What is a man to do? I mean, this is the 21
st
century and quite frankly my options were damned few and none went without some pain. Not physical pain, but emotional and financial pain; that kind. I would suffer, the kids would suffer; hell, the dog would suffer too. Sad.
I never, not for one minute, thought that I'd be faced with this kind of challenge. Growing up in middle class Albany, the problems were always school, sports, and then girls. Girls were the problem. I liked them, a lot, and then I loved them, a lot. In hindsight, maybe I loved them too much. That's not exactly right; without that degree of love I wouldn't have two kids. No, my problem was simple: I didn't cut it any more as the man that my wife wanted to have sex with. And to solve her problem, she decided to find a man that she did want to have sex with.
It turns out that I was still perfectly fine to keep working and supporting everyone, just that having sex with Kathleen was pretty much off the table. Oh, she did offer up a quick romp on my birthday, but her heart wasn't really in it; and it showed. I started turning her down the scant times that she did offer up sex, but she merely shrugged her shoulders and said 'okay, your loss' and went to sleep.
Oddly, for a while I still slept in the same bed as her. It was more for appearances for the benefit of the kids. I kept to my side of the bed and she to hers. The middle was no-mans-land where neither of us dared trod. I got used to it, I suppose.
As time went on, I knew that Kath was spending more and more time with her boyfriend. She would come home late a couple of nights a week and then she announced one Friday morning that she was going to be away for the weekend. I asked her where she was going and with who; her response was that I didn't need to know. I didn't really want to know, I reckoned.
The odd weekend away grew into two weekends a month. The kids were very curious and asked her where she was going. Her answer was always 'to help a friend.' Yeah, right.
This went on for about a year and I realized that if I were to have any kind of life, that I needed to get my arse moving and do something for myself. The kids and I filled our weekends with lots of activities. They had a bunch of school sports and clubs that filled a big chunk of their free time. Me, not so much. I filled my time by being around them for everything that I could. I went to the games and practices, I drove them and their friends to anything where they needed a ride. I figured that the more I had to do with my kids, the less I would think about Kath.
Kath did some things with the kids and even cooked the odd family meal. She planned our 'family' activities that we went ahead with but I could tell her interest level was dwindling. She was constantly texting on her phone. When I would glance her way she would put it in her handbag and then pretend to be interested in what we were doing.
The kids asked me why their mother was away so much. I didn't have an answer for them that I thought was...appropriate for them to hear. I remember saying to them 'you should ask that of your mother; I'm sure she can give you lots of details.'
At about that year point, I knew that I had been long replaced as the man that Kath wanted as her husband. I found out, through expensive sources, that she was fucking two different men. One was about ten years younger than she is, a para-legal clerk at the firm, and he was all about the hard pounding that she so enjoyed. The other paramour, her main squeeze, was actually another lawyer, at the firm where she worked. He's a few years older and is married with a wife and two kids. He's a senior partner. Seems Kath likes to shop where she works.
A man can only take so much. I talked to the kids. They had sensed that not all was perfect in our world. They had pretty much lost track of the time that their mother was or wasn't around. They just stopped counting, and caring. The time that we three spent together was notable since they would often tell 'classic Dad' stories of our hikes and travels when Kath wasn't involved. I think she took notice, once in a while.
I was volunteering at school events and it was noticed by a few of the more observant that Kath was never there. The occasional question by one of the mothers let me know that they were watching. When one of them would ask where she was, my standard reply was 'she's busy.'
I got my old bike out of the garage and took it to a shop for maintenance and an overhaul and started riding again. The first few times were educational. There were muscles that I hadn't used in a while letting me know that I'd been a slug for too long. My use of Voltaren went up after the first few times out. There is a mountain bike meet-up group in the city so I went out for that. It was great fun. I hurt like hell after. The group usually went to the Fox and Hound Pub after for a pint of beer. What-the-hell, I needed it. I enjoyed it.
I dropped a few pounds. My pant size went to a 31 inch waist and my shirt size went to medium, slim fit. I went down from 185 to 160 pounds. I looked much better considering I'm only 5 ft.11 in. tall. I started going to the gym at lunch time. We have one on the ground floor of the building I work in. My practice is also flexible so that I can take work with me if I want to. I'm a CPA management consultant.
I got those plastic braces that you wear on your teeth. I had a couple of teeth that were starting to move around and I wanted to make sure that things in my mouth were where they were supposed to be. My mother and father had spent the price of a small used car to get me braces when I was a kid and I didn't want to be seen to waste their investment. My own kids were going to need braces soon and what better way to show them that it wasn't the horror story they were told by their friends, than to lead the way myself. Normally I only wore them when I slept. Kath never noticed, and even if she did, never once said anything to me about them.
The kids convinced me to go clothes shopping to get things that fit me better. We went to the mall to Tommy Hilfiger. My cousin is a Manager there and got me the family discount of 40% off the price. I couldn't turn that down.
I got contact lenses. The kids made great fun of me as I tried to put them in my eyes. The first few times it was like being poked in the eye with a thumb. I eventually got the hang of it and now they go in and out in seconds. I still wear glasses when I work but I got new ones. The kids helped me pick out the frames: horned-rim black ones are all the rage now. When I was a teenager, we used to call them 'birth-control-specials,' how times change.
One of the mothers from school made a point of inviting me to a Barbecue at her house. Now, she's divorced and has two kids. She's also a nurse at the hospital. With a divorce rate of about 50% there are several single mothers (and fathers) with kids at the same school that my kids go to. The invitation was for a BBQ in the early evening. Kids were not invited. That meant that there would likely be alcohol on the menu. So, I got a sitter, made the kids promise to be on their best behaviour and went.
Well, it was a learning experience.
Seems that Kath's extra-marital activities were not as secret as she thought they were. She had been spotted with her para-legal boyfriend at a couple of the restaurants and clubs in the city. Nurse Marilyn was quite diplomatic in her questions to me. She basically asked if the tall, very fit, guy that Kath was dancing with was somehow related to her. I looked at her, took a sip of my beer, and tried to formulate an answer that would preserve some measure of dignity for me and, I suppose Kath. But we were beyond that at this point. Now that the proverbial cat was out of the bag, there was little point of trying to colour the truth. So, I didn't. I offered up that Kath had a 'social life' that was very separate from her family. When I was asked if I had the same privilege, I offered that I was in the process of creating a similar privilege for myself. You should have seen the raised eyebrows on that.
**********
Slowly, ever so slowly, my life began to change. The life of our entire family began to change. The kids were growing and getting even busier. Sports and other interests were on the increase. That meant time available for other things was on the decrease. That meant my free time was further under the crunch. To mitigate that to a degree, I slowly worked to move some of the responsibility for the kids back to Kath. I learned from a very wise man that the way you eat an elephant is easy - one small forkful at a time, but it takes a while. So, I started to move some of the chores and kid events to Kath and I started to schedule time for myself.
I bought a new (read expensive) Trek mountain bike. I bought a newer Subaru Outback equipped with things to make it more off-road capable and tackle the adventures that I wanted to experience. I took part in several events around the region. I really enjoy the workout that I get and the mud. Oh, the mud. At the end of an event I would be caked in it and I loved it.
