Pride

Good Read***

Thanks for sharing.

Well, I enjoyed this more than JPBs offering today.

Why? There was more humanity in it. It was a touch formulaic, but it was well told within it's framework. The motives of the wife made sense as well. I get the pre-baby jitters. Life, as she knows it, will be over.

That being said, she is Just Plain Stupid to think there would be no repercussions to her rather arbitrary and high handed decision. Now, do humans behave stupidly? Yes.

PRIDE AND STUPIDITY

seemed to go hand in hand with naivety, TK U MLJ LV NV

Nice and Normal

It is nice to read about a person whose reactions to betrayal and cheating are NORMAL. He was not extreme or unreasonable. His behavior was realistic and measured - all that weighed against the possibility of him doing something insane or taking the cheater back - nice dramatic tension!

Nice

Blake and Teresa. Very interesting. Reading the comments before shows there are some really intelligent readers here. All correct in their comments. The hard thing to believe is that Blake had no clue Teresa was interested in other men, the reason for the sabbatical. When he saw her with someone it hit him hard. Both were naïve. However, The difference was it destroyed his love and made her realize what she had. Because of pride, on his part, it was too late for her. On her part, the pride she felt with other guys noticing her plus her now divorced girlfriend gave her the impetus to see what else was out there. So naïve. "Don't know what you got, till it's gone." Those lyrics from an 80's song say it all.
As far as JPB's new tale, I skimmed it and I believe he wrote it for the reason stated in his prologue, just to piss off the haters. I never comment on those types of tales and I only viewed it out of respect. I believe he made his point.
Damn, I talk too much. I guess that means I'm close to penning my own tale. Whew.

Her choice

She decided everything up until the point that he realized that his love for her was not strong enough to forgive her cheating. She wanted everything to be back to normal, but as the old line goes "You don't get to make that choice anymore."

A good story about a great truth...

A good story about a great truth: You never know what your reaction will be face some situations, no matter what you think about them...3*

Nice Work

I would be "afraid" that fucking her would have a negative effect on the judge who was handling the divorce. Furthermore he underlines the fact that he really did not love her by doing just that! No emotional reaction to her cheating is proof of the pudding.

Uh

Overall an ok working of a common storyline. But you do this thing where the character's emotions are prominent during his "doormat" phase, and he becomes a cold robot during his revenge. I know there's this tired fantasy of masculinity being absent of emotions, but the fact that you care is what makes retribution so necessary for...and rewarding to...your audience. Cutting his pain short before he reacted took all of the glory and transcendent joy out of the consequences section.

Also, he knows she cheated with God knows who, and knows she wants to have his baby...so he screws her repeatedly? Does this guy not know anything about sex, and what it can do? And then he's punching a guy when he's got two muscled buddies in the room, and the only witness is the woman you are divorcing. This whole part was baffling to me. He was lucky she became a passive actor at that point in the story, or God knows what she could have done to make his life hell. He literally survived on the good graces of his enemies.

I'm ok with the unrealistically easy divorce stuff, because the divorce itself wasn't really a part of your story. It was just an addendum, as was the magic perfect already-around rebound woman (I usually gloss over that stuff when I read anyway, because it strays into pot of gold territory and detaches me from the story).

I agree with the just previous commenter

about the fact that this guy would fuck his soon to be ex after he knew she fucked other men. And, as in many of these stories, he not only fucked her bare but ate her before hand. I question that in all of these stories. Someone who is that keen to kneel before a cheater probably shows why she did it. Now, oral sex on your wife is a great way to please her but don't these guys know that your tongue can rot off just like your dick can? Other than that I don't have much against this story. Fairly easy read and the flow was good. Did show that he was somewhat manly, but the introduction of a "six foot tall and strongly built" boss who could man handle him a bit might also be an indication of a slightly submissive personality, but hey, sounds like it worked out great for him and his "new" wife. Thanks for sharing your talent and your story.

Pre-Divorce Sex is a risky choice.

Having sex after you are committed to a divorce but well before the papers are even served is risky. She could have stopped taking the pill and gotten pregnant. He would have been attached to her in some capacity for the rest of their lives. I might have written that he used a condom each time and she always questioned why he would do that. But it was still a good read. 4*

Confused

I must be the only one that feels for Teresa. Yes, she made a dreadful mistake of doing the sabbatical thing. And I get the anger issues...

But c'mon... not responding to any calls or any emails, even after sending an email that would surely elicit/require a response, and he doesn't read it? Sorry, that's a d!ck move. There's certainly no high ground to be had here.

Personally, I'm happy that she's getting divorced from him. I'm just upset that she tried to fight the divorce.

get real Azpiri

Taking a break from her marriage to fuck other guys absolves him of any requirement for civility. She's lucky all he did was ignore her skanky ass. He is better off without her and owes her nothing - especially any civil treatment. I'm not sure what is wrong with you that you feel his ignoring her is equal to or worse than her slutting around. Weird perspective to be sure.

"Sabbatical"

Frankly, he should have flat out told her that if she walked out of their apartment his next move would be to see divorce attorney.

I CERTAINLY wouldn't have carried out her suitcases!

Oh Gosh...

Feeling bad for Teresa? She married our hero! She made a commitment. That's that.

Now on to my thoughts. One, yeah, no sex, no matter how good it is when she comes back. She might be pregnant. She might have contracted something. Our hero had made up his mind; he didn't need it that bad.

What was good? He suffered till he saw her out on a date, then he got a firm grip. He manned up and he stuck it out through five counseling sessions. Good for him.

What was wrong. Obviously the post-sabbatical sex. Next the all too formulaic hook up with a coworker. Last, the oh too familiar "I had sex thirty-seven times in two hours, and it was best sex I ever had. Come on, I know it's just a story, but one, maybe two times in a night and both spouses are usually too tired and too sore to press on for third. That third shot is usually a very late morning wake-me-up and then usually after a nice warm shared shower.

How did this story rate? Certainly a five, a well earned five at that, a loving wive's fairy tale well worth the telling and the reading, especially after all the stinkers we've got out there right now, not to mention that atrocity JPB just tried to plug us with. I might add we've got one newer writer out there, some Texas kind of guy who posts some good ones, but the asshole won't allow public comment, too thin skinned I guess.

Jedd Clampett

While I agree with the basic concept

And liked the nature of his resolve once his boss tweaked his ego.
I struggle with the details.
The whole month to month lease, 15 day notice, Last Saturday of the month, their apartment, his apartment, her furnished apartment, the professional movers for her furniture to a storage unit, is a time line waiting to explode.
Besides, if what is left in the apartment is hers why does he care who schleps it for her? Don't want to see the dudes from her work? Get your things in the morning and go to your own apartment. It seemed a bit contrived and convoluted.
No children, minimal savings, no joint property, both employed, why is there any maintenance at all, let alone five years?
.

Late pride

I have to agree with sbrooks103 that Blake was psrt of the problem.

If he had shown a little pride when the 'sabbatical' was first proposed Teresa would have received her 'wake-up' warning before any MORE harm to their relationship occurred. And he would have understood that there was a serious problem to get out in the open if their marriage was to continue.

Regardless of her reason for the 'sabbatical', even if she remained chaste, to allow her to abandon the marriage without cause or repercussion, would have been a cancer to their future together. How could he have ever trusted her again or care as deeply after he allowed her to disrespect him and their marrige so badly.?

True story, during our 1st year of marriage financial strains of low paying jobs & high costs of college led my bride to threaten me with moving back with her Mother. I packed her clothes for her and offered to drive her to the bus station. But I also warned her that if she was not committed enough to our marriage to help us make it through the tough times, then she wasn't the kind of wife i needed and she should plan on never coming back. We will celebrate our 40th anniversary of a wonderful and loving marriage this year.

Meanwhile I gave the story 5*, to balance other scores towards it's true ranking of ~4.5. Imhapless is already one of my preferred authors in the LW category.

SM

OK story, but

This plot has been explored quite a few times on the site. Nothing new or original in this version to make it stand out.

Kinda' liked it, it wandered from the Title idea, in my opinion.

Parts of this story were pretty good. Parts were odd (to me). If the central idea is 'Pride', then once his boss got him there, it would have been nice to see Honesty and Integrity. Without them, there's not as much in a personality to be proud of, and what we see in its place is stubbornness. . . . 'I love you, you left me for others, we're done.', shows some pride. 'I'm not gonna talk to you anymore . . .I never loved you anyway', was more of a stubborn childishness.

Answer one call to explain, tell her its over and to stop calling, and then go dark if necessary. Stubborn pride, but still pride. No answer, then vindictiveness and sex without love . . . just stubbornness.

Actually, the bit about turning around and having sex with her kind of belies the idea of pride, in my mind. Saying he never loved her, when seeing her with another broke his heart, is not really honest, so it just seems childish again. Telling her he'd loved her, but she'd squandered it, and exactly how, and how his sense of pride in her was gone, and his sense of pride in himself precluded being with her anymore, would've shown some pride.

The bit with the co-workers was weird . . . if they're splitting up anyway, what does he care.

I did like the brief counseling description . . . would've liked more . . . maybe could have expanded that a touch, with Theresa realizing she had blown it, and needed more counseling to figure out really why.

Good to know

Are USA's states where the alimoney is 5 years to the spouses (wife/husband) and not for the death after divorce?

Very well written

I gave the story 5 stars for being well executed, technically. Being an author myself, I don't play the troll game and rate a story low because I don't personally like the plot. I will say that I have the same problem with this story as most of the BTB stories, in that I don't buy the idea that the couple ever really loved each other. or neither one of them would have behaved as they did. If you are married for years, and you truly love your spouse, you would put some effort into understanding why their behavior suddenly changed. You might even forgive an indiscretion. If not, you were just misguided fuck buddies who pretended to care for one another until things got tough. Thanks for writing and posting your work. I will keep reading it and I look forward to your next story.

Thanks for the offering.

Enjoyable Story!

As I started reading, I thought he was going to wimp out when she went on her 'marriage sabbatical'. Glad he turned it around and dumped the cheating wife. He definitely should have been more forceful when she came up with the idea. As soon as she left, that should have been the end of the marriage. He didn't need all the wimpy angst. There is only one reason that she wants a sabbatical and that's for sex with others. Love or no love, what kind of marriage can withstand that? Thanks for an enjoyable story.

Marriage temptation

Blake should have given ultimatum, if was seen dating marriage was over. Blake wasn't holding back love or sex. Sometimes a confused spouse will wake up and smell the roses. I would have taken my rings from her before she got up to leave so she understands no return once you walk away from me for a while. I can understand if a spouse cuts you off a month at a time just because it's not convenient.

pretty good

While he should have warned her, if she planned to have sex with anyone besides him, don't bother to come back. It is also easy for us to say all of this when we are not confronted with the issue. That being said, he did fairly well for himself. should have sent a wedding invitation to the ex as well as a birth announcement!

Good One

Nice to read about a decisive protagonist who does the smart thing rather than the pathetic thing!