Thanks to Black Stallion for editing. Any problems with content is completely mine.
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My name is Harris and this is my simple story about a marriage that is in trouble.
As marriages go, we seemed to have a good one. Jill and I had been married almost 25 years. Our daughter, Stephanie was in her last year of college and we were both excited and happy because she had already landed a job after graduation. She had studied accounting and had done quite well and was starting in the Washington DC area. We lived in Richmond and would only be a couple of hours away (pending traffic which means it could take from 1.5 to 3.5 hours).
As mentioned Jill and I had been together since our last year at college. We met and dated and fell in love. Nothing very extraordinary about it, but I always felt she and I were soul mates. At least I thought so anyway. I am average and on the thin side about 5'10" and weigh about 170. She was a beauty as far as I am concerned. Jill had beautiful curly red hair and had a proportional figure. She was about 5'5" and had gorgeous green eyes. She was very sweet and somewhat shy.
She told me she did not date much because she wanted to make good grades and did not think partying and getting drunk was conducive to her. I was a bit more the partying type, not overdoing it but fully enjoying the college experience. I was also more outgoing, but she and I fit together just perfectly.
I had two other girlfriends before Jill, one in High School and one in college. One thing about Jill which everyone said was that she was very kind and sweet. I found that true too. Except because of her Irish temper she could dish it out pretty well if she thought she was right. I had been on the other side of that temper a few times and I usually back downed if she dug in her heels about something.
Through the years we both developed into our daily rituals. I worked in retail at a department store and she worked in the city codes department. She was very diligent and had been there over 20 years.
She worked their when she first got out of college and then stayed home for our daughter's first 5 years. The she resumed her career. Dealing with the city had its ups and downs but generally she liked it.
My career was also improving as I had entered the workforce right out of school. We had moved back to our hometown and enjoyed it there. I had offers at other locations, but Jill did not want to leave as her Mother still lived in the area and was getting older.
My parents had both passed away. The losses were difficult as both had died of cancer and it had happened rapidly. It was a big loss for me but Jill and my daughter and her mother were there for me. She loved my parents as well and it was a loss for her too.
I suppose when you have been married for a while you tend to take each other for granted. That was probably the case for each of us. As our daughter had gone to college and was getting ready to move away permanently, I felt this was a good time to start getting back the special times Jill and I had had when we were first married. I had started to take Jill out for a weekly dinner/date. Our love life had become somewhat stale and I thought this would wake up our love again.
Now after reading so many stories about philandering wives and some of the clues something is not right. I never had the slightest idea she would ever put our marriage in trouble. She always did the "right thing" as far as we were concerned.
As I mentioned, I gave her freedom to do as she felt was appropriate and she always did the right thing. I was the one who paid all of the bills and she was the cook and handled all of the household things. We had always been a great partnership and when she wanted to buy something she asked and I did too. If it was a large purchase, we always discussed it first.
As anyone who works in retail, at Christmas we worked unbelievable hours. I was assistant manager of the store and it was not unusual to work 60 hours per week. Jill on the other side did not work as much during the holiday time as she usually had saved up some days off to use at the end of the year. Also, every year her department at the city had a Christmas party and all of the spouses were included. Even though Christmas was busy I always made an appearance at her party just to meet and get to know her colleagues.
Starting in the fall Jill, had started to become a little more aloof. Nothing dramatic but just a little distant. As a man who had been married so long I just dismissed it. However, she started not being interested in any romance.
She did not feel like going out on our weekly dates or if she did she would not watch the movie or care about going out at all. Our love life had slowed down from 1-2 times weekly to 1-2 times monthly. It had happened slowly and even though I still loved our time together she seemed less interested.
She blamed menopause and too much work, but something just was not right. I occasionally had to travel for work and had to go to the corporate office. Then in October I was scheduled to go for a week.
Jill usually hated me to travel and she did not like being alone. However, this time she simply said "ok."
That made me take notice. Her being aloof and her not caring about spending time with me. I asked her repeatedly was she feeling alright. She nodded and said that work was busy and she was tired. I told her to go to the Doctor. She said she would.
As I prepared, to go away for my trip she told me to have a nice time and behave myself. I laughed and said that was a joke because the meetings were long and boring. It was mostly just all the new ideas for the Christmas season being introduced. It was more like a school then anything fun.
I thought it was odd that she asked me to behave because I never gave her a reason for her to believe I would not. As I thought it through, the more I thought about her actions as well as her words, something was obviously wrong.
I asked her if everything was fine and she said yes. I told her I would miss her and she said it was only going to be 5 days. She always hated sleeping alone. Oh my God maybe she was not going to be sleeping alone. I watched her very closely over the weekend, my flight was out on Sunday afternoon and I would arrive back at about dinner time on Friday.
I called a couple of her friends and asked if she had told her anything that something was wrong. Her friend Beth, who was her closest, said she seemed tired but she had not told her anything else.
I also knew Sally, one of her co-workers. I asked Sally if anything at work had changed for Jill. Sally was silent for a minute and I repeated myself.
Then Sally said, "we have a new Manager in our department and he had implemented new rules and everyone was busier."
I thought that was interesting that she never mentioned that to me.
I asked when the Manager arrived and what was his name.
She hesitated and said, "he had only been there for a couple of months."
She did not say his name so I asked again.
Sally told me she, "did not want to get involved."
I was stunned.
"Sally please tell me what is going on. I am very worried about Jill."
Sally reluctantly said his name was "Robert Haverford and he is a big man and very intimidating."
"Sally please should I be worried about this man, how old is he?"
She said, "he is about 35 and handsome and 6'3" and over 200 pounds. He played football in college."
I was now very worried, "Sally please tell me how is he acting toward Jill?"
Sally simply said, "he seems to like her and they go out to lunch at least once a week, but I have not seen anything else."
I was not very happy to hear the news, but I told Sally I appreciated her info.
