ANOTHER “SOMEBODY-DONE-SOMEBODY-WRONG” SONG
{When I was just shy of twelve years old, my mother was suddenly and unexpectedly killed in a traffic accident. That has nothing to do with my divorce, but it was my first experience with sorrow and tragedy. It prepared me to cope with that kind of experience later in life.}
The Surprising and Shocking Announcement
On a day, in late March, after ten years of marriage, my wife, Linda, and I had what seemed to be a minor quarrel. After taking a few minutes, I approached her to apologize and resume normal interaction.
“It’s too late,” she said; “I don’t love you anymore.
“What?!” I replied. I was shocked. Just two weeks previously, we were discussing purchasing a home.
“I’m going to get a job, find an apartment, and move out,” she stated firmly.
Until now, she had been a full-time mother to our six-year-old daughter, Mary Ann.
She explained to Mary Ann that Mommy and Daddy had decided to live in separate places.
Mary Ann looked at her mother apprehensively and asked, “Are we still going to buy our own house?”
“No,” Linda answered hesitantly, smiling nervously, “I’m afraid not.”
“Oh,” Mary Ann responded, a tone of disappointment was evident in her voice.
Since Linda needed time to prepare for her eventual departure, we continued living in the same residence, a small, two-bedroom upstairs apartment.
She borrowed money from her mother and enrolled in a business college to learn secretarial skills.
Linda became extremely hostile, disrespectful, and verbally abusive towards me. She consistently expressed her hostility using a contemptuous tone. She made it plain that she found my proximity and presence in her life unbearable. When I expressed my distress over her behavior, she persistently denied that she was behaving any differently than usual.
Strangely enough, we did not entirely cease having physical intimacy. It became infrequent and mechanical — without joy, affection, or enthusiasm. But, it didn’t wholly cease.
I persuaded Linda to attend marriage counseling with me. We found a mutually agreeable counselor. Once a week, each of us had an individual session, and we had a session together each week as well.
During my second individual session, the counselor asked if I thought Linda was seeing another man. I was rather surprised. I hadn’t thought of that.
“ No,” I said,” I don’t think she’d do a thing like that.”
After about a month, the counselor advised us that he had done all he could for us, and the counseling sessions ended.
Linda had never learned how to drive. Besides finishing business school and getting a job, she needed a driver’s license before she could live independently. As bizarre as it may seem, I taught her how to drive and continued to support her financially. We continued to live in the same home. All of this while she continued to treat me with the utmost hostility. She would frequently criticize and castigate me for anything with which she could find fault. Often I wasn’t sure what her complaint was. I didn’t realize it then, but her behavior was part of a plan.
I tolerated this situation because I didn’t want Linda to feel forced to stay with me. She lacked the means to live independently. I wanted her to leave, or stay, of her own free will.
We lived under these circumstances for the better part of a year, during which she learned to drive and got her license. An additional year would pass before she graduated from her school program.
The Discovery
During the first few weeks after our counseling sessions ended, I had not been able to forget that off-hand comment made by the counselor, “Do you think she has been seeing another man?”
Was he trying to tell me something that he couldn’t tell me directly without violating an obligation of confidentiality? I realized that something had to account for her abrupt change in attitude toward me. I decided I ought to investigate the possibility. I had recently been introduced to a new product — a cordless telephone. Not a cell phone; they had not yet been invented. It consisted of a handset that transmitted via radio to a base connected to the phone wires. The frequency was receivable on a standard AM radio if it was close to the base unit. There was a loft in our detached garage with an electrical wire that, for some reason, acted as an antenna, allowing me to monitor calls from there.
It occurred to me that if Linda thought I was going to be out for a while, and if she was having an affair, she might try to contact her affair partner. One evening, I told her I was going to walk to the corner store; I needed a few items. The round trip would take 45 minutes. I took an AM pocket radio, went to the garage loft, and tuned it to the proper frequency.
BINGO! She was talking to a friend from her business course; they were discussing her affair. She referred to him by the initials “D.P.” Curiously, as I later discovered, those were not his initials. To this day I have no idea what D.P. stood for. Nevertheless, it was apparent that they were discussing the fact that she was having an affair.
The next call I heard was to her affair partner. I learned his identity and it was not a surprise. His name was Paul Walker. His children and Mary Ann attended the same elementary school. He and Linda encountered each other when they picked up the children at the end of each school day. He had even visited our house. I also heard the nickname they used to refer to his wife — Snake-Lips.
I knew her real name, Regina Walker. She wrote a weekly by-line column in our local newspaper. Paul and Regina had two children — boys. One was the same age as our daughter, Mary Ann.
Everything was falling into place, the reason for Linda’s abrupt change in attitude, her contemptuous demeanor toward me, and finding fault where there was no obvious fault. Consciously or unconsciously, Linda was creating a facade, a pretext for leaving her husband that would appear more honorable than leaving to be with another man. She wanted it to seem that she was leaving because I was an unbearable person to live with, not because she wanted to enter a relationship with her cheating partner. She did not want the dissolution of our marriage to appear to be her fault. She had no wish to bear that guilt. She was deceiving herself, and me.
I decided not to confront Linda. If I did, I would have to acknowledge having been eavesdropping. That would be unwise. I needed to obtain hard evidence that I obtained legitimately.
I decided to check our financial records. Linda might be funneling money from our joint accounts. I found she had taken money from our account and used it to open an account in Mary Ann’s name. I also found a letter in the drawer where Linda kept our account documents. It was a love letter from her cheating partner — the hard evidence I was looking for. I discovered it inadvertently and legitimately while looking at the records that were my business, records that I had a perfect right to examine.
Again, I decided not to confront Linda. I wanted to gain possession of the letter without her knowledge. I had a plan to do so.
I confronted Linda about her transferring money from our joint bank account.
“You object to me opening an account for Mary Ann? You criticise me for that?” She responded in a challenging tone. “I don’t have a right to manage the money in our joint account?”
I answered, “What I object to is your being sneaky about it.”
That conversation was a means of making her aware that I had been looking in the drawer where she had hidden the note. I knew it would make her nervous.
After the conversation, I said, “I’m going for a walk, I’ll be out for a while. Don’t wait up,”
I made it clear that I would be out for an extended period. When I returned from my walk she was sleeping. I looked in the trash can and saw that I had scored another bingo. I rummaged through the trash and retrieved the torn-up pieces of the note she thought she had destroyed. I had the hard evidence in my hand, legitimately.
I placed the note pieces in an envelope and put them in the glove compartment of my car. I took them to work with me the following day. I carefully assembled the pieces of the note during my lunch break. using scotch tape to hold them. I made several copy machine copies.
Confrontation Time
I spent the next few weeks deciding how I would confront Linda. During that time, her displays of contempt, constant criticism, and berating slacked off. Our interactions were slightly less unpleasant than they had been for nearly a year. Was she reconsidering her desire to abandon our marriage?
Then she resumed her unpleasant behavior. I found it less distressful than before. Now that I understood its source I felt less pain. Also, by this time I had formulated my plan for confrontation. I had decided what I hoped to achieve through confrontation; I had a plan I thought would work.
One warm spring evening in early May I opened my hard-cover folder with a paper tablet inserted in one of the pockets. I put three envelopes in another pocket. I added a pen, placing it in a loop designed for that purpose. I donned a light jacket.
Then, I stood before Linda and said, “I’m going to take a walk to the library.”
“Oh?” she said sounding curious.
“I’m going to write a letter to Snake-Lips.” I said in a calm, matter-of-fact voice.
The stunned expression on her face was priceless. She stood for a moment staring, mouth and eyes wide open. Then, before she could gather a response, I turned, opened the door, and walked down the outside stairs of our second-floor apartment. The library was about a half-mile walk.
When I returned, I stopped in the garage and placed two copies of the letter in the glove compartment of my car for safekeeping. I entered the apartment and placed the folder containing the original copy on a desk in our dining room. Linda was seated in a chair in the living room, looking defeated.
I said to her, “I’m going to the corner store. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.” Then I left.
When I returned the notebook was open on the desk, as I expected, with the letter face up.
“Please don’t mail that letter,” she pleaded.
She had lost control of the narrative and she knew it.
“Why shouldn’t I?” I asked her.
“Because you don’t know her. She’s a real bitch. You don’t want to have anything to do with her.”
“Is that what he told you — about the woman he is cheating on?”
“No. I know you’re buying trouble if you get involved with her.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Oh! Please don’t send that letter. I’ll do anything.”
I knew I was closing in on success.
“I promise I’ll stay with you forever if you don’t send that letter.”
That was it. It was time to close the deal.
“You and I both know that’s an empty promise,” I began. “Do you really think I’d want to continue a marriage based on blackmail?”
“But here’s what you will do.” I continued.
“First, you will display courtesy and due respect towards me at all times, and I will do the same towards you. You will desist in your displays of contempt. If you are unhappy with anything I do, we will discuss it calmly and respectfully. You will desist with all contemptuous criticism and berating. In short, you will treat me with the courtesy and respect I am entitled to as a decent human being. I am not the trash that you drag to the curb on Monday evening, and you will no longer treat me as such.”
“Okay,” she responded, sheepishly. “I promise.”
She seemed honestly relieved. I had not demanded that she stay. I did not ask her to give up her affair. Everything I demanded was reasonable, and she knew it.
There was no reason for her to continue her campaign of demonization. If she left, there was no disguising that it was not because of anything I had done. That illusion had been destroyed. If she dismantled her family, it was strictly to build a new life with her cheating partner and she would have to own that.
I had achieved what I set out to achieve.
And she followed through on her promise.
{The events in this story are described accurately, as they occurred. The names have been changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty as well)}
Part II is here:
