Ethical Considerations

"I don't know how to explain it any clearer, Bob. We had a disagreement over ethics, and I left."

"I can't believe you left your wife over some abstract philosophical nonsense! There has got to be more than that. I'm not going anywhere until you tell me everything, and neither are you. Start at the beginning, go over everything, one point at a time, and explain what these mysterious so-called ethical considerations were."

I tried to spare his feelings, but he wasn't going to let it go. Fathers are like that, they want to understand everything so they can fix it. This wasn't something he could fix, though, and I ought to give it one more try. Well, I thought I should give it another try. Maybe I try too hard to be a nice guy. I liked being the kind of guy that had ethics, I'd met too many people that were a little short in that area.

"Bob, you really don't want to insert yourself into this. Just leave it alone and let me keep the details between myself and your daughter. Please?"

"No, I need to know what's going on with you two. I've got a daughter sitting in the living room at my house crying her eyes out, which makes her mother cry, too. We've got to get some kind of resolution of whatever 'ethical' issues seem so important to you to make her come home sobbing."

"OK. I tried, but you wouldn't let it go. The ethical disagreement I had with your daughter was that she thought it was acceptable to have a boyfriend, and I disagreed. I call it an ethical disagreement because I don't think it rises to the level of morality. If a married couple want to involve others in their sexual relationship, it isn't immoral or even unethical. But, if one of the partners keeps the other partner in the dark about a third person in the relationship, that's unethical. At least it is in my opinion. Tammy doesn't see it that way, and I can't convince her to see it from my point of view. That's why I told her to find someplace else to live while we got divorced."

"But... I mean, can't you find a way... Shit, I don't know what to say. She really decided to sleep around on you?"

"Not exactly. She wanted to bring him into our house and make him part of our relationship. I got the impression that she wanted to be a wife that just had more than one husband. Don't get me wrong, if others want to live their lives like that, I'm not going to object. I just don't want that sort of marital arrangement for myself. To minimize the way I state the problem, I was also kind of irritated that she has been 'auditioning' candidates for the soon-to-be-created position of co-husband. You can imagine the way I really felt."

"She didn't!"

"She did. She'd found five guys that she thought were good prospects and wanted me to pick the one I thought I could get along with best. She said she thought I would appreciate her being 'respectful of my feelings' in the matter. From my point of view, I didn't see anything respectful about anything she was doing and I didn't appreciate it in the least. Like I said, it was a difference of opinion on an ethical matter. 'Was it or was it not ethical to go behind your spouse's back to make decisions about an alternative sexual relationship?' I thought it wasn't, she thought it was, and we couldn't resolve the matter. She got angry and said she was going to stay with her parents until I 'got my head out of my ass', as she put it. I just told her to be prepared to stay for a long time, as I didn't plan on changing my mind. She stormed out and after I changed the locks, we ended up with the current stalemate."

"Maybe changing the locks was a bit much. After all, it was just an argument."

"Bob, you're her father. You and Marge raised her. You can be as understanding as you want, but please don't expect me to share that need with you. You have to put up with her crying and stay understanding and supportive. I don't. I changed the locks because she kept sending her asshole lovers over here to 'knock some sense into me'. I didn't want to get knocked around and I didn't want to have to shoot somebody, if I could avoid it. She wouldn't stop sending them, so I did what I had to do. She kept giving them keys to get into my place, so I had no choice but to change the locks. Sooner or later one of those shit-for-brains idiots was going to take a swing at me. I know their type. When they did, I'd have to defend myself. I wouldn't mind that much, because they would have been assaulting me in my own home and I'd have an excuse to give them some 'physical reactions'. Still, I might have gone to jail until I got things straightened out again, so I restrained myself. She didn't tell you the truth about why we were 'having trouble', did she?"

"Well, what she told us wasn't what you just told me, but..."

"I really didn't want to get you involved in our mess but I'm not going to put up with you thinking I'm a liar. I recorded our last 'discussion'. You either take my word that what I'm saying is true, or you listen to the tape. If I were you, I wouldn't want to listen. Her speech got a little... 'Expressive' might be a tactful way to put it. Listening to it might be hard on your memories of her as a child, but it's your choice."

"I'll take your word for it. One thing you're not is a liar, she was the one that was a little sparing in the facts she gave when she told us about what was going on. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. When she was a little girl, she always tried to avoid a direct falsehood by using part-truths and avoiding direct statements, I guess she hasn't changed that much. I'm not looking forward to having to tell her mother about this. I wish I could avoid that."

"I have a long list of things I wish I could have avoided. I had to walk into a clinic and get tested for sexually transmitted diseases. That was not on my bucket-list of things I always wanted to do. I had to deal with a bunch of steroid-abusing idiots who wanted to rearrange my face to make me 'be reasonable'. I had to listen to another idiot with a turned-around collar and an elementary misunderstanding of the obligations of marriage talk about 'forgiveness' and 'acceptance'. I had to listen to drunken tirades about my 'unreasonable behavior' from my soon-to-be ex-wife whenever she called in the middle of the night. I would have preferred to avoid all of those things, but I wasn't given that option. I'm done tolerating her behavior. As a matter of self-protection, I've got my attorney preparing the divorce petition and as soon as he's done, she's going to be served."

"Isn't that a little harsh?"

"No, I don't think it's harsh at all. She's still driving a car that's in my company's name. She has no right to it under the terms of the pre-nup. I'm not going to make a fuss about it, I'll buy it from the company and give it to her. I'll pay for the insurance on her car and her medical insurance for a year or so, too. The house is mine, because I owned it before we were married, but I'll pay for a year's lease on an apartment if she doesn't want to live with you and Marge. She gets to keep the Spousal IRA I set up for her, even though I made all the contributions. That's another forty thousand or so. All of that is stuff I don't have to do, but I'm doing it in an effort to get this situation settled. I won't bring up the pictures in court, either, unless I have to."

"Pictures?"

"Oh, she didn't tell you about them? Gee, what a surprise, she's been just ever-so-truthful about everything else! Sorry for the sarcasm, but I'm not exactly in my best mood right now. The second one of her boyfriends that came to my home said that he thought that I 'didn't understand my role' in the 'new way things were going to be'. He gave me pictures of Tammy and the five guys. I think the description of the activity three of them were engaged in is called 'making her airtight'. I think the other two were jacking off, waiting their turn. I have no I idea who the photographer was, maybe they used a timer and a tripod or maybe there's a sixth asshole that I haven't found out about yet. I really don't think that Tammy was picking them for intellectual brilliance. Who's dumb enough to brag about fucking a married woman and then give the husband pictures of the event? The brain-dead moron didn't even have the smarts required to avoid showing faces, including his own! Judges in this state tend to consider infidelity when they're deciding about financial settlements. Between the infidelity and the pre-nup that you and Helen insisted on, I could probably walk away with a whole lot less than what I've offered. I won't though. We had a decent enough marriage until she caught a bad case of 'the stupids', and that deserves something. Not everything she wants, but something. That presupposes that she goes along with the divorce peaceably. If she tries to break the pre-nup and rape me in the divorce, the gloves come off. I'd have to use the pictures, even if I'd rather not. I owe it to the people that work for me, because it would cause a major problem with our finances. I'm willing to offer some of my money, but not the money that's making it possible for my employees to support their families."

"I wish you could show some of that compassion for Tammy, she..."

"Don't go there! I'm showing compassion, a lot of it. I'm not raping her in the divorce and the settlement will be more than fair. I'm not publicizing her adultery, she can tell all her friends that it was all my fault. None of the guys in the pictures will have their lives affected by being named in the divorce, everything remains confidential. But, and it's a big but, that only works if she doesn't fight it. You need to convince her of that. If I have to fight to save my company and help my employees, I'll fight. I'll fight hard. You see, it really is a matter of compassion but it's compassion for my employees. They might get hurt in court fight and they didn't do anything to cause this, so they'll be innocent victims if everything goes to shit. If anyone gets my compassion, it's the innocents, not the guilty parties."

"You're a hard man, Will, you..."

"No. I'm not. I'm not hard at all and I'd rather not hurt anyone. Still, I won't let you, your wife and Tammy hurt people that depend on me for the paychecks that let them support their families. If I can avoid hurting you and your family, I will. If I can't, I won't. That's not hard, that's just doing what's necessary. If I can, I'll take the 'irreconcilable differences' route. I won't bad-mouth Tammy, I'll let her call me all kinds of an asshole for cheating on her or maybe just for being a heartless bastard. Her friends don't have to know the truth. The people that I like know who and what I am and they won't believe what she says. Those that do? Well, they're not my friends and I don't give a shit about what they think. By the way, Tammy's little sister? She's still eligible for that internship if she wants it. She's another one of those innocents that I don't want to hurt. It's not her fault her sister is a cheating slut."

"See here, you can't call my daughter a..."

"Of course I can! Having sex behind my back with one guy is cheating, with five guys? Wanting to keep doing it? Wanting to move one or more of them in with us as co-husband or husbands while I support her and him? It's the classic definition of 'cheating slut'!"

"But she wouldn't..."

"Certainly she would! She's been paying for all five of the apartments that her dumb-ass fucking dickheads are living in, for pity's sake. I did some checking, and two of them do it professionally. Live off their married lovers, I mean. The other three of them are just too stupid to do that, they're chronically unemployed because they're too dumb to have any marketable skills. If one of them won the 'prize', there are only two possibilities. He'd either have to live off my money or he'd want to live off my money. I wouldn't agree to having a 'co-husband' in the first place and I'm not certainly not about to agree to having one I have to support! In case you're wondering, your daughter is not exactly brilliant, either. She was stupid enough to pay for the apartments and the little 'gifts' she gives them by checks drawn on our joint account! Either she's stupid enough to think I wouldn't notice or she's stupid enough to think I would go along with it. Either way, she's stupid. By the way, tell her not to write any more checks. I left enough money in the account to cover what she's already written, but there won't be any more deposits coming in to cover anything in the future. My banker has the details, the checks that she's already written won't bounce but there's not going to be any more for her parasites. If she's going to support them, she'll either have to leech off you or get a job."

"Will, you can't burn..."

"Stop. We're not friends any more and I don't want your opinion about what I can do and what I can't do. We can't be friends because you have loyalties to your daughter that are in direct conflict with the way I think. I'm not going to be a co-husband, I'm not going to be dealing with her 'auxiliary fuck' support-staff and I'm not paying for their living expenses, either. If the shit hits the fan and I can't convince Tammy to let me protect my people, the gloves come off and it's war. You'd have to be on your daughter's side, so you'd be on the enemy side. Just try to keep Marge neutral, I wouldn't want to hurt your wife, too, if I could avoid it. I'd only do that if I had too."

"But..."

"Bob, just drop it. Stay as far away from this as you can. If Tammy starts to act reasonably, I'll make things as easy as possible. No reasonable actions from her and things get difficult, as difficult as she makes necessary. Now, why don't you go home and try to convince Tammy to cooperate with the divorce. My attorney will have the divorce petition citing 'irreconcilable differences' ready on Friday. If Tammy comes in and signs off on it by Wednesday, we're fine. If there's no signature by the end of business Wednesday? She's just declared war. The easy petition gets withdrawn and I refile with the grounds changed to 'adultery'. She gets served by an official process-server, all of my conciliatory efforts stop and I'll change the way I spend my money. The money I was going to let her have to make things go easier becomes money I spend on making sure my company and its employees are protected. I don't want to have to do that and I'm pretty sure you and Marge don't want that. It will cost me less and take me less time to give her some money to just walk away than it will to fight her over the divorce. That leaves it to Tammy to decide how the divorce is going to happen. One way is an easy road, and the other one is bumpy. She gets to pick which road she goes down but she's going down a road of one kind or another. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some things to do that are important. I'm done wasting my time and effort on my former marriage. Goodbye."

With that, I stood up and opened the door for him.

For some reason, he didn't answer me and just left. Gee, I wonder if it could have been something I said that upset him? (If you don't recognize sarcasm when you see it, I feel sorry for you.)