So Stupid

Author Note: This is just a short story that popped in my head. I've had a hard time getting editors to review things prior to submission, so the mistakes are whatever the word processor missed. There is no sex in this...just a horrible, sad situation. Comments are welcome and I won't be offended if you think it's crap.

My name is James Hallowell. I'm an average guy, I think. 6 feet tall, 200 pounds and I run/exercise enough that I don't have a beer belly, but I also don't have a six pack. I earn a good living as the HR manager for a big manufacturing plant. My wife, Cindi, has been a stay-at-home Mom since we had our first child three years ago. We met in college and got married after we graduated. Cindi has a degree in Accounting and mine is in Business HR. We were both from the same town, but never knew each other because we went to different schools. Moving home after college just made sense.

I walked in the house through the laundry/mudroom like any other Friday. My week hadn't been particularly stressful and I was looking forward to the weekend. Normally, my three-year-old daughter, Nell, would come howling to see me when she heard the garage door close, but it wasn't unexpected that she didn't hear it.

Cindi was sitting at the dinner table with a bottle of something and two glasses with ice in them. This was a very unexpected sight since Cindi didn't drink hard liquor very often and I drink sparingly to say the least. I get drunk too easily and the hangover is never worth it. So, an open bottle and two tumblers with ice in them was not normal.

"What's up Cin?" I asked as I moved to take a seat next to her. She opened the bottle and proceeded to pour two fingers' worth of amber liquid into both glasses before she spoke.

"Nell is at my Mom's house tonight so that we could talk." She said that without making eye contact and then lifted her glass and took a big swallow of her drink.

"That sounds pretty serious. We have always been honest with each other so tell me what's going on?" I didn't touch my glass because her tone and body language were scaring me. Cindi is normally very sunny. She smiles a lot; she giggles easily and that kind of energy normally infects everyone she's around. It was the quality that I treasured most about her.

"There is no easy way to say this. I cheated on you. I met someone at the gym and we'd been flirting for a long time until I finally gave in and slept with him. I'm so sorry." Tears were running down her face as she said it. Her voice became ragged with emotion as she spoke and she still refused to meet my eyes. I felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room and I couldn't breathe or think clearly. Time seemed to stop and everything was moving in slow motion as the shock of what she just said came over me.

"You what? Why?? I don't understand...why would you do this?" I wasn't making any sense and I knew it, but in that moment, I just couldn't seem to make my thoughts work right.

"I didn't mean to let things go this far. He's just really good looking and I've been so bored the last year of staying at home and raising Nell that I couldn't help myself. That's no excuse... I know it, but it's all I can say." Cindi's tears continued, but her voice calmed down as she spoke this time. Something in her manner changed and she seemed to square her shoulders and finally looked me in the eye. "I hope we can work through this and find a way to stay together, but I'm not going to stop seeing him yet. I know it's wrong and I know it's hurting you, but I just can't stop now that he and I are together."

The hard tone she used with me as she finished speaking was a like a flame hitting pure oxygen and all of my confusion burned away. My wife was telling me that while she was sorry that she was cheating on me, she wasn't going to stop doing it even though she knew it was hurting me.

"So, what? You want a divorce? An open marriage where we can see other people?" The shock and sorrow that I was feeling were still roiling the back of my mind, but her coldness and the complete disconnect between the woman I knew and the woman sitting with me walled those feeling off.

"No, no... I don't want a divorce and I don't want an open-marriage. I just want to have this relationship and when it's over I want us to go back to where we were. I know that we will probably need couple's counseling and stuff to get back to where we were, but I'm sure that we can do it." She looked me in the eyes then and her tone changed from cold defiance to pleading and supplication. She knew that what she wanted didn't make any sense at all based on the relationship we shared, but for some reason she seemed to really think I would love her enough to accept it.

I paused at that point as the scope of what she'd said became clear to me. She was telling me that she wanted to cheat on me for an undetermined time and she wanted me to not only be ok with it, but not to cheat on her at the same time. It was the most ludicrous thing I could imagine and I had to wonder if she was insane.

"You want to continue to cheat on me with this guy and expect me to take you back when you are done?" I had to say it out loud to make sure that what I'd heard was exactly what she'd meant.

"Yes! Calvin says that this kind of thing happens all the time when a young wife has a short affair and her husband loves her enough to accept it. He said that he's seen it happen quite a few times and the husbands end up so much better off than if they'd divorced and he never saw his kids again." Cindi's tone as she explained went from optimistic to threatening. Clearly, her new man had either lied to her or he had a history of finding weak-willed men who would accept being cuckolded.

"Well, I hope that Calvin is going to enjoy supporting you and Nell. When you see him next you can tell him that you are going to be divorced shortly and will be all his. You must be fucking crazy..." I didn't raise my voice; I didn't even threaten. I just stood up from the table and walked down the hall to start packing.

"James, James...stop. You don't mean that. I'll never let you see Nell again and you'll have to pay all kinds of child support and alimony if you divorce me. Don't you see that you will be so much better off if you just let me have this time with Calvin and then we can be a happy family again?" She seemed caught between fear that I would go through with what I said and some insane conviction that her fairytale fantasy was really the best choice for us.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed her dad. He and I were not great friends, but he respected me for being a good provider and a solid role-model for his granddaughter.

"Hey, Bob. Listen, I just got home from work and Cindi told me that she is having an affair and that she doesn't want to stop, but expects me to stay married to her and work things out once she's done cheating." Bob's an honorable man. He's a former Army First Sergeant who went into corporate training when he retired. He can tell when someone is lying and I have made sure to never test him in the entire 6 years Cindi and I have been together.

We talked for a few minutes while Cindi stared at me in disbelief. Her Mom had cheated on Bob during his last deployment and it has left him very bitter and distrustful. He assured me that he would look into it and, if it was true, he would do everything he could to make sure that I kept a relationship with Nell when the divorce was over.

"Why did you do that? Why would you bring my Dad into this?" Cindi was sitting on the bed across from where I was loading clothes into a big duffle bag.

"Because Bob understands what I am feeling right now because your stupid Mom did the same thing to him. I really thought you would have learned from her mistake, but apparently you more than just look like her...you are as fucking stupid as she if you think that I would ever accept this." By the time I finished I was shouting and I knew it was time to go before I did anything I would regret.

"James, please, don't you love me? If you really loved me then you would understand that this is not a big deal and we will be fine once it's over." Cindi was wailing as she followed me from the bedroom. She looked like a small child who has been told no by their parents and can't believe that anyone could be so mean.

"I did love you, Cindi. The next few months are going to be hell while I divorce you and figure out how to live my life without you. You are smarter than this, so I really don't understand how you ever thought I would accept it. You must not know me at all." I loaded the bad into the trunk of my car while she stood in the doorway and cried. A part of me wanted to go to her, beg her to tell me that this was all some kind of sick joke and hold her in my arms. The tears running down my face and the feeling of anxiety and hurt that filled my chest told me that it was all real. "Good-bye, Cindi. I'm sure that my brother will handle my divorce case, so I'll have him send you the divorce papers and we can talk though our attorneys from now on. I can't believe you did this."

Car door closed, engine started and I rolled back out of the house that had been the home of my family. The emotional and physiological agony I felt made it almost impossible to drive, but somehow, I made it to my brother's house where he and his wife took me in.

The next year was one of the worst years of my life. The divorce didn't take very long because Bob figured out pretty quickly all the details of the affair and told his daughter that he didn't want to see her until the divorce was over. I think finding out that his daughter was just like his wife hurt him a lot. Cindi tried to get me to talk to her, but my brother Jay shut that down really quickly. Cindi got a lawyer once she realized that I wasn't coming back.

I imagine the shock of getting joint physical custody, much less child support and only two years of spousal support probably didn't make her very happy. Bob told me that once her income dropped down enough that she couldn't afford the personal training sessions with Calvin he dumped her for another stupid, pretty, bored housewife. I reported him, with all of Bob's supporting evidence, to the corporation who owned the gym he'd been working at and he lost his training license and was fired. It didn't help him any that there had been a series of complaints by other husbands in the past who just couldn't prove what Calvin had done.

Cindi and I settled into a business-like coparenting relationship. I wouldn't talk to her about anything that didn't have to do with Nell and once she figured that out things smoothed over. Somehow the story of why she got divorced spread around through our circle of friends and Cindi became something of a pariah. I guess that's only fair.

For me? Well, the two years of spousal support made it impossible for me to buy a house, but I didn't have to dip into my half of our marital assets to stay afloat. I didn't start dating for almost a year and after a few really bad experiences I decided to see a shrink. Turns out that I have some huge trust issues and getting those out of the way took a long time.

I'd like to think that Cindi regrets being so stupid. She doesn't have as nice of a lifestyle as she had, she doesn't have Nell at home with her all the time and she won't introduce her boyfriends to her Dad because he has a habit of reminding them that she's a cheating slut. He still loves her because she's his daughter, but any guy who marries her will do it with full knowledge of her past.