Boyfriend or puppeteer?

Sunday morning, Wife had a bunch of errands to run. I had somewhere else I had to be, so she was going to run them all. And she was telling me all about them.

Then the phone rang, and it was one of the guys that hangs around with Boyfriend 5. In previous posts (here and here), I have just called him Friend. Friend is supposedly a paramedic ... except sometimes he is a park ranger or a fire fighter. Or all of the above, why not? Apparently some years ago he was badly burned in a fire, and is slowly being pieced back together. And apparently he recently had knee surgery.

So he called Wife and started to complain that his knee still hurt and was swelling up. Wife suggested that he go to the ER ... after all, he lives several states away and it wasn't like she could just go and kiss it to make it all better. There ensued a good 10 minutes -- easily -- during which she continued to try to convince him to see a doctor and he continued to play "Yes, but" games with her.

The next thing I knew, she had logged into Wikipedia and was reading him articles on the anatomy of the knee. Also she was describing the diagrams in great detail. Huh?? I let this go on a little while and then asked her what she was doing. She was clearly discomfited, told Friend that she had to go, and hung up.

My first question was what had happened to her determination to run all these errands before 1:00 pm. Oh, right, those ... well I was going to get to those in a minute, but Friend really needed me. You know, he is in a lot of pain.

I asked why he didn't go to the doctor. There was some answer (I forget what) but the gist was that he was using Wife's medical knowledge instead.

I tried to explain that it concerned me that -- as soon as Friend called -- all Wife's resolutions about how to spend her morning flew straight out the window. Can he really tell her what to do? What kind of command does he exercise over her?

Wife admitted that he can be kind of demanding and needy, but then said that it only makes sense given how disabled he is. Ater all, he can't even look up articles on Wikipedia on his own, because they don't come through his screen reader correctly.

"But I thought Boyfriend 5 was the one who was vision-impaired and needed a screen reader."

"He is. I didn't find out till last week that Friend needs one too."

Never mind the implausibility of a blind paramedic, just for the moment. Friend needs a screen reader, just like Boyfriend 5? He also has the same birthday as Boyfriend 5. He also went in for knee surgery th exact same day that Boyfriend 5 went in for the exact same knee surgery. And while Wife has spoken with Friend on the phone -- his voice sounds just like a woman's, but he explained that away by saying it was because of the damage that the fire did to his vocal cords -- she has never heard Boyfriend 5's voice at all. Never heard his accent from the Old Country. Never communicated with him at all except by e-mail or IM.

I asked Wife point-blank, "Are these two really the same guy?" (I didn't add, "Are they really both of them fictional characters created by some woman in the Midwest somewhere?" but I was thinking it.)

She said she didn't know, but she was starting to wonder that very same thing. Maybe.

Of course, this puts Wife in a terrible position, and she has complained about this on the phone to D more than once. On the one hand, she feels really foolish, trapped, and used. If these guys are all fictional, then she has been investing her heart in a lie for a year ... a lie that has made her do things that don't reflect well on her. (Paying his electric bill is only the most overt; but there have been other things too ... he has had her jump through any number of emotional hoops for him.) But on the other hand, breaking off the relationship means admitting that she was wrong about this guy all along and I was right. And the prospect of that is intolerable to Wife. She has this deep fear that I'm going to stand over her gloating "neener neener neener."

But what does that mean? Will she hold on to the relationship forever -- no matter how sick or twisted or demanding or totally incredible it turns -- just to prove me wrong? She might.

"Would you reconsider me?"

I was talking with D on the phone this afternoon. We started talking about Wife's long-distance relationship with Boyfriend 5, and how both of us believe this is a complete con-job start to finish. D said that it seems to her that Wife is finally starting to wonder the same thing too ... not that she's convinced yet, but the possibility that none of this fantasy is true has been intruding more and more upon her lately. Both D and I think this development is a good one in the sense of being healthy for Wife.

So then D asked, as she did once before, "Hosea, if Wife reconsiders her relationship with Boyfriend 5, and decides to give it all up for you ... would you reconsider me?"

This time there was only one answer I could possibly give her, so it was easier than before: "I can't imagine how."

And it's true. I don't think of it, but we usually e-mail each other two or three times a day during the week, and once or twice a day on the weekends. Today I didn't hear from D all day, ... until I finally called her in late afternoon really worried that something was wrong. No, she had been asked to do some extra work that had killed her one normal break in the day, and then she had a doctor's appointment after that. All normal stuff. But even so it was, "Oh Hosea, how ARE you? It's so good to hear your voice."

So no, I can't imagine how. That's not to say it couldn't possibly happen, but I can't see it.

And she replied, "That's good, because I can't imagine it either. I mean, not unless gravity stops working, or something like that ...."

Hopeless romantics? Us?

Bower or boat?

There was a time back in January (after our second date but before our third), as I mention here, when D and I spent hours on the phone at night. A lot of the time we would start by talking about what had happened in her day and my day, but generally we would gravitate to reviewing and analyzing her latest conversation with Wife, and we would end up probing each other’s childhoods and histories, beliefs and values, fairly deeply. After several of these conversations, D wrote to me one day:

Have you ever given thought about what we are constructing as we talk for hours? I initially thought we would weave together a bower where we both could rest, and occasionally, you will add philosophy or Shakespeare, I will add art and music to adorn our dwelling. But most of the time, we seem to push each other forward, not without laughter, as though we were building a boat for a journey neither of us expected to take. Perhaps we can only build a place of rest when we are together, locked in the intimacy of our love. I'm not sure. But given my love for sailing and all the skill it requires and the freedom it brings, I quietly celebrate our conversations. Your thoughts?

Now actually I had never thought about the question at all, much less framed it in those terms. So I answered her:

As for what we are building, ... no, I have to admit the question never occurred to me -- at any rate not in that form -- and I have had to puzzle a bit over the images. I think I got the bower first, it being something like what our conversations used to be like, ... back before. Because yes, then we would indeed talk about philosophy or art or history or literature ... or theology, always theology ..., and it would be a delightful way to spend an afternoon.

It is also true that our conversations lately have pushed harder, as we have asked more about each other. How did this work back when you were a child? Why did you think that? Does this other story you have told me fit into the picture here or over there?

But a boat? Hmm ... hadn't thought of that. If I had thought of any image at all, I guess it would have been a jigsaw puzzle....

I also have to pause a moment at the idea that we can build a place of rest when we are together. Can we? :-) I think we haven't yet. Admittedly we haven't been together much, and most recently the circumstances were a little weird. [I was referring, of course, to the whole framework of our second date.] But even if you narrow the scope to just our lovemaking, I would characterize it far more readily as "energetic" than as "restful" .... Maybe we will get to a point where the fever is a little less intense, and where the bed can look more like a bower. Today, though, I would agree that a bower is not quite where we find ourselves.

Unsurprisingly, D saw resonances in my imagery of which I had been totally unaware.

Puzzles have always been slightly horrifying after watching "Citizen Kane", where they become a sign and symbol of his second wife's misery and loneliness. Given that the entire movie is really comprised of many puzzle pieces, with "Rosebud" as the last, Freudian piece that gives a certain strained meaning to a picture that is richer than it realizes, puzzles have seemed a little ominous as a metaphor for a developing relationship. Sailing is another matter altogether.... [It] is an intense pleasure, not to be missed (the Scouts have a branch of their organization which is entirely devoted to sailing, and I strongly urge Son 1 to consider the Navy rather than the Air Force if he wants to fly; it is just much more pleasant to be on board ship than stationed on land). I realize that sailing is like a drug; you just can't get enough if you learn to love it, which explains why I never bought a boat as an adult; I'd spend too money and time to capture the feeling you get running in front of the wind at eight knots on a warm day off the coast. The mixture of icy water from [the north] and warm, dry air [from the shore] makes sailing almost perfect where [I grew up as a girl], and the skill demanded to handle a boat effectively is considerable; the winds can be changeable, the sea mysterious. The idea of building a boat, with good purpose, laughter and song, is very appealing. One day, with God's grace, we will reach the open sea...with some charts and the stars ahead.

Passion, rather than rest. Yes, I understand and agree. Perhaps our passion will be transmuted in some other way, but I suspect that our relationship will always have a certain surging and restless quality. I would not trade what we have for a certain stillness...however attractive peace and repose seem at times.

But last night, I would have gladly just curled up in your arms and loved you in silence and slowly, just cherishing who you are and how you look and feel. Time for both images, it seems.

I don’t know why I am posting this exchange, or what I want you to understand from it, but the imagery is so striking that I can’t help myself. I am so glad that I have a smart girlfriend with a restless and active mind. And of course I would love it if someday I could persuade her to take me sailing ....

Compare and contrast

Over the months I have seen several infidelity bloggers write that they feel awkward or funny having marital sex once they start an affair. I can't say I feel awkward about it, but the two are certainly different. For one thing, marital sex is a lot rarer. It is true that D and I live far enough apart that meeting is a challenge, but so far we have managed no more than about a month and a half between visits (and each visit means a lot of sex); Wife and I, by contrast, regularly go months between fucks. During one particularly depressed period in our marriage, I clocked the dry spell at two years. At this point, I no longer expect sex with Wife -- ever, really -- so it is a bit of a surprise when it happens. But it happened this morning, a scant week after my latest date with D, so I am able to see some of the contrast pretty clearly.

One difference, probably the overriding difference, is that Wife is so much less overt. With D, I know clearly where I stand. If she's interested -- and she usually is -- she's not shy about making it clear. And if, in the heat of passion, she wants my hand or my mouth here instead of there, she just pushes it. This is good: she gets what she wants, I don't have to guess, and we both end up way more satisfied. Wife, by contrast, says less and does less; if she actually wants to fuck, she will say and do almost nothing at all. And it is up to me to read the silence and motionlessness as an invitation.

Take this morning, for example. Wife awoke and was cold. It seems she is always cold, these days, probably because she has been losing so much weight. So she got up, turned up the heat, and came back to bed. As she crawled under the covers, I offered to hold her, to warm her up. I wasn't particularly angling for sex -- as I say, I no longer even expect it any more -- but I thought it would be good just to hold her for a while. Wife rightly pointed out in our last counseling session that we really haven't had time for each other for a long time now; and we haven't followed up on the plan to have lunch together because the very next week I was out of town. And I know that I have been more distant, partly because my affair with D has made it easier to disengage emotionally from Wife. So I figured here was a chance just to be together for a little while. She buried her face in my chest, I wrapped my arms around her back, and I just held her.

We were lying front-to-front, but it managed not to be a very provocative position. Wife was wearing a long flannel nightgown and I was wearing a T-shirt ... and while flannel can be amazingly sexy if it is handled just right, Wife was doing nothing more than lying still. For several minutes I literally did nothing more than hold her. Then I slowly started stroking her back lightly, running my fingers through her hair, and caressing her face. All of this was very slow; and while it could have been arousing, and in the end I guess it was, I took great care to stay away from her breasts or her vulva or anywhere else that could be unmistakeable. I've had my advances rejected enough over the years that I wanted to preserve some "plausible deniability" ... and really, at this point, that precaution had become second-nature. I wasn't even making an advance. I thought about it, and I decided that I wouldn't turn down sex if it developed that way, but I wasn't caressing her with any kind of concrete goal. However it played out would be fine.

After a considerable time, Wife rolled over on her back. What she said -- and note that these were pretty much her first words since coming back to bed -- was that one of her hands was going numb so she needed to shift position. But the consequence was that her whole front was now pretty well accessible to me. Was it an invitation? I couldn't tell ... but then that's typical. Either it was an invitation or else she really just needed to move her hand. I thought about it for a couple of minutes, while still stroking her face and neck, and decided to check.

Note that "checking" is pretty much what I have to do, since she won't (but rarely) say or do anything overt. And "checking" more or less means kicking it up a notch to the point that there is something unmistakeably sexual about the caress, and waiting to see whether she remains quiet and unresponsive (in which case, yes it was an invitation) or whether she objects and rebukes me sharply (in which case, no it wasn't ... or else I bungled something). So I extended my caress of her neck a little farther, ... and a little farther, ... until I brushed against one breast. Silence. I brushed her breast again, a little more directly. She said nothing, but shifted her arm slightly out of my way. Aha. OK, so it was an invitation after all. I caressed her breast with my hand, found that her nipple was standing up, and pinched it gently between my fingers. Still she said nothing, and made no move to turn away. Fine, that is as conclusive as it gets. Wife was aroused and (in her own way) asking to fuck.

But I continued to move slowly; rush her and she'll turn sharp and nasty. So I undid a button at the neck of her nightgown, slid my hand inside, and began slowly and gently stroking both breasts ... and her shoulders, and her stomach. And only after several minutes of this did I slide a hand down one leg. Her legs were pitched apart, carelessly as if they had fallen that way by random chance but allowing my hand plenty of access. On the other hand, I found that she was wearing panties. Fine, no hurry -- I stroked her and caressed her through her panties for some minutes before finally hooking a thumb in the waistband and trying to pull them off.

Once again she actually moved, shifting her weight just a little so that the panties would slide off and then returning to her previous motionlessness. She almost looked bored, or asleep. But as my hand made its way back to her vulva, I found that she was dripping, sopping wet. Fair enough. I slid a couple of fingers inside her, and described tight circles around her clit with my thumb. And finally -- finally! -- she began to move in a way that acknowledged that something was going on. She still didn't speak -- heavens, no! But her hips began to rock in time with my hand and she started breathing harder.

I don't know if she ever came. Certainly there was nothing like the visibly explosive orgasms she had when she was younger, to say nothing of the louder (and far more frequent) orgasms that D is blessed with. She experienced some minor twitching, though, and after a while told me that she was getting too sensitive and my fingers were starting to hurt. (Attentive readers will notice that these were in fact the first words she uttered during this whole process since she complained that one hand was going numb.) Hurt? Is that just inside, or outside too? I tried pulling my fingers out and just rubbing her clit, but she said even that was too sensitive and asked, "How about having you there, instead of your fingers?"

Wife continued to breathe hard as I fucked her; after I came, I rested inside her for a little while and we stared into each other's eyes. Then I pulled out, she rolled over with her back to me, and we spooned for a few minutes. And when she finally said something, it was about what things we had to do today.

As I have been writing the story of this morning, I've remembered so many other times in our marriage that sex was almost exactly the same. What was different for me between today and those earlier times was my own emotional state. Specifically, I had a lot more anxiety then: anxiety about guessing wrong what Wife wanted and being slapped for it (if only figuratively); anxiety that she might not come because I did something wrong; anxiety that the best I could hope for from fucking Wife was silence and non-responsiveness. And this morning, I was free of all of that. I was much more relaxed, and could enjoy myself more. I don't know how the morning was for Wife, but I could imagine that being more relaxed could also make me more loving to her because I would be less on edge, less afraid of being wrong.

And I am sure that the difference is D. Well, mostly: part of it is that I have come to accept that Wife simply may not orgasm these days, so I don't focus so single-mindedly as I once did on the job or mission of gratifying her. But for the rest of it? I know how Wife reacts, I know what to expect, and I now know that it's not all my fault. After spending rapturous nights with D, I know that I am not a hopelessly inept lover, even if I still blush a little at D's extravagant praise. After enjoying D's lavish responsiveness, I know that Wife's non-responsiveness is not simply my fault. And at an even more basic level, I don't feel the same pressure to make it perfect for Wife because I know that failure with her does not close off the possibility of sex for another year.

I have read people discuss the question whether an affair makes it easier or harder to stay married. I don't know the answer; but after this morning, I have to say that I think I find it easier to be Wife's husband when I am also D's lover. It's strange, but there it is.

A visit from Boyfriend 4

We had a visit from Boyfriend 4 Monday night, and part of Tuesday I guess. He has been out of commission for a couple of months or more with his cancer treatments, and just now was finally able to make the (several hour) drive from where he lives today out to our house. He said he’d get to our place about dinner time.

Boyfriend 4 was late getting here because the winter weather made the traffic way worse. So he had not yet arrived by the time we had to eat so that I could leave to take Son 1 to Boy Scouts; but he was here by the time we got back (about 9:00 pm). I had asked Son 2 to stay awake till we got back, because I wasn't sure Wife could; so he was reading in bed, Wife was groggy but vaguely conscious, and Boyfriend 4 was smoking in his car when Son 1 and I drove up. Son 1 hung out and talked with Boyfriend 4 and me till about 9:30, then showered and went to bed. Son 2 packed it in about 9:30 as well. Wife staggered out of bed long enough to yell at Son 1 to turn in, and then she fell asleep for good. Which left me talking with Boyfriend 4 more or less nonstop for about 3 hours.

I guess I have never mentioned that Boyfriend 4 lived with us for a couple of years, back when he was between jobs. Wife was having more troubles around the house (because of her illnesses), she really couldn’t take care of the boys very effectively, and the two of them had started fucking just a few months before. So it really seemed like a fairly simple solution to multiple problems to have him live with us as a housekeeper, nanny, and general caretaker. Anyway, I mention it only because Monday night we were talking the way we used to talk when he lived here (and when he was sober and nothing was wrong) -- jumping from one topic to another quite carelessly. He seemed almost his old self, although he told me this isn't really so. He now has a colostomy bag (hidden in his pants, I guess), he said he still experiences a lot of neuropathy in his legs and feet caused by the chemotherapy, and (as he put it) if he were in any kind of romantic relationship right now he would be a Viagra customer. Still, he summarized his condition by saying "numb and limp is better than dead." And apparently his condition was far more serious than anyone told him. After he was recovering, his doctor admitted that if Boyfriend 4 hadn't started treatment when he did ... and if things hadn't gone just the way they were supposed to ... then he might have lived to see Christmas but would almost certainly not have seen the end of January. And here he was instead, able to drive for hours (even if it did exhaust him) and tell jokes and all the usual stuff. And it was fun just to be able to talk, even if most of it was totally inconsequential stuff.

It did concern him a lot that Wife looks (so he says) as haggard as HE looked just before his treatment.

In the end he decided not to sleep on the sofa here. He said he'd rather rent a cheap hotel room, ostensibly so he can smoke in the room instead of having to go outside. I suspect that he may also have brought along one or two bottles of beer, and he knows we won't let him drink in the house. In any event, he said he'd come back in the morning to visit with Wife before moving on. I told him that if his plans changed, naturally he would be welcome for dinner.

I guess he came back for part of Tuesday, after I was at work and the boys were at school, and pushed Wife through the day’s errands. I never heard a lot about that. What is amusing is that I heard from D this afternoon what Wife later reported about the visit.

Wife was apparently glad to see Boyfriend 4, as were we all at one level or another. But once I got home? Let’s see, D tells me that Wife told her that I was screaming at the boys and at her and at Boyfriend 4, that the boys were screaming back at me, and that finally Boyfriend 4 took me for a walk so that I would calm down and Wife could get some sleep. Ummm, ... screaming? Could she possibly have been hearing the raucous laughter at Boyfriend 4’s bad puns? Could she perhaps have been hearing the boys’ natural exuberance, combined with their enthusiasm at seeing “Uncle B4” again? Or what? I have no idea how to account for this story. I suppose the good part is that I don’t have to take it very seriously, either.

Third date

Four days, three nights, in another world. It seems so strange when D and I are together, because it is, in a sense, like nothing else in our lives. And yet it seems the most natural thing we can imagine.

Last week – well, I guess a little longer by now – I discovered I was going to have to take a business trip this week for just a couple of days. The business duties involved were not going to be very pleasant and I had only a few days’ notice, but I sent a note to D just in case she could get free. What did her schedule look like? She replied from work, a scant two hours later, “I'm completely dazed and mad with joy...really?” Yes, sweetheart, really.

Admittedly it wasn’t quite that simple. Not only had the trip been thrown together at the last minute, but then complications kept coming up. (Nothing is ever easy, it seems ... at least not in the world of infidelity.) For a while – after D had already made her own travel arrangements – it looked like my trip was going to be cancelled, which would have left her stuck in another state with nothing to do. Then the details changed again ... and yet again ... and the upshot was that I was going to make the trip but might not be needed in the office one of the days I would be there. And that was OK with me, actually ....

I flew Wednesday, arriving Wednesday night. D had very carefully arranged a flight on the same carrier that landed at the same airport within five minutes of mine: we met as I exited the plane. We kissed, of course, deeply and lovingly, but with none of the clawing desperation of our last couple of meetings – the surprise and anxiety that this couldn’t be real, that we had to cling to it with every ounce of strength, that it was some kind of dream. This time it was much more natural, just two lovers meeting again after an absence of a few weeks. Hello darling, I’m so glad to see you here. I missed you. I love you.

The next hour or more were remarkable only for their ordinariness. We had none of the missed cues or awkwardnesses of our last two dates; we knew what to expect from each other, and so we got the luggage and the rental car, and checked into the hotel, all without a hiccup. I called Wife to tell her I had arrived safely, while D unpacked and lit a scented candle and made the room unobtrusively beautiful.

Then, of course, we gave up any thoughts of dinner but undressed and went to bed. And what with the last-minute readjustments in my work schedule, we stayed there more or less until noon on Thursday, ... when we finally showered, dressed, and ordered a meal.

For all the time we spent making love, however, I’ve never mastered the knack of reporting on it in a narrative kind of way. So the story is going to be a little shallow in this area. But there were a few highlights:

• D has some of the most wonderful, sensual perfume. On our first date I got the scent of it all over one shirt and had to do laundry surreptitiously as soon as I got home. She brought the perfume this time, but was careful never to put it on until we were naked.
• Once again, D praised my skill as a lover effusively. I still can’t believe it. All I can assume is that, with a woman as electrifyingly responsive as D, it’s not hard for any reasonably attentive man to look skillful. (Hint: If you try something and she likes it, do it again; if she doesn’t, don’t.) But it was still sweet to hear.
• I also seem to have gotten over a lot of the erectile issues that afflicted me so persistently (if not quite always) during our first two dates. I was starting to be afraid that it was just middle age, and I was wondering how exactly to hide it from Wife if I had to get a prescription for Pfizer’s little blue pill. But for whatever reason, it was far less of a problem this time. So that is another kind of normality re-established.
• And we talked. And talked. As always, about everything ... whenever we weren’t fucking, at any rate. It’s true that the fucking put a serious stopper on the conversation. On the other hand, ... oh my God, was it worth it! Besides, we can talk any time.
• Have I mentioned lately how lucky I am that we love each other?

In the end, I never went into the office Thursday at all but spent it all with D. I went in Friday to take care of the business I had been sent for; but once that was over with, I couldn’t keep my mind on my work and left again by mid-afternoon. In all we spent three nights together, and we both flew home Saturday.

The only tense part was Friday night, when we went out to dinner. We were discussing movies, and D mentioned really enjoying “Green Card.” I said the movie made me very uncomfortable, for the same reason I can’t watch “Dangerous Liaisons.” In both movies, people play let’s-pretend with love, they manufacture artifices – lies – about love to manipulate others in the most callous ways ... and in both movies, Love takes a terrible vengeance and the people who perpetrate these lies are ensnared by them. (I admit, of course, that “Green Card” has a much softer and happier ending than “Dangerous Liaisons.” But the characters are still ensnared by the fictions they have created.)

I should take a moment to clarify that I am not speaking from the vantage point of moral castigation. If I wanted to preach or moralize, I would approve both movies without hesitation, because the characters’ fates are so plainly and justly and richly deserved. Both movies show very clearly that you shouldn’t play with matches. My point is simpler: it’s not that I am trying to proclaim some kind of high moral principle – it’s just that these movies make me too uncomfortable to sit still and watch them.

It’s very much the same with the Shakespearean tragedies. I am more than happy to watch Hamlet, or Julius Caesar, or the Scottish tragedy. But don’t ask me to sit through Othello or Romeo and Juliet. I have no problem seeing Prince Hamlet tortured by political and spiritual doubts about avenging himself against King Claudius; I cannot watch Othello tortured by the romantic and sexual doubts planted by Iago. In a way that cannot be measured by the body count at the end of Act 5, it is far too painful to me.

But I have wandered away from my story.

As I tried to explain this all to D, she fell quiet. Then she put down her knife and fork in the middle of dinner and stared straight ahead, saying nothing. It took me a few minutes to notice. When I did, I asked, “Are you angry about something?”

“No.”

“Well then are you upset?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me what about? Did I say something to hurt your feelings? What was it? I never meant to ... can you tell me what it was so that I can take it back? Please?”

Silence. You may have noticed that I get a little frantic around women who are upset – particularly if they are upset with me.

D continued to stare and think and say nothing. Her dinner just sat there, forgotten and congealing. When I finished eating she called for the check (I had bought the night before); then she paid and quickly left. I had to scamper quickly down the sidewalk to keep up with her.

“D, for heaven’s sake, can you please tell me what is going on?”

“Hosea, this is just untenable.”

“What is untenable?”

“Our relationship ... this ... everything we are doing.”

“What are you talking about? What is untenable about it?”

“Look, Hosea. I know you take commitments seriously. I always knew that. So do I. But I never dreamed that your view of romantic relationships is so idealistic, ... that your principles in this area are so high. Hosea, if those are your ideals then ultimately you’re not going to be able to sustain an affair with me. You just can’t. The affair will violate who you are at such a basic level that if you try to sustain it then one day it will just destroy you.”

“Wait a minute – is this all about my dumb remarks about those movies? Are you telling me if we never discussed those movies then you wouldn’t be upset with me right now? Can I just admit that my opinions are stupid and take them off the table, so we can go back to where we were half an hour ago?”

“Hosea, it’s not about the movies. It’s about you – who you are in the core of your soul – and whether this affair is good for you. And it looks to me right now like it’s not good for you ... like it is destructive for you ... and that means it is untenable. And for your own good maybe we need to end it.”

“What??? D, you can’t mean this. D, I love you. You know that. Don’t you? Yes, I’m married – so are you – and so yes, I still have some kind of a commitment to Wife. But at the same time I have a commitment to you – are you telling me you’re going to ignore this and just walk away from me?”

“Hosea, I know you love me. I know you are in love with me. But that’s beside the point. Just because you are in love with me doesn’t mean that being in love with me is good for you. You could fall in love with someone totally unsuitable, ... someone who couldn’t begin to match your character. You could fall in love with a ... a hunchback ...,” her voice cracked, “... and that wouldn’t prove anything. Honestly I don’t have a lot of confidence that you are any good at taking care of yourself, or you wouldn’t talk to me for hours at night without sleep until you are worn out with exhaustion and ragged with despair .... And Hosea, I ... love ... you! I love you more than anyone or anything, more than I can ever say. I could never forgive myself if our affair destroyed you, by eating away at your principles and your character until there is nothing left. And since I can’t trust you to look out for yourself and set limits where you need them, I have to do it for you. Do you think this makes me happy, saying these things? Can’t you see how desperate I am? But I can’t let myself ruin you! Hosea ... what if I’m Valmont? Don’t you remember that Mme de Tourvel dies??”

“Oh my God. D, stop. Stop and look at me. D, you’re not Valmont. Valmont lies. Valmont lies about love in order to manipulate Mme de Tourvel, among so many others. D, have you lied to me about your love? Even once?”

“No. I haven’t lied.”

“Then you’re not Valmont. You are better than that. Think of ... [here I mentioned a number of people in her life that she has put herself radically on the line in order to help]. Can you really say you might be Valmont when you think about them?”

“I don’t think that’s the point.”

“It’s exactly the point. And as for Mme de Tourvel, stop and think about what is universal in the story and what is specific to the time and place. She dies because she gets sick and there is not adequate medical care to look after her. That’s not going to happen to me. I’m not going to die. What is universal in the story is the heartbreak – and yes, I might suffer heartbreak. But D, we talked about that before and we both walked into this affair with our eyes open on that score.”

“But you aren’t seeing that ....”

“What is more, that risk of heartbreak is the very same issue with those movies, too. My problem with them has nothing to do with some kind of abstract principle. It’s just that they hurt too much for me to watch them. So if you are bothered by my feelings about these movies, you can’t chalk it up to some grand principle that might be destroyed if I compromise it with you ... because my feelings are all about fearing the vengeance of Love, fearing the pain of heartbreak. And we have already talked about that and accepted the risk. There is nothing more to say on that front.”

“Look, Hosea, I know you’re clever at this kind of argument; but you can’t really claim that there’s not an issue here. You simply can’t pretend that you are so smart that you can know this is not a real problem.”

“Yes I can.” God, I can be arrogant sometimes. “D, please. Don’t talk about leaving. Can we go back home now? I mean, back to the hotel?”

In the end we finally went back to the hotel, where we fucked more fiercely and intensely than at any other time this week. And the next morning we packed for the airport. As we waited for our flights, D smiled at me and re-opened the conversation a little obliquely.

“You know, Hosea, you could probably never get rid of me if you tried. Oh, I’m sure if you told me to go away forever, then somehow I would find a way to make myself do it. But short of that, there is nothing you could do to make me leave you permanently. You really don’t have to worry that. And if I really asked you for something out of line, you’d probably let me know it.”

I thought of all the times I have asked myself what I am doing here, and chuckled a bit. “Yes, I probably would. I’ve told myself before that as long as our affair is working for me, that’s fine; but if it stops working, who needs it? I never said that about my marriage, but I’ve already asked myself – times when we’ve been bickering and I’ve been depressed – why exactly I need two intense, demanding women in my life. Isn’t one enough? Don’t take that wrong ....”

D laughed. “No, I know exactly what you mean. What we have together gives us both a kind of freedom, actually. We don’t have to stick it out for society, or for the children, or anything like that. So we can make it just what we need it to be for us.”

About that times our planes were called. We kissed – again and again – and then boarded our respective planes to fly back to the real world.

Comic interlude: drugs and demons

My narrative has been short on humor for a little while, but D's conversations with Wife (and Wife's with Boyfriend 5) have taken up the slack. I have just been remiss in posting about them.

The day after Counseling 17, D spoke with Wife on the phone and summarized her conversation as follows:

Wife made no sense today. I'm sorry, but honestly, sometimes she's just not thinking quite straight. She spent a goodly amount of time angry because [when she walked in] you were discussing your job with Counselor rather than using the time to deal with your "issues". When I suggested that perhaps you did not see any personal matters to discuss with Counselor while waiting for her, she became quite angry and insisted that you had as many problems as she does (oh no, you don't. There is *no* way!); she then talked a great deal about your [alleged] drinking problem. At one point, she insisted that I had only a half glass of wine [over dinner while I was visiting you] while you finished the rest of the bottle. That's simply not true. I matched you, glass for glass, every night. And why not? The wine was lovely, and we both richly earned a bit of relaxation (which we took, let's be honest). All this could be concerning, but what doesn't make sense is her abrupt subject shift to Boyfriend 5's drug addiction. He is unable to visit her because he will run out of muscle relaxants due to substance abuse when his pain becomes more than he can tolerate. OK...let me get this straight. You are a bad person who has an alcohol problem, but her ex-heroin addict boyfriend is to be pitied and cared for because he abuses prescription drugs to such an extent that travel becomes impossible. What am I missing here?

Even weirder postscript. She told me that Boyfriend 5 wasn't 'mad' at her for being concerned about his drug use. Does this man have a clue? And this after Wife insisted that you had no ability to have an emotional life, and would treat any other woman in your life the same way you treat her. You would never talk to her, or ever even mention your children or family. Hosea, who needs drugs? I'm listening to surreal conversation every day.

There was also some discussion to the effect that Wife was planning to spend part of the year in the Old Country. I did a little checking and found that yes, indeed she was discussing exactly that ... and was planning to travel by demon express:

Wife: i'm so blessed, so grateful to have you in my life. i'm not possessive, don't expect to be the only or most important thing in your life, but i am glad i'm there too. Loving you is what makes it worth getting up every day. Knowing you love me is second.
Boyfriend 5: I feel the same about you, even if I can't always talk to you. You're still here, in my mind.
Wife: And you know what? It feels really wonderful to belong to you. And no, it's not "just online". We're as real as it gets. i will belong to you in person, too. :) and looking forward to it, i might add. And we won't always be separated, will we?
Boyfriend 5: Damn straight we won't.
Wife: So, with [your demon]'s help, maybe, we can spend some quality time in "real time" instead of online. Maybe eventually i'll even learn to travel by myself -- who knows? Doubt i'll have the talent, but... i want so badly to just have you hold me.
Boyfriend 5: Yes, we can...I wish you could get away for a weekend, but...maybe one day.
Wife: yes
Boyfriend 5: Wouldn't someone shit his pants if you told him a demon was coming to take you to the Old Country to spend the weekend with me. That's the first laugh I've had all day.
Wife: i'm pretty sure Hosea wouldn't believe it, for starters. He's convinced you don't even live there and there's a chance i'd be left at the airport alone -- i'll be he doesn't believe in demons and i KNOW he doesn't believe in TPing -- so if i told him [your demon] was coming for me, he would truly have his jaw drop when he showed up out of nothing in the kitchen or something. Too bad he looks human, actually.
Boyfriend 5: He'd believe it if he saw it.
Wife: yes, he would.
Boyfriend 5: [My demon] looks like whatever he wants to look like. Horns and goat feet?
Wife: Great. And red eyes! :) LOL! The thought amuses me greatly.
Boyfriend 5: Yeah! Slitted eyes, and a forked tongue.
Wife: And for me to tell Hosea that i *want* to go with this character, "poof" into nothingness... i'd
promise to call when i got there safely, of course, as always.
Boyfriend 5: lollollollollol LMAO LMAO LMAO
Wife: and it wouldn't be a 30-hour transatlantic flight, either. :)
Boyfriend 5: I still like the idea of [my demon] taking him to the jungle or antartica or something.
Wife: Just scaring the bejesus out of him would be ok...but actually, if [your demon] wanted to appear totally respectable and let Hosea see him appear out of nothingness, it would force H to believe that you guys *can* TP and that i can get there without plane tix. Don't know what i'd do if caught there without a visa stamp, tho.
Boyfriend 5: You wouldn't get caught.

As D says, Who needs drugs?

Fortune cookie from dinner

We had take-out Chinese food for dinner tonight, and got one too many fortune cookie. I split one with the boys and got the following:

"Romance and travel go together now."

Did I mention that a couple of days ago I had a surprise business trip dropped into my lap, for next week? Did I mention that when I told D about it, she promptly rearranged her schedule so that she could get away from work along about the same time?

As I said once before, it looks like I have a date ....

Underestimating Wife 2, The back story

This evening, I got an e-mail from D that explained what went on with this business about the phone bill. Apparently she had talked to Wife and the subject had come up. Here is her news:

Dearest Hosea,

We came damn close to being found out. She mentioned the bill to me, and she most definitely had calculated the minutes you spent on the phone. She wasn't able to scrutinize it more closely because the boys were nagging her to do something with them. She left it on the table, planning on going back [where I (Hosea) found it, picked it up, and whisked it out of sight]; she wants to see it again and check the recipient of the long calls [aha! so she didn't get that far!], but I doubt that she'll ask you for the bill. She will, however, surely grab the next bill, so call me from work, on the work line, or buy a cell phone card with minutes and use that, but stay away from calling me from your cell phone. And for heaven's sake, just pay the bill and make the paperwork disappear. I was right to think that [the city listed on the bill, which is near where D lives but not the same town] would not register, and she did not check the times of your calls, but she clearly thinks that your late night absences can probably be explained by looking at the bill. She's right.

I asked her why she did not confront you about these calls this afternoon [in Counselor's office], and she told me that she is worried that you will get angry at her when you receive the next bill because there are so many long calls from Friend on it (which explains why she opened this bill). Wife says she has not mentioned the calls from Friend, so you would have no way of knowing about them until you received the bill. You *won't* mention them...you do not want to engage in a conversation about last month's phone bill. If the calls don't set the family finances behind, I think you should just leave them alone. Again, we were lucky this time. Let's be more careful next time.

So she was prevented from studying this more closely by nagging kids and my sudden arrival home. Who says there is no special providence?

More seriously, this explains everything nicely -- both the open envelope and her failure to say anything. I only hope there are no long calls on my part on the next bill; but certainly there won't be many because this one covers most of January. D is right that we have to be more careful.

Still, it is nice to have a reprieve, if only for a month.

Counseling 19, Or was that mis-underestimating ...?

Then again, maybe I didn't underestimate Wife after all.

At any rate, she didn't mention the phone bill once in our session with Counselor ... nor did she raise any questions about me and anybody else, nor did she mention D except once (in passing) as one of the few people she talks to each day.

She did mention her state of health and exhaustion. She did talk about how tough it is to get me to understand when she needs me to do things. We discussed this subject for a bit and seem to have hit on a method that should work, when she has actual activities that she needs from me. ("Please send a check to Dr. X to cover the copying of my medical records.")

And she added, reasonably enough, that this doesn't address emotional needs at all; and that she feels like she is my last priority, after job and kids and bills.

OK, what can we do about this? I am willing to listen to suggestions, but I don't feel a lot of incentive to offer creative solutions of my own.

Well, Hosea, the problem is that you are always at work or taking the boys to their evening activities, and I fall asleep before we can spend any time together.

What do you recommend? Should we cancel some of the boys' activities? (I should note that D has pointed out to me quite emphatically that the claim of "no time" is bullshit. She says that we make time for what is important to us. And it is certainly true that I can't find anywhere in my schedule that I have time to talk to her for 1200 minutes in a single month, or write her several e-mails a day. But somehow I do it.)

No, no, ... we can't do that. I don't know ....

At this point, Counselor interrupted with a suggestion that maybe we could have lunch some time.

No, that won't work. (Notice how Wife is so good at finding reasons that things won't work?) Every time in the past when I have called Hosea out of the blue and suggested lunch, he always has a meeting.

Ummm ... yes dear. But that's because I haven't planned for it ahead of time. If you spring it on me, I've probably already allocated my day so it won't fit. If I can plan for it ahead of time, then lunch is more of a possibility. (Candor compels me to add that this is only part of the explanation. The other part is that I really don't look forward to having lunch mid-day with Wife, because we no longer have anything to discuss except her medical conditions. And that is pretty depressing as a topic of conversation. Of course, this is a symptom of the vast emotional distance between us now, and spending more time apart just exacerbates that. So I know it is a self-feeding cycle. That doesn't make me look forward to such lunches, but never mind.)

The upshot is that we agreed that this weekend we would schedule lunch out some time next week. And then we would see how it goes. Totally unremarkable.

I don't know if Wife is just waiting for later, but I think she would have sounded different, in subtle ways. So it is possible that she really didn't read the cell phone bill that carefully, or didn't process what she was reading.

Or that she understood but doesn't care, I guess ....

Underestimating Wife ...?

I got home from work last night, as usual. The bills were on the kitchen table waiting for me. As usual.

Except that the cell phone bill had been opened.

Which showed a bunch of messages to D's cell phone.

To the tune of 1283 minutes, and 14 text messages.

Ooops.

Wife didn't say anything about it all evening, but I know she fears and avoids confrontation. I also know that we see Counselor today. It would not be out of character for her to mention it then. I'll have to see how it goes.

The thing is, I plainly underestimated her. She never opens the bills. She never looks after even the most basic kinds of information security. (Only last week did she finally disable the "message recording" feature on her IM software.) So I never worried about getting a second cell-phone and having the bill sent to my work, or anything like that.

D and I agree that if she asks, I should say yes of course we talk, and then stick to the intellectual things we discuss. We agree to denying anything sexual, although D thinks that Wife is honestly not very interested in that. D's theory is that Wife would be most interested in what we say about her, and it is easy to tell her that it's not much.

I guess I'll see how it goes.

Counseling 18

Our most recent counseling session to date seemed like two different meetings, each of about half the session.

In the first half, Wife was subdued and apparently grateful, thanking me for cleaning up the kitchen every night (something I have done most nights, but not quite all, since D was here).

In the second half she suddenly shifted gears and started yelling at me (and weeping!) for not joining her at her first appointment with a potential new internist. I told her I'd had no idea she wanted me there; she insisted that she had dropped lots of hints; and Counselor wanted to make sure each of us understood how the other felt about the whole event.

I shouldn't be dismissive, because there is (potentially) a lot of material here. It is true that Wife has a hard time stating what she wants. It is true that she feels it is rude to ask, so she'll drop hints instead. And it is true that I have trouble picking up indirect hints, and respond much better to an explicit request.

As I say, there is a lot of material here but I'm not going to address it tonight. I'm tired and I want to go to bed. On the other hand I wanted to get caught up in the sequence of Counseling sessions, if not the general narrative, because we see Counselor again tomorrow and I have a feeling this next meeting might be a doozy. So I need to be able to write about it while it is still fresh in my mind.

Counseling 17

Our next appointment with Counselor was uneventful. (This brings us up to January 15, for anybody following along with a calendar.) Wife was late because of traffic and road construction; Counselor asked how I was and we talked aimlessly for a little bit. I have not told him about my affair with D yet, and see no reason to hurry ... but this means I am a bit at a loss how to answer the question "What's going on with you?" if there hasn't been anything dramatic involving Wife.

When Wife got there, she told us about an idea she had had a few days earlier -- viz., that the ritalin she is taking for her (self-prescribed) ADD might be interfering with her appetite, and might therefore explain why she has lost so much weight recently. She also spent some time talking about D's long phone call with her the Monday before. The call really seems to have done her a lot of good. She explained -- at least twice -- that D had gone out of her way to exonerate me completely, and that D had assured her further that when we went for coffee in the morning or I stayed late at the motel at night, we were not spending the time conspiring against her. (And she never thought that we might be involved? If her only worry was that we might be conspiring against her, that seems to argue in favor of a diagnosis of narcissism -- the world revolves around her -- if not outright paranoia. But what do I know?) Anyway, she said that D's reassurances made her feel a lot better (!!!) and she apologized for accusing me of conspiring in that way. In turn, I told her that it was certainly no part of my intention that the whole event hurt her so badly -- that it FEEL like a conspiracy, for starters -- and that I was sorry it had. And that topic seemed to end happily.

Then she talked about her fall. She made it quite clear that this was my fault ... she was rushing to the dinner table because I had told the boys it was time to wash up; and I am always so impatient about getting dinner served that she knew she had to run or I'd get mad at her. (Or something like that ... you all know how controlling I can be.) So she got up too fast, and -- unsurprisingly -- she fell. She talked a little longer about how she felt about this, and Counselor asked her what would make it better for her. She listed three things she would like me to do: I no longer remember what they were -- and in fact I could not remember them an hour out of the meeting -- but I remember noting at the time that I am already currently doing all three ... so compliance should be pretty easy. I replied that I didn't agree with her description of what happens when I serve up dinner, but all three of the things she asked for sounded reasonable. And about then we ran out of time.

Unexciting, but I figured I should keep you posted. So, how has your day been?

Wife fell

Two days after this phone call, I was putting dinner on the table and telling Wife and the boys it was time to come eat. Wife had been lying down on the bed in the back bedroom. The next thing I heard (I was in the kitchen) was a loud crash and the boys shouting for me to come over. Wife was lying sprawled in the doorway of their room, still clutching her diet soda (much of which had spilled all over the floor). There was what looked like a big welt on her head.

One of the boys took her soda, and I helped her stand up. Her upper lip was stuck in a grimace that looked vaguely like a chipmunk, and she seemed dazed. After holding her standing for a few minutes I asked her to stop grimacing (she did) and then helped her back to bed. We brought her dinner on a tray to eat there.

Her interpretation was just that she had stood up too quickly. She says that her neurologist says that if she stands up too fast she is at risk for blacking out, but otherwise she is perfectly fine. For my part, I wonder: if it were that easy, surely she would make sure it never happened ... right? There was a while that she was blacking out not altogether infrequently (though I wouldn't exactly want to call it common or often). Back then I was worried about her renewing her driver's license.

The welt on her head, where she knocked into ... I don't know ... the bookshelf, maybe, or the doorframe, was a real doozy. It swelled to a huge size, and I asked her several times if she wanted to go to the hospital. But I didn't want to force the issue, and she steadfastly refused to go. I realize in retrospect that I was glad the boys both saw her fall (saw her, in fact, a lot better than I did), so that there is no question where the welt came from.

I checked on her through the next morning, but she didn't seem to need to go to the hospital after all.

Taking it on the chin

Then Monday, Wife and D talked on the phone as usual, and Wife exploded. In the middle of the workday, I got an e-mail from D saying:

Dear Hosea,
Wife is now yelling at me and making up half the material. I'm irritated, but trying to protect you while assuming all the burden for the decisions made in the study. It looks like I'll be paying for that damn pen. [Wife accused D of throwing away her father's fountain pen from the 1930's, for no better reason than that it was caked with dust and wouldn't write.] Frankly, I'm only repentant for your sake. I hope this earns me credit in Purgatory. sigh*
I love you. I'd better, for all the nonsense I'm taking right now. More later.
D

My answer to this first mail was brief:

Oh shit. I'm so sorry.
I swear if you pay for the pen I will burn the check.

Almost an hour later, I got the following update:

Darling,
I'm still taking it on the chin; there is not a lot I can do except take full responsibility and shield you from her anger. I'll mostly fail here, but maybe less anger will come your way. I'll pay for anything she deems necessary, sweetheart, if it helps you and the children.
Let's be depressed together. God...two hours of being raked over the coals for no good reason. sigh*
I love you, I really do.
D

This time my reply was a little more puzzled.

Why is she doing this now??? She wasn't like this last week. Is it all because we worked Saturday to clean out the storage unit?
Of course, her mother would fly into unpredictable rages too.
"The children"? She can't possibly blame them, can she? Or do you think she will take it out on them for being so helpful? And you know, maybe you shouldn't worry so much about shielding me from her anger ... I hate to think of you taking it all on the chin here. And it's not like I'm not used to her being like this.
I have a meeting so I have to sign off now. I love you. Hang in there ... or hang up, if that's better.
All my love,
H

A full hour and a half after THAT, I finally got the following update:

Dearest Hosea
Sigh* Imagine you are surrounded by students who love you, listening to you apologize over and over, trying, with only some measure of success, to shield someone else they don't know. They were very kind to me; they knew I was upset. Even Pericles and his Funeral Oration could not cheer me up, although they did understand how different it was from Confucius and Chinese Legalism. God, what an afternoon.
I would let you take the heat, if in fact you were responsible for throwing away her things and setting the plan for the study. Since you weren't, it's hardly fair for you to bear the burden. Of course, what is obvious to me is that she faults you, not me, for failing to provide the trappings of middle class existence she wanted for so long. Good God. Never have such material things seemed so worthless to me as this afternoon (I could get really emotional here, and that's not going to help. Take a deep breath, D). How can anyone measure a person's worth by the things they own? Hosea, I can't finish this thought.
I'm so upset, I can't write any more. I just feel completely trapped and helpless. This is a horrible place to be, particularly when I think of you being here all the time.
Perhaps we can talk later.
I'm going to read your essay [on a website that I write under my own name] about ..., one of my favorite authors. A Calvinist...but you know that. Today, if you want to talk about total depravity, I'm right with you.... You are depressed? Me too, sweetheart.
I love you, in every way possible.
D

The conversation between us wandered on for another day or so, but this is enough to give you an idea of what happened that day between D and Wife. I still thought that D was crazy to apologize so much over something so stupid, but in the long run it turned out she was wiser than I was ....
.

Back to the storage unit

Ever since we moved into our house, we have also rented a storage unit to hold some of our excess junk. When D was here for a week, she urged us ("made us" would be closer) rent a second one so we could clear things out of the house that couldn't be thrown away. So the first weekend after she left -- that's a couple of days after this counseling session -- I announced that we needed to go down to the storage units to see if we couldn't find enough stuff to throw away that we could consolidate the two units into one (thus saving some money).

We got there by noon. I made a point at the beginning of saying that I wanted to go after low-hanging fruit -- in other words, I was prepared to skip stuff that (e.g.) I thought was useless but Wife would fight tooth-and-nail over. There was still a lot of low-grade bickering over this and that; but so long as a thing provoked no more than low-grade bickering, I just insisted it had to go and shoved it into the car. When the car was full, I drove it off to the thrift store.

And there I got my first real shock -- the thrift store we had been using up till now wouldn't accept it. "Our dumpster is full, and there's no way we can sell this junk." In other words, I had a car full of -- yes, you guessed it -- stuff I couldn't give away. The irony lay thick upon the ground. Fortunately, they gave me directions to another thrift store, who DID take it all. Otherwise, I had visions of driving to the dump, and having to pay for each load I dumped. I was somewhat mollified by the reflection that it would take many loads to add up to the cost of a single month's rent of one storage unit.

I had wanted to spend only a couple of hours there, since we had other things to do as well. In the end, though, we were there for about four hours, at the end of which my arms were really tired from lifting so many boxes. We went home, Wife went to bed, I started some laundry, and the rest of the evening was fairly quiet. We got take-out food for dinner, and the boys watched a movie on DVD. Not bad for a day's work ....