"We built our own walls ...."

I think I mentioned that Wife has been talking more with Boyfriend 5 lately. Most of it has been inconsequential stuff, talking about books or whether Wife could ever come visit some day. This latter topic is a little funny to me, because I have recently acquired what looks like nearly conclusive evidence that Boyfriend 5 does not live in the country where he claims to live. So a trip by Wife to visit him could be ... interesting. I haven't shared my information with Wife yet, because of the "nearly" qualifier: as long as she is in love with him, she will interpret any wiggle room to his advantage and might close off further chances for me to collect such data. So I wait.

Oh, you will like this. In other news, apparently the demon that Boyfriend 5 was talking about a couple of weeks ago has been pitching in lately to help him with his office work. Personally I didn't know that demons could use computers, but I guess that shows me! I should add that it is remarks like this that convince me Boyfriend 5 is playing the whole story for laughs. I hope Wife sees it that way too, but I haven't discussed it with her. I really, really don't think I am supposed to know this much.

But there has been a bit of discussion about the relationship between Wife and me, and it has been interesting. It almost shows up Boyfriend 5 in a sympathetic light. I'm not sure how seriously to take it, because it's not exactly like he has said a lot lately to enhance his credibility. But for what it is worth:

They had just been discussing Boyfriend 5's other lovers, and Wife said, "I'm getting very tired of being alone. It's hard not to be a bit envious."

Boyfriend 5: I'm polyamorous. I never swore I'd be monogamous....

Wife: I'm not asking you to be. Or even to limit your list of possibilities. I'm merely bemoaning my own lack of list.... I'm simply lonely because I am quite literally alone. I sleep with someone who turns his back on me and never even touches me to pat me on the head, ok? To know you have 15 people at your disposal makes it hard not to be a bit envious.

Boyfriend 5: Yeah, and to know that the reason he acts that way towards you is largely due to me, it's ... hard not to feel guilt....

Wife: It's NOT BECAUSE OF YOU. It was like that before, you have to understand that. I don't want a sex life with [Hosea]! I just want a love life with someone I love! That's different! I'm NOT asking you not to be open with me, not to talk to me ... for God's sake, at least be real with me, or we break down too, and I won't have that.... I just feel badly that I'm alone month after month, when I want to be with you. That isn't going to change until I AM with you, ok?

Boyfriend 5: And how can you say that it was like that before? At least then, he wanted to sleep with you sometimes. Even if you didn't like it. I have made a mess of your life with him, and I can't help but feel guilty and responsible....

Wife: Yes, he did, and whenever I gave in, it was a disaster that left bad feelings on both sides. You brought closure to that, which was a good thing. YOU did not make a mess of my life with him. [Hosea] and I did that ourselves years, many years, before. You need not feel any guilt or responsibility for what we did beginning in [the year that we met]. It's misplaced. You may have helped me realize just how hardened I'd become about it, but that was a matter of getting to know myself, and a good thing. We built our own walls, ... brick by brick. All you did was make it clear to me that we couldn't tear them back down.

Boyfriend 5: How can you say having no feelings for the man you're married to is a good thing? Closure a good thing? I don't agree. I didn't start it, sure, you both started it yourselves, but I sure did finish it, or help it along the road to destruction, or whatever you want to say...I can't deny it. I did, and that's what happened and I feel terrible about it, and that won't change. Before I was around, things were so much...simpler for you....

Wife: I have feelings for him. Of course I do, after all these years. I can't help it. What I don't feel is in love with him, appreciated by him, loved and respected by him. You didn't finish it; MY LOVING YOU did; it was what I did, not what YOU did. You needn't feel responsible for MY actions. Things may have been simpler for me without you, but they were emptier, bleaker, too. Don't you see that? There was no reason to keep going except that I had to for my children and I didn't know what else to do. Your talking about who you're intimate with doesn't really make me lonely because it isn't anything I don't know already; it just reminds me of the fact that when I hang up from talking with you, I will be alone again until I connect with you again, that's all. And I always dread that.... I love you.... With every fiber of my being. I live for the time we spend together. You're in my thoughts whenever we're apart. I fall asleep thinking of you. I wake up wondering when I'll get to talk to you.


I've talked before about how differently we see things, so I won't go to the trouble of whining about each of her criticisms of me, much less trying to disprove them. And after all, logically I have to admit that maybe she is right and I'm the one deluding myself. But some people have talked about how an affair can actually improve their marriage. I think Wife's comments here help explain why we, by contrast, experienced a definite downturn about the time this [up till now purely online] romance first blossomed.

I wonder how and when I am going to steel myself to tell her that Boyfriend 5 really lives in the American Midwest (instead of the exotic foreign country where he claims to be) and what happens after that.