Together Again

Jim and I first met on August 18, 1986 at Fort Campbell, Kentucky where we were both stationed with the United States Army. I was a single twenty year old private and he was a married thirty nine year old sergeant with two teenage sons. His wife and sons were living in Indianapolis, Indiana while Jim was finishing his enlistment. I was assigned to his cleaning detail for a week. For the first week, Jim and I were just friends and co workers nothing more. On Friday of the first week we were together, we had a half day of work so Jim and I decided to do some sightseeing around Fort Campbell and Clarksville, Tennessee.

After that weekend, Jim and I spent the evenings together mainly just hanging out. We drove up to Indianapolis for Labor Day weekend and also went to Nashville for one weekend. Jim left Fort Campbell on November 22, 1986 because he was retiring from the Army and returned to his wife and sons in Indianapolis. I stayed at Fort Campbell until I was honorably discharged on December 24, 1986. I returned to my home state of Massachusetts.

After both of us got out of the service, Jim and I continued our friendship-affair through letters and phone calls. I do admit that I was not very good at answering Jim's letters. In late June or early July of 1987, Jim visited his mother in Liberty, New York then came to see me in North Adams, Massachusetts for a few days. In July of 1988, Jim and I spent a week together traveling through Vermont and upstate New York.

In March of 1989, I met someone that I wanted to date but I didn't feel right about dating him because of my relationship with Jim so I wrote to Jim and asked him if we could break up. He wrote back and said yes, we could. After that, Jim and I had no contact at all with each other.

I started working at the North Adams Transcript, the local newspaper, on July 5, 1991 in the mail-press room and met Tony, my future husband, in May of 1992. Tony and I married on September 11, 1993. I am not sure if I was ever really in love with Tony or if I just wanted to have someone to be with. I sometimes also wonder if I wasn't forced into getting married. There were a lot of times during my marriage that I felt more single than married.

During this time, Jim tried to make his marriage work. There were times when he felt like he was only working to pay the endless bills with nothing to show for it. He worked as maintenance for an apartment complex. He and his wife started living separate lives with each of them doing their own thing but continuing to share the house and name. Jim started seeing another woman off and on in March of 1993 while his wife was content with the way her life was.

In early 1999, I got my first computer and got onto the Internet. I had never forgotten Jim nor had I ever really stopped loving him. I started looking for him on the internet but had no luck because I couldn't remember how to spell his last name. In March of 2003, I was going through some photo albums and I came across a picture of Jim in his dress uniform that I had taken shortly before he left Fort Campbell. The picture was clear enough that I could read his name tag so I got onto the internet and looked up his address.

That evening, while at work, I wrote Jim and mailed the letter the next day. Jim received the letter on March 17, 2003 and called me that evening. We talked for a few minutes and set up a time for us to talk on the weekend. For the whole week, I felt like I was on cloud nine waiting to talk to Jim. I knew that I was wrong to feel that way with both of us being married but at that point, I was just looking to renew an old friendship. I did know that our friendship might turn into more.

On Saturday, March 22, 2003, Jim called me and said that he couldn't talk because he was still helping his son to move into his new apartment. I said that's fine because I was going bowling with my family. We agreed to talk on Sunday evening instead. Sunday evening, Jim called and we talked for a couple of hours catching each other up on what had been happening in our lives. That Monday, Jim hooked me up with the America Online Instant Message and we started talking over the internet every evening and on weekends.

Jim told me that his marriage was basically in name only with him and his wife sharing a name, house and bed but nothing more. He also told me that he has a granddaughter. I told him that my marriage wasn't much better and I also told him about my nephew. Jim and I had originally talked about meeting somewhere in New York in August. I think it was in late April that I seriously began to think about leaving my husband and moving to Indianapolis.

I had plans to go to Virginia for vacation in early June with my girlfriend but my car broke down in early May and it took nearly all I had saved for vacation to pay for the car repairs. I was disappointed about not being able to go to Virginia but looking back, it was for the best. One night, after Jim and I got through talking for the night, I was playing a game on the computer before I went to work and trying to decide what I wanted to do for vacation because I didn't want to stay home.

I started looking into bus schedules and fares from Pittsfield, Massachusetts to Indianapolis, Indiana. I emailed Jim with my idea to visit him in Indy for vacation. At first, he wasn't crazy about it because he didn't like the idea of me riding alone on a bus for twenty hours. I reassured him that I had done it before and that I would have my cell phone on all the time, he was okay with it and even reserved my room at a hotel not far from his house.

That evening, I asked my husband if he minded me going to Indianapolis for my vacation. He asked how was I going to get there and what was out there. I said by bus and to see my old Army friend. He replied I don't care. The next day, he told me that I had to chose between him and Jim and that I had a year to decide. I left Pittsfield, Massachusetts on June 7,2003 at 11:40 AM and got into Indianapolis, Indiana on June 8, 2003 at 7:10 AM. I first saw Jim sitting on a concrete barrier at the bus station in downtown Indy just as the bus pulled into the yard. I stepped off the bus, looked him over and asked are you looking for someone?

With that, Jim smiled and pulled me into his arms for a huge bear hug of friendship and welcome which I returned in full. We then went to my hotel room.

Jim and I spent the majority of my vacation together, especially evenings. He was working maintenance and was on call for emergencies that week. I made the final decision to move to Indianapolis during that week and it was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. Not so much because my marriage was that good but because I wasn't sure about leaving my parents, sister and nephew. Jim introduced me to Martha, a friend of his who I was going to live with in exchange for companionship.

I left Indianapolis on June 14 at 9:00 PM and arrived in Pittsfield on June 15 at 8:30 PM. I told my mother and husband of my decision to leave Tony and move to Indianapolis after we dropped my sister and nephew off at their home. My mother wasn't happy with my decision but she did say that I was an adult and it was my decision. She then asked what would happen if Jim had to make a choice between seeing his granddaugther or being with me and I said he would choose me. My original date for returning to Indianapolis was July 1.

On June 18, I was home and was just laying on the couch around 11:30 AM when Jim called and said he got fired for forcing his way into a resident's apartment. I said that's not true, you would never force your way into an apartment. We spent the rest of the day talking on the computer. We started talking about changing my date of returning to Indianapolis.

We set the date for me to leave Massachusetts for June 27, a Friday. After thinking and talking about it, I said how about I leave the morning of June 26, a Thursday. The 27th is the date that my mother's father passed away and I didn't want to hurt my mother more by leaving. After talking more, we decided that we would leave our respective cities for Buffalo, New York on the morning of June 25. I was scheduled to work overnight on Tuesday, June 24 but I worked overnight for my boss on Monday, June 23. I didn't really want to stay another night because I knew that I would get too emotional and would be in no shape to drive.

At two in the afternoon on June 24, I called in to work and said that I wasn't coming in and said goodbye. Jim and I were talking an hour later and I said, what are we waiting for? We're both ready to go and we aren't doing anything. why should we wait until Wednesday morning? He said let me make a quick call. He called his wife and told her he was leaving for Buffalo. He called me back and said, Let's go. I left North Adams Massachusetts for Buffalo, New York at 3:30 PM EDT and Jim left Indianapolis, Indiana for Buffalo at 2:30 PM CDT.

Jim and I met at Denny's Restaurant on the New York State Thruway just south of Buffalo at 10:45 PM, ten days after I left Indianapolis on the bus. We spent a couple of days helping his cousin to move and went to Niagara Falls for a day. We left Buffalo on June 28 and got back into Indianapolis late afternoon on June 29.

After our return to Indianapolis, Jim and I started looking for work together and secretly dating. We spent most of our time together and went to several baseball games, a preseason football game, a woman's basketball game and the zoo. We got to know each other better than we did when we first met in 1986 but only because we have had the chance to. In 1986, we didn't spend a lot of time together except evenings and that isn't enough time for any couple to get to know each other.

On August 18, 2003, seventeen years to the day that we met, Jim and I were out putting applications in when we got a call from a cleaning company. We were told to be at their office by 10 AM on Tuesday to fill out an application. We went and had finished filling out the application when one of the ladies in the office recognized Jim. She took both of us into her office and hired us on the spot. We started that evening and worked with this company for two months.

One evening, Jim and I went to work and were suspended for two days for allegedly making out on a couch in one of the offices. We took the suspension and headed East for the weekend. They decided that they wanted us in separate buildings but Jim and I aren't comfortable with me working in a building alone at night so we resigned.

Jim and I made our affair known to his wife in September of 2003 when she called him one Saturday and asked him to transport a bookcase to a friend's house for her. At first, Jim wasn't going to do it but then we both wanted to have our affair out in the open. He called his wife back and said he would do it but he wasn't alone.

After we loaded the bookcase into Jim's truck, his wife asked him if he would be home for breakfast Sunday morning. He told her taht he wouldn't be home for the rest of the weekend. On September 16, 2003, Jim spent his last night in the house he shared with his wife. He told his wife two days later that their marriage was over.

On October 22, Jim's wife filed for a legal separation. Jim and his wife have also filed bankruptcy. On December 8, 2003, the legal separation case was changed to a divorce case. On January 2, 2004, I filed for divorce from my husband, Tony and it was final on March 3, 2004. Jim's divorce proceedings are still going with a final court date set for July 23.

In the year that Jim and I have been back together, we've gone to Clarksville, Tennessee to see how much things have changed there since we were both there and we've also gone to Chicago and attended a taping of the Jerry Springer Show. While there are times that I have felt like I made the wrong decision about moving to Indy, those times are few and far between. I've started eating more and have more friends now than I ever did in Massachusetts.

One of our friends is a woman who was born and raised in New Hampshire so I have someone to talk to about New England. I've found that while Indianapolis is a city, it isn't as congested or cramped as New York or Boston. You can go two miles outside the city limits and see a corn field. There are three sports arena within walking distance of each other and also a speedway just a fifteen minute drive from downtown.

Jim has met my family and I've met his and we all get along really well. I feel as comfortable at his mother's as I do at mine. Maybe it's because we were all raised in the country and grew up around farms. Anyway, Jim and I are happy now, happier than we were a year ago.