0 comments/ 60504 views/ 24 favorites Train Wreck By: daedfish I'm sitting here somewhat confused, with a gnawing sensation inside that something just isn't right. I can't articulate it really, but it's there still eating at me. Sometimes you just know when something is off. Right? I'm not making sense, let me explain. I just went to my wife's office to drop off her phone that she left at the house. No I didn't see some text from someone she's having an affair with or anything like that. It's not that simple. One of her employees was looking at me funny but wouldn't make eye contact. Kind of like she was avoiding looking at me while still looking at me if that makes any sense. I don't know what that was about but her expression stuck with me. I think her expression was pity. Maybe I should start at the beginning to bring you up to where we are right now since I don't really understand myself. If I don't none of this will really make sense. I promise to keep it short. My wife Denise and I met at a university on the East Coast in the early 90's. My name is Joel. I'm 40 and she is 41. We live one the West Coast now and have for 17 years. We've been married for 17 years as well but we've been together since I was 19. We married at 23. So that is over half my life with this woman. We were kids really when we married. You know - young, naive, hopeful...all of those wonderful things that come with youth. We have two girls Gemma and Sophie. Ages 12 and 10. Denise is an Architect and runs her own firm a few blocks from our house. I left that career 16 years ago for another more lucrative one with computers and entertainment. We were right in the middle of all of that happening in the 90's out in Silicone Valley. Well, let's just say I've done al-right for myself. We aren't wealthy, but very well off by most American's standards. Funny though how those big salaries really don't get you far out here in California with the high price of living. With the schools being so literally poor and taxes so high you end up shelling out quite a lot every year to fund their public educations. I digress. We had our first daughter at age 28. I didn't know a damn thing about parenting but we pushed our way through it. Hopefully I didn't screw it up as badly as my father did. I'll just have to wait and see. Denise spent years working for big firms. She was a great designer, still is. We had talked many times that I'd have been happy to take time off when we had children and not leave it to just her responsibility. Funny how that doesn't work out so well when you're the one making 90% of the family's income. You become a slave to providing for your new responsibilities at home. I envied her freedom, she envied my career. After about 5 years of this and the birth of our second daughter we decided our house was too small so we built a bigger one. Shortly after that, finances dictated that Tracy needed to go back to work to help with the expenses. After a short time back in the workforce and with her being constantly unhappy with having to work for others I pushed her into venturing out on her own. Little did I know that this would be the single most anxiety causing decision I'd have ever made in my life up to that point. I also didn't know that it very well would determine the outcome of what now appears to be our inevitable divorce. I'm a jealous person. I have been all my life. It has to do with being a bit insecure. Why am I insecure? My Father mostly. Watching your siblings and pets get abused on a regular basis both physically and verbally kind of has that effect on your psyche. Like the time I watched my Father when I was 8 take a 2x4 to my Labrador's head. Except the board had a nail in it and it had put her eye out. She would later get hit by a car crossing the road at night on her blind side. She probably never saw it coming...poor thing. I had really loved her. Or the time I saw him go after my Sister with the end of a screwdriver. He never went after me though. Probably because he knew I could hurt him. I had that much anger inside. I had stopped some of the beatings when I could, but I couldn't stop them all. In the end you blame yourself for all of it. I did. I blamed myself for not being perfect enough for him to love me. And I blamed my Sister for causing him to be so angry all of the time. My Sister and I haven't talked for years. I guess I always resented her, blamed her for ruining our family. It wasn't her fault though but it took me a quarter of my life to figure that out. But that is another story. It has taken 6 years of therapy to accept that as an 8 year old child, you just can't protect your Sister from a 200lb man who was acting out hatred for his mother on her every week. His mother used to hit him over the head with an iron skillet. One of the only times I met my Grandmother she called my younger Brother a transvestite for wearing women's shoes. And she called my Sister a tramp for the way she was dressed. My brother was 4, he was playing with my Mother's slippers. My sister was 8, and the tramp outfit my Grandmother was referring to was her posing in her dance recital leotard. What a hateful woman. So Denise started a firm. It was just her for a while. Her partner had a nervous breakdown and we had to end that professional relationship. I called him up and asked him what the #&CK he was doing. He had stopped his meds. Some serious anti depressants and he stopped cold turkey without doctor's help. Some of that stuff you can't do that with. He was holed up in his apartment doing everything he could trying to NOT kill himself. Needless to say that relationship was over. Can't have an unstable business partner and all. Denise and I started having issues a few years into our marriage. They started before she went back to work. I felt it was time our problems needed to be dealt with so I took us to counseling. We were in counselling together for 5 years as a couple. We've been in counselling with a child therapist to learn to communicate with our oldest daughter. We've both been in individual therapy. She only lasted for a year but this is year 6 for me. I went to see my Doctor first because I was having panic attacks. I stayed because I got an education in human psychology and it was helping in my career and home life. I managed a lot of people at work. I became a very good listener. Like the one time my friend's ageing mother at the nursing home was angry about the food they served. Angry to the point of throwing it on the floor and calling it crap whenever my friend went to visit. After talking with him for a few minutes I learned his mother had been a great cook when he was a kid. I thought about it and suggested that perhaps she was upset that she could no longer take care of herself like she used to take care of him. Maybe she was angry because she would prepare these wonderful meals for the children and wasn't physically able to do it any more. Maybe it was even humiliating for her to have her Son see her that way. I'd have been angry too. I suggested the next time he visited and she acted out that he remind her of all of the meals she made for his family over the years. Talk to her about sitting as a family at the dinner table and all of the happy memories he could recall. Thank her for providing that part of their life for them. Tell her 'of course those nursing home meals could never measure up' to what she did for their family. He did just that. I wasn't trying to be a therapist, I'm not qualified for that, but as a manager that becomes a lot of the daily job description. Guess what, I was right and nailed the problem on the first try. He just kept reminding his mother every time he visited of her cooking. I could have never given that advice if I hadn't learned some of that insight from my Doctor. I was having anxiety attacks after my father died. He died of heart attack complications at age 63. My anxiety? Something about all that pent up emotion coming out from within me now that it was safe to express it. I'd been carrying that crap around for 20 years or more and it all just poured out. My wife had to clean up a bunch of the mess I made. I loved her for that. Grateful for being there and sticking beside me. I went on antidepressants, mainly to regulate my mood swings. Mostly though to stop the suicidal thoughts. Those had scared me the most. Once I even walked straight into an intersection without ever looking up to see where traffic was. It was a busy intersection in down town Berkeley and I didn't cross at the cross walks or during any sort of light change. I was hoping I'd get hit. That would have been the easy solution to my pain. Then there was this other time on the Golden Gate bridge on Father's Day while walking across it with my children. I was thinking how easy it would have been to simply jump over the side. Strangely though, I'm a very competent and successful person at my business. I manage 25 creative individuals and on the outside I look rock solid. I manage with great success millions of dollars of intellectual properties each year and am respected in the company. One of my staff once mailed out as a joke asking why I had so many brightly coloured shirts and such. I responded in email that the bolder the colour of the shirt, the greater the inner trauma I was trying to conceal that day. You see people can get easily distracted by your appearance and not actually see you. It was a funny but sadly honest answer. So my marriage had some challenges. My wife and I didn't have that connection I so desperately needed but damn if I wasn't trying. I started to work on it. Date nights, romantic notes...you know all the stuff to win her over. Since she had gone back to work I took over the family's cooking. I had previously taken a number of gourmet classes and found it easy, and stress relieving, to provide that for my family each night. It really has been a lot of work. but worth it when they appreciate it. I do the cooking at our parties as well since it keeps me busy and limits the amount of time I'd have to talk with people. You see I've been uncomfortable in my own skin my whole life. That is until I took back my life recently. Now don't get me wrong, my wife and I have had some great times. Quite a lot actually. We have had amazing vacations dating all the way back to our honeymoon. Like those camping trips when the girls were younger or the trips to Europe and Hawaii. We always found a way to reconnect as a family when we needed it the most. We had picked up and moved across the country together straight out of college. We started our careers together, our lives, everything together. You can't live with someone for half your life and not have some amazing things go on between both of you. An amazing time like that first time I saw that lake we stayed at on our first anniversary. I knew then we'd buy a place there some day. 16 years later that was true. Denise and I have always agreed on the major decisions in life. Decisions like building a house, moving across the country, career changes, having children, buying a second home. It was actually scary at what both of us could accomplish when we both agreed on one of those major goals. Like when we found out we were pregnant, a week later we owned a house. When we talked about buying a second home, a week later we were in escrow. When we disagreed though, that was another matter. Neither one of us grew up learning how to fight fair and some damaging things were said on both sides. Denise has lots of good qualities too. She's been a wonderful mother, a lover, an architect, and a friend. It's just that life gets in the way sometimes. And sometimes you're just not strong enough to deal with some of the curves this process of growing older throws at you. Denise was stressed and overwhelmed all of the time. She took on too many clients and promised them things that couldn't be done. Promising unrealistic deadlines, low fees, you name it. She would take on new work the moment one of the existing projects hit a difficult spot in the process. Often with either the home owner or contractor getting upset at her. The moment that conflict happened, she took on more work. Most likely because the new relationships felt good and her projects were easier to manage in the honeymoon phase. Certainly easier than sitting together and solving difficult problems. This was a cycle that wouldn't end. It was self reinforcing too because at the end of the projects she usually won some award for the design and the clients were thrilled with the results. I could see the problem yet it was all the justification she needed to take on more and more work. I've told her how proud of her I am and what a great example she sets for the girls hoping that she feel some feeling of accomplishment, but it was never enough for her though. Our home life had become difficult. I was managing just about everything at home and still working full time in the days. I developed a routine. I did the grocery shopping, the cooking, laundry, pretty much everything. We agreed I would do this to help her get a kick start with starting her firm. I mean she took 5 years off to have children and be with them so what was the three years of me doing all the house work in comparison? But, I haven't been able to get her to slow down and help at home to relieve me of some of the burden. We also stopped counselling two years ago to focus on the relationship and date each other again. Sometimes that dating did help. She has always had night terrors but lately they had become frequent from the stress of the day. By night terrors I mean Denise would wake up screaming at me like I was a stranger in the room trying to attack her. It took everything I had to calm her down mentally and emotionally. Then she'd go back to sleep. It took me a few years to realize she didn't remember any of it while it was happening. I'd lay there feeling like I was going to have a heart attack being woken up from a deep sleep by her screaming at me. You kind of take that stuff personally. Denise was clearly troubled. Perhaps this was the price for our modern busy lives with such unrealistic expectations we put on ourselves? Sad if that was true. Our sex life was really non existent some years. Once every month or so and always with me initiating. We had talked about causes. Medical maybe, perhaps hormones, or hormones from her IUD? She maintains the reason is because she doesn't feel close to me. She didn't want to have sex with someone she didn't like. So many times I'd been rejected by her that at some point I kind of stopped trying. It's humiliating to be rejected by your wife on a repeating basis. It hits your self esteem. I had tried to spice things up. It worked sometimes but not others. I had tried dating her. I lost weight and got in shape. I focused on myself and my family, not her. It was just too painful to keep seeking her approval...it was constant hurt. I decided at one point I'd probably divorce her after the girls left for college in a few years. I could hold out until then, right? She actually said this idea in couples therapy to me once. That was certainly a great confidence booster. I deserved a chance with someone who would really love me. First though I had to start loving myself so I tried to stop focusing on her and I focused on me. Easier said than done. I started letting my guard down at work. Connecting with people and listening, talking, socializing. I think that was my way of not letting all of the dysfunction at home wreck me emotionally. I was giving myself an escape clause in the future. I wouldn't have to endure it forever I told myself. I could leave. Or she could. Why didn't I just leave? I loved her. The kind of needy love that wasn't so helpful or healthy and I didn't realize that until much later in our marriage. One lady at work who's husband also worked there became my partner in the department. She was administrative and I was creative head. She had been burned in a previous group with incompetent staff so when we started working together she was floored at how well I ran things. She gushed, and I mean gushed, constantly about how great I was and how much I had everything under control. She gushed about how she loved working with me. I mean comparing competence to incompetence isn't really a fair comparison. At some point she began sharing personal information about her life and such. She was my work wife. We became good friends but I knew she was crossing a line I wasn't comfortable with so I kept a barrier up. She brought her husband by twice to meet me and he avoided me like I was diseased. He wouldn't look at me in the eye. I didn't know what the hell was going on really. Later I figured that if she was complimenting me that much during the day at work she probably did the same thing it at night too with her husband. No wonder he seemed uncomfortable around me. I certainly wouldn't appreciate it if my wife came home talking about a guy at work and how great he is all of the time. I'd probably really resent him. Imagine my surprise when that is exactly what happened. Things came to a head with Denise's business a few months ago. Clients were angry. Denise was panicked. Our home life was not good. It reached the point where Denise finally accepted that she was doing too much and we started talking about the causes and how to fix it. We fired her business consultant. The advice was terrible. I began helping her structure her office. How to schedule, who does what, job descriptions, office equipment maintenance, the whole thing. I'm not a business major, but I've spent 17 years managing millions in production process and staff. This really wasn't that hard to me. I took immediate action and we saw immediate results. Denise was set up as the head of the firm as we hired an office manager and three designers. Four 40 year old women and one 26 year old man. Denise was relaxed for the first time in ages. And we started having sex again. It didn't last though. I had set up the interviews. Jared was intelligent, bright, full of energy, and had some experience. He was eager to please. He came in working only three days a week and quickly that went to four as it was clear he was a solid contributor. I started noticing things maybe a month after he was hired. Little harmless things. Denise would come home and talk about how great he was. I listened. One weekend he made a gift for the office and gave it to her. She was so excited. She couldn't stop talking about him. Denise asked me if she should give him a thank you present. I told her I thought it was unprofessional since she was the boss and a sincere thank you would suffice. It went on like this for some time...I mean her talking about him constantly. One morning she texted him at 7 am that she was taking him to a client meeting at 9. She asked him to have breakfast with her. I thought this odd. I know this information because I read her text. I know I said at the beginning that I hadn't read any sexting texts and I haven't. This was just an odd text. First, she had no business taking him to this meeting. Let me explain. It was with a prospective client that she didn't have a contract with. Since he was junior in the office he shouldn't be paid almost a full day to go and observe. We had talked in her business plan that stuff like this couldn't happen if she wanted to be profitable. The designers needed to design and she needed to be the liaison to the clients and the creative head of the firm. Second, this meeting invitation seemed like a last minute thing. She hadn't communicated anything to him about going in the days prior and suddenly at 7 in the morning she wants him to go with her? I know this information because the day before she told me she was going alone. Train Wreck I know, you're thinking this all looks innocent. It usually is. I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to not be the jealous husband and let things just play out. I commented to her in bed once about ladies at work talking about having crushes on others while married. I asked her if she has had any since we began our relationship. Crushes I meant, not men. Of course she said no. I told her the story about my office wife and her husband's reaction to her blushing compliments about me all of the time to others. Denise said that was disrespectful to her husband and no wonder he was stand-off ish to me. Exactly. It was beginning to appear to me that Denise was attracted to her new employee. I could understand why. I don't think she even realized it. I think he reminded her of me at his age. Energetic, articulate, enthusiastic, hopeful, dedicated, and hard working. I'm not bragging but those are qualities that brought her to me. She told me so when we married. I had won the student academy award for thesis design at our university. I worked for very well know design firms and I went on to work for a very well known entertainment studio and rose up the ranks quickly. I was a good catch. I mean this guy doesn't bring any baggage with him because he's not really real in her life. Like a fantasy. Not real in the sense that whatever was attracting her to him was an illusion. She didn't have to argue with him, or deal with the kids with him, or feel guilty about not helping around the house with him, or feel like a bad mother around him. So in her mind it was apparent that he was perfect and I was not. On the outside she had what appeared to be an ideal life. Two houses, no debt, her own hobby business, a family complete with a dog, beautiful healthy children, a successful and charming husband. Yeah right. People only see what they want to see. It's like the brightly coloured shirt example I gave earlier. People won't see me because they get distracted by my bold clothes. And all of those successful life traits I just mentioned? They blinded all of our friends and family from the fact that we are a struggling couple trying to make it work with everyday stresses and some significant baggage from our childhoods like everybody else. They would never believe we were really close to divorce a few years back. That is why we stopped the couples counselling. It was ruining our marriage. There is only so much looking at the past that one can bear really. Especially if you have the personality of not being able to forgive; like my wife. Every week we'd drudge through why she was so upset with me from our first 10 years of marriage. We'd dig it all up, dump the issues on the table, and my wife would seethe with anger. It didn't matter if it happened 15 years ago. The negative energy was destroying us. We had just gotten back from a wonderful European vacation as a family and were crazy happy. That trip had some of the best memories of my life. Then we went to our weekly therapy session and walked out of it on the edge of divorce. I fired the counsellor. I told my wife I wanted to spend that money instead on the two of us dating and reconnecting. And we did. For a time. A little attraction to others is a good thing I think. Playful banter, friendships. As long as it doesn't cross the line. I have quite a few lady friends at work. I keep it in perspective though. I don't go out with them alone outside of the office. We eat lunch in public company spaces. We don't have closed door conversations. Those friendships did wonders to help my self esteem for when my wife rejected me. I felt admired, respected by those friends at work. I realized that people do still find me attractive and desirable even if my wife did not. A while back I installed some security software in Denise's office. A simple program that let's you see from another station activity going on through the web cam. You can record it, or not. I mentioned to my wife I had put it in the office since she has a number of new employees now and was worried about our expensive equipment. A couple of days ago, I pulled the software port up from home to do some maintenance and I noticed my wife was still there working. I had thought she'd left for a meeting? Her friend had come by as well and they were talking. They were the only ones in the office. The security system had an audio feed as well so I thought I'd listen for a moment. For a while my wife and her friend were talking life, job, the usual stuff. Her friend Annie had been married for some time and she was talking about some of the difficulties they were having. Regular married stuff. She wanted children, her husband didn't. He was avoiding sex with her, she was in therapy. They were good friends of ours so this level of conversation was normal. Annie asked Denise about our home life...how it was...how have we kept together for so long. Denise's response was a little more honest than I was comfortable with. At least it woke me up to the truth of what was going on though. "I don't know really, I mean most of our marriage has been just learning how to be married. If that makes sense." Denise commented. "It's been difficult. Sure we fight and we've been in therapy together. And Elliott has a lot of baggage from his childhood growing up...it's like I had a damaged husband and I'm sometimes angry about what I was put through with him and his unstable emotional state when his father died." "Do you love him? I mean really love him. Like if you had to do it over again you would? I mean he's good looking, seems like a great dad and everything. I always thought you two were happy?" Annie asked. "I did love him. I think I'm more committed to him now though instead of love." "If I had to do it over, I don't think I would. But then again I wouldn't have had my daughters." "You know I kind of cheated on Tom a while back. It was tough. I mean I didn't really cheat. It was just that he wouldn't have sex with me so I was going out in the evenings with a guy from work." Annie remarked. "Tom found out. I hurt him bad even though nothing ever really happened with the other guy. Some kissing and touching. You know, college stuff. At least it forced us to talk. And we really talked for the first time about why Tom didn't want children. I think though that is why we are still in a rough patch, the 'fling' part of it I mean." "I can see how that would be tough on Tom." Denise said. "You know, I used to think I was a one man woman...and I have been for my whole marriage." Denise continued. "But I just don't see that it's really that important to me any more." " I mean what good is it, right? In the end the marriage is still difficult and I still have to tolerate it. And what's wrong with me wanting to be happy? I just don't think it's a big deal if I have fun a little. Not really harming anyone." Denise again commented. I didn't like where this conversation was going at all. In fact I was pretty scared. Actually just sad really, and disappointed. Even though our marriage had been difficult, I do feel like I truly loved Denise. But somehow I've always felt like it wasn't that way with her. I mean for the longest time my therapist and I talked about it being my insecurities from childhood. But in listening to her comments I was getting that feeling in my gut...you know, the not good kind. "You haven't cheated on Elliott have you? Because if you have let me tell you it will rip you two apart, unless that is what you want?" "I don't know what I want. I know I want to be happy. And I know I'm not now. I look at Elliott and I just see my failures. Or at least reminded of them. He once suggested I'd have divorced him by now if I was able to support myself financially. I didn't disagree. I didn't say anything actually." Denise said. "And no, I haven't yet cheated on Elliott...not physically." "What do you mean?" At that moment Annie's phone rang and she picked up. It was her husband. She said she had to go and they should continue this conversation soon. My wife went back to work and I turned off the camera. By now I was feeling pretty sick. What does she mean when she says 'yet' about cheating? And what does it mean not physical? The only thing I could think of was that it meant she felt something for this guy. I hadn't expected that. I really didn't know what to feel. I think I just sat there in that chair until Denise came through the front door. She asked if I was feeling al-right to which I answered simply 'no' with no explanation. I went to bed without saying anything. Inside I was grieving. Grieving for our relationship. I mean you can't live with someone for over half your life and not feel for them - love, friendship, whatever you want to call it. I mean, I lost my virginity to this woman. I had also watched my daughter's heads emerge out of her vagina for god's sake. Grief and fear is all I can describe what I felt. I think it was the realization that I knew where things were going. It was what was going to happen that I feared the most. It was like that analogy people make of watching a train wreck happen in slow motion and not being able to stop it. You know what the end result is going to be, but you just hope and pray that it won't be like that. Now I've never seen a train wreck, nor do I imagine a very large percentage of the populous has either, but it's an easy visual analogy to picture, if not over used reference. So that brings us back to today. Walking into her office and having her designer act so strange to me. I left confused. I spent the next few days gathering my thoughts and composure. Each night I had to endure Denise complimenting Jared's existence and how great he was and how he did everything right. I commented once that I thought she talked about Jared a lot. I asked if she had a crush or something on him. Her eyes had a momentary look of panic, but she settled back and recovered. "No, no. Just really impressed. The last guy we had was so inexperienced. It's nice to have someone taking care of things." Exactly right. I wonder if that was a Freudian slip or if she didn't actually mean to say what she implied given the circumstances. It was her birthday that week. We did the typical celebration and the girls gave their mother her presents. I had written a letter to her. It was a letter she'd asked for since she found out I was writing it. You see its part of my death letter. Morbid I know. What I mean is that we had recently finished our wills and part of that process for me was to write Denise and each of the girls a goodbye letter. I was going to tell them each what they meant to me, help them move on from their grief, and help them remember the good times we did have. I had told Denise this. She was sad one morning that if she died first she wouldn't get to read my letter. I had told her then I'll finish the part of our early memories together and give it to her. That's what I did. It ended up being 16 pages long. Small type. No double spacing. It was a sequential list of paragraphs, each a different memory of our time together. I could have written 100 pages but I felt 16 was enough for her for the moment. I gave it to her on her birthday. She said she wanted to be rested to read it. Three weeks went by. She still hadn't opened it. I don't know about you but if my spouse gave me a 16 page letter filled with romantic and good memories I'd want to read it. This told me where I stood with her. It hurt. I knew she was afraid to read it but that knowledge didn't make it hurt less. Denise was going to have a meeting in the evening this week and I believe it was to include Jared and another employee. I decided I was going to drop by, unannounced and unseen...and see what happens. Maybe nothing. I knew she was going to be driving to the meeting so I put my iphone in the car and programmed it to record audio. I wanted to see what she talked about with him. I'm not proud of this but I'd become a little desperate to know the truth. The night of the meeting didn't work out as I planned and I ended up not being able to go out and see with my eyes what was, or wasn't going on between Jared and Denise. I did get the audio though. I wish I hadn't. God I really wish I hadn't. It was probably the most painful and humiliating 15 minutes I've ever experienced. I sat there and listened to my wife make casual flirtations with him. It wasn't just the flirting though. There was a desire in her voice. Things were escalating and by the time they got back to the office parking lot the banter had turned inappropriately intimate. I sat and I listened. I listened downstairs to the recording while my wife was upstairs just having kissed me goodnight. I listened to her kiss him in the audio recording on the cheek saying thank you for the evening. I listened as the kiss was repeated on the mouth. I listened to her giggle. I listened as I heard them passionately kissing. I listened to him ask about how to unclip her bra. I listened to the heavy breathing. I don't think they actually had sex. It stopped right after the moaning as my wife said something like 'not like this'. My guess was she didn't want to be getting screwed inside the car in her office parking lot like some slut...while her husband was home watching the children with dinner waiting. At least that is what I told myself. I did sit there kind of frozen. I had never felt that kind of pain. I drunk myself into a stupor that night and fell asleep on the couch. Denise woke me saying it was time to go to work. She asked what was wrong and if I felt OK. I didn't really respond and she shrugged and went on with her business. While she was in the shower her phone made a chirp. One of those calendar alarm chirps, or new message chirps. I picked it up. On the iphones you can have it set so the message just appears and keeps chirping until you have answered it. The message was from an unidentified phone number. It said simply "Can I see you tonight, office, 8 pm? Keep thinking about last night." I put the phone back and got ready for the day. Denise got dressed and before we were leaving the house she mentioned she had a meeting at 8 that night she forgot to tell me about. Right. She said the meeting was to be at city hall so I shouldn't try and contact her. She should be home by 10. Right. I was surprised at how easily the lies were coming off of her lips while looking me in the eye. Had I ever really known this woman? I mean so far there wasn't that much physical infidelity going on... Deception was a whole different matter though. I decided I'd confront her that night. I'd go over to the office maybe at 8:30 and walk in on them. I hadn't really planned what I was going to do, or say. Maybe I could nip this thing off before it really got started and try couples therapy again I thought. With a different therapist of course. Most of that day I was just on autopilot really. I did wear a dashing brightly coloured chequered shirt. Lot's of people commented on it. My office wife asked me if I felt OK. She knew the secret of the bright shirt colours. One thing I hadn't expected was the amount of pain I was in. I really couldn't breathe or function at all. Debilitating is the word I'm searching for. My wife called after lunch to remind me of her meeting that night. I guess she could sense something was wrong. "Elliott are you feeling al-right? You haven't been yourself and you looked really sick this morning? Do you need to go to the doctor?" "Maybe." I played along. "You know the doctor is open late so maybe you could take me over there this evening to his office? He has evening hours." I was talking about my shrink. "Oh, you know I have this meeting tonight...?" "Oh, right." She was concerned only enough so that it wouldn't impact her make out session with her friend that evening. "What is it, are you feeling ill?" "No, not really. The doctor could help though." I was talking about my psychiatrist not a general physician. She didn't know that. "I just learned something awful about a really good friend of mine so I'm not feeling too good about it. It's painful because I don't want anything to do with them any more after what they've done and I might have to tell them tonight if things don't go OK." "Oh no, let's talk about it tonight after I get back? OK?" Sure. "OK goodbye. And Denise, I love you." "I love you too Elliott, I hope you feel better." I locked my door to my office. I sat in my chair and just collapsed. I had some muscle relaxents in my drawer for anxiety and such during the day if I needed it. I also had alcohol. I also had Tylenol with codeine I was taking home for my daughter who just had her teeth pulled. I knew I could take enough to shut down my liver and cause other problems. Oh believe me I'd researched it. But maybe the other night was a fluke? That couldn't be though because tonight's meeting was a planned hook up? I realized she was knowingly planning on cheating on me. Well maybe she wasn't though, maybe she was going to tell him it was a mistake and needed to cut it off? Maybe the train wreck won't be as bad as I know it will be? Right. People see what they choose to see. I sat there and seriously contemplated taking all of the medication and the whole bottle of vodka. The only thing that stopped me was the thought of my girls. It wouldn't be fair really for my office wife to find me like that anyway. Kind of messy, and it would traumatize her. That's not a nice thing to do. Besides the girls wouldn't get any insurance on a suicide. I left the office at 6 for home. I picked up dinner and went to the house to feed the girls. I existed in a state of shock until 8 at which point I told my daughters I needed to run an errand. I kissed them both and told them I loved them and how much they meant to me. I told them one day they'd get a letter telling them just how much but I'd hoped they wouldn't be getting it for a long time. They didn't really know what I was talking about. I composed myself and drove to Denise's office. As I stood outside I felt empty, fearful, and strangely hopeful that everything would turn out all right. While I stood outside trying to listen and I wondered how I had gotten myself to this place in time. The office had a large window at the front with a door. The blinds were closed and the small office opened out to the side walk. The side of the building had another door. I stood out there. I pulled up my iphone and logged into the web server to see what was going on inside. I wish I hadn't. God I wish I hadn't. I'm not going to go into detail about what I saw and heard. They were things a married man should never have to hear or see concerning his wife. Did I really ever know this woman? Who the fuck was she? or who the fuck had she become? The train wreck wasn't stopping. It was getting worse. I thought about stopping it and stepping in. I didn't though. Not because I was a wimp but because I felt it was over and I somehow acknowledged it. Painful as it was but I couldn't control what she did. It took a lot more strength not going in there than to have gone in and confronted them. We don't ever really 'own' someone else so I couldn't tell her what to do. It's more like we 'share' parts of our lives with each through mutual respect. Like sharing your soul. Sharing your hopes and fears. Sharing laughter. Your deceiving yourself if you think otherwise. I was turning off the phone when I heard my wife ask him to stop. They hadn't had sex yet but just about everything up to it. Train Wreck I mean it didn't really matter to me at that point. It's like saying, "I didn't have sex with her...I just rubbed my dick back and forth on her pussy and blew a load on her stomach." We had a President that had used a defense like that. Who the fuck cares what the difference between the two is? You're sharing something you shouldn't be. Her voice became frantic at this point and that meant something was wrong. I mean wrong with her...clearly what she was doing was wrong. He was getting angry and pulling at her pants. She protested. I was about to go through the door and stop it when I heard a crash. Loud yelling ensued. Mostly my wife telling him he was fired and he'd be lucky if she didn't press charges for attempted rape. He was cursing back. Calling her all sorts of names. Yelling she was a tease and said that she was screwed up in the head. She'd been the one that started this thing after all. He threatened a sexual harassment suit. I heard her yell it was a mistake and she didn't realize what she was doing. Right. Jared stormed out the front but didn't see me on the side. He got in his car and sped off. My wife was crying inside the office. It usually makes me really upset to see her cry. Except this time. The front door was open so I stepped in. That about gave her a heart attack as she exclaimed. "Elliott! What are you doing here?" She looked nervous trying to compose herself, her blouse was still undone and her pants partially pulled down. "How long have you been here?" "The whole time." I was stoic. Like it didn't matter any more. "I was going to come in and stop him when I heard a crash." "Oh my god, Elliott I'm so sorry. So so sorry." She began wailing. " I don't know what the hell I was doing and when I realized it and told him to stop." Yeah right. I wished she had stopped earlier before tanking our marriage. She was sobbing pretty uncontrollably by now and saying nonsensical things. Mostly about how much she fucked up and how she never realized how much she loved me. "Denise, I've got to go. I'll have some papers for you to sign in the morning. I had them drawn up today just in case this was going to happen tonight." I said that to just hurt her. I was angry of course. I didn't really have any papers. "What the hell are you talking about Elliott? Why can't I go home, what papers?" "I'm sorry but let me explain..." "I'm.." "What do you mean in case this was going to happen tonight? How did you know?" "Shut the fuck up Denise! I mean really, does it fucking matter right now? Is that really the question you have for me after what you've been doing? You fucking...!" I really wanted to call her names but that isn't who I am. She was the mother of my children and all. That has never stopped her from calling me names though. Like the time she called me asshole in front of my girls. That fight started because I had wanted to spend time with her and was asking for a night out. "You can't come home because if you do..." I didn't finish, didn't need to. Her eyes flashed fear and confusion as she retreated. You see I was holding myself steady, for now, but inside I felt pure unadulterated rage over the death of my marriage. "Don't come near me...". I actually was really afraid. I hadn't felt rage like that since I saw my father going after my nephew in a hotel room before my sister's wedding. He was going to beat him in front of everyone in that room because the kid said something he didn't like. My nephew was 9. Except that time I was there to stop it. I was also 19 and pretty fucking strong. That time I body checked him into the wall and whispered into his ear if he so much as touched my nephew I would fucking destroy him. And he knew I would do it. I'd never seen fear in my father's eyes before, but I saw it then. Real fear. It's too bad he didn't 'try' and hit my nephew a few minutes later because I really wanted to beat his ass. Back to Denise...I was really afraid I wouldn't be able to control myself and I really didn't want to hurt her. I did love her. She was the mother of my children. Denise stepped near me, crying, sobbing, shaking. She was trying to latch on to me. All the time exclaiming how much she loved me and to please forgive her. I started panicking...mostly from fear of losing control and hurting her so I started stepping backward and tried to push her away. "Get the fuck away from me!" I was blubbering at this point. I was stepping backward and that's when, as fate would have it, I tripped off that side walk curb. The city should really get around to fixing these things. Denise was on the city's commission for exactly this kind of shit for Christ's sake so you'd think at least the side walks would be safe. I didn't mention that her office was near the street corner. Not that this fact would matter, unless.. About the moment I tripped a blue Fiat made it's way around that corner. Actually speeding around the corner is more accurate. Again, there's a fucking speed limit sign posted right next to me for fuck's sake! It was some high school kid trying to get his date home for curfew, speeding, and not paying attention. That's how my Labrador I told you about earlier was killed. Some high school kid had been racing to get his date home so she wouldn't get in trouble for being late. He'd ploughed straight into my dog. Her name was Lady. She had wiry black fur. She was a mother. I guess the driver couldn't see her because of her black color but if he had slowed the fuck down then he would have. It broke her back. She never saw it coming. My best friend of 7 years was gone because a girl was going to get home past her curfew and 'might' get in trouble for it. She was dead because my ass hole father had blinded her from being able to get out of the way in time. The blue car hit me. It was surreal at that point. Slow motion really. There was a horn, some screaming, brake squeal, flashes of light, and a loud noise like an explosion. What was that terrible sound I thought? I hoped everyone was OK? That sound was the noise my body made when it impacted the sharp metal of the front hood of that Fiat. Did 'I' make that sound? I was gone in a fraction of a second. 40 years and the switch had been turned off. I lay there in the street not moving. Blood was everywhere. A lot of it was from my head, some of it from my side. There was a lot of broken glass I guess from the wind shield' impact to my head after I was thrown up onto the car. There were too many broken bones to register at that moment. My arm in front of my left elbow was bent 90 degrees in the opposite direction it was supposed to bend. It wasn't the only appendage like that. You couldn't really make out my face at all with all the blood and torn skin. Someone called for an ambulance. My wife rushed to be by my side, crying hysterically. Perhaps my girls would get that insurance money after all? Tracy would finally get to read that letter. I really did look dashing in my bright purple checkered shirt though. Too bad it was stained now. -------------------- I heard voices coming and going. I heard my wife and my daughters. I heard my sister and my brothers. I wondered why everyone was here and why I couldn't move? It was like when you wake up in the middle of the night and you can't make your arms or legs move. Everything was black and my eyes wouldn't open. I heard my wife talk for a long time. She was saying something about how sorry she was and asking God to give her one more chance. She promised to be there for me and the girls. She promised lots of things I didn't completely hear. I drifted back into blackness. I woke to bright lights. I tried to move but an intense pain ripped through my body. I tried to speak but there were tubes down my throat. A beeping alarm was going off somewhere nearby. What the hell was going on? "You're awake. We thought you might be coming back to us soon." "Stay still. I'm going to get your wife and daughters if they are still here. Don't try to speak. Please lay still." She wore white. A while later my wife came in alone. "Hi honey. I'm so happy you're awake." She was crying while she said this. "Don't talk, they're going to give you something for the pain and it may put you back to sleep. You were in a terrible accident and I'm afraid it was all my fault. You are in a hospital. I'll stay right here with you. I love you so much. I'll never leave you I promise." Back to sleep I went. I drifted back and forth like this for what seemed ages. Finally I woke again. I was really, really thirsty. I tried to speak but this time only a croak came out, and I noticed I didn't have any tubes down my throat any longer. My wife was there holding my hand. "Where are we?" "In county general. We were so close to losing you. I don't know what I'd have done if I lost you. You were in a car accident outside of my office. A car hit you and nearly killed you. You were actually gone..heart stopped..for a short time but the paramedics were able to revive you. Your back is broken, so are lots of other bones. You have a really bad concussion and they were worried about long term brain damage. Your back though is operable and they think you should recover from it in a while." A broken back, just like my dog. Not that there's any relevance there. Well maybe there is. My Father had taken that 2x4 and blinded my dog from anger. My dog, Lady, had trusted him and he had hurt her badly. My wife had blinded me with pain...a lot of it. Was I really all that different from my dog? A car is a hell of a lot worse than a 2x4 I'd have to say. But then again a car got Lady in the end. I wasn't going to roll over though and take a beating. "I don't remember anything." I remarked. "Shhh. You're safe. It's going to be OK. You need to rest. We'll talk after you have strength. I love you." Back to sleep I went again. I vaguely remember seeing the nurse inject something in my IV. It went on like this for awhile. I found out later I'd been unconscious for about two weeks before I woke that first time. The doctors had put me in an induced coma. Too much trauma to the head. I had such a bad concussion they wanted my brain to have time to heal and some of the swelling and pressure to go down. The doctor had said I may or may not get my memory back. At first I didn't remember what had happened, at all...any of it. But after a while it did start to come back to me here and there. Although nobody talked to me about what went on that night other than the actual accident, Denise had made many apologies and I kept asking her what she was apologizing for. Denise kept trying to tell me what happened and I just kept telling her I didn't want to talk about it yet. A few weeks after I left the hospital I had actually remembered everything that had happened. I just didn't let anyone know but I suspect Denise figured it out. You see, I choose to see what I want to see. I know that doesn't make sense to some of you. Let me explain. What I saw was a wife who was deeply lost and had found her way back. I saw a wife who was remorseful and committed. I saw a woman trapped from all of the choices she had made, good and bad, and trying to break free from their consequences. I saw myself before the accident... and let me tell you I didn't really like what I saw. I saw myself now, or maybe the 'me' I wanted to become. I saw... no that's not right... I felt love. Sometimes love is a choice. It took me a while to understand that. About 40 years actually and I still don't completely get it. And before you think I wimped out and never confronted my wife about all of what had happened with her short 'fling' or got any closure or went total caveman on her ass.....don't. The last time I had confronted her it had literally killed me....and I wasn't going to repeat that. So when it did happen, me confronting her I mean, it needed to be on my own terms; when 'I' was ready. I realized one important thing: I realized that all of this wasn't really about me. It was about her. It was about her insecurities, her character weaknesses, her choices, her desires, her needs... her regrets, her fears, and her failures. I can thank my psychiatrist for that bit of insight as well. Knowing that just didn't make it any easier for me though. But it helped. When a part of your soul is hurting, it hurts all over. She was a part of my soul for better or for worse. A while after the accident I did have that talk with her after I had healed. We began our discussion slowly but worked our way up to saying all those things we should have said in couples therapy, or during our marriage, but hadn't for whatever reasoning. There were all the expected heartfelt apologies and regrets and promises offered from her and also from me. I asked her to forgive me. For what? For not being the man she had needed and causing her to go looking for what was missing. Having a husband borderline suicidal was not being the man she needed. I know you think that was being a pushover or trying to let it slide and blame myself like I did when I was little. I wasn't. Taking responsibility for your part, no matter how trivial, requires real strength. And that responsibility is really what being a man, a husband, a father is all about. My Father never realized that before his death. Never said he was sorry and never took responsibility. For anything. I'm not my Father and he'd damaged me enough with all of his bullshit before and after his death. Real strength is accepting that responsibility. And NOT tossing her ass to the curb. And listening. It means letting your wife vent at you and blame you for stuff while realizing all she really needed was for someone to tell her everything would be ok. That her feelings of frustration were valid. It means letting her voice her problems and her trusting that someone was there to lean on. I mean really there. That was the promise I made to her at the alter after all. I had left her alone to fend for herself in those years of my depression. Yes you heard me, I said years. For years I left my wife to handle it all herself. Because I couldn't. For that I asked her to forgive me. She asked for forgiveness too. And I gave it. What really mattered to me was that we talked. I mean, we really talked about what each of us needed and most importantly what our fears were. We discussed why we had been so lost and how we needed to find our way back to ourselves and each other. We had finally let ourselves be vulnerable. Her fear was in letting me down; I think really though in letting herself down. A leftover childhood thing. Mine was simply being alone, or more accurately - abandoned, unloved. Again, childhood thing. You know I had never felt that close to her until we had that long series of talks... I have to say I have ever since. It's just too bad that such an accident had to happen for us to realize what was really important in our lives. Funny how that works. The End.