Chapter 1 – Sharon & Gary
Book two is mainly about the relationships between our niece and husband and how it impacted on our marriage
It was about two months later that Amanda received a call from Jill one evening. Now, Amanda had not spoken to Jill since she had thrown her out of our house and it was a surprise therefore when she found out who the caller was. Jill was in tears and begging Amanda to come over to Sharon's home. It appears that Gary, Sharon's husband had left her and she was distraught and in no fit state to look after her children. Of course, Amanda went over immediately and tried to console Sharon and Jill who was also getting upset.
When she returned home later that evening she told me the gist of what had happened. According to Sharon, Gary had left earlier in the evening after simply telling Sharon that he no longer loved her and though he loved his kids and that he would miss them, he was not prepared to continue living a lie. I knew Gary very well by this time. Apart from working for the same company, we were now family. He was successful in his job and had proved to be a reliable and conscientious employee and more importantly a good father to his kids.
Amanda and Jill tried to be supportive to Sharon and her kids as best they could and over the next few weeks, more information started to emerge about their break-up. Sharon accused Gary of being authoritarian and demanding. It seems he was extremely jealous of her job and resented the independence it gave her. He felt she should be at home looking after their children. Sharon had returned to work, on a job share basis with another married mother. She insisted that she had to work to help with the household bills. Apparently, they had a large mortgage and despite Gary's best efforts, they were running behind on their commitments.
Jill and Amanda spent many hours talking to Sharon, but she steadfastly refused to provide any further information about their separation. The one thing that did emerge from the issue was that Jill and Amanda were back on speaking terms. I was glad that they were at least communicating again. It does not a genius to work out that in the end family is family. That did not mean that I was ready to forgive and forget and despite Amanda's pleading that I allow her to come to our house for dinner, I refused to even consider it. Jill had almost brought our marriage to its knees and I could not condone her presence in our home. Amanda and Jill arranged to meet once or twice a week and I had to accept that despite everything Amanda was still close to her sister.
I was at work when I was called to the MD's office as he had something he needed to discus with me. I entered to find Gary sitting there with an almost embarrassed look on his face. Our MD, Brian Whittle briefed me that Gary had handed in his resignation and whilst he had no option but to accept it, he wanted me to try and talk some sense into him before the formal process took over. He asked Gary to wait outside for a moment as he wanted to talk to me privately. When we were alone he asked if I knew why Gary would choose this moment to resign. His main concern was that Gary had been approached by one of our competitors. Gary was working on a high profile product that our competitors would dearly love to get their hands on. It was far in advance of anything on the market at present and we had high hopes that it would take us from a small nationally recognised company to truly international status.
Explaining to Brian that Gary was having personal problems and that I thought that was the root cause of his resignation was not easy, without revealing all the details. I asked to be given some time to persuade him to rescind his letter. Brian told me brusquely to get it sorted! He couldn't afford to lose Gary at this stage of the product development.
Thanks a bunch, I thought sourly, now I had to get involved once again with my wife's family and their problems. I tried to explain to him that I wasn't a marriage guidance counsellor, but he just gave me one of his stares that left me in no doubt that he would not accept any excuses on this one.
I left Brian's office and collected Gary from the clutches of Brian's PA who was a recognised man-eater. Once in her arms, rumour had it that she could corrupt a saint. I was not going to give her the opportunity with Gary. I took him back to my office and sat him down. I went to my cabinet and poured him a strong McCallan's 18 year old Malt and handed it to him. While he sat and sipped at his drink, I pretended to read his letter of resignation, what I was really doing was trying to formulate some plan that would reverse his resignation. I could only really see one way forward, so I took the bull by the horns and asked him outright. "Is your decision to resign a direct result of the problems with your marriage?"
He nodded the affirmative, so I followed up by asking. "Why do you think that resigning from your job will resolve that issue? After all, whatever the outcome, you will still need to support your children."
He said. "I have a lot to offer another employer, I am aware of my worth in the current market. A move to another city and employer would help me make my separation from Sharon more definite, in any case I can't continue to live at my parent's house much longer. They are giving me a hard time about things as it is, I just need to get away from everything for a while."
I pointed out that any move to another employer, in another city would only add to his isolation from his kids. I also pointed out that he had signed a non-disclosure agreement when he started with us and that we would view any breach of this seriously. I actual fact, it would be almost impossible to enforce any breach of this agreement and he probably knew it!
Searching for another factor to prolong the discussion, I asked. "I have heard Sharon's side of the story regarding your break up, but I've be around too long to believe just one side in cases like this. It always takes two to cause an argument and I truthfully don't believe her version, there's just not enough there to cause a rift like this. Do you want to talk about it, anything you tell me will remain between you and me, unless you give me your express permission to divulge to someone else?"