"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train". - Oscar Wilde
I was blind to my wife's online love affair until she told me to read her Outlook Archive. She was at Dover for her annual girls together cruise when she phoned. The girls were about to board. Her final words were "Remember I love you". Her follow up text read "Remember I love you xxx".
I poured myself a coffee and had my breakfast cereal and opened her Outlook account. I was shocked to find that my wife had been in an email love affair with Alan for about 2 years.
Alan is a serving American Army officer, whose wife had died. He had various relationships since his wife's demise. None had lasted. But my wife, my Claire, was "the one". Worse, Alan was "the one" my wife wanted as her life partner.
It hurt how much my wife had written about me. She had revealed that I was level 2 on the Kinsey gradient (mostly heterosexual but also highly homosexual). So Alan knew I liked seeing other men naked. Alan knew about my visits to gay dogging areas. She told Alan I was sucking off men.
It sickened me that Alan had brought my wife to orgasm with emails of increasing explicitness. I realised I knew nothing about the sexual aspirations of the woman who had shared my bed for the last 10 years. She wanted to be taken in highly adventurous positions.
She had written a long piece in praise of how lovely Alan was. It read like a raunchy version of a wedding vow. Indeed Claire was waiting for Alan to take her physically as a sign of her absolute love. And Alan was resigning his commission to be with her. The one silver lining to this cloud was that I had a chance to stop Claire and Alan going physical. The dark cloud was that persuading someone so totally in love was Mission Impossible.
I spent the next hours reading and rereading the emails. I did what any self respecting man would do - I ranted, I tried, unsuccessfully, to pretend the emails were just make believe. I smashed some crockery. I walked the streets without being aware of where I was going. I ranted some more as I walked back. I shouted "Bitch"
I drank a full bottle of scotch over the evening. All that did was make me feel sick.
I felt a fresh bout of anger as I realised that Claire had planned how to tell me about Alan. As she was away, I couldn't scream and shout at her. It also meant I had 6 days to decide what to do.
First thing was to email Claire. "Read your emails as instructed. How can you say you love me and say Alan owns your body, mind and soul?". Admittedly it was a lame response
Little did I realise that this would trigger a quite unexpected response. Next morning as I lay in hangover recovery mode, someone opened my front door. So Claire must have given Alan a key.
He put down his suitcases with a thud and came into my bedroom.
"Hey Brian it's me, Alan. Get your lazy ass out of bed. We have ourselves a situation. We military don't like having situations. I read your email yesterday. You know I own Claire's body, mind and soul. Your marriage vows are out of the window.".