Descent Into Bitterness

Descent Into Bitterness

By

Jennifer Smith-Jones

I had discovered my wife was cheating. The old story: I'm a bricklayer, and when it rains, they usually send us home, rather than pay us to stand around in the rain. We don't get paid for rainouts, but we do get some unexpected free time. Sure enough, they let us off. This was great, I'd be home before noon! I started thinking of things we could do to pass the time, and as I drove, the rain stopped, the sun came out, and everything was coming up roses!

Yeah. You guessed it. I found her in our bed with three other men. From the smell and the soaking wet state of the sheets, they had been going at it for several hours. I was tipped off when I walked in the house, and heard my wife shouting, "Fuck my ass! Fuck it now!" I grabbed my shotgun from the gun cabinet, checked that the magazine was loaded, and made my way up the stairs to our bedroom. I got there just in time to see her being fucked by two men. One man was lying on his back on the floor, as she straddled him. One man was behind her. She was being penetrated anally and vaginally, while the third man was stroking his cock in front of her face. He came all over her face and chest as she was having an orgasm.

I immediately started shouting at the top of my voice: "GET OUT!" That shocked the Hell out of them. I'm a big guy, 6-foot tall, 250 pounds, lots of muscle, and I have no doubt I looked like I was about to commit murder. Which I was, if these three assholes didn't move fast enough. I noticed they were all very young men. None of them was as fit as I was, and since they were naked, I could see none of them was as endowed as I was. I'm an average-sized man, but these guys were all smaller. None of them were as good-looking as me, even. Again, I'm not anything special, but these guys were not attractive at all, and one of them had a pronounced gut that hung so low it almost obscured his cock.

They started putting their clothes on, so I racked the slide to chamber a round and shouted, "YOU CAN GET DRESSED OUTSIDE! GET OUT OR I'LL START SHOOTING!"

That got them in high gear. I followed them down the stairs, and they tried to head for the backyard. "Oh, no, motherfuckers! You came in the front door, you can leave the same way!"

"We're not dressed!" Fatty said.

"NOT MY PROBLEM!" I shouted. "And if you don't get out now, you're going to have a lot bigger problems than public nudity. GET OUT!" They were still looking at me, naked, clutching their clothes in their hands, hesitant to be exposed in public. Even worse for them, it was summer vacation, and there were a lot of kids out playing, etc. "Get out, or I'll shoot the bunch of you and tell the cops I caught you raping my wife." I saw their faces pale.

From the bedroom upstairs, I heard Colleen scream, "Jason! Please don't hurt them!"

Now I wasn't shouting, I was roaring. "SHUT! THE FUCK! UP!" I was so loud I made myself light-headed. But adrenaline and rage kept me from staggering. "One more word from you, Colleen, and I'll murder these bastards and take my chances in prison for the rest of my life!"

Still cowering naked at the door, Fatty again said, "Dude, please! We can't go out like this! And Colleen was our ride!"

"Not anymore, asshole." I walked over, grabbed his shoulder, spun him around and started kicking his ass, hard, repeatedly. It had to hurt because I was wearing my steel-toed construction boots. He started screaming like a girl on the first kick, and I got three more in before he finally hauled his fat ass out the door, his buddies leaving him behind without a second thought.

At the top of the stairs, I saw Colleen looking at me. Naked. Semen ran down her legs, her face and chest covered in Fatty's contribution. I racked the shotgun's slide to unload the shells, spilling them unfired on the living room carpet. The last thing I needed right now was to accidentally shoot my wife because my hands were trembling with rage. I threw the shotgun on the couch, turned back to her, and said, "Not one word."

She started to say something, and I repeated, "Not one word! I'm packing my stuff and getting a room. Our marriage is over."

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Of course she couldn't just let it go. Over the next few weeks, she called, texted, drove out to the job sites I was on, and showed up at the bar I like to frequent. I heard all the usual things from her: "It was just sex. It didn't mean anything. I didn't love any of them. You're the only man I ever loved. Until you found out, you were perfectly happy in our marriage. We have a great marriage! This didn't hurt you or deprive you in any way at all. I just needed more! Can't we talk this over? We've been married for so long, 30 years! How can you end it like this? I'll make it up to you, I swear!"

Pardon me for throwing up.

Not only her but everyone we knew, including friends and family, had to contribute their rationalizations for reconciliation. From our friends I heard things like: "Now Jason, don't be hasty! We know it looks bad, Hell, it IS bad, but you guys have been together for 30 years! You can't just throw that away! You'll never find another gal like Colleen. Don't you at least want to know why she did it? You know, Jason, even in our group of friends, several of us have had to deal with infidelity, and we all got past it and are happier than ever for it. Some of us are even glad it happened, because it brought us closer together." Blah, blah, blah. All the same platitudes, all the same self-delusions, just worded from a different but equally invalid perspective.

Her parents: "Jason, we're so sorry she did this. We're so disappointed in Colleen; this isn't how we raised her. But you two were together for 30 years, and you were happy! Marcie cheated on me on our 25th Anniversary, and I forgave her! Don't you think you're overreacting?"

That was EXACTLY the wrong thing to say to me.

"If that's how you two live, I can see why she thought this wouldn't be a problem." I slammed the door to my shitty apartment in their faces.

My Dad: "Jason, have you asked yourself if life will be better if you forgive her and stay married? Financially, this will set you both back 20 years in your retirement accounts, split your savings, and you'll have to sell this wonderful house you built yourself. You will be worse off if you divorce. Be a man and face it, son: your lives together will be better than either of your lives apart! All you have to do to make your marriage work is decide that you will make your marriage work. After that, everything else falls into place. I can see you are standing on principle, son. That's good, principles are important. But they aren't meant to be a suicide pact with yourself."

My Mom: "Look, people make mistakes. Don't you even want to know why she did this?"

"Mom, what she was doing wasn't a mistake. She arranged the whole thing, planned it, and joined one of those infidelity websites to set it all up. That's not a mistake. Anyway, I don't care why she did it. She did it. If I wasn't giving her enough in the marriage, she should have come to me first. Then we could have talked about it. Then we could have come to some resolution. But she didn't do that, did she? She cheated, I caught her, and that's the significant point. I told her when we dated I would not tolerate infidelity. So here we are."

Mom was angry and growing more pissed. I got my temper from her. "God, Jason! You are SO PIGHEADED! You see everything in black and white! The world, life, marriage, is not like that!"

"So you think I'm overreacting, Mom?"

"Yes!"

"Huh. I don't think I am. Go home, Mom." I stepped back and moved to close the door.

"Jason! Don't you dare close the door in my f--" I didn't hear the last word over the sound of the door slamming shut.

I'm sure you've noticed by now that I have a temper. You recall how I mentioned how shitty my apartment was. Remember I said I got my temper from my Mom? Ok.

The shitty door held up to her body ramming against it, but the door frame itself tore out from the surrounding sheet rock and the whole door and frame fell into my apartment in a cloud of sheetrock dust. The apartment is so shitty the door frame had been screwed into the drywall, not into studs. My Mom is only 5'-2", and weighs less than 120 pounds, but she knocked my door down, grabbed my shirt to pull my face down to hers, and shouted:

"Listen, asshole son-of-mine! Your father cheated on me three times over 10 years of the fifty we have been married. It wasn't easy, but we made it work! Because that is what we decided to do. And fifty years later, we are as happy as any old married couple can be. We didn't focus on the problems; we focused on how we would overcome them.

"The problems you have are not what is important; what she has done is not important! What YOU are doing about all of this is what is important, and you are throwing your lives away, both of your lives, because you are wallowing in bitterness, and you do not have to live like this! This... this... blind, idiotic stubbornness is not how we raised you!"

"No," I said. "You raised me not to accept disrespect. To stand up for myself. You taught me it won't always be easy to do that, but if I want to be able to live with myself, that's what it takes. You taught me that principles are important."

"God damn, you, Jason!" But she was crying and hugging me tightly. "Don't you even want to know why she did it?"

"No. Because it wouldn't make any difference to me. What you and Dad have done in your marriage, I'm glad it worked for you two, if that's what you wanted to do. Though I now have much less respect for Dad, I have to say."

"Oh, Christ Almighty, Jason! I know I didn't teach you to be so goddamned judgmental!"

"Mom, we're done. Please leave my home. I already have to fix the door. Everyone needs to stop telling me to find out why and to reconcile, that I'll be better off if we stay married, and that I should let my principles go on this matter. And for what? For the chance to be a happy idiot while waiting for it to happen again? Sorry, I just don't see it that way. And I don't care why she did it. Goodbye."

Mom tried her final card: "Don't expect to be invited over for the holidays. We'll invite Colleen; we all know how you feel about her. We're not going to lose our daughter-in-law because our son is an ass! We'll write you off, instead."

"Ok," was all I said.

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Of course, Mom, Dad, and Colleen's parents did not write me off. Thanksgiving was coming up, and Mom called and invited me. She said Colleen's parents and a bunch of our friends would be there, too. Not mentioning whether Colleen would be there raised an immediate red flag.

"Please say you'll come, Jason? No one will bother you about the divorce."

I knew it was a setup: Gather everyone around for the holidays, sharing stories and memories, re-igniting all the "warm feelings" of family and friends. I considered not going. But, what the Hell? I drove over to Mom and Dad's house. I saw all the cars of our old group of mutual friends. And I saw Colleen's car. She was just getting out of it. She looked up just as I was driving by and saw me.

I just kept on driving. I saw Colleen in the rearview mirror, standing in the middle of the street, with her face in her hands, her body shaking with sobs. I hated to see her like that, but this misery was all her doing. And I hated what she had done to us more than I felt sorry for her.

Five minutes later, I hadn't even returned to my apartment before my phone blew up. Jesus, they must have had everyone we knew there. That's when I realized what they had planned.

I saw my Dad calling, so I answered. "Oh, gee, Dad! Did I miss the intervention you guys planned to ambush me with? What do you want?"

"Is that how you talk to your father, now?"

"Since I learned you cheated on Mom, multiple times, yes. You're no better than Colleen, and I'm ashamed to call you my father! And then you, and I guess everyone else, decided to try and rope me into some kind of intervention? Go fuck yourselves, all of you!"

He was quiet for a moment, then, angrier than I had ever heard, he said, "I thank God you aren't my son!"

"So, Mom cheated, too?" I said. "Hell, I guess I should have expected that, after how you are all carrying on about the divorce."

"Yes. It was revenge for my cheating. And she got pregnant. That was what brought us back together, got us to look past our mistakes. You were born, and we raised you. I loved you as much as if you were my own. You constantly reminded me to be a better man and not hold people's mistakes against them. But if I had known you would turn out to be like this, I'd have smothered you with your own pillow before you turned five years old, especially if I knew the pain you were going to cause to everyone who loves you!"

"Hey, cheater, that's good news to know you're not my real father. Don't call me again. I'm done with the lying, cheating bunch of you, and the way you all expect me to accept this bullshit so all the rest of you can go on with your lies and self-deceptions and pretending to be happy. Tell all our friends I no longer consider them to be my friends. Tell Mom and Colleen's parents to never call me again." I hung up.

I knew by now that they would never give up. If I wanted to be free of them, I'd have to leave Connecticut. So, on that Thanksgiving morning, I got in my truck and started driving West. When I crossed the border into Texas, I knew I had found my new home state.

A bricklayer can usually find work almost anywhere. I got hired by a small Mom and Pop outfit, they saw I did good work, and they taught me estimating. I found it fascinating. In construction, when you plan to make a building, believe it or not, someone must figure out how many bricks, mortar, sand, lime, and any coloring agents for the mortar will be needed. That guy is the estimator. A good estimator could be the difference between success or failure for a business. But the main thing I loved about it was that it took all my concentration. I could forget, for a while, what a shit-show I had discovered the world to be.

For the next five years, that was what I did. The company gave me a percentage of the profits to motivate me to make good estimates, and I was making a lot more than a bricklayer on the line. I was popular and respected in the industry.

I made no friends. Discovering my wife's infidelity, then realizing how much infidelity was such a huge part of life, and how all my friends got mad at me for Colleen's cheating, I decided to hold everyone at arm's length. I never dated. And believe me, several gals openly displayed an interest in me. From a roll in the hay to matrimony, I had several to choose from. But I never accepted their invitations.

I was done. I was now fifty-five, and I had no intention of ever getting that far back into the human race and all the bullshit that went along with it. Just count me out! I was glad I had never had children, because knowing what I did about life, and people, I would hate myself for ever bringing anyone else into this miserable world, where they would be subject to all the same shit that rains down on us all.

Yes, I was bitter. And I was okay with that if it prevented further heartbreak for me. If it were one or the other, heartbreak or bitterness, I'd take the bitterness.

I was the bastard son of a cheating wife and the cheating asshole who impregnated her, while the man I thought was my Dad was out cheating on my mother. My parents and Colleen's had dealt with infidelity. My wife had been unfaithful. Several of my no-longer-friends had admitted to cheating, and at least one said it had made their marriage stronger. It was everywhere, and it all caused endless pain and suffering, and for no reason I could see. Fuck all that.

So I opted out. I was lonely and bitter and hated everything, the world, and God. And I was ok with that. At least I didn't have to have my heart ripped out of my chest. I intended to live out my days and die, and honestly, the sooner the better, in my mind.

I started drinking. I was still good at my job, and by day no one knew the depth of my hatred for life, the universe, and everything. But the instant I got home, I started drinking, and I had learned how to keep a good buzz going without making myself sick or waking up too hungover in the morning to do my job.

And yeah, depression became my constant roommate. I knew I could get out of it if I started making friends again. But no way was I going to let that happen. I'd been through all of that once, and everyone blamed me for being too stubborn, too black and white, over-reacting and all their other lying-to-themselves bullshit. And I noticed all the same things in everyone else I saw. Making excuses to cover up a wrong so they can just get by more easily. Just get back to fooling themselves they were happy, staggering from one betrayal to another. All of it causing nothing but pain for themselves and everyone around them. Once was enough for me.

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October 12, 2025

I don't know how they found me. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised; there are no secrets in this current world. One night, there was a knock on my door. I ignored it. I never answered the door; it would just be some people wanting something from me, and outside of working hours, I did not associate with anyone. The knocking got louder. Then, more hands started beating on the door, and they wouldn't stop. I got up and looked, and it was Colleen, her parents, and my parents. And all of them were hammering on my door.

Fuck, I did not want this. If I had been more sober, I'd have gone out the back, got in my car, and driven away. But I was too far gone to drive. Instead, I called the police and told them I was being harassed and needed help. When the 911 operator heard the din of my door being beaten down, she put the call through to the local police.

I ignored the constant beating on my door. Then they must have found a baseball bat or something, because suddenly the door was being broken into splinters. Now I had had enough! I grabbed my shotgun and shouted, "The police are on their way. Get out of here before I have you all arrested for trespassing!"

Colleen said, "Jason, please! We came all this way! It took forever to find you! I just want to talk!"

"Sorry, not interested."

"How can you be so cold-hearted?" My mother asked.

"Easy. I remember how Colleen cheated, I remember how you all turned against me, I remember everyone telling me about their cheating, your cheating, and I just do not care to hear any more of it. I left! And you had to track me down! Now, for the last time: leave me alone! If any of you steps foot in my house, I will shoot you."

"Listen, son," the man I had thought was my father said, "You can't go on like this. I'm coming in."

"YOU are not my father, by your own admission! MY father was another cheating asshole who fucked a cheating whore!"

He started to come into my house. I pointed my shotgun to the left and fired a shot into my wall. I racked the slide and said, "It's just rock salt, but you won't like it, and the next one won't miss. Get OUT!"

About that time, the police showed up. They told the assembled group that they did, in fact, must leave my property, regardless of any unresolved family disputes. I filed vandalism charges for destroying my front door. I had to insist, the Police were also siding with my estranged family. But they had to file the charges. However, they didn't take any of them into custody, which pissed me off. Later, when I learned I would have to face them in court, I dropped the charges and made the repairs myself.