There comes a time in everyone's life when they have to make a decision about priorities. Lucky people get to decide which of several good options to select. Unlucky people have to decide which option is the least evil. My situation was closer to the latter one than the former one; but always looking out for ways to make lemonade out of lemons I found something that I could not only live with, but thrive.
My name is Kevin Blanton. I have a few things about me that are exceptional, some real weaknesses, and some average characteristics. I guess that makes me pretty normal. One thing that I have that I always thought was highly desirable is a high libido. That doesn't always work for you, however, if you have to make decisions about priorities since it can temper your logic.
I married my wife Sophie after we dated for about 18 months. At the time that I met Sophie I admit to being too impressed with looks and not impressed enough with character. Sophie is long on looks, not so on character, as I would only find out later.
Being the shallow guy that I was one thing that gave me confidence about a long term relationship with Sophie was the appearance of her mother Eve. It's an often talked about theory that if you want to know what your wife will look like in twenty years, look at her mother. I know that it's only a theory and is far from universally true, but in my experience it does have some validity.
Eve is twenty one years older than Sophie. As far as looks are concerned Eve is an outlier for her age. Despite their age disparity I really do believe that if 100 random heterosexual male strangers saw Sophie at 32 and Eve at 53 -- their ages at the start of this story -- despite the fact that Sophie is a very good-looking woman fifty of the guys would say that Eve is as good-looking or even better-looking. She certainly has more pronounced headlights!
Of course looks aren't everything -- even a shallow guy like myself recognized that at least somewhat when I first met Eve -- and I'd never really warmed up to her as this story started, or she to me. The problem I had with Eve was that she was too prissy and pious. Everything had to be proper with her -- and she loved to talk about her love for Lord Jesus her Savior even in conversations where no one else cared to hear about it.
Sophie's father Thornton is an odd duck. He also is good-looking but hasn't aged nearly as well as Eve has. He is a hard, no-nonsense man who doesn't show much emotion and sees everything in black-and-white. He is also pious, although perhaps not to the extent that Eve espouses her piety.
I own my own business so my hours are flexible, though I put in more time than any of my employees, and I do well monetarily. Sophie and I have three kids who at the start of this story were nine, seven, and six, and they are the loves of my life, for many reasons unfortunately even more so than Sophie. Even though all of the kids are in school Sophie is a stay-at-home-mom who doesn't need to work for financial reasons but who does do some part time work as a very skilled seamstress.
Now to priorities:
Starting about two months before the start of this tale I suspected that Sophie was having an affair. From my research I found that there are at least thirty different things that can make a husband suspicious; what almost all of them have in common is "change" when there is no overlying reason for it. Some wives become less interested in sex, less intimate in general, pick fights for no reason, or have other really demonstrative changes.
Sophie didn't exhibit really demonstrative changes. Rather hers were subtle and included a new cell phone that she kept hidden and on a different plan than mine and her regular one; more concern for her appearance even when doing normal "mom" things; some new friends; and being "more busy" than in the past so that I had to do more for the kids. As far as the latter is concerned, don't get me wrong, I loved doing things for and with my kids; it's just that as a stay-at-home-mom she normally had more free time than I did and enjoyed the kids as much as I did.
Being well-situated economically, I hired a P I firm. A two women, one man, team worked on the situation for about two weeks, costing me a pretty penny, but they were excellent at their job. The preliminary report was what I expected but I had them continue for four more weeks to get a complete picture of the situation.
After the first two weeks the situation was that Sophie had three liaisons with the husband of one of her new "friends." The relationship seemed to be casual recreational sex. I knew Sophie's relatively new friend and had met her husband a couple of times. Her friend was just as good looking as Sophie if not slightly better looking, and she and her husband also had three kids each about three years older than ours because her friend and her husband were about four or five years older than we are.
I was in a quandary as to what to do -- which caused an examination of my priorities. I'm not the type to do nothing but I had to consider what effect confronting Sophie about her affair would have. Since Sophie is an excellent mother, liked to fuck three times a week during almost our entire relationship (not a libido as high as mine but serviceable), was an excellent cook, was personable, was easy to talk to, and aside from her recreational fucking of another guy a good wife, I had to be careful that I didn't destroy our relationship because the last thing that I wanted was to be a weekend dad.
On the other hand, I had an overwhelming desire for revenge and punishment. I've been known to have a temper, be a tit-for-tat asshole, and have a strong desire to be in charge. It was when I was balancing my priorities that I came across the mother-in-law option!
When after six weeks the investigators gave me their full report it was clear that the relationship between Sophie and her paramour was stable; it wasn't escalating and wasn't diminishing. They both were apparently happy with the status quo. It was also clear from the investigation that cluing in Sophie's friend would result in disaster in view of the things the investigators had -- at my urging -- found out about her. Sophie's female friend was a nuclear bomb detonation type, and the blast would have leveled my family as well as hers.
Then just as I was about to leave the final meeting with the P Is Jennifer -- the lead investigator -- said "Oh Kevin, I almost forgot. One more thing that we came across that is really weird. We mistakenly followed a woman who looked a lot like Sophie to a motel one day when we temporarily lost sight of Sophie, and she seemed to be having an affair too. Can I show you a photo of her and see if you know her?"
My curiosity aroused I said "Sure."
Jennifer laid on the table three photos of Eve, obviously printed from a video. I almost fainted. Seeing the ghost-like look on my face Jennifer chuckled "I guess that you know her."
"Yeah," I gulped, "she's my super-pious mother-in-law."
"What?" Jennifer yelped, and then said something akin to "like mother, like daughter."
Suddenly my brain was flooded with ideas, most of which wouldn't survive scrutiny but some of which might. With a big grin I asked Jennifer "Give me all you have about her."
What she had was some more photos and a short video.
I gave Jennifer more information about Eve and paid for a deep-dive on her.
In the past couple of weeks before my meeting with Jennifer I had been more lethargic around Sophie than previously and I think that she was starting to wonder about things. While I still had regular sex with Sophie, it wasn't as vigorous as previously, and I desperately wanted to appear like nothing was wrong. With the revelation about my mother-in-law suddenly -- for reasons hard to explain -- I had much more vigor.
