And, before you start feeling sorry for my husband in all of this, I want to be clear of one more thing. My husband knows! Maybe it wasn't something he knew about in the beginning, I'll admit that, but NOW he knows and he's perfectly ok with it. In fact, on more than one occasion my husband has actually bailed Richard and I out of a hot mess when we were nearly about to get caught. My husband and I are good. Unfortunately, it's only Guen who probably would have an issue with all of this. In other words, three out of four of us totally understand what this is. It's not my fault Guen can't figure it out. I know, I know. That makes me sound like a shitty friend, but let me explain.
In order to understand my role in all this we have to discuss a little bit about how we all met. I met my husband, Jason, online after losing my life-partner to a tragic and terrible automobile accident. After many months of grieving, I finally re-entered the dating pool where I met a man online describing himself as recently divorced and looking to find true love. Turns out my husband-to-be wasn't ENTIRELY honest about the whole "divorced" part and the fact was that he was still legally married (though separated) when we met and was in the process of filing paperwork and finalizing his divorce. In any case, he came clean relatively quickly about those little pesky details and somehow I stuck it out long enough for him to prove that the divorce was legit and final before I moved in with him to the home he and his wife had shared together for over ten years. Jason and I were married a year later.
Early in our marriage I discovered that my husband had been living in a loveless, sex-less marriage for nearly a decade before his inevitable divorce and had somewhat grown accustomed to being alone and taking care of himself (both emotionally and physically). To top it off, my new husband had become guarded and, unbeknownst to me at first, had secretly vowed never to fall in love again and let his heart be broken like it had with his first wife. He was looking for companionship, not love and, had I known that, I never would have married him. Having said all that, I'm glad that I did because we are very much in-love now despite what this story might lead you to believe. How exactly my husband finally opened his heart again to fall in love is something you'll have to hear to believe but we'll save that part for later. Let's talk a bit about Guen and Richard now.
Shortly after I married my husband, he got a promotion that required us to move to the west side of state for nearly twice what he currently made. It was a whirlwind year that found us selling our house on the east side and moving to the big city of Seattle where we had no friends or family whatsoever. In an effort to make new friends, my husband suggested we start a board game group online and invite total strangers over to the house to play board games. I was VERY reluctant at first, having never been the type to entertain, but eventually our lack of friends and social loneliness grew tiresome and I reluctantly agreed. That's how we met Guen and Richard.
To be honest, Guen and Richard didn't really feel like "our people" at first. They were nice enough, but sort of an odd couple. Guen was a bit mousey and shy, embarrassed at even the slightest off-color joke or foul language. Both my husband and I had foul mouths, and a dirty sense of humor and Guen always seemed uncomfortable, if not somewhat embarrassed, by our crass behavior at the gaming table. Her husband Richard, on the other hand, was a lot more like us. He was a bit loud and obnoxious at times and, when my husband and I would open the door, he'd be just as filthy and foul as we were, causing his wife to cringe and scold him all the time like a mother scolding a child. "Richard!" she'd exclaim with feigned surprise when he'd tell a dirty off-color joke and she'd often smack him in the arm like a mother might spank a child's hand for reaching into the cookie jar after he was told not to.
I of course wasn't looking for other men, being content in my marriage, but suffice it to say that if I WAS, I wouldn't have been terribly attracted to Richard at first. Frankly, he wasn't a very attractive looking man physically, but his vivacious overconfident personality grew on me and I eventually could see what Guen saw in him and what kept her attracted to him.
When my husband and I pressed about how the two of them met, Guen was immediately ashamed to tell the story even though Richard was more than happy to give up all the gory details. It took months for us to drag the story out of them as Guen kept insisting that "maybe" she'd tell us the full story one day, but not now. Most of it came out over the next few months anyway, as Richard has a habit of trying to get Guen out of her comfort zone and open up more. I can see now why she was so embarrassed to share the details.