Counseling 23 and 24

During our session with Counselor two weeks ago, we spent the time deconstructing an argument from the previous night over a big professional photo which Wife had bought of the family. This photo was and is important to Wife; I didn't want it in the house. Counselor asked me to talk about why I felt so strongly about it (and whether I thought there was room to negotiate with Wife on the subject) ... and I was really too embarrassed by even discussing the subject to get very far (much the same way that I am embarrassed by the photo in the first place). One highlight: I commented that I wasn't even that interested in negotiating the point because I took it for granted that I would lose and Wife would get her way. Wife said that makes no sense, because the night before I was adamant about not wanting the photo hanging in the house. I said, "That's right. I absolutely don't want it. I also take it for granted that I won't get what I want on this point." This baffled Wife; because, in her view of things, when I say "I want X" that means "X has been decided conclusively." (Needless to say we have different memories about how past arguments have turned out.) Anyway, so this was just incomprehensible to Wife and Counselor tried to discuss it for a bit.


Then last week, Counselor highlighted another circular dynamic between us: something happens --> Wife feels controlled --> she defends herself --> I feel like she is blaming me for controlling her --> I defend myself --> Wife feels even more controlled --> ... and so on.

And for what must be the hundredth time, he urged us to look at our interaction as if each of us were watching a (different) movie: so what shows up on Wife's movie screen really is real for her (because it is part of her movie) regardless of whether it shows up in my movie at all, or how. And vice versa. He urged us to name how we are feeling without connecting it to a broader story, so that (for example) I might say, "I'm really feeling blamed right now" if I am. And he asked if this seemed valuable.

I had to say no, I couldn't see the point. Oh sure, theoretically it makes loads of sense. But practically speaking I have a very strong expectation that if I tell Wife "I'm feeling blamed right now" her answer will be "No, I'm just defending myself against you because you are being so controlling and dominating." (In other words, "Yes, that's right, I'm blaming you.") And where is the profit in that?

Besides, I added, it is ironic that we are even talking about my hyper-controlling Wife about the laundry or whatever, since I have basically disconnected emotionally from all of that stuff. I no longer ask her about any of that but once in a blue moon. I have shut down caring about it. Let her do whatever she wants, let it be however it will be; I'm not going there. And I haven't been, for a long time now. True to form, Wife was able to fish out some really inflammatory things I had said in the last couple of weeks. And when she quoted them, yes I remembered saying them. But I also remembered that each of them had reference to a very specific context, in which alone it made sense. Deprived of context, so that this or that remark is no longer a comment on this specific thing but just a free-floating insult? Meaningless. I didn't bother saying any of this in Counselor's office, though, because he has made it clear long since that clearing one's name against one or another accusation is not the point of counseling. (I don't mean that he is insensitive. But he points out rightly that the cycle of incrimination and self-justification can go on for years -- has, in fact -- without getting anywhere. So let's not waste time on that in his office.)

So by the end of the session I have to admit I felt pretty apathetic and hopeless.

When I described this session to D afterwards, I added that I know this hopelessness is all wrong. Surely, whatever else it is or means, one promise of Easter (or of the Spring Equinox, if you prefer) is that we can always hope. So, I told her, my mind knows better and in a while I'll shake it off. I can't stay feeling this way for long, just because I never do. Somebody tells a joke or I get another cup of coffee, and it passes.

And it did.

The calm after the storm

D felt much better today. All the anger and hurt from yesterday had dissipated, and what was left was a reflective and loving calm. I shouldn't be surprised, because it only makes sense that this is going to go in cycles, at any rate as long as the whole divorce process is under way. Probably longer.

And cycles were on her mind. After a long day of work, she wrote me in part: "I suppose what I am [mulling] is just the sheer creative energy it takes to love well. If love is creative, it isn't a continuous state, .... All creative energy has winters and summers, planting and harvesting, with time in between for growth. I feel guilty at times for my jealous feelings, my possessiveness, even though every part of my intellect knows that there is no reason for either. The literal coming and going which is unavoidably our lot reminds me of Martin Buber, who once said, "love is like a light breath, at times like a wrestling match." (You have I and Thou on your bookshelf in the study; you might want to re-read it.) [I suppose I should let her know I haven't read it even once. sigh.] He used the word 'meeting' to identify true encounter, and the word has a lovely sense of movement, a dance, advancing and receding. This morning, I spent hours on my work, only to turn and meet you again this afternoon [in e-mail]. Both can be wonderful; certainly both are necessary."

And so ends another day ....

"More difficult in any way you want to name"

Recently a reader e-mailed me privately to ask, "Am I the only one of your readers who believes D when she says that you have nothing to do with the break up of her marriage? I'm in a very similar situation myself ..., and I can say with both honesty and accuracy that my relationship with a, or indeed any, man other than my husband in no way contributed to the demise of my marriage. I'd be willing to bet that leaving her husband was something that D had considered seriously more than once, but the leaving seemed just as unappealing as staying, and very certainly more difficult in any way you want to name. I say, give her credit for being an adult - a very astute and self aware adult - and accept what she says, not just as the truth as she sees it, but the truth."

For myself, I have to agree that I am coming to a similar conclusion. It is true that some months ago, when D first talked about divorce, I couldn't help but be struck by the timing. (It was right after our first date.) And so I assumed that somehow her divorce was all about me. Self-centered little prat, ain't I?

But I have come to realize that this makes no sense. D has been talking to me lately about the disintegration of the life she knew, and she has made it abundantly clear that she does not imagine I am somehow going to magically fix everything. She takes it for granted that I have no plans to leave Wife, and that we will continue to live in different states for the forseeable future. She recognizes that I have not promised her anything to the contrary, and that (if anything) I am on the whole unhappy about and uncomfortable with her impending divorce. But it's not about me, so my opinions (rightly) count for bupkis. For good or ill, it is about D and her husband and their thirty years together. Nothing else.

But to say it's not about me is not to say it is simple or easy. My correspondent is right about that. D has been going through an absolute hell of a time the last ... well I guess it has been two weeks since my last post. She saw her husband for Easter, wrote me glowingly about the vigil and the service, and then got into a bitter fight with her husband over some comment he made about the Easter litany. I don't know the details, obviously; I wasn't there. But it sounded like the kind of fight I have with Wife sometimes, that just materializes out of nowhere. One minute you are discussing something inconsequential, making idle chit-chat over morning coffee; the next minute somebody says something wrong or ill-considered, and there are tears and shouts and recriminations and nobody quite knows how you got there. D told me that she replayed the conversation and the fight over and over in her mind the rest of Easter Sunday, as she drove all the way back to the city where she works during the week. And the more she chewed it over, the worse she felt.

This story, by the way, constitutes proof (if proof were needed) that D is telling the literal truth when she says the divorce is not about me. Fights like that don't really materialize out of nowhere. They can't. As in physics, nothing comes of nothing. Fights like that can only appear and intensify that fast if they follow well-trodden pathways, cuing scripts that have been rehearsed between the same two people for years, ripping the scabs off of very old hurts. Whatever the history between D and her husband -- and I am coming to realize that I know next to nothing about it -- it long predates anything to do with me, or with our affair.

When I spoke with her on the phone yesterday, D was in a bad state. She was mad at me for ... well, nothing, really, when you come right down to it. And after we had talked for an hour she no longer sounded mad. But she still had this fight with her husband on her mind; then work has been crazy for a month or more, and she is heading into a month of even more intense craziness; and everything is falling apart. Look at it from where I stand, Hosea, she implored me. My marriage of thirty years is ending -- thirty years of high hopes and ideals and promises. My children are both away at university, but honestly they are both pretty conflicted about this. I am looking at having to do things for myself that I have never done in my entire life. Hosea, I've never had to do my own financial planning. I don't even know how to do my own taxes -- I've never done them! My work is run by madmen, and I have no idea if I will even have a job by the fall. I spend twelve hours a day at work, and then I come back to my apartment where I am alone! And I'm looking at being alone for decades to come, very likely for the rest of my life, ... with only brief visits with you here and there when you can get away. And meanwhile you go home to your wife -- here her voice caught -- and your children and you can be domestic with them, and .... Do you know how hard it is for me to talk to Wife every day and listen to her complain about you, and all I want to do is scream at her "You're living with the man I love and I don't even know when I'm going to see him again, and you have the gall to complain about it?" And then at the end of the day you can go home and ... Hosea, where is my home? This little apartment I'm renting to be near my work? Or the house that I own with my husband, where he lives and I don't? Or where, exactly? I know that I've chosen the situation myself, and I know that you've never promised me anything, and I don't even think you owe me anything, ... and I know that the only way out is through. But Hosea, some days it is so hard.

Some days it is so hard. Got that. And lately she has been going through a lot of those days.

I wish there were something I could do. I hate for her to suffer like this. When I hear it, I feel like a jerk for not abandoning everything to catch the next plane out to where she is. But I know it's crazy to think like that. And I know neither of us is really planning on crazy. And so I know this means she is going to go through a lot more pain before this is all through.

"It is possible that you will leave me"

In my last post, I mentioned that D had been feeling insecure about the bond between us. The next day, I found out what else was going on for her.

Dearest Hosea,
Today [my husband] and I agreed that our marriage had ended.
Please -- do not be afraid -- please. With every bit of integrity I possess, I will not make demands or ask for anything at all. Perhaps compassion, but nothing more. My changed status does not threaten your marriage or any other aspect of your life. I know your fears in this department after a long letter written many months ago, but I cannot reasonably hide my separation from [my husband], and you will pick up my unspoken grief even if I tried. Please trust me. I am ever so aware of my failures and faults today, but I will not harm you. My love for you makes it impossible not to ponder my emotions and actions with redoubled vigilance.
I love you, but I realize, ever so much more clearly than even this morning, that it is quite possible, even probable, that you will leave me. It's odd to say that gravity seems like a weak force right now; you meant the reference humorously, with love and confidence in tomorrow as well as today. It is hard to believe you will still be so loving this evening. But I can hope.
I have told my sister and [our grown daughter]. [Our grown daughter] said what I needed to hear -- that she loved me unconditionally despite her sorrow for us both -- and [my sister] offered help and support she wants to provide and doesn't actually know how to give an older sister who has always been her support. [My husband] says he told [our younger daughter, in college] "the unvarnished truth" in January. If he did, she has not discussed the possibility, now confirmed, of divorce with me. I know [our son, also in college] realizes something is amiss, but we have not talked either. Right now, I'm grateful for their silence; it won't last forever.
I ask that you not tell [Wife].
I will understand if you do not want to contact me for a while.
My love for you is unchanged; you have all my love.
D

You probably remember the last time this topic came up, I panicked and wrote D an e-mail that hurt her terribly. Well, I never claimed any great brilliance in the romantic arena, but I do hope I can learn from my mistakes. This time I replied as follows:

Dearest D,
I have told you that I love you, and I do. I have told you that my love is not a will o' the wisp, and does not change with the breeze ... and it isn't and doesn't. I love you now just as much as I did 12 hours ago.
I am sad for you both. I never knew [your husband] as well as I knew you -- even twelve months ago that was true -- but I think I know him well enough to be sad on his account. And on yours, of course, all the more so. But I will not panic or take fright. Part of my fear last time this topic came up was that I kept asking myself if I was somehow "to blame" for ... well, something, I don't know what. I know you better now, and as a result I know better now. And so I will not panic.
I know there is a lot I don't understand, but I also know there is no need for me to understand everything right away ... if ever. Maybe someday I will understand more than I do today -- some time in the future, I mean. Or maybe I won't. Either way it is not a question for today, and either way I am content to let it work out as it does.
But in spite of my sorrow and limited comprehension, you still have my love. Absolutely and, yes, unconditionally. Moreover, for whatever it is worth, you have my prayers that both of you are guided into a safe harbor from this point out on the high seas. And that, when each of you comes to shore, it is the right harbor and the right shore.
You have my love, secure in your keeping.
Hosea

When she answered that, she was already on her way to re-establishing the gracious and loving perspective that so perfectly characterizes her:

I am quite sad, and I have to mourn the demise of my hopes and the promises made thirty years ago. I realized yesterday that the issues between us had actually been decided months, if not years ago; now it's a matter of accepting the answers on both sides and respecting the conclusion. I won't say I understand why certain decisions have been made, but I do know that they were made without malice or the desire to hurt the other, and perhaps they were inevitable, given the persons involved. I know undoing the bonds, both emotional and financial, will be the work of many months. I'd like to do all of this with kindness and grace. All the good that has been part of our lives because we were married deserves no less.

I can't say I understand. I can't really say I approve. But I can say I will offer her whatever support is in my power.

It's still sad.

Wife's acedia, D's insecurities

This past weekend was a busy one. There was a lot I wanted to do that I never touched. Yet somehow there was a lot going on anyway.

Saturday, maybe about noon, I had a long conversation with Wife. I hope it may have been some help in the long run, although it had elements which could have derailed it at any moment into one of our boilerplate fights. It started when I asked her whether she was trying to make a point about her independence from the rest of us by still not having put away (as of Saturday morning) any of the laundry she had done the Wednesday before. She replied with excuses and justifications and counter-attacks (because she thought I was attacking her), but this time I really tried to hang in there. I pointed out that the justifications were red herrings, the excuses made no sense, and the counter-attack wasn't needed because I hadn't been attacking in the first place ... I really was trying to understand what mental space she had slid into.

Next, Wife talked a lot about what she sees as the drudgery of repetition and all her bad associations with housework. (I have mentioned that she grew up quite poor; and for some years she helped her mother clean house for snotty little old ladies.) To the latter, I acknowledged 100% that the circumstances under which she had made those associations were rotten; but I said it's not the housework's fault. The thing to be angry at is the circumstance, or the snotty little old ladies, or whatever ... but not the housework itself, which was innocent in all this. To the former, about the drudgery of repetition, I answered "Souls innocent and quiet take / That for an hermitage." And then I started talking about what I have been reading in Kathleen Norris, all about acedia and how the Noonday Demon makes monks hate repetitive tasks (which is to say, all of monastic life), but how he can be exorcised by plowing into those tasks with a will. I talked some more about how acedia seems to be depression plus some mental or spiritual component -- and added that if a purely medical (or pharmacological) approach was going to work for Wife it would have worked by now, so it is conclusively proven that what ails her is not purely a pharmacological problem but must have some non-physical components as well -- and then I read her the first two chapters aloud. I wasn't sure how she would take it ... her flirtation with Christianity is long since past, and her assessment of it has gotten cruder and blacker over the years ... but what she said was remarkable. It must have been every other page -- no less often than that, maybe more often -- that she said, "Yup, I know that," or "That's how it is for me too," or at one point, "That's my whole life."

As we talked some more after that, she essayed some of her usual moves about "You don't like me and therefore you should just leave me," and I told her that it was impossible for me to leave her, and besides that it was unnecessary. Yes, I dislike this and that thing that she does; but the reason I tell her about them, or tax her with them, is that I believe she is capable of being better than that and I want to call the slip-ups to her attention. What is more, I told her that I think she can be way happier than she is today -- although not overnight, to be sure -- and that addressing the very same behaviors is likely to help that part too.

I wrote all this to D, and then added:

Sweetheart, I worry a little bit about discussing Wife in this way with you, because I worry it will awaken your insecurity. Please understand and remember that none of this has anything to do with you. I want Wife to learn to be happier for her own sake; I want her to learn to be more pleasant and grateful to the people around her for both her sake and theirs ... ours. It is only kind and decent to want these things. What happens afterwards, specifically on the marital side of things ... that's another question, and I can't foretell the future. But I do know that my love for you is not dependent on some kind of corresponding distaste for Wife ; that this is not a zero-sum game. I have confidence, therefore, that we can make it work out somehow.

D replied in the wee hours of the next morning, as follows:

Your conversation with Wife sounded wonderful, and meaningful for you both. Of course her problem with depression and acedia has a spiritual dimension. That doesn't mean that her mental disability isn't frightening and very difficult for her and the family. As an article I sent you makes clear, serious depression and madness is impossibly difficult to treat and to endure.... Wife's depression takes a different form, but the distortions and sadness are very real and troubling. I hope your encouraging affirmation and continual presence and support can cause her to work towards happier daily routines and the possibility of genuine fulfillment. Your idealism and love shine forth; she is very fortunate to have your support and wisdom....

You ask if your focus on Wife makes me feel insecure, and the honest answer is yes. That doesn't mean you should stop talking about your relationship or your lovingkindness (hesed) towards her. I am well aware of your devotion and love for her, and I'm clear about my own position. My "demons" have nothing to do with depression or acedia, but rather a lingering sense of unworthiness on the deepest level. But those are my issues; you cannot shield me from having to face them by refusing to talk about Wife. My demons of insecurity cause me to embrace a level of work so extreme and unrealistic as to risk damaging my integrity and my students' well-being. My doubts and sadness also stem from the practical problem of living alone and missing the company of my friends and family. And most important, creating a person worthy of love and capable of the deepest love is challenging and very much my task.

You somehow want to separate out the marital section of your relationship with Wife from the rest, but of course, that won't work at all. Sex, while it has its own intensity and dynamic, is never far from any genuine conversation and meaningful experience. You are quite right to insist that your relationship with Wife does not invalidate what we share, and to insist on a "zero-sum game" is to mis-understand the very nature of love itself. You will either love me for myself and for what we are together, or you will not. Your relationship with your wife, or your children, or anyone else does not enter into the equation.

That doesn't mean that the relationship is simply one additional intimate union; in fact, it is quite different. I was freshly reminded of that when you told Wife it was impossible to leave her. It is not impossible to leave me. There is no hold outside the love we share, and I can foresee circumstances where love itself would set the other free. Furthermore, we live on borrowed time, and there is no promise outside the love we share today, your presence now. To be a "girlfriend" or mistress, is to understand this without flinching or whining.... There's freedom, but also the possibility of failure and loss. But when I think of our warmth together, the way we read each other in the smallest details and the possibility, always, of splitting a thought and smiling...I would not have it different.

My reply to this letter was maybe a bit too brief. Among other things, I said, ...

You are absolutely right to see that I love you entirely for who you are and for what we have together, not because external commitments make it convenient. That sounds like a limitation, but the other way to look at it is to see how madly I do in fact love you, and to realize that you owe it all to yourself alone, not to some kind of external arrangements or social convention. Then you go on to say that it is possible for us to leave each other because "there is no hold outside the love we share." Well, strictly speaking I suppose this is true, but I have to add a comment: it may be possible that we leave each other at some point, but for me at least it is barely imaginable; from where I sit it feels like "there is no hold outside the love we share" is a bit like saying "there's really nothing at all holding you down from floating off the Earth into interstellar space except for gravity." (smile) And you know, I don't feel insecure about the risk that tomorrow gravity is going to be all gone ....

One day I will learn better than to make jokes like that. Not that gravity shut off yesterday -- no, nothing of the kind. But when I wrote what I wrote, I had no idea what things were already going through D's head ....

"Acedia and me"

Meanwhile, I have started to read Kathleen Norris’s Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life. She discusses a lot of themes, all orbiting around acedia, which is an ailment (or a vice) that can be variously associated with depression, boredom, torpor, and sloth. What I find interesting, besides the many personal stories she tells, is that she treats acedia neither purely as a mental disease (to be addressed with anti-depressant medication) nor purely as a vice (to be addressed with either prayer or clean living), but as a devastating spiritual condition that contains elements of both. She seems to say that depression may be a disease over which we don’t have a lot of conscious control, but acedia differs from it in having a conscious element that can make the suffering better or worse, and for which we can be held accountable. If we can train ourselves to react to this-and-that kind of thought by deliberately choosing to think thus-and-so instead, we can keep the depression from getting worse, and from settling in for the long term. We can (at least sometimes) dissuade it from growing into acedia.

This is a book from which I think both Wife and I should be able to benefit. D said she found it boring. (There is a big irony there!). But then, as she was quick to add, part of her reaction may be just that her vices don’t tend in that direction. Not that she has no vices! Just that they tend not to be depressive in nature.

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 ....