Anyone who's been married knows that the institution of marriage provides a complicated situation for the man and woman involved. It starts out with the participants proclaiming love "until death do us part," whether "in sickness or health," and "forsaking all others." Those are powerful words and concepts that I speculate most of the people entering into matrimony don't fully understand, especially in view of the curves life throws at us all. I sure didn't fully understand them when I got married at the obscenely young age of eighteen.
I'm Amy Walton, nee Allison. I have always considered myself a decent looking and somewhat intelligent girl/woman, but nothing special. My self-image may have been adversely affected because I had a shitty home life growing up, complicated greatly by my parents' divorce. I always felt that it was my fault, and my parents weren't astute enough, or didn't care enough, to convince me that it wasn't. My brother grew up completely fucked up, and my Mom taking in "overnight" boarders after my father left didn't help anything.
I probably married Brian Walton to get away from control by, contact with, whatever you want to call it, my mother. He was the ripe old age of twenty when we wed and as clueless as I was about life. We had a small – very small – wedding and moved into a small apartment.
I wasn't very experienced sexually when I married Brian. I had expected married sex to be much better than it was – and maybe with a more caring and responsive partner it would have been. Sometimes it was decent, other times it was just Brian getting his rocks off. There was never any oral, little experimentation, and I orgasmed about one third of the time.
One problem that I always had with Brian, but never addressed before I said "I do" to the "till death do us part, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others," mumbo-jumbo was that he was a male chauvinist, especially around other guys. That didn't mean that he wasn't nice to me or other women – he was. He simply had strong, unrealistic, outdated ideas about women.
Married life wasn't all bad, just not exciting or intellectually stimulating. Brian is a decent, mild mannered guy, and even when we first got married he was an excellent machinist so that he made decent money. I worked as a waitress for a while – something I really hated since I got hit on constantly; I got the feeling that many guys found me much hotter than I considered myself. I never could figure out why just because guys buy some food and drink at a restaurant that they feel that that entitles them to harass the waitress. I didn't play the game so my tips were never stellar.
After we had been married for three years we had our first child, a boy we named Tom. Brian insisted that I quit work. I could have looked at it two ways – his chauvinism coming out, or real concern for raising our kids properly. Since I hated being a waitress I didn't really care which was the case – I quit working.
We had normal marriage ups and downs, but all downs when it came to baby care. I doubt that Brian changed more than five diapers the entire time that Tom was in them.
After a miscarriage two years after I delivered Tom I was really down in the dumps, i. e. depressed. Brian didn't know how to deal with it. I finally went to see a psychologist and she got me back on track more despite Brian than because of him
Fortunately, we were blessed with fraternal twin girls, Jamie and Brittany, about eighteen months after I miscarried. Brian was no more help with them than he was with Tom until one day I went ballistic and made him take over what I normally did during a day, caring for two babies and a five year old at the same time. That gave him "religion," at least for a while, and he started helping out some.
Don't get me wrong. Although Brian almost never helped with the work of childcare he loved playing with and being with the kids. It was obvious that they were the light of his life.
About the time that the twins turned six months old our monetary situation changed dramatically for the better. First Brian got a promotion to master machinist because he was the only one at his shop that could properly machine to exacting specifications some of the very expensive and exotic materials, such as beryllium copper tubing, that they dealt with. That meant that he made more money than almost any other blue collar worker in our entire metropolitan area of Raleigh, North Carolina. That, combined with what we had saved from handling money carefully, allowed us to buy a nice house.
The second thing that happened was that I invented a type of baby carrier that was sturdier, simpler, and more aesthetic than anything on the market. Despite Brian initially pooh-poohing it I went to see a patent attorney, filed a patent application, and had a friend of mine who is really handy with both a sewing machine and "guy tools," make about a dozen units. I took them to a tradeshow one weekend, while Brian – with his mother's help – watched the kids. My baby carriers were an instant success. I sold the rights to a big company within ten days of the tradeshow, and within three months royalty checks started rolling in.
Shortly thereafter I came up with another invention that I had patented. It was a new type of high-end crib, easily convertible to other pieces of furniture once the child outgrew it. While the royalty money from my first invention was good, I figured that I could make ten times as much if I went into production of the crib myself. I found a high quality local manufacturer whose business was down, and someone with contacts with department and baby stores. Using my royalty money I started a business that became successful quite quickly. I found out that I had a knack for business.
To lose the weight that I had gained during my second pregnancy I started a regular exercise regime, and since I need to look presentable at business meetings I went to a makeup consultant and hair dresser to get a makeover. Within several months I actually started to think of myself as significantly above average in the body and face attractiveness departments – something that was often confirmed by the looks and comments I received from guys when I was in public, although I never solicited any attention.
While my success sure made things easy for us financially, including being able to send our kids to private school since the local public ones were deficient and didn't provide any day care, it had an adverse effect on the relationship between Brian and me. I don't know exactly what it was – maybe Brian felt threatened by my success since he had always been the primary bread winner in the family, maybe because he felt that I was giving too much attention to my appearance, I don't know what – but he started getting delusions about me having one or more affairs.
"Complete delusions" were what they were. I had never cheated during our marriage and I don't know where his accusations were coming from. It seemed that any time that I had a business meeting with a man – whether in town or the few times I met business contacts out of town – I was met by increasingly more angry and fanciful accusations.
In all honesty, the constant accusations, the lack of any marital romance, and increasingly infrequent as well as unsatisfying sex, was making me question whether I did love Brian.
After the kids had gone to bed as Brian was bellyaching and accusing the night before I had my most important business trip since I came up with my crib concept, one where I would be gone overnight two nights and had arranged for a very competent sitter, I finally had had enough. "Why do you keep accusing me of infidelity when I've never been unfaithful to you? What possible reason or proof could you have?"
"You're always meeting with guys most of whom are better looking than I am," was his startled response, "and you seem to be paying a lot more attention to your appearance than when we got married."
"You do fucking know that most of my business contacts for my cribs are guys; don't you?" I screamed even louder, "and that appearance is important in making presentations in the business world?" He remained silent with an uncomfortable look.
"You seem to like the money that my business brings in, so how am I supposed to continue to make money it if I stop doing business?" I asked, this time trying to lower my voice.
"Well, uh, you – well you could license the cribs just like you did the baby carrier and just stay at home with the kids. A woman's place is in the home, not out trying to compete with men. The only reason I can think of why you would do that is to hook up with them," he replied with a defiant tone and his arms crossed.
"You fucking moron," I spat out. "Either you're stuck in the 19th century or you're the most insecure person on earth; we make ten times as much money by me running the crib business as we would if I licensed it!" He had no response to that, just an insolent glare. "In any event I'm not putting up with your shit anymore!"
With that I went into our bedroom and finished packing for my trip to Chicago, called a cab, and left to stay at the hotel at the airport for the night so that I could just roll out of bed to get my flight early the next morning.
"Where are you going?" Brian barked as I was headed out the door with my suitcase and laptop.
