Author's note:
This is another tale from true life as told to me by one of my really great friends. Sally and I go back to third grade in school and consider each other as life-long best friends. She now tells me she wishes she'd talked to me about this before she got too involved, but she didn't and life goes on. We, as humans, often don't use up all of our options before reaching life changing decisions. I am trying to convince Darrel to tell me his side of the story but he wants to see her side in print first. I really never built a relationship with any of Sally's girlfriends described in this story...I just never liked them from the first time I'd met them. So, their side of the story will probably never be told.
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Here I sit, dumbfounded. I'd never dreamed that this is what could possibly happen. There was just NO WAY this could have happened to us, well, to me.
Darrel and I were married fifteen years ago when I turned up pregnant. We'd have ended up married anyway, but just a little later. We'd both been through nasty divorces from our first spouses. Both of us had caught our respective spouses cheating with each other. We came together during the process and first became great friends. When the divorces were final, we began dating, and one thing led to another until I missed a period, took an at home pregnancy test, and discovered that we had a child on the way. Darrel was elated and insisted we get married right away. We did a small chapel wedding with only family and close friends present, about twenty people attended. A few months later, Julia was born and thirteen months later Greg followed into our loving family.
We've had a wonderful life, great family experiences and we've both loved bringing up the kids and enjoying all of their activities. Our sex life has always been satisfying for both of us and we still find ourselves having sex at least twice a week and often three or four times a week. Darrel never disappointed me in that way, and for the record, he's never disappointed me in any part of our life.
So, what happened to cause me the grief? Did Darrel cheat on me? No, he has been 100% faithful to all of our wedding vows...It was me, but I really didn't consider it cheating. Let me explain.
Three of my close friends, Lilly, Maria, and Valerie were married within a year or two of the same time as Darrel and me. We met at my first job shortly after Val was married. We often ate lunch together and our families got together about every couple of months to socialize. Darrel is a great cook, especially on the grill, so most often it was a barbecue at our house. They all had kids about the same age as ours so we'd really have a party when any of the kids had a birthday. Then the small company where the four of us girls worked went bankrupt and we all ended up heading in different directions. I took up teaching in elementary school, which was my true love anyway. Val moved to California as her husband had a great job offer out there, Maria went to work on the other side of town, and Lilly found herself pregnant again and became a stay-at-home mom. At first we drifted apart, but after a couple of years, Val and her husband moved back to town and she decided to organize a girls night out for the four of us once a month. Our goal was to never eat at the same restaurant more than once (for our girls night out). That made it a fun challenge and we rotated the job of picking the place for each month.
It was about a year into the girls night out routine that our first hiccup appeared. Maria was excited that night and was very animated with everything she said at the dinner table. We all were asking her what was going on but she kept putting us off. Finally she said to me, "Sally, didn't you say Darrel was in Chicago for a couple of days? Where are the kids?"
Quickly, I answered, "Yeah, Darrel won't be back until Monday and the kids are at my Mom's for the weekend."
I was a little puzzled so I quizzed, "Why did you ask?"
"Well, I just have to tell you all what's happening in my life that is really exciting and I thought we might all go to your place so we can talk privately, just between us girls."
With that, we all were anxious to hear what she had to tell us so we headed back to our place. Val and Lilly both called their husbands so they'd know where to reach them if anything came up. Maria's husband evidently already knew Maria might be late tonight. I fixed a pot of coffee and we all gathered in the living room to hear the reason for Maria's excitement. I had no clue what had her so excited but evidently the others did. What was to come was a complete shock to me.
Maria started out, "Well, most of you have an idea why I'm so excited, so I'll just get right to the details!" She took a deep breath and began, "First I just want to announce that Mario is now totally on board!"
That made zero sense to me, I wondered "With what is he on board?" The answer came shortly.
Maria grinned as she exclaimed, "I now have a regular lover and Mario is accepting it just like you said he would Val. He's a teacher at the kids school. We had a meeting to go over Sammie's English difficulties and we just hit it off. After our meeting, he suggested we might want to have further discussions, maybe over dinner one evening. One thing led to another, and we ended up going out to dinner the next night. After dinner we went dancing and we were all over each other on the dance floor. Robert then told me he needed me, and I told him I was married." Maria was flushed as she continued, "I told him that I wouldn't cheat behind Mario's back and that we'd have to go back to my house and confront Mario, and we did. I just told Mario that Robert was going to fuck me and it was either going to be there in our guest room, or I would leave and go with Robert to fuck him all night." Maria was Grinning!