My four best non-family friends are Grant, Aaron, Jill and Amber.
Grant is a domestic law attorney. He is my doubles partner in tennis and five years older than I am. We have had many discussions about divorce, reconciliations, and married people's expectations and viewpoints. We've discussed these over lunches and drinks at the tennis club, as spectators at sporting events, and during card games with other men.
Aaron is a psychologist. We've run a number of charity events together, and together we coach our sons' basketball team and our daughters' soccer team. Aaron is the same age as Grant, five years older than I am despite the fact that his son and daughter are the same age as mine, and good friends with my kids. We too have talked about divorce, reconciliations, male-female expectations, and the psychology of marriage sometimes with Grant (if Aaron joins our card-playing group), many times just the two of us.
Jill is a marriage counselor and my partner in mixed pickleball. Jill is three years older than I am and also good friends with my wife Marie. In addition to meeting on the pickleball court, and during lunches, Jill enjoys hiking almost always with Marie and Jill's husband but on some occasions by ourselves. We also have had many discussions about divorce and reconciliation.
Amber is three years younger than I am. I met Amber when I saved her from a bad situation; she maintains that I saved her life, but I think that is an over-dramatization. Anyway we became friends, and she also became friends with Marie. Amber is a public and media relations expert and probably has more friends and acquaintances than anyone else that I know. The medical organization that I work for has -- upon my recommendation -- used her for public and media relations a couple of times with great success. I probably talk on the phone or text her at least every other day, and she often comes over to our house on weekends and we socialize with her and, if she has one, her date.
There is one other thing about Amber that I am the only one of her real friends that knows; she is a part-time high end escort (i. e. call girl). How I found that out is another story that I won't get into now, but our relationship is such that she knows that I don't judge her so sometimes she even talks to me about it. She is single, but because of how many people she knows and her part-time job (which she enjoys) we often talk about married peoples' relationships and expectations.
If I were ever to cheat on Marie -- I have no desire to do that and can't even imagine doing that -- I would love it to be with Amber because she is the best looking woman I know and she has a sparkling personality. Even if I were inclined to cheat, however -- which I most definitely am NOT -- it would never happen with her because she would believe that it might ruin or strain our friendship and that is the last thing that she wants, going back to her belief that I once saved her life and have often given her good advice about things she asked my input on.
All four of my knowledgeable friends tell me that while there are exceptions the two most common situations they know about when one (or both) spouse has cheated is seeing things with blinders on so that no compromise is possible and divorce ensures, or the wronged spouse so lacks self-confidence that reconciliation is sought regardless of the circumstances. In either case the basic situation is "black and white." In other words there is no "gray" area. Of course there are exceptions, but according to my friends both spouses take a "gray" approach in only about 10-20% of the cases.
I often wondered what my take would be if I was a cheated-on spouse. All of Grant, Aaron, and Jill have told me that (I've never actually discussed it with Amber but from other things she's said I'm sure that her take would be the same) "You can't know until you experience it." I would like to think that I would be one of the "gray" thinkers, but wouldn't know until it actually happened.
All four of my friends advise me that hard-ass uncompromising divorce usually doesn't work out for the non-cheater. The non-cheater finds a better spouse only about 25% of the time and either settles, or finds no one suitable at all, 75% of the time. The cheater doesn't normally have a future life of regret and depravation like the non-cheater would like to believe will happen, but also doesn't do great 75% of the time; the other 25% they almost completely bounce back.
In cave-in reconciliation cases the non-cheater usually (60-70% of the time) feels inadequate and embarrassed by their appeasement if they stick it out and often ends up divorcing within five years anyway. Again, things aren't great for either the cheater or non-cheater; most don't ultimately live a good life afterward, but don't end up penniless and hopeless either.
The bottom line, usually black or white isn't the answer; a "gray" outlook has the best probability for success.
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My name is Sam Buttrey; at the start of the substance of this tale I was thirty five years old, worked for a large medical organization as a supervisory medical laboratory professional. I have a BSc degree in medical laboratory science from the University of Cincinnati, a Master's degree in medical laboratory administration from Virginia Commonwealth University, and an ASCP certification. Marie Buttrey, also thirty five, and I had been married eleven years, with two kids, Jimmy (nine) and Julie (seven). Marie worked in pharmaceutical sales; that alone will tell you that she's good looking and smart since although it's not fair pharmaceutical companies only hire good looking sales reps. Aside from being smart and good-looking Marie is in good physical condition; she and I work out either together, or separately, at least four times a week and we both have above average musculature and stamina.
I enjoyed being married to Marie; we seemed to be compatible in almost every way. I would rate our sex life as better than a nine out of ten, and our companionship as close to a ten. Marie is a good mother who gives our kids genuine love and attention without over-doing it. While we have some divisions of labor that are along the lines of sexual expectations (such as she does most of the cooking and I do most of the lawn work) we try as best as possible to divide up all chores equally and both participate in both kids' activities; I attend all of Julie's ballet recitals and take her to practice more often than Marie does, and Marie takes Jimmy to all of his basketball practices and I meet him there to coach his recreational basketball team with Aaron; and we have similar approaches to Julie's (soccer) and Jimmy's (band) other activities.
In general, I have a very good life; it's a life I wanted to keep. At the start of my tale my life was about 99% of what I considered ideal; until the seminal part of this story I never considered what percentage of ideal I'd take before making difficult wholesale changes.
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I realized that I didn't have a 99% of optimum life one day in May shortly after Marie's thirty fifth birthday.
It was a Saturday and Marie had gotten back from the health club late. I was due to coach Julie's soccer team in a game in about thirty minutes and Jimmy needed to get to band practice. She came in somewhat frazzled from her car with her pharmaceutical sample case and gym bag, hustled Jimmy to the car, and gave me a quick kiss and Julie a hug and a "good luck."
After the whirlwind left the house while Julie was getting her jersey and shorts on I went to move Marie's pharmaceutical case from where she had virtually thrown it on a living room couch, and put it in her home office. She might not have securely latched it, the latch may have been disturbed when she tossed it on the couch, or there may have been some other problem, but when I hurriedly picked it up to move it the case flopped open and papers spilled out. Fortunately her drug samples were in secure sections in her case and didn't spill out since I wouldn't have known where to replace them. The papers were all loose so I didn't think that putting them back in some order would be critical.
As I collected the papers strewn about the floor mixed with her brochures and order forms were four cards. One was a sappy birthday card from me; two were homemade cards from the kids; and the fourth was a sexy card that on the front said "Happy Birthday to a Fine Pizza Ass," with a color drawing of a slice of pepperoni pizza, and on the inside it said "And Playmate" with the words "most fun" handwritten between "And" and "Playmate" and a shadow sexy female form bending over. The inside was signed "With enjoyment, Rob."
I was stunned. While I didn't actually know who Rob was I suspected. Over the last two months or so Marie was training a new sales rep named Rob -- I forgot his last name -- to take over part of her territory while she assumed most of the territory of a sales rep who had gotten pregnant and left.
I took photos of the exterior and interior of Rob's card. Then I put all of the papers back in Marie's case with the cards underneath the rest of the documents, latched the case tightly, and put it back on the living room couch rather than bringing it into Marie's office.
It took only five minutes on Marie's company's local website to get his name and photo; Robert Driscoll. He looked to be no more than twenty five years old; he was good-looking -- as all pharmaceutical reps are -- maybe even a little better looking than normal for such a rep. In fact he looked very much like the guy that Marie had been dating when I swept her off her feet (according to her).
By then Julie was anxious to get to her game so we got in my car and sped off. I engaged her in conversation the entire way -- to keep my mind off what I had just found out and had shaken me to the core.
I somehow was able to make it through Julie's game without throwing up, embarrassing myself, or acting like the Sphinx, although I did defer more to Aaron than I normally do for substitutions and strategy. All the girls were happy when we won 4-3 (it's always good when the games are competitive and both teams score). Afterward Aaron and his daughter, Julie and I, Julie's best friend on our team, and a girl on the other team who was a good friend of Aaron's daughter, went for milkshakes. While everyone was having a good time at the table and yukking it up while sipping their milkshakes I excused myself and called Grant's cellphone.
Grant answered on the first ring. "You better not be wimping out of our doubles match tomorrow Boris," he answered without even a "Hi." He calls me "Boris" referencing Boris Becker a former German pro who is considered the 11th best male tennis player of all time. I hope that he calls me that because he thinks that I look just like Becker (six foot three inches (1.91 m) tall, blond hair, blue eyes, very good-looking) or because of my tennis ability, and not because Boris was convicted of tax evasion after he retired.
"No, I'm not, bozo. How do I retain you to just ask some questions so that we have an attorney-client relationship and you can't divulge even the questions to others?" I asked.
"This isn't a joke?" he replied after a pause of a few seconds.
"No," I responded a little more forcefully than I intended.
"OK; we reach an oral agreement to that effect now, tomorrow you give me one dollar after our doubles match, and I email you a contract to sign Monday; OK?"
"Agreed," I quickly retorted.
"OK, what questions?"
