People have asked me when I first knew something was wrong with my marriage, and the truthful answer has always been that it's hard to say. By the end, of course, the issues were obvious, but I should have known the marriage was in trouble long before then. I've discovered, though, that love can play tricks on your mind, and hide away obvious problems, especially if those problems are variants of old behaviors ; behaviors that worsened gradually enough that the short term differences are barely noticeable even if the long term changes are immense. Like some sort of an eclipse where the daylight gets progressively dimmer until you suddenly realize you're immersed in complete darkness and you don't know how it got that way.
I'd known Lara to be moody since the day I met her, and honestly, in some ways it endeared me toward her. The periods of icy indifference were relatively uncommon and the contrast made the times she was cheerful and full of life seem even better. My mom and had been that way and my dad seemed to be happy, so when it came time to consider marriage, I was pretty sure I'd be able to put up with it, and that-overall- life would be ok.
We met when we were juniors in college, working at a bookstore just off campus. I saw her as a brooding, more serious version of the girl next door, a reticent, melancholy beauty who seemed to be complicated and a little bit broken. Her dark wit appealed to my sense of humor and the sad aura of compromised self-esteem brought out my innate desire to be a rescuer. We talked at work for weeks before we started dating and then gradually became more serious, until one night, while I was trying to comfort her in the middle of an inexplicable crying jag, she threw her arms around me, called me her hero and begged me to promise that I'd never abandon her. That moment supercharged my desire to be a knight in shining armor and we became an inseparable couple, for better or for worse.
Two years after graduating college, we officially tied the knot and, for the first 4 years of our marriage things were ok. Not perfect, not terrible, but OK. I brought flowers home and she cooked special meals, she complained I watched sports too much and I made an issue of her buying too many clothes, we had fights, we made love, we were frustrated at times and incredibly happy at others. Good times, bad times, but, generally speaking, we were ok and there was little doubt in my mind that we loved each other. I felt in my bones that it was just a matter of time before we'd go from a couple to a family and that we could weather any storm, that we were in for the long haul.
I'd been working at an insurance company as an actuarial since graduation and was slowly improving my position, working hard, being reliable, putting my shoulder to the wheel in hopes of establishing a career, creating some security. Overall, I liked the work. It paid the bills.
Lara had a business degree and got a job at a large medical clinic after graduation, but found the work tedious and unfulfilling. So, a little over 8 months before everything finally came apart, she quit her administrative job and went to work for Williamson's charities, raising money, administering funds and helping to keep the organization-which was generally staffed by amateurs- running smoothly.
Lara liked her new job much better and for a couple of months she was happy and upbeat, the warm and fuzzy Lara that made our marriage workable. But gradually her mood soured, the nights became colder, the mornings joyless and I started biding my time, waiting for the happy Lara to reappear.
Except that this time she didn't.
She started working later and later at the charity, claiming that the work load had increased and that she wasn't getting the help she needed, but I couldn't shake the feeling that she was trying to avoid home life. She'd begun to lose interest in some of the things she typically loved to do. Going to the movies, watching TV in front of a fire, eating out, playing a board game. It became apparent to me that she was only going through the motions, and that most of the things she'd previously enjoyed had essentially become chores for her to do, unpleasant responsibilities she had to check off her list at the end of the day.
On a typical good night, she'd come home and eat a quiet dinner with me, watch TV for a while and then move to the couch and immerse herself in her laptop or I-phone, furiously typing texts and e-mails. On a bad night, she simply ignored me, moving about the house anxiously, with a sense of desperation, as though she was waiting for something, almost like a drug seeker wondering where the next fix was coming from. On those nights, she'd barely eat dinner at all before shutting herself away in our guest room to bang away more messages on her laptop without me around.
Sex, of course, dropped way off, and would have ceased altogether if I hadn't insisted from time to time. Prior to this, we'd had a very healthy sex life, making love three or four times a week, with Lara initiating things a fair amount of the time. Some nights were more passionate than others, complete with frenzied, desperate couplings, while other nights we indulged in slow, comfortable lovemaking.
That was all gone now. The few times I was able to get her into the bed with me, she barely participated at all, robotically spreading her legs and absentmindedly pumping her pelvis against me until I finished, essentially becoming a fleshy sex toy.
As the weeks of melancholy and indifference dragged on and on I found I was nearing the end of my rope. I now realized that this time, things might not get better and that the light of my marriage had been growing dimmer by the day and I knew something had to happen, something had to change before things became completely dark.
And then, one night out of the blue, something did; only it wasn't what I'd expected or hoped for.
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On the evening of St. Patrick's Day I'd gotten home early and, in hopes of doing something to make Lara smile, decided to try something she'd enjoyed in the past, a theme dinner of sorts, in this case a meal of corned beef, cabbage and beer that I'd dyed green. She grinned with vague amusement initially and murmured a few compliments, but we settled back into having yet another silent meal together.
She began her fidgety routine again, only a little more pronounced than usual. She'd pick up her fork to stir around her food and then put it back down without really eating. She kept tapping the table with her fingers nervously and, a couple of times cleared her throat as if to speak, but never ended up saying anything.
So, at the end of the meal, I expected what had become her usual behavior with some nervous pacing around while she ignored me until she disappeared for the night. But I was pleasantly surprised when she sat beside me on the couch while I watched a movie and snuggled up. After a few moments she nuzzled her nose into my neck and started kissing me while her hand started running up and down my thigh, and then, hesitantly, whispered a breathy invitation to join her in the bedroom.
I turned the TV off immediately.
When we got into the bedroom she suddenly seemed shy and anxious again. We lay on the bed together and kissed, but I felt like things from her were forced, like she was kissing me out of duty rather than desire.
I tried putting some passion into the kisses and started rubbing her crotch through the soft cotton of her panties to try and get something going, but she responded by pushing me away, standing up and removing her clothes in a nearly clinical way, as if she was simply trying to change clothes quickly, rather than preparing for sex.
As soon as she was naked, she got on the bed again and, without saying a thing, aggressively pulled my face roughly into hers while mashing her lips against mine hard enough I thought we might bruise each other. But, the kisses still seemed automated, and for all of the energy she was expending, the passion seemed false, like she was doing what was expected, what she was programmed to do.
I tried to change the tone, to introduce some tenderness and romance, but she would have none of it and responded by literally pulling my shirt off and attacking my belt, fly and zipper to get my pants off as quickly as possible. I again tried to slow things down a little and asked, in a light hearted way, what the rush was. She responded abruptly, with a little anger in her voice.
"What the hell, Kevin, do you want to fuck or not? Because you sure as shit can't do it with your pants on."
I laughed sheepishly to try and keep the mood light, raised my hands in a gesture to indicate I was on board with her and started pulling my clothes off while she sat and watched impatiently on the bed. I was just getting my pants off, one foot still off the ground, when she lunged toward me, settling on her knees, and took my prick into her hand before inhaling it into her mouth. There was no getting around the fact that, even without any sense of real romance or affection, what she was doing felt pretty damn good, so I stood there, my hands on the back of her head, enjoying the wet, slick sensation of her tongue and her lips, slowly humping myself into her while she furiously worked on my erection.
She never liked swallowing semen so we'd developed a signal in which I'd pull back, gently on her hair, if I was nearing orgasm. When I did, she looked at me with a leering grin.
"Feel good?"
"Uh...yeah, very." I choked out in reply.
"Want to fuck now?"
"Absolutely."
She smiled and crawled onto the bed and I moved toward her, but she held her hand up to stop me.
"Stop there. Just hold on. We're doing something different tonight." She reached under the pillow and pulled out a tube of lube and teasingly waved it at me, smiling coldly while she raised her eyebrows expectantly.
