Time to Trade Up

This is a fictional story and the people involved bear no resemblances to anyone living or dead. All characters having sex in this story are 18 years of age or older.

I would like to thank NorthernHunter for his advice and assistance in creating this story.

This story does not include any violent or severe Burn the Bitch content. There are many other good BTB stories to choose from in Loving Wives if that is what you want to read. This story is longer than average so please keep that in mind it is 8 or 9 pages long. I hope you enjoy it.

Time to Trade UP

Marvin Johnson was on his way home from work in a very cheerful mood. So far, this week had been a success and he was looking for a great improvement in his life. He was the President and owner of Midwest Financial Services, a company that provided accounting, investment, and management services for his community. It was not outlandishly profitable but provided Marvin and his 20 employees a nice living.

It was a drive that had history with his family. His great grandfather, Nels Peter Johnson, was one of the founders of this town. Arriving to this prairie from Oskarshamn, Sweden in 1868 with his 5 children. He and his children broke the virgin prairie soil with oxen and wooden plows.

Marvin's grandfather was the youngest of the children and had broken his leg in a farming accident, making it difficult for him to do the heavy work required on the land. Instead, after 4 years of schooling he started to work for a local storekeeper as counter clerk and bookkeeper. When he was 22, he married 18 year old Birgitta Olafsdotter. Ten years later he started his own bookkeeping service at the time Marvin's father Karl was born. A bookkeeping service that Karl took over after he returned from World War II.

As the generations moved along, the heirs of Nels Peter became mayors, bank board members, school board officers, Church trustees and county commissioners. Business and civic activities were hard wired into his DNA.

At his last stoplight before arriving at home he glanced at the passenger seat and saw his every present brief case and a bright red 8X11 envelope. An envelope that was decorated in script writing; A TRIP OF THE LIFETIME FOR THE LOVE OF MY LIFE. In the envelope were the schedules, brochures and information on a 30-day vacation to France.

The dates were still open but Marvin had arranged everything with Betty, one of his lifelong friends that owned a travel agency.

They had gone steady in sixth grade up until she cheated on him with John Stanson by sitting on the teeter totter with him at recess. He did not like the pain of her being with someone else. They did kiss once during their senior year in high school. It was after Betty was crowned Homecoming Queen and Marvin was Captain of the football team that put on her crown and then kissed her.

He was to call Betty after he talked to Cheryl tonight for the best dates for their trip. He knew that Cheryl was at home already as she called him to see if he would be home soon.

Marvin had left town to attend his state university. He met Cheryl during her freshman year in college at a sorority-fraternity mixer. He was a junior but they enjoyed each other's company. Her major was French and his was Business Management so they did not have much academics in common.

He was already in a relationship with young woman in the Nursing School so he did not call Cheryl for a date, that year. It was early in his senior year that they connected and spent more time together. The Spring semester found Cheryl spending her weekends in Marvin's apartment.

After his graduation he worked for a branch of a nationwide financial services company. He stayed in town because he wanted to stay close to Cheryl.

A college town can be hard for a young man to leave. There were girls, drinking, girls, football games, drinking and college parties. Why would a young man leave? Marvin had a one reason to leave, his father said so. He was to come home and start working for his father in the family business. Something Marvin always knew he would do some day.

The next year Marvin strained the odometer on his car with Friday 4 hour drives to see Cheryl, then return home Sunday. Being the romantic guy he was, he gave her a Christmas present of an engagement ring. The two mothers thought a June wedding would be a great event.

Cheryl now works at the local junior college with dual jobs in order to maintain her full-time status. The job she loves is teaching French, both entry and advanced level. Occasionally she will help out in the Philosophy curriculum when they start discussing French philosophy. Since her college major was French, it was not unusual for Marvin to see her curled up reading French newspapers and magazines on line at their home.

Her second job is working in the school placement area finding employment for graduates and part time summer work. She had been at the junior college since their two kids were in the 6^th and 8^th grades. Both have left home leaving Marvin and Cheryl to live as empty nesters.

He smiled as he saw his house come into view, a gift from his grandparents. They gave it to him because of his love of golf and the house was only a block away from the country club clubhouse. It has been a great place to raise their kids, make wonderful neighborhood friends and live a comfortable life.

He might just get lucky tonight as a result of his travel gift for their 25th-wedding anniversary. Their sex life had suffered the past 6 months or so. Winter blahs had set in, making it harder to get out and socialize. Cheryl had suffered from empty nest syndrome as their son left town to go to college and their daughter graduated and had taken a job in Kansas City.

Menopause had not been kind to Cheryl and made her moody, angry and difficult to live with. This was different from the bright, enthusiastic, lovely young woman Marvin had married 25 years ago. He hoped the trip to France would add some spice and happiness to both their lives. This trip had been a dream of hers since attending her first French class in high school.

She was not in the most popular girl in high school but was not a nerd either. The boys in her high school were into cars and sports. The most popular boys dated the most popular girls. The rest just watched the world go by. Cheryl spent a lot of time with her French studies and dreaming about France as she went to bed each night.

Marvin opened the front door and saw Cheryl sitting at the kitchen table. He smiled and said "Good evening Dear, how are you on this fine February evening?"

Cheryl looked up, showing no emotions said "Hi, I thought you would be home earlier than this. What's with the big red envelope? Don't you remember that Valentine's Day was a week ago?"

He replied "I had planned to be home earlier but I had to run a very important errand, sorry to be later than I thought. The envelope is something for later on this evening." He then put his brief case on the coffee table in the living room with the red envelope on top, face down and went to the kitchen table.

Cheryl had a bottle of red wine and two glasses already on the table. It was apparent that she had already drank one glass and was starting on her second. As she poured him a glass she asked "How was your day?" It came in the form of a conversation starter; but it did not appear that she really cared what had happened to him that day.

He started to answer then saw a pen and paper in front of her wine glass and wondered if he was going to be given a lecture on what he had done wrong this time. Instead, he replied "My day was ok, from the looks of the list in front of you it appears my evening will be more important than my day was."

Cheryl sighed and said "Yeah it might just be. I have been doing some self-analysis of myself and where I am in life. More importantly what am I going to do the second half of my life. Many events this past few months have put me on this path of awareness. I will have my sorority sisters 25^th Class Reunion later this year. Two have recently died of breast cancer and one from COVID-19."

She took a deep breath and said "My duties as being a mother, chauffeur, nurse, referee and councilor to our children are complete. All I have left is waiting for grandkids to come along for me to visit with them for a couple of hours every month or two."

Cheryl looked him right in the eyes and said "Which brings me to our marriage."

Marvin gulped and nodded that he was paying attention.

Cheryl continued "We will have our 25^th Wedding Anniversary this June. That is a very long time for two people to be together. Half of my sorority sisters are on their second or third husbands by now. Where are you and I going from here? What has kept us together? But more importantly what will we need to keep us together for the next 25 years? Where will the spark to keep the fire ablaze come from?"

Marvin's mind was racing down a road with too many dangerous curves. He had to be very careful. He started off by saying "I understand where you are coming from. I have some of the same concerns about my own life. Some men find themselves in "The Middle Age Crazies"; buying a Corvette, wearing gold chains and chasing young waitresses."

"Luckily, I have a wonderful wife and have not caught that disease. With that in mind what can I do to make this next half of our lives exciting and worth waking up each and every morning? If you have something on your mind for us to do, Please tell me and I will promise to do my best to make it work for us."

"That is why I love you Marvin" she replied. "Most men would ignore a wife's problem. They'd say "It's your problem, you are the only one that can fix it." Here is my proposed solution; I have always lived under the roof of someone else. I grew up in my father's house then into the sorority house at college. The month after I left the sorority house I came here to live under your roof. The roof of the house your grandparents gave you as a wedding present. Someone else has always been sheltering me. I have not been on my own, ever."

She continued "Living with you has been fun but it has not been necessarily fulfilling lately. I am the wife of the President of the Chamber of Commerce, wife of a church board member, wife of the president of the country club. Wife of this, wife of that, wife of everything. No notoriety for myself, just wife of the leader."

"Marvin, you are the sun and I am just one of many small moons rotating around you. I have to get out of this orbit or I will go crazy. I have to get away from you to become myself again. I love you desperately but I need my space away from you. You are a wonderful husband, father, friend and lover. But you are just too damn wonderful. There is no room for me around this wonderfulness. I have to leave."

She hesitated then said "With this thought in mind, I want a time-out, hall pass, freedom frenzy or whatever you want to call it for six months. For the next six months I will live somewhere else with no contact with you. This will be hard on both of us as every waking hour I will wonder what you are doing."

"At the end of the six months, I will come back to you and we can work out a plan for the rest of our lives. I expect to be the fun-loving young woman you fell in love with in college. I know you have not been happy with me being so crabby the last few months. This may take some counseling on my part and maybe your part also, but I feel this is the best for both of us."

Stuttering Marvin said "No contact whatsoever. I understand giving you some space but no contact seems drastic. Our lives have been so entwined that it would be difficult to separate them. Tell me exactly how this would play out as I don't understand yet."

She replied "It would like we were not married. You and I would go our separate ways. Pursue our own interests, hobbies and experiences. I have been reading about Post Modernism lately. Post Modernism emphasizes diversity of human experiences and multiplicity of perspectives."

"This is exactly what I want to pursue. I have already signed up for the Zoom class "Empowering Women; Changing the Balance Between Men and Women" with the famous Indian yogi Rhasheedguru. The junior college has some classes on Feminist Theory, Contemporary Feminism and Diverse Perspectives that I want to enroll in. I am very excited to get my journey into empowerment started."

She continued, "Our time apart is just like a divorce but without the hate and distrust of each other. We will be like lovers separated for six months. Military couples do this all the time and get along just fine. You would go about your life and I would be free to have a diversity of human experiences with interesting people."

He asked, "You said you would be acting like a single woman and interacting with interesting people. Will that include be dating other men?"

Cheryl smiled and replied "Probably, but maybe no one will want to take me to dinner and a movie."

Very coldly he questioned "As a single woman probably dating, are you also probably going to have sex on these dates?"

"Probably" came her casual reply. "How else can I increase my sexual experiences as a woman without having a man fuck me. My only sexual experience is you. You had sex with other women before me. I want to be on the same plain as you. You use your previous sexual experiences to please me. Now let me have some experiences so that I can please you."

"You are forgetting one small factor." Marvin said. "We are married. I vowed to have all my future sexual experiences with only you. You made that same vow. I have remained faithful; I expect you to do the same."

She said "Well, we will just have to see what happens in the next 6 months. Maybe I'll have sex, maybe I won't have to worry about it. We'll make that decision at the conclusion of my sabbatical."

He countered "Then maybe the opportunity of you coming back into my life will not exist. You can just go on with your life with someone else, not me."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, it's just some sex, no big deal." Said Cheryl "After no sex with me for 6 months you'll be happy we are together again. Please don't make a big deal over this. I'm looking to improve myself and the confidence I get from seducing other men will make me a better lover with you and a more complete woman in all other aspects. Afterall I am not your grandfather's kind of housewife."

He commented "This 6-month period with no contact with me and outside sex seems extreme. Maybe we can work out some of your problems with counseling for both of us."

She said "I don't want to just talk about this, I want to do this. It has to be cold turkey otherwise I will continue to rely on you for everything and not improve myself. It has to be like we were no longer married for me to feel free enough to come back to our marriage with a better attitude."

"I don't know if I can handle this." was the only thing he could say.

"No Marvin, we need to push the entire refurbishment of my brain as soon as we can. We go hard for six months and not let it drag on for a year or two. Making it sooner rather than later until we are back to being where we want to be as a couple."

"When are you planning on moving out of our home?" He asked.

She answered "I have rented a condo for six months and will start moving stuff in this weekend."

Marvin almost fell over backwards from his chair. "I....I...I..." was all he could get out of his mouth. Eventually he whispered "Can we talk about this a little longer before making such a momentous change in our life?"

She grabbed his hand and said "Thank you so much for talking with me about this. I think this will make our lives better in the long run. I love you so much for being understanding and not being a jerk or a bully."

Grimacing he said "You give me too much credit. I don't understand why you are doing this and I really don't approve of it. It appears it will happen wither I give my consent or not. My feelings are not being considered in this decision."

He needed to hit the "pause" button so he could react to this sudden mind-blowing event. He continued "I am reeling from your plan. Just don't know what to ask or to talk about. My brain is on overload. Can we go to bed and discuss this tomorrow evening? Will you join me in bed or did the separation already start?"

She answered "Not right now dear. I want to work on some of the logistics of my move. I do expect to come to bed with you tonight."

Marvin trudged upstairs to the master bedroom and fell into bed. He was stone tired and could not keep his eyes open. However, he could not fall asleep, too many questions, too few answers kept him awake. He bounced from pitying Cheryl for her problem, to pitying himself for not being more aware of her problem so he could prevent this separation from happening. Then rage stepped in; rage that while he was spending time and money arranging a 30-day trip of a life time to France for her, she was planning out her dissolution of their marriage.

Later that night Cheryl crept into their bed and cuddled up next to her husband's back. As she gently kissed his shoulder, he felt her tears as she softly whispered "I'm sorry Marvin".

Just as softly he said "I'm sorry too Cheryl."

She replied "I love you."

To which he asked "Is this the last time I will ever hear that from you?"

Cheryl whispered "I want to make our lives better after my adventure, not worse. I plan on coming back to you a much better wife and lover."

It was a rare morning in their 25-year relationship that Marvin did not get up before everyone else. Today was no exception. Instead of fixing coffee and taking it to Cheryl while she was still in bed, a luxury she enjoyed, he went to the front door. He reached for his briefcase on the coffee table, slipped the red envelope into his briefcase and left.

He texted his good friend Roger at the car dealership and asked if he could stop by around 7am, knowing that Roger was always there by 6:30am. Marvin recalled that both Roger and his brother Dan have had recent divorces and he needed some practical and tactical advice.

After Marvin explained Cheryl's planned separation for her to find herself, he looked quizzically at his friend.

Roger said "It sounds like she already has a boyfriend but is not ready to commit to that relationship. She wants to try him out prior to leaving you. If she is happy with her boyfriend in six months, she dumps you. If he is not worthy of her time then she runs back to you, saying "I have rejuvenated my life and ready to be your loving wife again". You are the base she can use to improve her lover situation with very little risk on her part."

Marvin questioned "How do I protect myself from being used like this?"

"Dump the bitch, the quicker the better" Roger exclaimed. "Put yourself in the driver's seat. You need to make the decisions. The day she moves out you file for divorce on the grounds of abandonment. The divorce will take around six months anyway, so if she goes to dump you the divorce is ready to be finalized. If you decide to take her back you just refuse to sign the final document and you stay married.

"The key is that you get to decide what you do with her. Not her decide what she does with you. Remember if she cheats and you let her come back to you, it will be easier for her to cheat again and again."

"One more hint for you, still be the good guy you are. Do not be an asshole or yell at her. It only puts up future barriers that will be detrimental to you, in the relationship and in court. Act like you are understanding and complicit in her plans. If she doesn't have a boyfriend, it will be easier for you to work out your problems."