The Marriage Counselor

I stared at the text message on my phone as my son played alone in the sandbox. 'Having a wonderful time. Thank you for everything,' it read. Innocuous enough if anyone read it, but like an onion there were dozens of hidden layers. The simple truth was that my friend was thanking me for saving her marriage. That's right, without a degree, without any experience (except gut), without couples counseling, I had managed to keep her twenty year marriage together.

The story began two years ago when I met Jack and Jill (no, that is not their names but us counselors have to keep patient privilege) at a munch. I had with a casual top when my son was with his dad. The guy was getting on my nerves and I knew he would not last much longer but that was what the 'dating' world was like, especially when you already have two strikes against you (two failed marriages that is). But it was better than staying at home alone and watching reality television, wasn't it? Anyway we met Jack and Jill, who led the local BDSM munch at the pub where it was held. No one else showed up though. So after talking for a bit, they asked us back to their house for coffee.

We had been there about half an hour when Jill started to feel unwell. I will never forget how quickly this big bear of a man moved to get to her side. Or the sight of the Master kneeling before the sub. But most of all it was the look on his face. The closest I can come to describing it is love-sick like Mister Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. It took my breath away and changed my life forever. I knew exactly what I wanted then...a man who looked at me like that after twenty years together.

Anyway as you do when you do not live close together, Jill and I floated in and out of one another's lives. We became friends on a social networking site. We exchanged mobile numbers and texted a couple of times a month. I shared with her how much that night had meant to me. But she seemed less than impressed with her husband, who had become my proto-type of both a Master and a man. We continued this on again off again friendship for almost a year without seeing one another. Then one day about a year later, I texted to ask how things were going and the flood gates of Hades itself exploded on me. I was not prepared for what was to come.

That morning I was to learn that Jill had been having an affair. Not just any affair though, no, she had actually accepted another man's collar behind her husband's back. Now, if you are not into BDSM you might ask 'so what's the big deal?' Well, collars are signs of deep commitment, sort of like marriage. Since she already wore her husband's collar, she was basically not only cheating but committing bigamy. I was gob-smacked and gutted. How could this woman throw away something so fucking special? Why would you cheat on a man that so obviously loved you to pieces?

To make matters worse, who she cheated on him with! The guy that I had gone to the munch with. And trust me, I knew enough about his skills as a Dom and a lover to honestly say he was not worth destroying your twenty year marriage over. But this silly cow was crying over text message to me because he had ditched her for another of our friends. When she had the perfect Master!

I was mad. I mean really mad. Of course, I was mad at her. Listening to all her silly excuses for why she cheated: he was away on business too much (well, duh, you go through money like it was water), his dick wasn't big enough (yeah, well, neither was the other guy's), he didn't make her feel special anymore (kneeling at your feet and looking at you like that don't make you feel special?). I was like those silly cartoon characters with smoke coming out of my ears as I listened to how she would be better off dead if so-and-so did not want her anymore.

But it was not just her that I was mad at, I was angry with fate as well. Why was it that all the decent guys in this world ended up with selfish bitches that spent their money and cheated on them? Who never appreciated what they did for them or gave them? While I ended up with jerks who cut and run at the first sign of trouble? Who cheated on me even when I did everything I could to save the marriage? It just was not fair.

For about five minutes, I sat there lost in anger and hatred. I thought about telling her to go and off herself then. That she was right, he and their kids would be better off without her cheating, lying self. I thought too about emailing him. Sending him copies of our text messages. She deserved it right? And maybe she did. But he did not. And the rotten stinking truth that I hated to admit was that if she left or especially if she committed suicide this good guy would be gutted.

So for his sake and because that is the kind of person I am, I started to help my friend pick up the pieces of the mess that she had made of her life. It was not easy. First of all, I had to stare into my own green-eyed monster and admit how jealous I was of her. Even as I listened almost every day, sometimes several times a day to how bad her life was. How she had no friends. How her house was not big enough, nice enough. How he did not make enough money (even though my son and I survived on less than a third of what they made). How she could not come without so-and-so. But I did and I grew as a friend and a person.

I got her to reading some books on self-development, personal growth and even on marriage. I got her back to the hobby that had first bound us together (no, not BDSM): painting. I kept her busy. I held her hand through dozens, maybe hundreds, of temper tantrums that would have done my three year old proud. Guess what? She grew into a better and happier person, wife and mother. Was she suddenly Missus Perfect? No way! She still was too vane, too materialistic, too self-centered.

But the important thing was that she began to see her marriage and her life for what it was...not so damned bad after all. She stopped complaining that he never made love to her and started sucking her husband's cock like she should. She started doing little things for him too like running him baths and massaging his feet. Telling him how much she appreciated everything he did for them. It worked. They were off on a family holiday slash second honeymoon.

Yet still she took the time to text me. The sun got in my eyes and I had to wipe the moisture away.

"Hey, no crying!" said my husband as he and our son tossed sand at me.

Oh yeah, as I was 'making' my friend read all those books on marriage that I thought I knew ALL about, I discovered a few things myself. Like not always complaining when your husband does not spend enough time with the kids. Like being grateful he does work so fucking hard so you can stay home and raise them. And with that knowledge, we had made a fresh start.

You see in the process of saving my friend's marriage I had discovered that perfect marriages are not always what they seem. But then too 'bad' ones are not always as hopeless as all that. If you are willing to put some effort into them. The truth was that by saving my friend's marriage I had saved my own. Two for the price of one. Not bad for an amateur? Who knows once my son starts school I might go back to university myself to become a real marriage counselor?