Kate's reaction and the aftermath which would surely come.

I did still love my wife and was totally conflicted about whether I wanted to stay with her or not. Her behaviour was unforgiveable but also so out of character, we always discussed our problems before acting on them. I went to lunch with her parents and talked with them about it, but it all came down to how did I feel about her going to bed with another man and the lack of communication, respect and trust she had shown me. The last two would be the main stumbling block going forward. I had an idea about how to start the process but first I needed to know where Kate was staying. I rang Kate's boss and outlined everything that had happened and told her of my plan to try and sort the mess out. I asked her to find out where Kate was living. She agreed and a few minutes later rang back with an address in the south of Sydney.

I immediately phoned Tracy in Brisbane and told her what had happened and asked her if she would fly down to Sydney as soon as possible and bring Sandra if she could. I would pay for the flights not that we were rich and last-minute flights were expensive, but this was an emergency. She agreed to come and the earliest flight was the next day getting in to Sydney at eight am. I had Bob ring Kate's friend and ask her to make sure that Kate was there at nine am.

Tuesday morning, after I slept through the night due to sheer exhaustion I was up early and at the airport to meet Tracy and Sandra off their flight and we drove to the address where Kate was staying. On the way I received a text from Bob to say that Debbie had messaged him to say that Kate was at that house and she would make sure that Kate answered the door. My plan was for Kate to open the door and see only Tracy and Sandra, I was going to stand to one side and walk into the house after they had their reunion. I had completely underestimated Tracy's feelings about the situation. Years of pent-up feelings of embarrassment and self-loathing for the way she had treated her family came out the moment Kate opened the door. Tracy ploughed straight into Kate pushing and screaming at her and calling her names which would, I'm sure, make a sailor blush, I did. It took several minutes for Sandra, Debbie and I to get Tracy off Kate and sat down. By this time all of the women were crying and I was so shaken by what had happened that I just stood frozen for hours, or so it seemed.

Eventually some semblance of order was restored, and we all sat down and tried to calm down and catch our breath. Debbie suggested coffee to which we all agreed as we sat there just looking at each other and trying to sort out our thoughts.

Tracy was the first to speak and walking over to Kate she offered her hand and apologized for her outburst. She tried to explain that what had happened over the past few days was almost the same scenario as the one that had led to her leaving home, and she was horrified that Kate was following the same path. Tracy explained how, for 20 years, she had regretted what had happened and how she had reacted to it. She did not want Kate going down the same road for our sake and for the sake of their parents.

When Kate heard the full story, she broke down and sobbed for ages while the rest of us just looked at each other no-one knowing what to say. The silence went on for the longest time, broken only by Kate's sobbing. Eventually Kate stopped crying and looked at me through tear-streaked eyes. Neither of us knew what to say so we just stared at each other for the longest time. Tracy was still angry though as much at herself as at Kate. Sandra was horrified at the way her mother had attacked Kate. I didn't know what to say or how to react, still feeling bitter towards Kate for what she had done and Debbie was just dumbstruck at the whole proceeding. At last, the impasse was broken by Kate coming over to me and getting on her knees apologizing over and over and begging me to forgive her. I was not so sure I could, 23 years gone in a weekend as the result of some slag of a gossip columnist who wanted to get a cheap thrill out of hurting others, I was going to make sure she paid for that.

I told Kate that it would take a long time for me to get over what she had done. Her readiness to believe the gossip and the lack of trust in not talking to me first were going to take a long time to heal, if ever. I also wanted to get to the bottom of why she had acted as she did, obviously something was not right at home which caused her to react as she did. Several long talks were on the horizon though they may have to be with a counsellor.

Kate would not be able to work from Debbie's place so after some discussion I suggested that she move back to her parent's home and she could come to our house and work in her office during the day while I was on the road. All of her computers and a large-scale printer were there and it would be a major operation to shift them. I usually left home at 6:30 am as many of the people I dealt with were on their work sites at 7:30 or earlier. I am usually out for about nine hours so she could work through the day when I was out as long as she was gone back to her parents by five pm when I got home. She agreed that was the best solution for now and so we set off on the two-hour drive home. I took Tracy in my car, just in case, and Sandra went with Kate.

Bob and Doris were over the moon to see Tracy and Sandra though the looks they gave Kate had me concerned that they may not want her staying with them. I didn't have a plan B for this.

It was just after lunchtime when we arrived at Bob and Doris's place and as none of us had eaten all day I had phoned ahead to ask Doris to please make us some sandwiches. It was the biblical fatted calf when we arrived. Doris had spent the whole morning baking and preparing for the huge reunion and the whole house shook with the tears of joy at Tracy and Sandra's return. Kate and I stayed in the background albeit on opposite sides of the lounge not were not really in the mood to join in the festivities.

I really wasn't feeling all of the love, so I took Bob aside and told him I was going home. He understood and they had agreed to have Kate stay with them. They did not have enough bedrooms for all the family so I offered Tracy our spare room. We were not that far from mum and dad's place so she could spend time with Kate at my/Kate's house during the day or go to her parents' place. I was sure that Kate would not be jealous of Tracy staying with me, especially after the hell she had just put me through. Kate said that she was certain that I would never cheat on her though I think by then she would say anything to get on my good side and make me happy.

Kate and I went to see a counsellor and after several weeks it turned out that her problem was not as I had thought. I was always one for keeping the peace, I'm a husband, what else, and I thought that it was my fault for leaving Kate at home all day while I was out. I did not neglect her and brought her flowers now and then, not so often that they became routine but just often enough to be a pleasant surprise occasionally. We also went out to the cinema and local club dances plus meeting friends for BBQ's and parties so she was not neglected. The problem, it seems, was that Kate felt that she was a prisoner during the day. As she worked from home she could not go out shopping or for coffee with a friend as she was working and felt she needed to spend all day in her office. Unlike a normal office she had no direct contact with people and no office banter or chatting to break up the day. A phone call to her boss soon cured that and she was told that as long as she met the deadlines for her projects and had her mobile (cell) phone with her when she went out it didn't matter what hours she worked. Getting the jobs done properly and on time was far more important than being at her desk for a set number of hours. The fact that her work was of such high quality and always on time was the main reason that she was allowed to work from home.

It took weeks of counselling but when Kate was shown where she went wrong, she became so contrite and was constantly apologizing to me and her family to the point where we all told her to shut up. We were still living apart but did go out on dates occasionally. It would take three months before she came back to our home and several months after that before we slept together and even that was a long slow process which also included her being tested for STD's.

All of this still left the challenge of what to do with our resident gossip columnist. I was friends with the postmaster in our town so I joined him for a beer one night, my shout of course, and asked him if he could let me know which of the local residents was on holiday at the same time I was in Brisbane. He thought for a while and told me of one lady who had asked for her mail to be held for that week while she went to visit family interstate.

I visited the woman, Jessica, and after some prodding, she admitted she had told Marsha about seeing me in Brisbane. I told her that she could be named in a lawsuit against Marsha and possibly a witness in my divorce from Kate, a made-up story but one which terrified the woman who was a proud member of the local Rotary, Red Cross, and Country Women's Association and knew she would be ostracized by the entire town if her part in this came out. After she had received this message loud and clear I sat her down and asked her to tell me everything she knew about Marsha, they had known each other most of their lives though were not really friends, just enjoyed a gossipy chat occasionally.