Backstory on Boyfriend 4

Recently, Mags left a comment on this post reflecting a confusion that other people probably share. She wrote: "Okay, the thing that strikes me most is how helpful Boyfriend 4 is and how comfortable you and the boys are with him. I'm trying to wrap my head around that and... just can't. Crazy."

Yes, it would be, ... except there is a backstory that makes it a little less crazy. And up till now I have been too lazy to bother telling it, but I suppose I have to.

You will have noticed that we keep in social contact with Boyfriend 4, far more than with any of Wife's other amours. I have talked about e-mailing with him here and here. I've discussed the progress of his cancer diagnosis and treatment, at least in abbreviated form. And I've mentioned here and here that he used to be around the house quite a bit.

In fact, I knew Boyfriend 4 way back in high school; I met him years before I ever met Wife, and he was one of several friends I invited to the wedding. Over the ensuing years we kind of lost touch, although every so often I would get an e-mail out of the blue.

Years went by. Then he came through town for some reason ... I forget the occasion. We visited and had a grand time and he was on his way again. A few months later he happened to be coming back through town, only this time I was gone for a week on a business trip.

So he stopped in anyway to visit with Wife and the boys. Apparently when he first rang the doorbell, Son 1 answered it (this was 4 or 5 years ago), and Boyfriend 4's first words were, "My God he looks like Hosea!" (It's true. Total strangers walk up to me in supermarkets to say this.) Anyway, Wife was having trouble coping with the household since I was gone, and Boyfriend 4's schedule was flexible; so he offered to stick around for a couple of days to make dinner, help the boys with their homework, and be there to see me when I got back. There was a sofa in the living room he could sleep on ... so why not?

This was the plan. But it went a little bit awry one afternoon. The story as I heard it since is that the boys were outside playing, and Boyfriend 4 decided to get a shower. After his shower and shave, he got dressed in a sweatshirt and loose sweatpants, splashed Old Spice liberally over his face, and left the bathroom.

Wife met him in the hallway and said, "You smell like Old Spice."

"Ummm, yeah. I just got a shave and a shower and I always splash it on afterwards."

"I really love the smell of Old Spice."

"OK, I'm glad."

"No, you don't understand. I really, really love the smell of Old Spice." By this point, Wife is pointedly sniffing all around his face, his chin, his ears.

"Ummm, W? Not the ears. You need to stop that."

This warning just piqued Wife's contrary side. "What's wrong with your ears? They smell wonderful."

"W? You really need to leave my ears alone."

Wife is now no longer just sniffing his ears, but nibbling them gently as well. "But I can't help myself. They smell so good."

"W, I'm not kidding! You need to leave my ears alone. It's no joke -- I'm getting aroused." And indeed his loose sweatpants were already visibly bulging out in front of him.

Wife looked around quickly and said, "The boys are outside playing. Come with me." She pulled him quickly into our bedroom, then closed and locked the door. Then she pulled his sweatpants over the now-serious bulge, took his cock in her mouth, and sucked him till he came.

They had no time for anything more that afternoon. By evening, Boyfriend 4 was drunk (Wife didn't yet realize how much trouble he has with alcohol) -- drunk enough that even though he tried valiantly to fuck Wife properly and pay her with an orgasm of her own, he failed. So the next day he tried again, a bit more seriously. And by the time I got home from that business trip, the two of them were fucking regularly as a romantic couple.

I could tell. Hell, I could tell from the e-mails Wife sent me before I ever got home. But by this time I was tired from the travel and tired from a particularly trying two years with Wife (this was a new job after an 18-month spell of unemployment, a time which had challenged our marriage worse than all her infidelities wrapped up together), and tired from all the drama of Boyfriends 2 and 3. So I just asked them to tell me up front and not lie about it. I was too tired to fight or argue or complain -- just tell me the truth.

Wife wanted to; but it took her two weeks to persuade Boyfriend 4. And when he finally agreed and fessed up, all I said was, "Fine. I already knew. Thanks for telling me." As I say, I was really too bone-weary ... or maybe that was depression ... to fight about it.

That is how he became a boyfriend. The second part of the story started a couple months later.

You remember I said his schedule was flexible? Turns out he, too, was unemployed; and by the time his Unemployment Insurance ran out, he still didn't have another job. He didn't have much in the way of resources, either. And Wife was finding it really, really tough to run the household now that I was working again and couldn't stay home to do things for her. So we agreed to a plan: we would give Boyfriend 4 a place to sleep, a roof over his head, and food in the pantry; in return he would cook and clean, drive Wife to all her doctor's appointments, and help the boys with their homework.

This arrangement lasted two years. During that time he also got a part-time job; we had to deal with his alcoholism as an ongoing problem; and Wife began to distance herself from him sexually. In other words, a lot happened. But in spite of the drama around his alcohol (and in spite of the romantic drama that sputtered on between him and Wife) Boyfriend 4 did provide a measure of stability to the household that Wife would never have been able to provide on her own. The boys got to know and love him, athough they often sparred with him as an older brother rather than as a "third parent." And it took some adjustment when he finally left.

I suppose Wife would have been more depressed (and it would therefore have taken more adjustment) if she hadn't soon after met Boyfriend 5 on line ....