The Secrets We Keep From Each Other

The last 'girl's night out,' the one our kids interrupted, started in mid afternoon when they left work early and went to his hotel. I assumed they fucked and later, went out for dinner and were returning to the hotel for another round when she got the first call. The second call was when she was in bed with him. That call broke the mood; she got dressed and came home.

She was telling him they had to cool it for a while as I was suspicious. He was having none of it and she agreed after much arguing, to take a full afternoon off, so she could be home at the regular time. While no other hook ups were mentioned, there might have been some. However enough was documented, in the e mails to show it wasn't a onetime thing. She was more circumspect in her responses than he was, in fact she told him twice to drop the specifics. The date was over a week away, so I had ten days to think about it and decide what to do. This could be a problem for me because I tend to think too much, and come up with complicated solutions to simple problems that have simple solutions that I don't always see. Basically I loved her, I knew she loved me, and we both were devoted to our kids. The rest was up in the air.

This divorce thing. At one time, when a divorce needed to be justified, infidelity was one such justification. Now they get divorced for no reason at all. But here, I cheated first and at the time felt really guilty. Like I said, it was a mistake, I haven't done it again and I don't think I ever will unless our marriage falls apart. At the time, to ease the burden of guilt I wanted to confess it, to seek absolution, but that is something priests give, not wives. There was no question; I wasn't going to confess it to her. Why in the world would anyone do that? Dump a lot of pain on someone.

When I was in school years ago, somebody asked "If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?" Having a logical and unsubtle mine in those days, I said of course it does, sound is a physical phenomena. But the question really was, if we didn't sense it, don't know about it, how do we know it happened? To us who weren't there, it didn't happen.

Similarly, from a moral point of view, the question in my head was 'should I have filed for divorce when I fucked sailor boy's wife on the grounds that our marriage vows were broken (by me), and the divorce would just be acknowledging that fact? If infidelity is automatically the end of a marriage, then I should have ended my marriage. It sounds stupid to say that, doesn't it? I decided what I imagine a lot of people decide, shut my mouth and say nothing! To my wife, my adultery didn't happen.

I figured the real world issue is who knows about it. I know about my fuck up and she doesn't. So as long as she doesn't know about it, my fucking around has little effect on our marriage, and what effects there are, are in my head. In fact, arguably it strengthened my marriage because I realized that the quality of my sex life with her was not the most important thing in my life, probably not even in the top 3 or 4 things. As to telling her, this is a case of what you don't know won't hurt you.

If she found out, somehow, then she and I would both know about it, she's going to respond; she'd be furious, hurt, humiliated, and months of mutual misery and maybe divorce would follow. So it's not the deed, but the knowledge of the deed, knowledge of having been wronged, betrayed, found lacking and inadequate, that brings troubles down on your head.

So now she's the one cheating. Should she file for divorce? Or should I? I know about it but she doesn't know I know. I could get all hopped up raise up a riot, call her all sorts of names, throw her out of the house, and what do I get from that? There would be satisfaction in dumping all that guilt and pain on her, but a lot of that would spill onto the girls, but that in no way lessens my own pain.

The resulting anguish and turmoil would cause us years of grief and shit, and maybe divorce, alimony, child support, two households, same income, I suffer, she suffers, my kids suffer, no more college education fund, my 401K dies. I just see the girls on weekends; the family is destroyed physically, economically and emotionally. Eventually, maybe I remarry; start the whole thing all over again, only this time with less money. Would that make me happy? In a word, no!

Doing nothing and hoping it burns out is not an option either. If her affair continues, infatuation might become love, and we end up in a divorce so she can marry him. And even if they don't get serious, maybe she will like adultery so much she will decide to have more such lovers.

The thing I have to do is stop her infidelity, without her knowing I know about it. That way, she can live with her guilt, as I live with mine, and we can face each other...and love one another.

So I need to figure a way to end her affair, like this week! Make her realize it's a mistake, and have her think it's her idea to end it. That's about impossible, and just now I can't think of a way to do it.

Well sometimes I put problems aside, and the solution comes to me after a few days.

Meanwhile, life went on.

That weekend we went tubing on the Delaware. That's a poor man's yachting, where we take two cars, one loaded with used truck tire inner tubes and a cooler of drinks, some towels in plastic bags, and the other car is the drop car. We parked the drop car at a park downstream, the wife got in my car with all the gear and we drove about 6 miles upstream and parked that car in a state park. The Delaware River is very wide, but only a couple of feet deep in this area, so you don't have to worry about a kid falling off the inner tube. On the other hand, with your ass hanging below the tube, if you don't keep an eye out where you're going, it can get hit by a rock. It took us over three hours to drift down the river to the pickup point. We stopped to dry off and warm up in the sun on an island in the river. What a lovely time it was! The girls were shrieking with laughter, the wife tickled my bum under the inner tube with promise of more that night.

Later that week the annual carnival arrived across town, sponsored as a fund raiser by the local volunteer fire company. Compared to an big regional amusement park, it's small potatoes, but it's still fun to go to on a summer night. The girls were on me in a full court press. They knew I was an easier mark than their mother, so I got it first.

"The carnival is really awesome this year. Can we go? We didn't get to go last year. Come on, dad it'll be fun, and we have our own money so it won't cost you anything."

Right! I thought and then playing a bit hard to get;

"So what do they have this year?"

"Debby and Emma said they had everything! This big swing, like a Viking boat that holds lots of people, and a Ferris wheel, and teacup things that swing round and round, and a midway with all kind of games. An Emma had her fortune read, she's gonna cross a sea next year, and Debby won a piggy bank shooting real guns, it's really wonderful! Will you take us Pop?"

"Well, I'll go if your mom wants to go too, and you each have to find a friend to go with, 'cause we aren't going with you on those rides. They're only for young people who aren't afraid to die."

Squeals of delight as they ran off to persuade Ann. The wife's more critical of that sort of thing, but we'd been before and had a good time. She just wants them to be reasonably safe. Then it came to me how I could solve my problem about her little dalliance with Proctor. The kids came back to say that tonight was the night, that Mom would go if I did. I didn't have much time to prepare my plan.

Just before supper I got on the computer, typed a short letter, pasted a picture on it, shoved in an envelope with fifty bucks, and stuffed it in my pocket.

The carnival quickly separates you from your money. They do this as you enter the gate, right away we had to exchange cash for strings of thickets and then spent the tickets on the rides and such. Tickets don't seem like money, so while fifteen or twenty of them are about seven bucks, they're actually only a fistful of cardboard, so you forget they're money. The kids had just gotten on a ride, and I told Ann I would be back in a couple of minutes. I had spotted the fortune teller sitting idyll, and doubled back, leaving my wife watching the girls. I quickly explained to the woman what I wanted her to and gave her the letter and the cash, with the promise of another $40 at the reading.

I saw a sign for the toilets, and figured I might as well pee while I was at it. I got back just in time to watch the girls jumping off the ride and run around to get in line again for the third time. I persuaded Ann to walk with me. "I don't want to leave the girls."

"They want us to leave them so they can act grown up. They've got their friends with them, and we'll be a cell phone call away. Come on. Let's have some adult time. I'll buy you an ice cream."

She called our eldest to tell her they were on their own and to watch out for her sister, put her phone away, and smiled the smile that melts my heart:

"Oh well, 'though it will put my children in mortal danger, for Ice cream, I'll leave them to their fate, even knowing that in return for the ice cream, I will have to let you have your wicked way with me!'

'Leaving her children', I was thinking she was damn near doing that fooling around with J. Worthington. We were licking the last of the soft ice cream cones when two kids were leaving the fortune teller as we went by. I was about to say something, but Ann beat me to it:

"Oh look, come on, let's get out fortune told. Maybe we'll be going overseas like Emma!"

For ten dollars each, the woman did a bit of mumbo jumbo and bland ambiguous stuff, so I played the skeptic, which of course I was:

"Forget this stuff. It's inconsequential. Tell us something important, something substantive!"

"I am sorry! I did not realize you were serious. Come in back. I will close the curtain so we will not be disturbed."

We went into what amounted to a six by eight room, draped in red and black cloths and old carpets.

"You pay $50 now and when I am finished, you pay me, your choice, nothing more or another $50 when you leave."

"Chris, that's too much..."

"Knowing the future can't be cheap, can it." I gave her three twenties and got change. Worse yet the old woman was robbing me, I was in for $140 at this point! We sat down on rickety chairs in a closet that didn't smell too good.

She had the three of us hold hands, and we sat sweltering for a long time her with eyes closed, breathing deeply and noisily, but erratically. The noise of the midway was muffled, a murmur with an occasional word coming through the tent's padding. I hoped she was OK, her breathing sounded bad. Ann started to fidget. We jumped when the woman intoned in an accented voice:

"You both have been lucky in life; it has left only little scars on you. This is about to change. You have come to me just in time. Your future is in flux, about to take a new course, the course you choose will carry you to the end of your days. Listen well or woe betide you! You have so little time to decide."

My hand had been resting on Ann's, but with this ominous remark, she gripped it.

"Woman, you have born two daughters, children of the light, and though you will yet conceive again, no more children will come from you. Sadness and darkness is coming upon you very rapidly. In a matter of weeks, you will start two years of turmoil, pain, and struggle in both your lives."

The woman turned to me looking at my eyes but hers focusing far beyond me:

"There will be two important women in your life and in your bed. Both have brown eyes, one brown hair, the other a dusky woman with hair coal black. You will have a child with her. With the arrival of your son will come wealth and prosperity...he will comfort you in your old age. You will live long, with peace and joy to the end of your days, surrounded by children."

She continued to look off slack jawed, into space. I glanced, speechless at Alice who she was pale and drawn, looking as though she would cry. Good!

She turned her attention to Ann:

"You madam, on your life path... dark clouds, all dark clouds are swirling around you and the ground under your feet gives way with treachery, dragging you down. There will be three men in your bed and in your life. The next is as bald above as you will be below. He is the one who will crush your soul. Following him are seven years and seven months of loneliness, sickness and sorrow before the darkness lightens. After which you shall find not love but comfort with a sickly man."

Ann was trembling, shaking actually and gasping for breath. The old woman stood up and wiped her mouth with a cloth.

"I can say no more. I am sorry for you both. I will take no more of your money."

Ann spoke with a choke:

"Chris, wait for me outside, please."

Her voice was quavering and her eyes were tearing.

"Sure! Are you all right?" She dismissed me with a wave of the hand.

It was noisy and smelled of popcorn outside in the fresh air. Damn, that woman was good! She took the facts I had given her and scared the shit out of Ann. And me too! I was glad to be out of there.

Alice was almost running when she came out of the booth into to the lights and brightness of the midway, tears in her eyes.

"Chris where are the bathrooms?"

I pointed her in the right direction, and when she was out of sight, I got out $90, fifty for doing a good job plus the forty I had promised and folded it in my hand.

"What happened after I left?

Your wife said "You've seen...you know...I've been very foolish...Can the future be changed?"

I was thinking John Calvin and the others in the predestination crowd wouldn't have agreed that the future can be changed, but so what!

I told your wife: "With spirit and resolve it is not yet too late!"

"What do I have to do?"

"Foolish woman, if you know not that, then it is already too late now. Begone! Your fate is sealed!"

And she ran out the door.

"I think that did the trick." And handed her $90.

"I said I would take no more money. There was no trick here; I spoke of what I was given to see! I spoke of what was true."

"I didn't mean it that way. You did speak the truth. Don't argue with a satisfied customer. If you don't need it, bless god for your good fortune, and give it to someone who does need it."

I followed after my wife. She took a while, when she came out of the John, she was still upset. I put an arm around her and we started walking but she started crying again and was attracting attention. Strangers glared at me, probably thought I was the cause...I pulled her out of the path and held her.

"I'm sorry. I thought it would be fun, too. Surly you don't believe she can tell the future? It doesn't mean anything, it's just babble, and she was cruel to say those things to you."

She struggled to get herself under control, and with a snort of snot, rubbed her nose like she was going to push it off of her face and said;

"Let's find our 'children of the light'. Having been told I'll have a pregnancy aborted, my husband is going to leave me and I will die sharing my bed with a sick old man that I don't love...I've had enough of adult time at the Carnival, thank you very much! We'll save some for our bedroom."

She was a tiger in bed that night, saying she loved me three or four times. I called her at work on the afternoon she was supposed to be screwing...she was at work. I kept her busy for a couple of weeks, out to movies and to the pub with friends. No hours not accounted for, or shopping at the mall coming home empty handed. The girl's night outs became less frequent, and back to being couple of beers, supper, and home by eight thirty.

Labor Day weekend the two of us went on a weekend retreat for married couples put on by our church. It included talks on how to talk to your spouse, tell each other how you felt. We never were very good at talking about feelings or about sex, and to my surprise, when I complained about rules in the bedroom, she said was willing to do about anything two people can do with one another, and that night she showed she could walk the walk. When she licked the crack of my ass, I nearly shot my load.

Sunday they talked about Jonathan Haidt's book "The Happiness Hypothesis." In short, it asserts that how happy we are is a matter of how our brains are conditioned. I was mid range, and Ann was a bit off of the bottom, meaning she generally was not so happy. The book suggests ways to learn how to re program our brains so as to be happier, and it worked for us. I can recommend it.

It started us on a course of learning how to enjoy life, and how to have constructive discussions. I know it sounds woo-woo touchie feelie, but we're getting good with it, and avoid a lot of misunderstandings. The fortune teller was right in one regard, Ann had one more pregnancy, this time a boy, but it went awry, and we lost the baby quite early. The complications that ensued ended any chance for her to have another child.

She came out of ICU, wacked out on drugs and drifting in and out of consciousness. I was kicked out at midnight. The next morning, I brought her clean clothes. They were going to release her later in the day. The doctor had just left the room when she burst out crying about what we both were thinking, but she put it into words:

"It's all coming true, didn't it? That night at the carnival! Now you're going to leave me so you can have the son I can't give you." And she started crying.

"Don't be silly! Out of curiosity, did they shave your pussy? Are you bald below?"

She looked panicked and slid her hand between her legs. "Oh my god! Well, some of it they did."

"Well then, I can't leave you, can I, until... what did the ole woman say? Something about you being bald below? So as long as you're not completely shaved down there, none of the rest can come true! Am I right, or am I right?"

It got her laughing despite her stitches.

Epilogue

We had our thirty fifth wedding anniversary last month, with three grandchildren in attendance.

Now you might have done things differently. Maybe you think I should have divorced her on grounds of my infidelity after sleeping with that sailing guy's wife. Or maybe I should have divorced her after she slept with her fuck friend. Of course we didn't do either. Instead I found a path to save our admittedly flawed marriage and the family that is my life. I've never for a moment regretted doing so. Yes I had the anguish of knowing we've both been in another's bed, but nothing would have changed that. Nothing! But by my silence, I could save her, me, and our kids from years of emotional turmoil and heartache.

We both know what we nearly lost... it's the secret we keep from each other.