No, this story is not about a homeless guy who lives at the city landfill. It is about two people whose lives had been turned upside down and who were sure that their marriages would crumble. I, Lincoln Ford (yeah, my parents had a sick sense of humor, but at least everyone calls me "Link" and not "Lincoln"), was one of them.
Most spouses who start receiving disrespect from their mate aren't able to pinpoint the time that it started, or why it started. I didn't have that problem. The disrespect started after we had been married about three years when a new guy started working at my wife Mandy's workplace; his name is Bill Self. When I met him I immediately thought that the name was appropriate since "self" is what he is all about. I think that he is directly descended from the young Greek man named Narcissus who fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water.
I will say that Self is good looking, and probably smart and athletic since he has a degree in business from NYU and played varsity volleyball; plus, he's glib. But why women can't see how shallow and narcissist his personality is confuses me.
Shortly after meeting Self, Mandy started pinging on me about things that I thought were illegitimate, and started acting haughty. At two of her work events that I attended she acted like a star-struck teenager around him. Her attitude really started to bother me because during our entire relationship I have been somewhat insecure because I always felt that she is significantly better looking than I am even though friends or family members who sensed my feeling unsuccessfully tried to disabuse me of that notion.
One particular week seemed to trigger the culmination of my malaise. Mandy was going on a week-long business trip - with Self. She maintained that others were also going but it was impossible to pin her down about exactly who the "others" were. She was too tired, or not in the mood, for sex Saturday and Sunday nights despite the fact that she has an above average libido, and over the weekend seemed to think that I was her personal slave rather than her spouse based upon the number of "tasks" that she ordered, more than asked, me to perform. At least I did finally put my foot down when she asked me to confirm Self's flight at the time that I confirmed hers.
The perfunctory kiss she left me with on Monday morning when I dropped her off at the airport was disturbing as was her last comment: "Don't try and call me because I'll be busy; I'll call you at night when I have a chance."
The coup de grace was when on both Monday and Tuesday night she called for no more than two minutes then said "I've got to run, Bill and I need to get a quick dinner; bye." No "I love you," or any other term of endearment.
I was down in the dumps Tuesday night, and when I woke up after a fitful sleep on Wednesday morning I felt lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut. I called into work "sick;" I really was sick; heartsick. I felt not only unloved but unlovable, devoid of charm, class, or ambition; simply put, life sucked.
I needed to do some serious thinking; I had never been so down in the dumps before in my life and I wasn't equipped with the emotional fortitude to deal with it. So, after a quick breakfast where I barely tasted my toast and eggs (which came out too wibbly, and I almost couldn't eat them without retching) I decided to take a long walk in a local park, the largest in the city.
As I moped along on a fairly isolated trail in the park I saw a pregnant woman on a bench, who appeared to be softly crying - unless she had really bad allergies. Somehow seeing someone who might be in as much pain as I was intrigued me rather than causing me to turn tail, which I might have done under other circumstances since I normally don't like to get emotionally involved with other people's problems. As I approached the softly crying woman I realized that I knew her; she was Lizbeth Wharton.
Lizbeth Wharton was not really a friend, but an acquaintance. We had seen each other in a number of places over the last three years, although I don't believe that I ever talked with her one-on-one, certainly not for more than a couple of minutes. I found her pleasant but somewhat intimidating. Why intimidating when her pre-pregnancy size was 5 feet 4 inches tall, 110 pounds (or so I surmised) and I'm six one, 185? She is intimidating because she is one of only a handful of women I had ever met in my life who I thought was better looking (in every way) than Mandy.
Although there is no doubt that any heterosexual male would find Lizbeth attractive, to some guys - including me - her exotic looks are almost overwhelming. The times that I was around her I felt my face flush and spontaneous activity in my nether regions. I found out the probable source of her exotic looks when in a group of five people (I remember them all) Justin - a guy without a filter between his brain and his mouth - inappropriately asked "Lizbeth, you have a very unusual look; what's your ethnicity?"
I was embarrassed for her, but she might have had this question before so she took it completely in stride and immediately replied "According to the results from major DNA testing companies I have dealt with, roughly averaging out their findings, I'm - in descending order of frequency - 19-26% Dutch, 14-21% German, 10-16% Cherokee, 9-15% Armenian, 8-12% Ashkenazi Jew, 7-10% Vietnamese, 6-9% Moor, and somewhat less than1% Neanderthal. Want to know my bra size, religion, and favorite sexual position too? She said with a sneer" Then she smiled broadly.
"Uh...thanks," idiot Justin said. Then Lizbeth turned to others in our conversation group and ignored the idiot as he slinked away, at least with the sense to turn red.
I have to say that Lizbeth's looks were a blend of all of the best features of all of the ethnicities in her DNA; she would be in the top 1/10th of 1% in looks for every single culture that she represented.
"Uh...hi Lizbeth; remember me, Link Ford," I quietly said as I slowly approached her.
She blushed and wiped away a tear and said "Oh...hi Link; of course I recognize you. What brings you out here on a workday morning?"
"Uh...apparently the same thing that brought you here; I'm having an emotional time and I needed to get my head straight. Sorry to bother you..." I continued as I made a move to leave.
"No Link...don't leave," Lizbeth said, obviously recognizing that I was about to bolt. "They say that misery loves company; have a seat," she continued, patting the bench next to her.
"I don't want to intrude," I replied.
"You're not intruding; maybe talking to someone will help us both out - that is if we can pledge each other to secrecy," she smiled as she wiped away the last visible tear.
"I'm as closed-mouthed as a spy," I chuckled, pretending to zipper my lips.
"Great; me too," she chuckled back.
And so began a series of heart-felt revelations, first hers, then mine, then hers again, then mine again, finally devolving into just conversation when all of the emotional revelations were given.
Her situation was similar to mine, compounded by the fact that she was more than seven months pregnant and now on maternity leave. Unbelievably her husband Derek had been putting her down for months before she got pregnant and even though he initially pushed for the pregnancy now was at best lukewarm about it, and treated her - according to Lizbeth - "like a cow." In several different ways she expressed that she was losing self-confidence and felt like "the cow that Derek treats me like." Derrek, like Mandy, was on a business trip but he was to get back mid Thursday afternoon, Mandy late Friday afternoon.
I assured Lizbeth over and over again that she was one of the three or four most beautiful women I had ever seen in my life; and that she looked great pregnant. I was absolutely being completely truthful with her because aside from her belly and tits being larger she looked just like she did before pregnancy - namely awesome. I think that I finally convinced her that I was being 100% honest when she got a shy grin and blushed.
Lizbeth also buoyed up my spirits telling me time and again that I was as good looking as Mandy (I didn't believe it, but it was nice of her to say it) and that any woman should be proud to have me as a husband (I didn't believe that either, but again was grateful that she made the effort to convince me).
