did
have unprotected sex together, and it was indeed barely possible that the child was "mine". It was therefore my 'responsibility' to own up to my actions and do what I could to make things right.
I offered to marry her, but she did not accept right away. I know now that she spent a considerable amount of time on the phone trying to call Tony in California trying to get him to take responsibility for "his child" and marry her. Allegedly, Tony had laughed and told her to "let your geek friend raise it for me" and then he hung up on her.
In the end, there was a small private ceremony at the local Justice of the Peace's office with Becky and her mother both competing to see who could be the most unhappy about the wedding. It should have been a day of joy and happiness for us; instead the mood was like everyone was at a funeral. It ought to have been the happiest day in my life - but it sure didn't feel like it. She had wanted Tony, but had to "settle" for me.
*******
Money was a terrible issue from the beginning; neither of us had any. We lived at home with my parents who had always liked Becky and had been supportive of us "doing the right thing". Becky dropped out of Junior College and worked as much as she could, but she was having a troublesome pregnancy and nearly miscarried a few times before being put on bed rest for her last two months before delivery.
Becky, I believe, prayed every day that she would miscarry the child and probably only the strong religious beliefs of her parents kept her from aborting the child as soon as it was discovered before our marriage. On the other hand, it is quite possible that she really believed that Tony wanted her to keep and raise his child and possibly her would return for it and her someday.
Nearly from the very start it was obvious that Becky and I were married in name only, and she certainly never shared any of her inner thoughts with me.
I reduced my school schedule a bit so that I could work as a bookkeeper full time for a full forty hour week paycheck, and I also took every little part time job I could get, but there weren't many. Even while only paying a small token rent to my parents, with all of the doctor bills, pregnancy clothes and a small car payment for a used junker that got me to work, school and back, we were just barely making ends meet. Instead of "glowing" as soon-to-be mothers are said to do, Becky instead become more and more depressed. We didn't talk much, and hardly ever had sex at all and none at all her last three months.
Even what little sex we did have wasn't very good. Becky would just lay there motionlessly on the bed and let me do her, often with an obviously bored or distracted expression on her face. Clearly, I didn't match up or compare at all with her dream stud lover, Tony.
Our daughter Olivia was born a little early in late August and even her naming started another fight between us. Becky had written in the child's name on the birth certificate without even asking for my input. More importantly, Olivia was the name of Tony's mother. From my viewpoint, she had named "our baby" after her ex-boyfriend's mother. Naturally, that Olivia was very pleased by this and always treated the baby as if it was her own granddaughter, and I think she strongly suspected that it really was.
Rather than reviving after the difficult birth of her child, Becky spun herself into an even deeper cycle of anger and depression. Today, everyone knows about 'post partum depression' but that treatable illness was virtually unknown then. Becky became even colder to me and seemed to have little or no love for the child whatsoever. More and more, I had to assume more of the childcare responsibilities in addition to all of my other duties, and soon everything was suffering as a result.
I believe that Becky would have wanted a divorce by this point, except that then she would probably would have received sole custody of the child - a virtual guarantee in that era, especially in a small town in rural Texas. Instead, for the next two years we became strangers living in the same house, with our sex life or any other meaningful signs of any real emotional attachment, quite nonexistent. I tried to provide little Olivia with a bit of the extra love that her mother seemed incapable of showing to her, but I knew that it wasn't enough. How do you explain to a two year old that her mother doesn't love her and obviously wishes daily that she had never been born?
At work my marital unhappiness was soon well known, and I had several offers of 'companionship'. Once, when I was at a very low emotional moment during the joyless Christmas season of 1981, I accepted one of those offers from a young coworker named Marlie. We went to a motel on the outskirts of town and had fun for 3 hours. I felt guilty over the breaking of marital vows, but what vows had she kept for me? I was certainly not loved or cherished, let alone honored or even remotely obeyed.
Those 3 hours of sheer joy probably saved my own mental health. For those few brief moments someone 'cared about me' and I was able to experience genuine and compassionate lovemaking! I realized then that my current life utterly sucked and something had to be done other than the current status quo of both of us wallowing in utter misery.
I returned home and proudly confessed my affair and told her that I'd 'do it again' if Becky didn't get her ass off of the floor and contribute something – anything, to this marriage. This earnest and very sincere confession seemed to shock Becky out of the worst of her malaise. We had a huge fight that lasted for days, but at the end of it we decided that we would not divorce and would try and work out some of the mess that was our relationship.
********
For the next six months, we in fact had the best time together of our entire marriage. Becky could laugh and smile again upon occasion and seemed to have gotten over the worst of her depression. We went back to the movies again and had 'dates' with each other, and slowly our sex life crawled out of the cellar and became almost regular. Becky also began to take a closer interest in her daughter who was already showing signs of being extremely precocious and quite interesting as a little girl.
An excellent sign that our relationship was out of the toilet was when Tony came into back into town in late July, driving his big brand new Cadillac that his new Pro team had offered him as a signing bonus and Becky appeared to take no interest in him. He sniffed around once or twice, but mostly stayed at his parents' house down the street or was visiting old friends. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief; maybe she was at long last over him and that could only help us in rebuilding our own relationship.
The next Saturday, Becky had gone out with a friend taking Olivia with her and I was distracted with a long list of things I had been meaning to do around the house. Not to mention that I had wanted to get some quiet programming time in later. I got a few of my chores quickly done and had decided that it was time to take a short break when I realized that I had promised my mother-in-law that I would take a look at her basement furnace also this weekend. Becky's parents had gone out of town to visit an Aunt that lived in Waco and I would have the place all to myself. We still didn't exactly 'get on' very well, and I think her Mother never quite forgave me for marrying her daughter. To this very day she believes that Tony would have been the better man. Regardless, I had promised to take a look at her furnace, as a 'blue northerner', a sharp cold front could sweep down at any time now.
I used our spare key to open their back door and next to the kitchen I found the stairs that led into the small cellar where the furnace was. As I descended down the steps into the dark cellar, I realized that I could hear voices, but there didn't seem to be anyone else down in the cellar with me. Still I began to move quietly, curious as to what the voices were saying and where the speakers were hidden. As I walked over to the furnace and slowly opened its maintenance access door, I could now clearly hear every word being spoken in the house, transmitted quite clearly via the furnace ducts. Becky was in the house, in her old bedroom upstairs from the sound of it, and was not alone. Tony was with her.
They talked for a while, Becky showing Tony "their daughter" and soon I could clearly hear kissing. Soon I heard other rustling and grunting sounds, followed by Becky saying, "Oh, it's so nice and big and I've missed it so much."
If that statement wasn't obvious enough, soon I heard other obvious sounds of fucking with Becky encouraging her lover to "Give it to me hard, just the way I like it!"
I was transfixed. I didn't dare make any sound, fearing that since I could easily hear them, then they could also hear me. I debated going upstairs to catch them in the act, but I also wanted also to find out more about what was going on, and I eventually did. They had been secretly seeing each other from nearly the very moment Tony came back into town, and this was at least their fourth or fifth meeting from what I could tell. They fucked (I really wouldn't call it making love) at least three times and Becky spent a good deal of time in-between sucking Tony's apparently "huge cock" that she loved so much and could never get enough of.
Tony talked a lot about himself and his forthcoming Pro career, but increasingly he talked about 'their future life together'. Apparently, Tony was eager to prove to his coach that he could 'settle down a bit', demonstrate some responsibility and not be the utterly wild man that he had been in college. Becky seemed more than willing to go with him, but the only catch was Olivia. His child or not, Tony wanted nothing to do with being "Daddy". If she wanted to go with him Olivia would have to stay with me... permanently. I prayed that this would become the 'deal breaker' and that she would then repent and choose to remain with me.
