Our Old Friend: Our?

Marie met me at the door when I arrived home from work, brimming with enthusiasm. Don, she said, "our old friend Jim Brewster is coming to town on business, and we will get to visit with him and catch up on old times!"

I did a double take at being greeted at the door with this unwelcome and irritating news. "Our old friend?" I thought to myself. We did not have any mutual old friends that I knew about. We attended the same university, but did not run in the same circles at all. She had old friends from before we were married, as did I, but we did not really even know each other until we met by coincidence a few years after graduating, and at that later time we got to know each other and after a few months we were married.

However, I did remember Jim Brewster, or at least his reputation. He was called "Brewster the Rooster" because he had topped so many co-ed hens while at the university. I recalled that he had also dated Marie, but nothing more than that, as she and I were barely acquainted during our years at that university, and he and I were not acquainted at all.

All of which led me to say, "Marie, I have no pleasant recollections of this fellow, do we have to see him, I would rather not."

The atmosphere chilled. "Don," she said, "you can't expect me to give up all my own friends from the past, just because they were not among your old friends from that time." Odd, just minutes earlier Jim Brewster had been referred to as "our old friend," but never mind. Marie had a habit of re-defining things to suit her self when it was useful to do so.

"The fact is, I have invited Jim to stay with us while he is here in town. I hope you do not object."

I replied, "Well, I do object, I object strongly. What were you thinking, inviting someone into our home without talking to me about it? How did this come about? It has been years since we were at the university, have you been carrying on a correspondence with him, and if so, what about? I know that you dated him back then, how is it that he knew to contact you here, and that you are on close enough terms to invite him into our home? Have you been living a secret life of your own outside our marriage? I do not like this one damn bit."

Marie said, "No, I have not been living a secret life outside our marriage, but he and I have kept in touch by telephone and an occasional letter. He is an old friend."

"Yes, I recall that a very few minutes ago, he was 'our' old friend, which is not even remotely true, at least now he seems to be 'your' old friend instead of 'our' old friend. I do not like the man, do not respect him, do not want him sniffing around my wife, and do not, positively not, want him in our house. You have made a very bad mistake, a presumptuous mistake, by inviting him to stay with us. So now how are you going to fix this? You should call him back and tell him that for some reason or other we will not be able to have him stay in our house. Tell him that we are quarantined for Bubonic-Aids-Ebola, and that we cannot let anybody into our house, and we are forbidden to go out of the house where we might expose others to it. Or if B-A-E sounds too far out, say we both have rabies, or swine flu, or whatever. Or simply tell him the truth, that your husband will not allow him to come on the property at all, let alone stay overnight in the house."

"Don, I want to see him. I want him to stay here. This is my house, too and I have a right to invite friends to stay here."

"Marie, I hate to bring this up and it does not reflect my usual feelings about the matter, but it is in fact not our house, it is my house, I owned it before we were married, and so to is not community property. I prefer to think of it as our home, but by inviting this highly undesirable person into our home, you have exceeded your right and authority with what is, when all is said and done, my house. I will not have this Brewster into my house, or anywhere else on my property, either to visit or to stay."

"Don, I never thought I would hear you be so mean and hostile as to declare it to be your house, not our house."

"Marie, I never thought that you would disregard my feelings about our home by inviting a person of low morals and a scandalous reputation involving women into our home. Push has come to shove, and I will not tolerate this person setting foot on this property, either now or in the future. Which leads me to ask, has he ever been to this house before? Have you ever met him personally since we have been married? Have you ever had sex with him since we have been married? And by sex, I will not accept a 'Bill Clinton evasion', I mean vaginal, oral, anal, aural, nasal, handjobal, interfemuri, armpital, or any other bodily contact with erotic intent. Did you plan on a romantic interlude with him while I was at work, or heaven forbid, drugged into a deep sleep so that you two could do as you pleased while I was conked out? Such things have been known to happen, I just did not realize that our marriage was so weak that I should even have such thoughts, but perhaps I should entertain such unwelcome thoughts now. Is our marriage that weak now, are you so committed to seeing your old boyfriend that that is more important than the continuation of our marriage? If so, now is the time to tell me, so that we can initiate the necessary steps to recognize your freedom to do as you damn please. And I demand an answer to the questions that I have just asked you."

"Don, I will not dignify your disgusting questions by answering them. And I do intend to see Jim while he is here, and any other time he comes to this town. I might even go so far as to go visit him in his town, since you are being such an ass about my seeing an old friend. You do not own me, I have a right to come and go as I please, and to see whom I please, when and where I please."

"Marie, you are quite right, I do not own you and have never desired to own you. However, I have been living under the impression that we had both voluntarily agreed to limits on our comings and goings, and on who we do or do not see, and what actions we perform with them if we do see them. I have lived by these assumed limits on the assumption that I agreed to do so when I said, "I do." I thought that you had the same views on these matters since you also said "I do." It appears that in your case this agreement has shrunk or disappeared. The questions that I asked you earlier are still awaiting answers, and a more general question now poses itself. Have you been unfaithful to me since we have been married, that is unfaithful emotionally or physically? Do you intend now to be unfaithful to me now, in any of the ways mentioned, with anybody at all, and most especially with Jim Brewster?"

"Don, I am angry that you asked any or all of these questions, and I will not answer any of them. You cannot make me answer any of these questions. As I said, you do not own me, and I have a right to do as I please."

"Marie, you are right, I cannot make you answer any of these questions, unless of course we are in court and you are under oath. And I must sadly recognize that it is to court we are going, as part of the process of being divorced. I cannot make you answer any of my questions, but I can divorce you if you do not, and that is what I am going to do. One thing I can make you do is gather up your things and get them and yourself off my property. If you do not remove your personal property by this time tomorrow, I will remove it for you and put it in a storage unit. It is late today, so all that I can do today is cancel the credit cards and close some accounts, and tomorrow will go top the bank and split our assets evenly between us. I want the engagement ring and wedding ring back right now, and I want your things out of the master bedroom suite by half an our from now. You can move your things to the spare bedroom, or the garage, or, most sensibly, to your car for immediate departure. You may stay in this house one more night, tonight, in the spare bedroom, but not more than this one night. By twenty four hours from now, I want you and all your personal property out of here, and off my property. If you do not remove it yourself I will remove it, and will remove you. The house will be listed for sale tomorrow, at a price low enough to make a quick sale likely, and I do not want your things around when showing the property to agents or to prospective buyers. If you force me to remove you bodily from my property, I will do so, using whatever physical force I deem justified. If that results in some jail time for me

I will cheerfully serve that time, and believe me, you will hurt. Now go find your lover boy Brewster. Maybe you will luck out and he will get a cheap motel room for you, in which you can exercise your newfound freedom, and may you choke on it."

"Don, this has gotten out of hand and gone too far. I do not want a divorce. I want to stay married, but I do intend to see old friends from time to time, including Jim Brewster, and you cannot stop me."

"Well, Marie, you cannot do both. It is the marriage, or it is seeing Jim Brewster and old friends. Under no circumstances will it be both. I would suggest that you get to work in the master bedroom, as your half hour is rapidly passing. If you do not get everything of yours out by the half hour, I will do it for, and you will not like how I do it, or what condition your stuff will be in after my removal process."

"It will occur to you that a judge might intervene and stop me removing your property, but he certainly can not do so by the end of your rapidly elapsing half-hour, and probably not even by tomorrow afternoon, by which either you or I myself will have cleared you out of here totally and completely."

"Don, I cannot believe how brutal you are being to me."

"Marie, I cannot believe that you would invite such a well-known scumbag into our home. Now get cracking, or I will do it for you, with results that you will not like."

Whether she saw Jim Brewster or not is irrelevant.