The story is winding down to its denouement. The lesson is that decisions always have consequences, good and bad. And in this story all of the chickens are starting to come home to roost. The ironic part is that; as we live our lives we make decisions about the results of prior decisions. So it seems like we exist in this Frostian network of endlessly branching roads. That is particularly true in the case of marriages. Our hero makes some major choices about prior decisions. I know that the path in loving wives stories always leads to burning bitches. But I think that you can see that the road less traveled, the one that he chooses here, leads in the right direction. As usual thank you for reading me
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A hard rain had started as I drove back to my condo. People lose track of how far Long Island juts out into the Atlantic. And thanks to where we are located we get our share of violent storms.
This was shaping up to be one to remember. In fact, even though we are a little south of their breeding grounds, tonight's weather felt like it might turn into a true Nor'easter.
While the lightning flashed and the wipers slapped their busy tune I was thinking about what I had just overheard.
I was feeling a bit guilty about eavesdropping on my wife. But Janet had added a new dimension to my understanding. And as far as I was concerned it was the final piece that I needed to start the reconciliation process.
I recognized and accepted that she was entirely responsible for what she had done. But I could understand the reason now. And I had to admit some complicity.
My passive contributions didn't cause me any pangs of guilt. But they DID help me get my head around the cause of Janet's straying.
More importantly, because I finally understood the motivation for her behavior I was NOW more-or-less totally reassured that it would never happen again. That is, if I did the things that I needed to do.
The solution to our problem was simple and I was absolutely certain that it was the right one. Murphy had done a masterful job of yanking me out of Janet's life, thereby removing her support system.
The blame for that part of her seduction was strictly on him. But my failure to understand my wife's growing need for romance and excitement was my fault entirely. And I was never going to make that mistake again.
I know that the sin of inattentiveness is a problem in most long-standing marriages; so much so that the thickheaded husband is a TV caricature. I will cop to that plea.
But making the same mistake twice is not in my skill set. Based on what I had learned, it was painfully obvious that I had to stop living my marriage like a bad sitcom and start treating it with the importance and respect that it deserved.
That is, if I wanted to keep my wife.
So, I was going to do whatever it took to add a lot more spice to Janet's life.
I have no idea when I lost track of the fact that Janet was a gift, not my inalienable right. When I think back on it our entire married life seemed to disappear into routine sometime in the murky past. And in some ways I had to thank Mr. Murphy for waking me up.
Murphy saw what I was NOT seeing. He was around our house enough to pick-up on the effect that my inattention had on Janet.
Janet is always loving and faithful. But she was also a woman who was getting absolutely no interest or excitement from her husband. And Murphy had used her incipient boredom to do something that I had never thought would happen, fuck her outside the bounds of holy matrimony.
All women need the occasional jolt of reinforcement to feel desirable. In fact the partner's appearance is a fundamental part of mating behavior in any species; think peacock.
It was pure unadulterated self-satisfied stupidity that made me lose track of Janet's outrageous sex appeal. I had gotten lazy. So instead of thinking about novel ways to sweep my highly appealing wife off her feet, I was wallowing in my daily routine like a pig in mud.
In that respect, my arrogance and deeply entrenched complacency made her vulnerable to any approach that would let her feel important and desirable again.
Knowing what I do now, I was not going to EVER stop expressing my gratitude that she had chosen me. So, my first step was going to be to get my head out of the cozy place where I had been keeping it. And then spend my spare time coming up with new and improved ways of letting Janet know each and every day how special she is.
And make no mistake, Janet is very special.
It is her warmth and humanity that differentiate her from other beautiful women. Her movie star face and her smoking hot body are guaranteed to set-off waves of yearning in every man who meets her.
But, she has such a charismatic personality that you quickly lose sight of her extreme physical attractiveness. Underneath her gorgeous exterior she is kind, sweet, humble, gentle, and her intelligence and her wicked sense of humor are second to none.
In fact I have never quite understood why she pledged herself to me in the first place. When we met it was obvious that she didn't lack for male companionship. Even now, she will be hit on wherever we go, sometimes right in front of me. Guys can't help themselves. It is sort of like that proverbial moth to the flame.
Nonetheless, in every instance I have ever witnessed or heard of she has been steadfast in her loyalty to me. And I have tried to return everything she gives me with compound interest.
But I am always aware that there are men waiting in line behind me.
I had never been that angry at her for fucking Murphy. I could see how she had been maneuvered into giving it up to him. I saw that even before we first talked and agreed to separate. And after cleaning up the mess that Murphy had caused with the Feds I could see that he was a very clever and unscrupulous fellow indeed.
Her emotional affair was something that I WAS hurt by. But I could also understand how it happened now. And frankly any anger about that would be a double edged sword, since I would have to let myself in for part of the blame.
There were also mitigating circumstances. Those things made it particularly easy to forgive her.
First and foremost, if you have ever gotten the full treatment from my wife you will understand why the spur of the moment sex that she had with Murphy was trivial. If she was truly turned on by the man, she would never just hit-and-run as she did.
And now, thanks to my eavesdropping, the emotional attachment she had formed with the guy, which was what had really enraged me, was understandable. As a result I was ready to call her tomorrow and begin the reconciliation process.
Most importantly I had the key to rebuilding our relationship and I was NOT going to lose that.
I knew that I had to pay closer attention to romancing her. I might have been excused for putting her in the second seat while I was building a career but that was behind me now.
The business was thriving and I knew that I had hired good people, with one horrible exception. Cleaning up the fallout from Murphy's exploit proved that. So those people could run the business now.
I didn't think it would take long to put us back together since I was certain that we both unequivocally loved each other. The only condition for assuming our happy life would be to find a comfortable middle ground in our day-to-day existence where we could both feel adequately fulfilled.
I was trying to decide whether weekends in Paris, or London would be more exiting for Janet when my phone rang. I was about to answer it when I saw that the inbound call was to Janet, not me.
When I had Bluebugged Lance at the restaurant, I had dropped a little piece of malware on his phone. It was a simple application that did one thing. It alerted me when he called Janet's number.
It also let me listen in to what was being said; like it was an old-fashioned party line. It was strictly man-in-the-middle stuff. I could listen but I was muted on my end.
Nothing would be more disruptive to my goal of surreptitious listening then to have the two parties hear something unexpectedly foreign in the background of their call. And the way the wind was rocking the vehicle that I was driving, it was getting very noisy inside my car.
I was interested in what Lance would have to say to Janet. I was even more interested in what she had to say to him. I had KNOWN that Lance was going to make a move on her. Every OTHER guy in the room can tell when a man makes the decision to move in on a woman. It's part of our internal wiring. We just know it.
I eased the phone up to my ear with my heart hammering in my chest. This was something that I didn't want to deal with right now. But it was what it was. I didn't miss the irony that I was making my final plans for reconciliation just as some other man was taking the steps to try to tear us apart.
I pulled over to the side of the road and killed the wipers. All I could hear around me was the pounding of the rain and the occasional roll of thunder.
I heard Janet say, "Lance, why are you calling me at this hour?!" He responded with some lame story about how she had to help him with some paperwork.
She asked him, "Why now?" He responded that he had only just thought about it when the group went out today. I was certain that he had thought of SOMETHING then, and Rebecca's fucking him afterward just seemed to have whetted his appetite for the main course.
Lance was determined though. He invoked the formal mentor relationship that the Board of Education had saddled Janet with. And she eventually gave in. I don't suppose she had an option at that point. Both of us knew that Lance was enough of a weasel that he would have probably whined to the Board if she hadn't.
Janet's voice had the unmistakable sound of irritation as she said, "I want to go to sleep no later than 10:30 so you had better get your ass over here." And she slammed the phone down.