tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2009-11-23:/MokoFeed2009-11-23T17:25:32+01:00tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2007-06-12:/2007/06/12/june_15~2437242/kevdc2007-06-12T07:52:49+02:002007-06-12T07:52:49+02:00 <p> I slept a little better last night, though I still woke up a few times. I popped another Valium at around 4:00am and it gets me through until around 7:15am, fifteen minutes before I have to start getting the kids ready for their last day of school. Not bad by current standards.<br> Helen has her appointment with the psychiatrist early this morning to determine if there are any psychiatric issues with her behaviour in all this. From there, she will proceed directly to work for the day. I’m interested to hear what the psychiatrist has to say. I have an appointment with her myself later in the week.</p> <p> I spend the day running the household errands. I notice we’re low on white wine, so I pick up a couple of bottles of Sauvignon Blanc – Helen’s current favourite. I also pass by a florist’s and decide to pick up a big bouquet of flowers. This should be a pleasant surprise for her when she gets home tonight. We have arranged a sitter for the kids so we can spend some time alone together this evening. We’d intended to go to dinner, but now Helen says she needs to go shopping for some new clothes for her upcoming business trips. I agree to go with her to do that instead. Spending time together is the important thing, what we actually do is of little consequence to me.</p> <p> Upon further investigation of the Raleigh-Durham trip in two weeks, Helen and I decide it’s unfeasible for me to accompany her due to too many practical difficulties involving flight schedules and fares and the issue of child care. That’s okay. It’s only an overnight trip and the trip to New York will suffice as a substitute. We’re still working on whether I can go with her to Caracas, with child care once again the key issue to overcome. I really feel this is an important trip for us to take together and that every option must be explored to make it happen. I suggest Helen find out if one of her sisters can come down to stay at the house and look after the kids for those five days. She agrees to look into it.</p> <p> The babysitter arrives at 6:00pm and Helen gets home fifteen minutes later. I am anxious to keep our shopping date, though in the past I'd have considered having my fingernails pulled out as an alternative to accompanying a woman on a shopping expedition to the mall. Now, I want to try and rebuild the connection between Helen and I any way I can. She notices the flowers and is delighted, which makes me happy. We head for the mall, with me driving and Helen in the passenger seat. She’s tired after her long day but we talk a little. I ask about her meeting with the psychiatrist.</p> <p> She tells me that while the psychiatrist identified certain individual traits in her of various disorders such as hypomanic tendencies, elements of sex addiction, and an excessive need for excitement and pushing acceptable limits, they didn’t add up to a disorder as such because they don’t impair her daily functioning. The psychiatrist concludes that Helen’s behaviour is mainly situational (i.e., that the affair is a direct result of her dissatisfaction with me) and that there’s no reason for her to continue looking for psychiatric explanations. This surprises and disappoints me, because I feel that there’s more going on here than the psychiatrist thinks. If so, I’m worried that Helen isn’t working as hard on her issues as she should, but I don’t say anything because I’m trying to keep the atmosphere between us upbeat.</p> <p> I’m also concerned because it strikes me that this is of a piece with Helen’s tendency to engineer the advice she wants to hear rather than the advice she should hear. She refuses to speak to Angelina or any other mutual friends who know us on a day-to-day basis because she doesn’t want to hear the criticisms of her own conduct and personal deficiencies she knows they’ll offer based on their own observations. Her main confidante is her eldest sister Lisa, who lives the farthest away, has spent the least amount of time with us during our marriage, and consequently only knows what Helen tells her, which doubtless omits the things about which Helen is in denial and paints a one-sided picture with me as caricature villain. How can advice based on such an incomplete picture be sound? It’s a definite worry, because whether or not we can save our marriage, Helen’s failure to resolve her own issues will very likely see her back in a similar mess again a few years down the road. That could involve our kids again, and I don’t want that.</p> <p> Helen drifts off to sleep for the last fifteen minutes or so of the ride to the mall. I let her have her catnap and keep snatching glances at her as I drive, thinking how beautiful she is and how much I still love her, and most of all how deeply I wish this mess had never happened. We arrive and hit the shops. Helen remarks how odd it is for me to accompany her shopping, normally one of my least favourite activities. I tell her my perspective has radically changed on many things in the past two weeks. We try a few shops until she finds one with something she likes. She tries it on and I tell her how great she looks in it. She purchases the outfit and we head home. I tell her how much I enjoyed being with her. I think she appreciates it.</p> <p> When we get home, I take care of getting the kids ready for bed while Helen works on the lecture she’s giving tomorrow. Before that, we have our second couples therapy session in the morning followed by my appointment with a psychologist. Helen is sitting up in bed working on her speech when I pop my head round our bedroom door to say goodnight. She smiles at me. I head downstairs to the guest room. It feels like we’ve made another tiny bit of progress tonight. I try to cling to that.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce, <em>available for £8.99 from </em>www.amazon.co.uk <em>or for $14.75 from </em>www.lulu.com</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2007/06/12/june_15~2437242/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2007-04-16:/2007/04/16/june_14~2104943/kevdc2007-04-16T21:57:50+02:002007-04-16T21:57:50+02:00 <p> Another difficult night’s sleep. I wake up several times and take a while to get back to sleep each time. I take another Valium, but it doesn’t help as much as usual.</p> <p> When I finally wake up for good at around 6:30am, I’m seized with an anxiety attack about getting a job. What if despite all my efforts I can’t get one within the next few months? I’m thirty-nine, my resume isn’t particularly glittering, and I’ve been out of the workforce for three years. What if I simply can’t line something up? I know what a key condition this is for the reconciliation, and the vice-like stress grip returns to squeeze my gut full force. My appetite is gone again. I eat nothing today.</p> <p>Helen doesn’t get home until after 7:30pm. I have already fed the kids, so she eats the dinner I made alone. Afterwards, she seems pretty good. The mood between us is light. We make arrangements to go out just the two of us tomorrow night. It almost feels like old times, but of course that's a mirage which vanishes under the merest serious scrutiny.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce, <em>available for £8.99 f</em>rom <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk">www.amazon.co.uk</a> <em>or for $14.75 from </em>www.lulu.com </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2007/04/16/june_14~2104943/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2007-03-17:/2007/03/17/june_13~1921640/kevdc2007-03-17T16:13:46+01:002007-03-17T16:13:46+01:00 <p> I spend the first part of the day fishing with my son. It’s a perfect day for it, unusually cool for the time of year and overcast so we don’t burn under a blazing sun. We don’t catch anything, but we stick at it for a good three hours. My son really gets the hang of casting. He seems to enjoy it.</p> <p> While we sit on the rocks by the shore watching our floaters for any signs of nibbling fish, I find myself filling the gaps of conversation between us by imagining what Helen and Pascal did in bed. The thoughts are like knives plunging into my heart, my guts, and my very soul, but I can’t shake the train wreck fascination of them no matter how hard I try to stop. Helen takes pride in her sexual prowess. She must’ve been looking to impress, and no doubt pulled out every trick in her considerable bag of erotic arts. He must’ve loved that. He also must’ve enjoyed removing the new naughty undies she’d bought for him. The thoughts sicken and torture me. Mercifully, I’m able to stop thinking them when we get ready to leave.</p> <p> In the car, I call Helen on my mobile phone to tell her we’re on our way home. She sounds okay. To my surprise, she asks if I will accompany her and our daughter on a trip to New York in a few weekends’ time to attend a birthday party for one of Helen’s oldest friends. This is the third time now she’s asked me to go with her on an upcoming trip. This greatly heartens and encourages me. I imagine trips like this advancing the reconciliation. I’m delighted to accept her invitation. She thanks me for making such an effort to try and put things right. I tell her I’ll do all I can because I love her. She audibly tears up and we say goodbye.</p> <p> When my son and I get back, Helen is settling down on the family room couch for a nap, so I decide to take the kids to a late afternoon movie to let her sleep. She tells me to wake her before we leave, but I decide she could use the rest and we leave her asleep. I plan on giving her a wake up call from the movie on my mobile phone an hour or so later. This is the kind of thoughtful gesture she accuses me of neglecting during our marriage and I hope she appreciates it.</p> <p> I get the answer machine when I call some time later from the darkened cinema (hardly endearing myself to my fellow movie patrons, but I’m trying to save a marriage here for god’s sake, people!), so I don’t know if she didn’t reach the phone in time after waking up or if she’s already awake and just not picking up. I leave a message.</p> <p> When we get back, rather than seeming refreshed by her nap, Helen seems tired and drained. She says this hasn’t been a good day for her emotionally. Suddenly I feel down too. The emotional roller coaster ride continues. To top it off, she makes no mention of my gesture with the wake up call.</p> <p> We eat dinner, but I’m not eating as much as in recent days again. The tortuous thoughts I had about Helen and Pascal together killed my appetite at lunch and I couldn’t finish the sandwich I brought for our fishing trip. Now I only get through a small portion of the shrimp pasta Helen’s made. I eat nothing else the rest of the night.</p> <p> I fill the rest of the evening doing the household chores – laundry, trash, cleaning the kitchen, bathing and putting the kids to bed. All the stuff Helen, who works on her laptop, as usual, takes for granted. We say goodnight and head for our separate rooms.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce, <em>available for £8.99 from </em>www.amazon.co.uk <em>or for </em>$14.75 from <a href="http://www.lulu.com">www.lulu.com</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2007/03/17/june_13~1921640/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2007-01-29:/2007/01/29/june_12~1645466/kevdc2007-01-29T19:06:11+01:002007-01-29T19:06:11+01:00 <p> After getting into bed last night, I kicked myself a few more times for being so foolish as to think now is anywhere near the time to invite a gesture of intimacy such as cuddling on the couch while watching a movie. We aren’t even two weeks into this mess. It was never going to fly. What was I thinking? Actually, I know what I was thinking -- I’m trying to show her the affection she says she’s never received from me. The problem is, I approached it so clumsily while feeling my way through this unprecedented situation. Another blunder to add to the list I’ve made in handling this crisis. Let her be the one to make a move like this from now on.</p> <p> I fell asleep but woke up again at around 3:30am. Unable to fall back asleep within half an hour, I got up and took a Valium. It worked again. I got back to sleep and slept until around 8:00am.</p> <p> I’m up for a while before Helen and my son emerge from upstairs. Helen apologises for rebuffing me last night, and I do likewise for making such a foolish, premature move. We get on pretty well the rest of the morning.</p> <p> I make a food store run. While I’m there, I feel a new surge of defiance come over me. I start to feel a bit more assertive about myself. The grocery store is my home turf, because I do all the shopping. I also do all the housework and run all the household errands. I take care of the kids. I get them ready for school in the morning. I do their homework with them. I run them to all their various extracurricular events, such as karate, swimming, soccer (I coached my son's team for three years until he lost interest), and tennis lessons. Most nights I bathe them and put them to bed. And I have dinner on the table every night, though Helen is often too late home to join us.</p> <p> I’ve always been there for my kids. Helen begged me to have them, but she’s been minimally involved in raising them from the moment they were born. Sure, she earns the money, which is of course vital, but beyond that she’s rarely made time to be with the kids when it was available. Instead, she’s taken on additional work commitments, because that’s what she enjoys – she’s the archetypal workaholic. She’d be doing exactly what she’s always done even if the need for income didn’t exist. And as I’ve constantly pointed out to her with no success, she could easily reduce the income burden by controlling her excessive spending habits – it’s a vicious cycle of her own making.</p> <p> I’ve got my share of faults, but I’m not a bad guy. I don’t drink or do drugs. I don’t gamble away the family money. I don't run around with every floozy in town. I don’t beat my wife or kids. I don’t spend us into penury (I wouldn’t dare infringe on Helen’s copyright there). On the contrary, Helen has often quipped that I don’t spend enough money. I like to think I’m honest, loyal, moral, witty, and have integrity. My friends say I have those qualities.</p> <p>I could of course have done more to contribute financially, and I will do in future, but my contribution hasn’t been as negligible as Helen thinks. Add the wages I brought home for twelve of the fifteen years of our marriage I worked before staying home with the kids to the substantial monetary contributions my family has made to us and you get the functional equivalent of a yearly contribution on my part of around $42,000. Not an immense amount, but hardly peanuts either. Factor in the vast savings on interest payments by my family’s paying off Helen’s $200,000 medical school loan debt and the value of the contribution from my side of the ledger rises exponentially. When I pointed this out to her, Helen expressed her opinion that she was somehow owed this extraordinarily generous gift.</p> <p> “I always expected that you'd be earning enough money to pay off that debt,” she said, “so if you couldn’t do it, it’s only fair that your family did it instead.” That’s fine if one accepts her dubious premise, revealing as it does her overdeveloped sense of entitlement, but it requires acknowledging the contribution, which she doesn’t, preferring both to take it as her due while ignoring it. She can’t have it both ways. It also betrays the lack of value she attaches to the role I have played raising the children largely in her absence and maintaining the household, of course.</p> <p> I gave up family, friends, and whatever contacts and job opportunities I had in England, where my educational background also would have served me considerably better, to move here to build a life with Helen. I'll bet she's forgotten that, for the first few years when she was still completing medical school, I was the sole breadwinner. I even worked two jobs for the best part of a year to support us. I would work my regular nine-to-five office job, then go straight to the video store across the street and work until closing time at 11:00pm. I was also playing in a band at the time, so rehearsals and gigs added to an exhausting schedule.</p> <p> Also during this time, Helen spent several months doing her surgical rotation as part of her medical studies. This meant rising at around 4:00am. As she had no parking privileges and I could not allow her to walk to the medical center on her own while it was still dark, I got up with her and drove her there every morning, returning home to get a few hours more sleep if I could before getting up again to begin my regular work day as previously described.</p> <p> Helen also chose to extend her medical training the year following our marriage by taking optional sabbaticals abroad, each of two months’ duration. I agreed to this even though the separation was difficult because I knew she really wanted these experiences. My recollection is that this delayed the completion of her training and therefore the point at which she would begin her medical career and start contributing financially. Don't I get any credit for this? Evidently not.</p> <p> I don’t deserve this. There have been problems in the marriage, sure, some of them longstanding issues of mine I never addressed, admittedly. But it hasn’t been a bad marriage – no one who knows us would say it was. The good times have far outweighed the bad, even Helen would have to admit that. And it hasn’t all been one-sided – she has her own faults that at times drove me to distraction: The reckless spending and constant debt, necessitating my father baling us out on more than one occasion. The ever increasing materialism and need for instant gratification. The lack of consultation with me on the purchase of big ticket items. The long hours away and lack of time with the kids.</p> <p> I almost asked her for a divorce the year after our son was born when she trained in a subspecialty that was so time consuming she may as well have been gone the whole year, leaving me alone many nights and weekends with an infant, which often left me at my wits’ end. I had been reluctant to start a family on the grounds that her long work hours meant she wouldn’t have time to devote to a child, but she promised me that she’d make the time. That promise turned out to be worthless and I was left literally holding the baby. It was the worst year of our marriage until now. I was miserable, went through my own mid-life crisis, and briefly succumbed to temptation when I had my fling. I quickly realised that this was inexcusable and that I couldn’t be one of those guys who habitually cheat on their wives, so I rededicated myself to my marriage and to my son.</p> <p>My lone infidelity therefore was an aberration while Helen’s first fling seems to have been a blueprint for her future behaviour. Because of my own experience, I know exactly what Helen’s going through and the extent of the mistake she’s on the verge of making. While I handled my mid-life crisis responsibly, never totally lost my grip on reality, and faced down temptation in the form of longing for a relationship that could never be with someone with whom I’d had the briefest of dalliances, she seems to be approaching hers like Godzilla stomping his way through Tokyo leaving nothing but a trail of wreckage in his wake.</p> <p>Oh, and here’s the kicker: To top it all off, the subspecialty Helen trained in which put such a strain on us proved irrelevant to her career – she stopped performing the procedure within a few years.</p> <p> So no one gets everything they want in a marriage. You have to be willing to compromise. Sure, I’ve had my moments I’m not proud of. I’ve lost my temper sometimes and said things I didn’t mean. Like I said, I have issues. But the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Twice now in our marriage that I know of Helen has reacted to problems between us by having sex with other men. Is that fair or appropriate? She has issues of her own – big ones.</p> <p>In doing so, especially this time with the much more serious component of her feelings for this other man and her request for a divorce, Helen has reacted to the relationship equivalent of a street riot by going nuclear. If she’d told me she was thinking about divorce, that would’ve got my attention just as well and we could’ve attempted to fix the problems. Instead, she started the affair, which threatens to destroy everything. She doesn’t seem to appreciate the severity of her transgression – and therefore my willingness to twice forgive something most people would have a very hard time getting past. This gets back to her licentious attitude about sex and her relentless self-centeredness. She doesn’t take full responsibility for her actions. She thinks my bad behaviour justifies her worse behaviour. It is mind-boggling.</p> <p> While I will work on and intend to finally fix a lot of what’s wrong with me, there are some things I either won’t or can’t compromise on. I will never be as materialistic as Helen. I see no reason to change that, because her crass acquisitiveness is nothing to aspire to in my book, though I can stop being such a nag on the subject. And while I will keep looking for a job and begin contributing financially again, with the best will in the world there’s very little chance I’ll ever be as successful as Helen. I’ll certainly never be as remorselessly driven as her. I don't see how such an arrangement would serve the interests of our children, who wouldn't get to spend any time with either of their parents and who would be sentenced to being raised by a revolving series of hired hands.</p> <p>Helen has to be willing to compromise a little, and I have to hope the changes in my other problem areas will allow her to do so. She has to decide if she can live with a little less than her ideal in the interests of preserving the greater good of the whole or take a total flyer on someone she barely knows, or, if not him, then the complete unknown. I know she fears being alone, yet that is precisely what she’s risking based on her brief fling, since she can’t possibly know Pascal’s true intentions or how their fledgling relationship will turn out. She knows by how hard I’m fighting to save our marriage that I’ll never leave her, and I’m ready to make the changes to improve our relationship.</p> <p> Helen goes out to get her hair done and get a manicure today while I take the kids to the pool. She is gone a long time. The kids keep asking after her. When she finally arrives home, she announces that she has just bought a $300 bike for herself, which explains why she was gone longer than expected. She wants to start riding a bike again. Another questionable expenditure, but these days with therapists’ and lawyers’ fees rapidly mounting, and in view of the critical situation, my former frugality seems a long way off. I say nothing.</p> <p> This evening, we leave our son at a birthday party and take our daughter for a bite to eat at an Asian noodle house. In the car on the way, Helen chimes in with a thought that struck her today.</p> <p> “Maybe my standards are too high,” she says. “I expect perfection in everything, and perhaps it's unfair to apply this to our relationship.” Despite the fact that this seemingly redounds to my favour, I tell her that, in fairness to her, she has a right to expect better of me in the areas we’ve identified in which I need to change.</p> <p> “The only danger of high standards,” I reply, “is if they become unrealistic and make you lose perspective.” I’m certain that’s exactly what’s happened to her, though I leave that part unsaid in the hope that she'll realise it herself before it's too late.</p> <p> We enjoy the meal. My appetite has finally returned and I eat the full portion. The anxious grip on my stomach has loosened, though not totally disappeared, and it can reappear at a moment’s notice.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce, <em>available for £8.99 from </em>www.amazon.co.uk <em>or for $14.75 from </em>www.lulu.com </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2007/01/29/june_12~1645466/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2007-01-20:/2007/01/20/june_11~1588592/kevdc2007-01-20T16:56:55+01:002007-01-20T16:56:55+01:00 <p> I spend the first part of the day really getting stuck into the job search. After the usual run through the local newspaper classifieds and applying for a few suitable positions, I go through the phone book and call just about every employment agency in it. After weeding out the vast bulk of them who only deal in temps and administrative staff, I find a good dozen who deal in professional placements. I get on board with them by e-mailing my resume so that they can set me up with a potential job match. It takes about five hours, but I feel good. I feel productive. I feel like I’ve baited a lot of hooks now. Fingers crossed I get a bite or two.</p> <p> I speak to Helen during the day. She’s okay on the phone, no real tension in the conversation. Buoyed by last night’s unexpected closeness, I suggest we watch a DVD she bought a few weeks ago but hasn’t gotten around to watching tonight. She agrees. I’m happy. I imagine us snuggling up on the couch together as we watch it. That would be so nice.</p> <p> I spend the rest of the afternoon getting the house immaculate. At least while I’m still performing the household chores in lieu of the kind of employment I must find, I can do it well and hope Helen appreciates it to some degree. The place looks great. Our daughter had been invited to spend the night at a friend’s, so I make dinner for my son and myself. Helen had said during our phone conversation that she had had a big lunch and wouldn’t need dinner, so I eat with my son. I actually manage to get through a whole chicken pot pie – the first substantial meal I’ve had since all this happened. It sits uneasily in my stomach the rest of the night though.</p> <p> Helen gets home at around 7:00pm. We arrange to watch the movie at 9:30pm and I go downstairs to the basement to be with my son while she settles down on the couch for a nap. My son watches cartoons while I sit there ruminating, as has now become my custom.</p> <p> At the appointed hour, I go upstairs to wake Helen and watch the DVD. I get everything set up while she goes to the bathroom. I recline on the couch and upon her return, beckon her to join me. She sits down but doesn’t take the hint to lie next to me.</p> <p> “Don’t you want to cuddle while we watch the movie?” I ask her.<br> She shakes her head. “No,” she replies. My hopes for the pleasant evening I imagined are dashed. I feel like a fool, and the anxiety returns to grip my stomach with a vengeance. I’ve made things awkward. We watch the DVD mostly in uneasy silence. The film is rubbish, but the whole point is to spend some time with Helen, which I have bungled with my clumsy invitation to cuddle. So I suffer through the tedious film in a high state of anxiety instead. A pretty graphic sex scene doesn’t help matters. I can’t help glancing in Helen's direction to gauge her reaction. No outward sign, but I know instinctively what – and who – she’s thinking about.</p> <p> The film ends close to midnight. We exchange a few perfunctory comments, then I say goodnight and head downstairs to bed.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce, <em>available for £8.99 from </em>www.amazon.co.uk <em>or for </em>$14.75 from <a href="http://www.lulu.com">www.lulu.com</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2007/01/20/june_11~1588592/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2007-01-13:/2007/01/13/june_10~1550392/kevdc2007-01-13T18:10:49+01:002007-01-13T18:10:49+01:00 <p> I speak to my friend Jay in the morning. He and his wife Natasha are our oldest and best friends since Helen and I have been living in this area for the past sixteen years. They’re both obviously distraught at the turn of events.</p> <p> Jay tells me that he had lunch with Helen several months ago, when all this was building up, and she told him she felt that, having just turned forty, she either had to “get out now or be trapped forever.” Classic mid-life crisis bolt instinct, with nary a thought to the real world practicalities and ramifications involved. Understandable perhaps in a bad marriage, but ours wasn’t.</p> <p> Jay tells me he’d told her to calm down, reminded her of all my positive qualities, and tried to focus her attention on the big picture. Every marriage has its difficulties. He and Natasha have had theirs. But you hold onto the good things, try to fix the problems, make compromises for the greater good, and only consider divorce as the last resort. He says he regrets that he obviously failed to get the message through to her.</p> <p> Helen and I plan to attend an event at our kids’ school this afternoon. It’s a presentation of stories written by the kids in our daughter’s class during the school year. Helen comes home early from work to attend. We arrive together and see my friend Scott and his wife Marcy, with whom we’ve become friends through our daughters, who are in the same class. I’ve discussed our situation with them, and the meeting is clearly awkward. They’ve been very supportive of me and take a dim view of what Helen’s done.</p> <p> “I can feel the cold shoulder they’re giving me,” she whispers to me. “I suppose this is something I’ll have to get used to,” she laments. My initial instinct is to regret talking to so many people about our situation and thus humiliating Helen like this. I’m so desperate to smooth things between us that I feel bad for her and kick myself for blabbing too much.</p> <p> But then I catch myself. Wait a minute, I think, I’m not the one at fault here. If Helen feels bad about people’s attitude toward what she’s done, she shouldn’t have done it. I need make no apology for trying to deal with the worst crisis of my life in the best way I saw fit, including talking to friends for their advice and support.</p> <p> Somehow, we get through the rest of the event maintaining the mostly positive vibe between us. When we get home with the kids, we take them to the neighbourhood pool and talk a little more while the kids swim. Again, the communication feels constructive and I feel as long as we keep it going we’re making tiny steps forward, which is all I can hope for. Maybe if we’d communicated as much and as effectively throughout our marriage as we’ve done in recent days, we wouldn’t be in this mess. What a tragedy. I just hope it’s not too late, though I fear it may well be.</p> <p> I make arrangements to meet up with my new friend Tim tonight for a beer and to borrow his fishing tackle box so I can take my son fishing at the weekend. Tim is the singer in a new rock band I’ve been putting together for the past few months. The pressures of parenthood made me quit my last band seven years ago, and I thought I was done playing rock and roll guitar. But I’d been missing it more as the years went by, and finally about six months ago I decided to try and get back into playing music again. I ran an ad in the local paper and assembled a lineup. Tim as singer was the final piece of the puzzle.</p> <p> Tim is everything you want in a front man – garrulous, loud, brash, upbeat. I knew he’d been through a divorce, so he was among the first I contacted when all this happened. I value the input of people who’ve experienced what I’m going through. We meet at the house, he gives me the tackle box, and we head for the nearest bar for a beer and a chat.</p> <p> Talking to Tim really lifts my spirits. He’s forceful, positive, and makes some really good points. His energy is infectious. I give him the lowdown on the situation and he tells me I’m being too hard on myself and that I have to be more assertive. I’m the wronged one here, damn it, and I should be angrier. He tells me I should march back home and tell Helen to pack her bags and get out if she wants out of the marriage. Let the lawyers go to work and get this thing done if that’s how she wants it. He says she’s given me the ultimate “fuck you” with the affair and has dared me to pick up the gauntlet. He says it’d probably blow her mind if I did, since that’s the last thing she expects. But he also cautions that this is a game of high stakes poker, so I shouldn’t make a bluff I’m not prepared to see through.</p> <p> It’s good advice, though I tell him I’m not yet ready to play my trump card. That will come if I feel I have nothing left to lose because the reconciliation is doomed – for instance, if I discover Helen and Pascal are still in contact with each other. I tell him my game plan is to do everything I can to work on my issues and the problems in my marriage and hope that that combined with Helen coming to her senses and realising what she’s risking on the biggest gamble of her life does the trick. I realise that I’m being more accommodating than most people would be in my situation, and Tim’s point that I’m becoming Helen’s doormat is apt. It doesn’t sit well with me, but it’s a position I’m prepared to take at this stage. Still, I feel empowered by my conversation with Tim.</p> <p> I return home and Helen and I talk again. She notices my more assertive, upbeat mood immediately and responds exactly as Tim said she would, positively. We have another long, constructive talk. The mood between us is so good she suddenly insists on giving me my Father’s Day present a few days early. It’s a sterling silver key chain from Tiffany & Co. I thank her, we embrace, and I kiss her. It really feels great when we maintain the flow of positive energy between us. It’s a confidence builder that the reconciliation can succeed, though that’s still a long way off, the journey is fraught with peril, and I don’t kid myself about the likelihood of success. But if we keep making tiny forward steps, maybe, just maybe, we can get there in the end.</p> <p> We say goodnight and head to our separate rooms. Another Valium and it’s time for bed.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce, <em>available for £8.99 from </em>www.amazon.co.uk <em>or for </em>$14.75 from <a href="http://www.lulu.com">www.lulu.com</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2007/01/13/june_10~1550392/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2007-01-06:/2007/01/06/june_9~1520383/kevdc2007-01-06T12:04:53+01:002007-01-06T12:04:53+01:00 <p> If ever a single days sums up the bizarre roller coaster nature of this thing, today is it. It starts with Helen and I having our first couples therapy session at 8:00am. We drop the kids off at Steve and Angelina’s, who will put them on the school bus for us at the usual time, 8:30am, then we head to our appointment.</p> <p> The therapist, Julie, tells us a bit about the techniques that we’ll use. They include something called reflection, which involves repeating what the other person says to ensure effective communication. The first person then gives marks out of ten to indicate the level of understanding and corrects any misperceptions or fills in any gaps. We use the technique to pick up where we left off in our many hours of discussion over the past few days.</p> <p> The session goes well. Our reflecting indicates almost universal understanding of each other. I’m totally honest and open about my own shortcomings that have played the most significant role, I believe, in bringing on this crisis and for which I blame only myself. I restate my commitment to finally dealing with them, fixing the problems in our marriage, and saving it if it’s humanly possible.</p> <p> Helen does indeed summon the nerve to ask about updating Pascal with news of the reconcilation’s progress. Predictably, Julie tells her the idea is a non-starter if Helen is seriously committed to saving her marriage. She must cut off all contact with Pascal. Helen is visibly upset with this advice, but she agrees. Whether someone with her notorious lack of self-control can keep to it is another matter – and a big worry for me. It also relies on Pascal leaving her alone, because what little resolve Helen can bring to bear will dissolve instantly if he doesn't.</p> <p> At the end of the session, Julie is encouraging.</p> <p> “In all my years doing this kind of therapy, I've never encountered a couple so calm and so in touch with the issues affecting them as you,” she remarks. “It usually takes at least a year of therapy for most couples to reach the point you’re at right now,” she concludes. I leave heartened by this.</p> <p> Helen doesn’t have to go into work immediately, so we decide to go to Starbuck’s and get a frappuccino, then take a walk around her favourite bathroom design store. The mood between us is incredibly good, just like old times. It’s as if none of this has happened. We cheerfully look at all the bathroom fittings and talk about how we’d like to redo our master bathroom with this or that unit and in such-a-such way. Maybe we should even do it now, Helen muses. I’m amazed, given that divorce will very likely lead to us selling the house, so what’s the point considering such a remodel? But the vibe between us is so good, I want to keep it going. At one point, we just stop, look at each other, and embrace in the middle of the showroom. It’s enough to make me think we can really pull this off and save this marriage.</p> <p> However, reality rudely intrudes in the form of my 11:00am appointment with my lawyer, Sheila. We follow up our phone conversation of the previous week by reviewing the situation and discussing my legal options. No real revelations, just a recap of the advice she’d previously given me – I’m not to move out, I’m entitled to half of everything, spousal support, and so on.</p> <p> The issue of child custody is touched on and she tells me that our state makes no preferential distinction between the sexes in terms of awarding custody, and that as I’m the primary caregiver I’d probably get it. I tell her that in all likelihood we’ll agree that Helen gets custody because I can’t imagine trying to rebuild my life with two young kids in tow, but Sheila tells me not to be so hasty and to think about what’s best for the children.</p> <p> I tell her about the e-mails and give her copies of them along with the incriminating phone records logging all the calls between Helen and Pascal. She looks them over and to my surprise tells me that they don’t reach the legal threshold of proof in our state, which requires photographic or eyewitness evidence. I tell her of Helen’s offer to exchange them for an affidavit attesting to the affair.</p> <p> “She can’t possibly have run this by her lawyer, since no attorney worth their salt would allow their client to do such a thing,” Sheila says in response. “But if she's prepared to overrule her lawyer on this and submit the affidavit, tell her we’ll take a look at it and make a decision at that time. In the meantime, give her nothing,” Sheila advises.</p> <p> “Why not?” I ask. “If the e-mails and phone bills don’t constitute legal proof, what good are they?”</p> <p> “Ninety-five percent of the divorce cases I work on are settled before they reach court, and the e-mails may at least give us leverage in any settlement if we can avoid going to court, which is to everyone’s advantage,” Sheila replies. She agrees to keep the copies I gave her and puts them in a sealed envelope. We conclude with her wishing me well with the reconciliation and saying that there’s no need for any further consultation or action while the effort to save our marriage is ongoing. She doesn’t even charge me for the meeting, which is very nice and unlawyerly of her.</p> <p>The meeting has the effect of shattering the previous positive mood though. I feel a little down after it, and on returning home where Helen still hasn’t yet left for work, I can tell her mood has taken a darker turn too. She’s tense and asks immediately about the e-mails. I tell her that on the advice of my lawyer I can’t give them to her, but if she wants to give us the affidavit we’ll look at it and consider an exchange. Naturally, I omit the details that the e-mails don’t constitute legal proof and that her lawyer won’t permit her to submit the affidavit. Let her find those things out for herself. Helen says she regrets that things have become so sneaky and underhanded between us as to include my going through her e-mails.</p> <p> “That’s what happens when trust is shattered by doing what you've done,” I respond. “What did you expect?” Again it occurs to me how little she truly appreciates the gravity of her actions. If she’s been so duplicitous and treacherous, how can lament the fact that that inevitably dictates how the situation devolves?</p> <p> The morning’s upbeat mood now seems a long way off. Helen leaves for work and I feel a wave of despair wash over me. As up as I felt earlier, I now feel down. The kids get home a bit later and we go through our usual routine – I let them relax for a while, then homework, then we go to my son’s karate class. I make them dinner when we get back, but I can’t eat anything.</p> <p> Helen gets home later and has some leftovers. We talk a little more and the communication feels positive again, but I still can’t shake the feeling of hopelessness that has settled over me since the afternoon. What a day. If this thing is destined to be such a wild emotional roller coaster, I just have to ride it out and hope for the best. I head for bed anticipating another difficult night’s sleep. A Valium will no doubt be in order.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce, <em>available for £8.99 f</em>rom <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk">www.amazon.co.uk</a> <em>or for </em>$14.75 from <a href="http://www.lulu.com">www.lulu.com</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2007/01/06/june_9~1520383/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2006-12-27:/2006/12/27/june_8~1484191/kevdc2006-12-27T17:09:02+01:002006-12-27T17:09:02+01:00 <p> I wake up several times in the night. A Valium finally helps me get a few hours’ decent rest. I get the kids off to school then head for my doctor’s appointment. I tell him what’s going on and he prescribes Zoloft. I get the prescription filled immediately and start taking it. My doctor says it will be a few weeks before the medication gets properly into my system.</p> <p> I spend a good part of the rest of the day preparing a list of issues to discuss in our first couples therapy session set for tomorrow morning. I’m most concerned about what Helen’s real motives may be for attempting to reconcile. I note that doing it for the kids alone isn’t enough. Doing it to help build me up to a point at which she feels better about dumping me isn’t enough. I know she’s been copping hell from her family since she broke the news to them a few days ago. Her parents and her father in particular are livid about her adultery. It seems he has a better grip on the Catholic church’s view on the matter than his daughter. But I’m concerned that Helen may be offering only a token effort to reconcile to try to save some face with them. I intend to lead the counseling session tomorrow off with this, because if Helen isn’t sincere then there’s no point wasting everyone’s time.</p> <p> After dinner, of which I eat little, I go down to my study in the basement to find Helen going through my e-mail. She has discovered the exchanges I forwarded between her and Pascal in my deleted items file. How could I have been so stupid? I had caught her in the same way, yet I had failed to cover my tracks by not emptying my own e-mail trash. Helen wears an expression of utter shock, then turns to regard me with fury. This is it, I think. Reconciliation over before it even starts. Helen storms upstairs and we get locked into an immediate heated argument.</p> <p> “How could you betray my privacy and do something so sneaky?” she demands, outraged.</p> <p> “After what you've done, I owe you no debt there,” I counter. I ask her to put herself in my place that first night and to understand my need for proof in case she decided to change her story during divorce proceedings. She insists she never would, but admits that the first question her lawyer asked her when she’d told him she was having an affair was whether I had proof. Precisely my point, I say. Whatever her intentions toward honesty now, this is what happens when lawyers get involved. That’s why I had to protect myself. That’s why I needed proof.</p> <p> Helen is embarrassed by the tawdry nature of the e-mails and asks if I’d consider exchanging them for an affidavit from her attesting to the affair. I say yes, but only after legal consultation. I have an appointment with my lawyer tomorrow and I promise to bring it up then. We go back and forth like this for a while, then, incredibly, the tone changes dramatically. We calm down. We start having another long, positive, constructive dialogue again. The perpetual roller coaster nature of this thing is truly amazing. Helen tells me that part of her attraction for Pascal wasn’t just physical, but that she really felt a connection to him in a way we’d lost.</p> <p> “I felt like I was dealing with an equal with him rather than a dependent,” she says. “He told me all about the physics involved in natural resource exploration and drilling for oil, which was fascinating,” she continues. Yeah, I'll bet, I think. Then he busied himself with a little natural resource exploration and drilling of an entirely different kind. The thought is like a hand reaching up from my gut to squeeze my heart into pulp like an overripe tomato.<br> She goes on to say that she’d become embarrassed to tell people that I stay home with the kids, and that she’d taken to lying about what I do when asked.</p> <p> “I tell you this not to hurt you,” she says, “but to make you understand my feelings so that you can try to address them.” I’m not hurt, I respond, at least not any more than any other revelation about her lover, because I’ve never felt ashamed of the role I play taking care of the kids and running the household, which I feel Helen totally takes for granted. But I tell her I know it’s an issue for her I’ve got to address if she’s to regain her respect for me and give any attempt at reconciliation a chance.</p> <p> Helen then once again reveals her failure to adequately grasp the situation by asking if I’d mind if she contacts Pascal every six weeks or so to let him know how the reconciliation is going. She feels she “owes” him that. Incredulously, I respond that we don’t “owe” Pascal anything – he knew he was fooling around with a married woman.</p> <p> “In no way would such continued contact with him be appropriate for the reconciliation or fair to me,” I tell her. If she doesn’t want to take my word for it, I invite her to ask the couples counselor what she thinks of this idea tomorrow, since I know full well the counselor will agree with me.</p> <p> Helen also expands on what she meant the other night in the car when she said she didn’t think her affair was a mistake.</p> <p> “I didn’t want to insult you by making you think that I’d do something as drastic as ending our marriage over something as trivial as a mistake,” she explains. “What I have with Pascal is much deeper than that.” Oh, well, that’s all right then, I think while I just stare dumbly at her. I can think of no way to respond to this that won’t cause tempers to rise or devolve into a pointless game of tortured semantics over the meaning of the word “mistake,” so I let it drop. Suddenly, I’m seized by a thought that hadn’t occurred to me before.</p> <p> “Have you possibly exposed yourself to HIV or any other sexually transmitted diseases or even pregnancy through your liaisons with Pascal?” I ask her forcefully, since any of these consequences obviously would doom things between us. She shakes her head.</p> <p>“We used condoms,” she quietly assures me, if any reassurance or consolation can be found in such a revelation about my wife's sexual activity with another man. But it’s something, at least. I must take what crumbs of comfort I can from the situation. I ask her to please confirm her next period for me nonetheless.</p> <p> We talk for four hours, until almost 1:00am. Unnoticed by us, the kids have put themselves to bed, bless them. A night that started off in the worst possible way has ended up feeling positive again, but I know the issue of the e-mails will resurface and be a problem as we move forward. It would have been much better had she not discovered I had them. We say goodnight. I have no doubt I’ll need a Valium if I’m to get any sleep after all this.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce, <em>available for £8.99 from </em>www.amazon.co.uk <em>or for $14.75 from </em>www.lulu.com </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2006/12/27/june_8~1484191/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2006-11-20:/2006/11/20/june_7~1350133/kevdc2006-11-20T16:47:47+01:002006-11-20T16:47:47+01:00 <p> Another long day spent mostly on the phone with family and friends offering their advice and support. I’m still not eating, but I keep from getting dehydrated by drinking plenty of fluids. I make an appointment with my doctor for tomorrow to begin being treated for depression.</p> <p> I get up while Helen is getting ready for work. Now that she has agreed to try and reconcile, I’m eager to do all I can to smooth things between us – perhaps a little too eager. I make her cups of tea and offer to carry her heavy briefcase out to the car. She appreciates my efforts, but notices immediately that I’m trying too hard. She gently tells me not to be quite so cloying. I take her point and realise I have to tread very carefully on this tightrope I’m walking.</p> <p> I speak to Helen during the day and remind her that I still need some outstanding financial information from her in advance of my meeting with my lawyer later in the week. She gets hostile on the other end of the phone and accuses me of only being interested in money if we divorce.</p> <p> “You're just out to ruin me financially,” she says.</p> <p> “Not at all,” I respond. “I want us to remain together. But if you're determined to divorce me, then of course I have to protect my own interests and get the best settlement deal I possibly can. After all, I’m the one being dumped with no stellar career and no new love on which to fall back,” I continue.</p> <p> She complains how unfortunate it is for this to be reduced to a question of economics and asks me if I think two people should stay in a bad marriage purely for financial considerations. Of course not, I respond. One can’t be financially blackmailed into staying in a bad marriage. But I think we can fix the problems between us. And while the economic issue may not be as important as the emotional one in terms of personal happiness, it’s certainly one issue involved in a divorce. Incredibly, it seems she hasn’t considered this. As with the house, she really doesn’t seem to grasp what she stands to lose if we divorce. She hasn't considered any of the practical realities. She's operating on a purely emotional level.</p> <p> Despite the negative tone of this conversation, when Helen gets home in the evening we have another long discussion. We talk for hours. Amazingly, it feels positive and constructive. The more we communicate, the more progress we seem to make, however small. I go to bed feeling a little better, not that I expect to sleep well.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from</em> Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce, <em>available for £8.99 f</em>rom <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk">www.amazon.co.uk</a> <em>or for $14.75 from </em>www.lulu.com <em>See also </em>Life As A Divorced Dad <em>at</em> <a href="http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk">http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2006/11/20/june_7~1350133/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2006-10-11:/2006/10/11/june_6~1211237/kevdc2006-10-11T21:36:13+02:002006-10-11T21:36:13+02:00 <p> We decide to tell the kids something about what’s going on. Helen returns from call in the afternoon and we sit them down in the family room to explain that mom and dad are having some problems but we’re trying to work them out. The news barely seems to register. Helen and I regard each other quizzically. We expected more questions from them. This has gone too well.</p> <p> I’m still not eating, but I force myself to eat two pieces of toast with honey during the day. The toast feels like it has the texture of Styrofoam and it’s a struggle to finish it, but I make myself. If I don’t start eating soon, I’ll get sick, and that’s the last thing I need.</p> <p> We sit down to eat a family dinner tonight, but I don’t get through more than a few bites. Helen and I do a good job maintaining an atmosphere of normalcy for the kids. Later though, she tells me that our son did indeed ask her if we’re getting divorced. She tells me she told him we hope not. I don’t know if he was comforted by that answer. I'm not, but it's better than where we were a few days ago. Everything is relative now.</p> <p> When the kids are in bed, Helen tells me she has something to show me. I follow her into her study and she gives me a flow chart she’s drawn up in response to my proposal to try to reconcile -- suitably scientific coming from a doctor. She has agreed, though there are a number of caveats. She’s willing to give it six months, then take an appraisal to see where we are and decide if there’s any basis for continuing. Effort on my part is not enough, I must show concrete results. Failure will lead to divorce, the flow chart signifies. She also tells me that even if I succeed, she could still decide at the end of six months that her feelings for me can never be the same and that will also lead to divorce. This too is graphically illustrated with clinical clarity by the flow chart. She warns me that if at any point during the effort she decides she cannot let Pascal go, she will inform me and pull the plug on the reconciliation. She promises there will be no more going behind my back with him, she will tell me up front if she plans to see him again and that will be that.</p> <p> It seems like the best I can reasonably hope for in the circumstances, so I agree. Helen further removes any illusions of raised hopes I may have been entertaining by telling me her primary motivation for agreeing to try and reconcile is for the children’s benefit. She also repeats that I need to do this for myself anyway, and her helping me come to terms with my character flaws will help assuage the guilt she feels for leaving me. This further undercuts my relief that she’s agreed to at least try to save our marriage, but if this is the only hand I’m dealt, I have to play it out.</p> <p> Helen also informs me that she wants to reverse the sleeping arrangements, with me heading to the basement guest room and her taking our bed. I have no problem with that and agree. I head down to my new sleeping quarters and wonder if I’ve slept with Helen in our old marital bed for the last time. God, I hope not, but there’s much work to be done and I’m not kidding myself about the likelihood of success. I pop another Valium as I get ready for bed.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce, <em>available for £8.99 from </em>www.amazon.co.uk <em>or for $14.75 from </em>www.lulu.com <em>See also </em>Life As A Divorced Dad <em>at</em> <a href="http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk">http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2006/10/11/june_6~1211237/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2006-08-16:/2006/08/16/june_5~1043174/kevdc2006-08-16T08:21:10+02:002006-08-16T08:21:10+02:00 <p> Another night of interrupted sleep. I keep waking up and my mind is racing. I can’t shut it off. I’m not well rested, but I don’t care. I really want to talk to Helen this afternoon when she returns from work.</p> <p> I spend the first part of the day in my usual routine with my kids. I arrange for Steve and Angelina to take them for the afternoon so that Helen and I can talk without being disturbed. I am watching the clock like a hawk, willing Helen to return. The day drags by like an eternity. Finally, Helen gets back at around 3:00pm. I take the kids straight over to Steve and Angelina’s. Then I return home, sit down with Helen, and pull out the notes I’ve jotted down so I don’t forget anything.</p> <p> I tell her I want to try and save our marriage. I will do everything in my power to achieve a reconciliation. I won’t stop looking for work until I find something. I will once and for all address all the issues she has with me and pledge to change. She’s heard it all before, but I tell her this time it’s different. Like the drunk who finally gets sick and tired of being sick and tired, I’ve finally hit rock bottom. Sometimes, tragically, that’s what it takes. Well, I’m there.</p> <p> I will do everything she asks of me in terms of counseling and therapy and I will follow through to achieve real change. I will receive treatment for my depression, since, whether or not I was depressed before, I definitely am now. I know it will be hard. I know I have it all to prove. I just ask her to be open to letting me prove it to her. I tell her how much I love her and that I believe what we have is worth saving. We can leave the past behind and come through this the better for it in the end. As bad as it looks, the situation is not irretrievable.</p> <p> I tell her I forgive her for the affair, but she must break it off with Pascal immediately if she’s really interested in saving our marriage. I tell her I know how hard this will be for her, but I remind her what she is betting against what is still just a seductive illusion. I ask her to please reconsider what divorce will do to all of us and our families. Isn’t it worth one last shot?</p> <p> We are both emotional. It’s hard, but the dialogue continues. She’s not ruling my offer out. We talk for a long time about what I’m proposing. She agrees to think about it and get back to me. Again, the conversation feels positive and constructive, certainly compared to where we were just a few days ago. Where there was total darkness there now seems the faintest glimmer of light. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. It’s a start.</p> <p> I’m greatly encouraged when Helen says she wishes I’d accompanied her on more of her business trips in the past and asks if I’d be willing to go with her on two such trips upcoming, one to Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina and the other to Caracas, Venezuela, where she is scheduled to give a television interview on one of her research topics at the end of July. It seems significant that she wants me to go with her on these trips, and the faint glimmer of hope glows a little brighter. Five days in South America together may be just the thing we need to reconnect with one another. I’m delighted to accept, provided we can overcome the standard logistical problem of ensuring the kids are cared for while we’re away. Then Helen asks me if I’ll accompany her to a work-related dinner event tonight at a downtown hotel. I readily agree. We arrange a sitter for the kids. I go over to Steve and Angelina’s to pick them up.</p> <p> Later, we head downtown to the dinner event. The vibe between us is surprisingly good. We put up a good façade for her colleagues. I am cheerful, at least on the surface. Inside, my stomach remains locked tight and I can’t eat more than a few bites of the food. Toward the end of the event, Helen excuses herself and leaves the table. I assume she’s going to the ladies room. Five minutes go by. Then ten. My forced chit chat with her colleagues is getting strained. I’m beginning to realise what Helen’s doing. My stomach churning, I get up and go look for her.</p> <p> No sign of her outside the banquet room. I check the hotel lobby, but she’s not there either. Then I walk outside to the street. There she is, as I suspected, standing on the rain-slicked sidewalk, on her mobile phone. There’s only one person she can be talking to. I stand there enraged and humiliated. A moment later, she looks up, sees me, and finishes her conversation. She approaches and I vent my wrath. How dare she drag me down here to put up a united front for the benefit of her colleagues and then treat me with such contempt as to leave me hanging at the dinner table while she phones her lover.</p> <p> She interrupts me to say that she was telling him she’s 80% decided to accept my offer to try and reconcile. I’m stopped in my tracks. Suddenly, what seemed a sickening negative has turned into a positive. I’m delighted with this news. We return to the banquet room to say our goodbyes and head home in the car.</p> <p> On the way, I tell her again that I’m willing to put the past behind us and move forward if by some miracle we can rescue the situation. I will forgive her the affair and never mention it again, because I know from all the mistakes I’ve made in our marriage that everyone makes them.</p> <p> “I don’t think it’s a mistake and I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done,” Helen responds curtly. I’m stunned. Not a mistake? What is it then? And how can she possibly expect me to take any other view? What does she imagine is the Catholic church’s view on the matter? Her religious convictions have always been situational, but this is ridiculous. This is the apex of what’s called “cafeteria Catholicism” – take the bits you like, leave the bits you don’t. Her comment reveals so much about her lack of understanding of what she’s done and her self-centeredness.</p> <p> But I only think these things, I don’t say anything because I’m eager to maintain the positive flow of the day’s events. A marriage guidance session will be the appropriate venue to thrash this one out. This is what I’m up against though. We get home and say goodnight. Helen is still sleeping in the guest room and I’m still in our bed. I anticipate another disturbed night’s sleep.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce, <em>available for £8.99 from </em>www.amazon.co.uk <em>or for $14.75 from </em>www.lulu.com <em>See also </em>Life As A Divorced Dad <em>a</em>t <a href="http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk">http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2006/08/16/june_5~1043174/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2006-07-17:/2006/07/17/june_4~964971/kevdc2006-07-17T07:46:41+02:002006-07-17T07:46:41+02:00 <p> After the bottomless low of yesterday, I’m a little more energised by anger today. Properly channeled, this is a good thing. I even tell Helen this when she calls home that day. She agrees. Her duplicity in all this makes my blood boil. She must’ve known I was on to her when I told her I was thinking of asking her a certain question the week before all this blew up, yet she went ahead and initiated sex between us that night anyway. That’s cold, devious, and calculating. I couldn’t have done that. I couldn't stomach the dishonesty.</p> <p> I get through the rest of the day mostly talking to friends and family, who call regularly and sometimes twice a day to discuss the situation. My father can’t believe it when I tell him what I’ve learned about Pascal. When I initially told him Pascal was in the oil industry, he’d assumed Helen had fallen for some oil tycoon, which would at least make some sort of sense. When I tell him her comment about what will happen with the house when we divorce, he’s incredulous and says she obviously hasn’t thought any of this through at all. He can’t fathom what she’s doing and says I’m being too hard on myself when I explain it again as a function in large part of my shortcomings. It’s little consolation. I'm still locked in self-recrimination mode.</p> <p> Helen gets home that evening and we begin another long conversation. We wonder how it all came to this. It gets very emotional, with tears shed by both of us.</p> <p> “I told you I needed to be kept on a shorter leash!” she suddenly yells at me. She had indeed told me that. She’d also told me that it was becoming harder for her to resist the many advances she got from other men while away on her business trips. I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Yet like a fool, I did nothing. Then again, what could I do? I couldn’t chaperone her on all her trips. I had to stay home to take care of the kids. You have to be able to trust your partner, and Helen was failing to take responsibility for her own actions by laying the blame at my feet. However, my culpability for creating the conditions that made it easier for her to stray was certainly undeniable, though that doesn’t excuse Helen’s actions.</p> <p> She goes on to say that some of her past sexual acting out was intended in part to make me rein her in. When I didn’t, she took that as I sign that I didn’t care about her, which fed into her feeling that I didn’t show her enough affection. And there I thought all along I should be getting credit for giving her the freedom to be herself rather than my being too controlling, yet control was precisely what she was crying out for. What a costly misunderstanding, part of the overall communication breakdown between us.</p> <p> She asks me again why I never changed despite all the warnings she gave me. I tell her I don’t know why. I was too complacent. I never thought it would ever come to this. I take full blame for not fixing my personal problems. I knew what they were, the tragedy is that I let things slide to this point of total ruin. I sensed a lorry bearing down on me and I didn’t jump out of the way. I’m more sorry than I can ever express and I only wish the situation was retrievable. I love her, I love our family, I love everything that we have together, and losing it is devastating me.</p> <p> Then, to my surprise, Helen begins talking about what it would take to put things right. It’s all couched in the most improbable, hypothetical terms, but this is the first time since this all blew up that she’s softening her stance on wanting the divorce, however slightly. I seize on this tiny opening and we discuss it further. I need to make big changes. She needs to do the same. We have to work together like never before to fit the shattered pieces into some kind of mosaic whole. Marriage counseling is a given. Individual therapy for both of us to find out what makes us tick in the hope that understanding can bring change. Helen wants me to undergo neuro-psychological testing to see if I have an adult form of the kind of attention deficit disorder that afflicts our son, which may explain in part my lack of career focus. I must be treated for the depression she believes I have. She’s cautious not to give me too much hope. She says I need to do this for myself to become a better person and so that I can forge successful relationships in future. I tell her I understand and that she’s right. The discussion ends up feeling constructive – something I never would have imagined in the circumstances. We leave it there because I have accepted an invitation to have dinner with Steve and Angelina. I walk up the street to their house.</p> <p> I discuss the evening’s surprising turn of events with Steve and Angelina. It helps me coalesce my thoughts on what it would take to attempt to salvage my marriage. They have made flank steak, and, though I’m still not hungry despite having again eaten nothing today, I manage to get down a few thin bites. The act of chewing seems labourious, like I don’t have enough saliva to work with, and swallowing also is an effort. Interesting how acute stress robs one of sensual pleasures like the joy of eating. Still, I come away from the evening slightly buoyed, which is at least a step up from the deep despair I’ve been feeling.</p> <p> When I get home, Helen and the kids are asleep in our bed. I have decided to make her a proposal. She is on call this weekend and must go into work in the morning. I leave her a note asking her to continue our conversation when she gets back tomorrow afternoon. I will sleep in my son’s bed tonight.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from</em> Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce. <em>For more information, go to</em> <a href="http://www.lulu.com">www.lulu.com</a> <em>See also </em>Life As A Divorced Dad <em>at</em> <a href="http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk">http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk</a></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2006/07/17/june_4~964971/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2006-06-19:/2006/06/19/june_3~895296/kevdc2006-06-19T22:01:45+02:002006-06-19T22:01:45+02:00 <p> As expected, I only sleep fitfully. The tension in my gut feels like getting halfway through a stomach crunch and permanently holding it. I am heartsick and soul destroyed. I realise I have to tell my family. This will devastate them – they’ve loved Helen like their own daughter and have done so much for us. I feel overwhelmed by the feeling of how badly I’ve let them down. They’ll doubtless feel I’ve messed up the only good thing I’ve ever done in my life, and they’ll be right. I’ve allowed myself to drift aimlessly professionally while becoming totally dependent on someone else and taking it all for granted, and now I’m being kicked to the curb. I’m approaching forty with no career, no direction, and no prospects. I have to start virtually from scratch. It’s a nightmare of my own making. I’m the poster child for how to screw up one’s life.</p> <p> Helen goes to work and I get the kids ready for school as best I can, though I am barely functioning. I decide to start by calling my sister to confirm the fears I’d confided in her just two days earlier. I am surprised when my mother answers – she is obviously babysitting for my sister. Right away she detects something wrong in my voice and demands to know what it is. I blurt it out.</p> <p> “Helen’s divorcing me for another man,” I tell her. She is audibly shocked. I go into the explanation of the previous day’s events and break down on the phone. I am distraught at what this will do to my parents. My mother does a good job holding herself together, then says she will break the news to my father and get him to call me back.</p> <p> He does so a bit later and I go through it all again. I say how sorry I am for letting them both down like this. They’ve been through a lot with one of my sister’s two divorces, so this is the last thing they need. I break down again. This is agony. The initial shock of yesterday insulated me a little from the full impact, which has sunk in to the hilt today. The pain of telling my parents is compounded by the jumble of emotions running through me – grief, deep sorrow, guilt at my role in creating this mess, acute anxiety, and fear. Fear of what’s to become of me. What do I do now? Where do I go from here? The sense of dislocation and confusion is overwhelming. I decide I need to get some legal advice immediately.</p> <p> I pick up the phone book and call the first divorce lawyer in my town I find. It is a woman named Sheila. I tell her my story. She takes down the details, tells me to start by getting together all our financial information so that a full accounting can be made of assets in advance of any settlement, then tells me on no condition should I as the wronged spouse leave the house. If Helen wants out, she should get out. We set up an appointment to meet next week.</p> <p> The advice is perfectly timed, because when Helen gets home earlier than usual that afternoon she announces that she’s spoken to her lawyer and he’s instructed her that the first step is for us to physically separate, so I had better start looking for somewhere else to live. So much for her making this easier on me and there being no pressure on me to move out. That lasted all of twenty-four hours. Fortunately, I have my lawyer’s advice with which to respond. I tell her if she wants out, there’s the door – use it.</p> <p> She seems a little taken aback. She asks me where I think she’s supposed to go. I reverse the question and ask her where she expected me to go. She has a sister in a neighbouring town, she can go there. I have no family in the area. She earns the income, as she never tires of reminding me, so she can always stay in a hotel if she wants. She asks me what I think it will do to the children to see their mother moving out. This is rich coming from her since she’s so rarely here and since I’m the primary caregiver for our kids – who’s going to take care of them if I move out? I tell her she should’ve considered that before doing what she’s done. Anyway, I’m not budging. She can do what she likes.</p> <p> An uneasy truce settles over us. Helen agrees to go on living under the same roof for a while longer. We talk a little more about things. I find out a bit more about the other man. As indicated by the name on the e-mails, he is indeed French, but of African origin. This makes no difference to me, though I know it will greatly bother her parents, who aren’t renowned for their enlightenment on racial matters.</p> <p> I’m curious though. Helen’s sudden interest in hardcore rap music; her recent interest in pornography featuring white women having sex with black men; her visit to the African-American male strip club; the long hours she spends interviewing and evaluating predominantly black prison inmates for her research project; now the fact that the man with whom she’s having the affair is black. What’s going on here? Is this a coincidence or something more – a fetish that has materialised in recent years or a long dormant proclivity that finally surfaced as she got closer to her fortieth birthday? I’m entitled to wonder.</p> <p> According to Helen, Pascal works in the oil industry in a large, oil producing state. He is an engineer who earns a decent living, but nowhere near as much as Helen. When I ask her how they plan to be together, she says she won’t move there to be with him. As there’s little for an oil field worker to do in our area, I ask what he’ll do here then. She says they’re talking about him quitting his job and moving here and trying to get into law school. What a foolproof plan. Pascal is also six years Helen’s junior. She won’t say how they met, but later I sneak a peek in her handbag and discover his name and phone number scribbled on a cocktail napkin, so I presume she met him in a bar one evening. How clichéd. They have only been together three times. The mid-life crisis theory gains ground. Helen seems to have taken leave of her senses. Who trashes a fifteen-year marriage on the basis of something so ephemeral? Rationality seems to have been swept aside by a tsunami of pure emotion.</p> <p>I’m reminded of a time a few years ago when Helen told me about an article she read about a psychiatric condition called hypomania. Hypomanics typically are energetic high achievers who thrive in high-tempo environments verging on the chaotic and get by on little sleep. They are also characterised by occasionally reckless, impulsive, libidinous, and self-destructive behaviour. She said she saw a lot of herself in this description. Suddenly, so do I.</p> <p> Helen then asks me what I think will become of the house, whether I think one of us will keep it. I reply that of course it will likely be sold as part of the division of assets and we will both have to move unless one of us can come with the funds to buy out the other’s share. She expresses regret at this. The house is her pride and joy after the extensive renovation she directed for the main level just eighteen months ago. Incredibly, it seems she hasn’t considered this up to now.</p> <p> The whole thing seems totally ill thought out, if it has been given any thought at all. Look what she’s jeopardising – fifteen years of marriage, kids’ well being, families devastated, house, nice lifestyle, and so on -- for some guy she only knows through a handful of idyllic sexual encounters that have absolutely nothing to do with real life. Is this guy prepared to handle the daily stress of dealing with my son and all his various issues, particularly in the wake of the trauma of his parents’ divorce? Then there’s our daughter, who’s fine with me but almost unbearable when Helen’s around. Whiny, crying, needy, clingy -- typical attention-starved behaviour. I doubt Pascal knows what he’s letting himself in for, and when he finds out it’s a lot more than he bargained for, can Helen rely on him to stick around? How can she when she barely knows him? It doesn’t make any sense. We can fix the problems in our marriage, I’m convinced of it. Why chuck it all away for a pig in a poke based on the briefest of flings, however strong the initial physical attraction is?</p> <p> I go out for a while tonight to be consoled by my friend Scott, who is shocked by my news and very sympathetic, then return home to reflect on what has been without doubt the lowest day in my life. I have eaten nothing today and have no desire to. Where there should be hunger pangs is now the constant vice-like grip of anxiety in my stomach. I’ve had a little to drink, but that’s all. I contemplate heading upstairs to sleep as best I can in our redundant marital bed. Another Valium may help a little.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce. <em>For more information, go to</em> <a href="http://www.lulu.com">www.lulu.com</a> <em>See also </em>Life As A Divorced Dad <em>at</em> <a href="http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk">http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2006/06/19/june_3~895296/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2006-05-25:/2006/05/25/june_2~829604/kevdc2006-05-25T23:01:59+02:002006-05-25T23:01:59+02:00 <p> I spend the whole first part of the day wracked with my suspicion. Helen is leaving work early this afternoon to attend a concert event at our son’s school. Afterwards, we will return home and there will be a little time before the school bus brings the kids back. I decided in advance that that was the moment to ambush her with the question.</p> <p> I get to the school auditorium before Helen. I arrange two seats together for us. She arrives, sees me, but stands at the back of the room for a while. Then she pulls another chair over and puts it next to the free one I had already arranged for her so that there is now an empty chair between us. She sits down in her chair, then acts with a start as if she absent-mindedly hadn’t seen me all along and slides over to the empty chair next to me. The strained body language does nothing to ease my growing anxiety.</p> <p> The event ends and we drive home in separate cars. We go inside and stand in the kitchen, recently renovated and the pride of our comfortable colonial house in the leafy suburbs. I can wait no longer. I come straight out with it.</p> <p> “Are you having an affair, Helen?” I ask with as much composure as I can muster.</p> <p> She looks straight at me and says nothing. I have my answer. My heart sinks. No, it plummets. There’s no preparing for this. For over a week I knew deep down, but this still hits with all the force of a sledgehammer.</p> <p> As it had two years earlier when she’d confessed a previous extramarital sexual dalliance early in our marriage. That had been a one-off incident in response to a minor spat between us a long time ago she assured me, so while I was hurt, I forgave her for it and had never brought it up since. The fact that it happened with a colleague with whom she still occasionally dealt continued to bother me. So did the manner in which I’d found out – picking up the phone to make a call and overhearing her on the upstairs extension having an exchange of an obviously sexual nature with the man in question. They had referred to a previous encounter and he was clearly soliciting a repeat performance. To her credit, I suppose, Helen resisted.</p> <p> I had confronted her immediately and she confessed the transgression. She swore it had only happened once, though they had continued to enjoy the occasional phone call of the kind I’d overheard ever since. Naturally, I demanded the calls cease immediately as a condition of my forgiveness. I now realise that that forgiveness was bestowed too easily, though in the back of my mind at the time was a fling of my own while on a trip abroad some seven years earlier. We’re even, I rationalised. I even allowed her to twist things and blame her infidelity on me because of the insensitive remark I’d made which she claimed drove her to it, which was incredibly foolish then and seems even more so now that she has done it again. Not only is this another betrayal, it is current and ongoing. I wonder how much worse it’s going to get. I demand angrily to know how long it’s been going on. She begins to confess, but is interrupted by her pager going off. Surreally, she reaches for the phone to return the page.</p> <p> “Don’t tell me you’re going to return that page now of all times,” I say incredulously.</p> <p> “I’m on call,” she replies coldly. “I have to return it.”</p> <p> I stand there seething while she returns the page in as businesslike a manner as she can. After a few minutes which feel like an eternity, the call ends and she turns to me to continue her confession. She has been seeing him for about two months now. I demand to know who he is, suddenly gripped by the thought that it may be a mutual friend, compounding the betrayal. She assures me it’s no one I know, no one even in our area. She admits that’s where she was this past weekend, when she was away allegedly on business. Oh, it was some kind of business all right.</p> <p> The fury at her betrayal of me is bad enough, but I’m also enraged by what I regard as her betrayal of her children. This is a woman who spends precious little time with her kids, reflected in a painting our daughter once drew in art class in school entitled “My Family” which featured the two children with me and the family dog – but not Helen. Now I’m finding out that she’s been taking yet more time away from them to travel out of state to engage in sordid, self-indulgent romps with another man. I am reeling. Angry, devastated, sickened. But I have still not taken on board the full import of what this all means. The kids get home from school, so we take the discussion upstairs to our bedroom. That’s when she administers the coup de grace and tells me her affair isn’t just a physical dalliance, she has deep feelings for the other man.</p> <p> “I want a divorce,” she announces.</p> <p> My whole world is crumbling around me. She’s telling me how she wants to make this as easy as possible on me and how she wants to do all this amicably. I don’t have to move out right away, I can stay as long as I need until I get myself together. She’s going to help out any way she can. She’s so sorry. The words have all the consolation value of an old time executioner reassuring the condemned man that his axe is sharp so the victim’s head should come off cleanly with a single blow. Barely any of it is registering anyway. I’m entering shock, becoming numb. I have to get out, so I stagger over to our friends and neighbours Steve and Angelina’s house. I must look like a zombie because right away they ask me what’s wrong. I tell them. They’re appalled, but not totally surprised.</p> <p> “I thought she’d been having an affair for some time now,” Steve says. I ask him why. He says the BMW she recently bought herself, the change in hairstyle, the extended time spent away, and the distinct change in her attitude they’ve noticed over the past two years or so that has contributed to them backing off from our friendship since.</p> <p> “She’s having a classic mid-life crisis,” Steve says.</p> <p> I feel myself sinking into despair. It’s the initial grief phase of shock. I pour out all the reasons why this is mostly my fault.</p> <p> My lack of ambition and career development. I don’t know why this is, but I’m untroubled by career motivation. If I were independently wealthy, I wouldn’t work. Some people would. They need to work. They enjoy it. Helen is like this. I’m not. This is in part because I’ve never felt like I’ve discovered my mission in life. Helen was lucky – she knew she wanted to be a physician from an early age and followed the clear path to get there. I’ve never felt such strength of direction, so I’ve tended to drift. When I found something I enjoyed, such as the small magazine I worked at for six years, I settled into a comfy rut even though it was a low-paying dead-end job. It did give me the flexibility to be there for our kids when needed, but despite that virtue I knew it bothered Helen. She was pleased when I finally left to take a position with a start up Internet company.</p> <p> My staying at home after losing my job when the Internet company tanked after just one year compounded the problem. In hindsight, it was the pivotal turning point. We also lost our nanny around the same time, so it seemed natural for me to take over at home for a while. Helen agreed to this while our kids were still so young and because our son has a variety of learning disabilities, including Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, which require extra attention and put a real strain on all of us. I tried to do a little real estate work on the side, but it wasn’t right for me and it was too difficult to combine with my child care duties, so I quit. I quickly settled into another comfy rut of being a stay-at-home dad who whiled away the time between household chores and child care on Internet chat sites and engaged in trivial e-mail debates. I knew Helen rightly thought I was frittering away my time and talent in frivolity, yet I let the situation slide. I have issues.</p> <p> Not doing more to contribute when I could have. I could have done more part-time work while I was at home, yet I remained mired in my rut, the eternal slacker. Helen thought I botched helping her collect some outstanding money owed on her outside consulting work. The money was coming in, but she thought I was doing it in a haphazard, disorganised fashion and eventually handed the task over to one of her sisters, whom she was obliged to pay. I knew that pissed Helen off, yet I didn’t address the situation or correct what I believed was her misimpression of the job I was doing. I have issues.</p> <p> My arrested adolescence. I still prefer to wear t-shirts emblazoned with the names of my favourite rock bands and jeans or cargo shorts rather than acting and dressing like the mature, professional, accomplished man Helen needs at this point in her life. I regressed ever further into my bad ways while at home even while Helen’s career reached new heights. I knew she was beginning to feel like she was taking care of a teenage son rather than having a husband partner, yet I allowed the situation to slip into crisis. I have issues.</p> <p> Not showing her enough affection. I’m not naturally demonstrative with my feelings, and Helen has always felt that I don’t tell her I love her enough or show it in other ways. I thought she was crazy to demand such things when I don’t require them and my love for her should have been taken as a given. Why couldn’t I see beyond the prism of myself and give her what she needed? I have issues.</p> <p> What she perceived as my depressive demeanour and moodiness. I admit that I can come across as pessimistic and a bit morose at times, but I thought that was just me, take me for who I am. Helen and a couple of fellow physician friends believe I suffer from persistent low-level depression. I always resisted the diagnosis and taking medication for it. Helen finally talked me into trying one antidepressant a few years ago which had sexual side effects. That was hardly likely to cheer me up, so I stopped taking it and that was that. The result is my moods affected the whole family and contributed to the current disaster. Why didn’t I do something about it? I have issues.</p> <p> The constant bickering over money. I felt like I had to act as the fiscally responsible one in our relationship because Helen was so reckless with her spending, but it also made me appear a killjoy. A European holiday last summer was partially spoiled by my worrying over the cost both before and after we arrived. I knew the trip was important to Helen as a sign that we’d “made it” and could afford such luxurious getaways, but still I couldn’t relax and let her enjoy it to the full. I have issues.</p> <p> An impatient streak and an acid tongue which occasionally make me blurt out caustic, hurtful comments. This has been a problem throughout our marriage and Helen has urged me to get a grip on it. I always apologise and promise I will, but I never have. It has contributed to the death of our marriage by many small cuts. I have issues.</p> <p> My fatal complacency. It was tangible how much Helen and I had been growing apart in recent years, particularly over the past year. It manifested itself in something as trivial as Helen’s changing taste in music. We used to like the same kind of music, rock broadly speaking, though Helen’s taste has always been broader than mine and included other genres. Lately, seemingly out of nowhere, she developed a strong liking for hardcore rap music, which I can’t stand. She listens to it almost exclusively these days. It’s just one small symptom of us moving in different directions, though there are many others.</p> <p> The opposites in our natures that once attracted and made our marriage work (since it’s difficult to conceive how our family could’ve succeeded if we’d both been as career driven as Helen or conversely as lackadaisical in our approach to work as I’ve been) became unbalanced as we both retreated to our extremes and began to repel one another. I knew it, just as I knew my failure to deal with my other issues was becoming a bigger problem, but I just kept floating along in my little bubble of complacency, blithely assuming everything would stay the same. Now I know it doesn’t. I have issues.</p> <p> Finally, in what I think was in many ways the proverbial and literal final straw for her, my failure to appreciate the severity of a back problem she developed last year. It came to a head when we took the kids to New York for Thanksgiving weekend and the pain became so unbearable she was literally screaming from it and had to return by herself on a flight in the middle of the night to check herself into the emergency room back home leaving me to travel back with the kids the next day. I thought she’d been making a meal of it because she kept rejecting my offers to call for medical help and I was amazed when she required emergency surgery to remove a shard of dessicated disc that had become lodged in her spinal column.</p> <p> It was a colossal blunder on my part I had apologised profusely for, but in retrospect the damage done to our already teetering relationship was immense. Helen was furious with me for the cavalier attitude I’d taken to her condition. She said it proved I couldn’t be relied on to take care of her in a crisis, though I had been there for the kids, as usual. That cut no ice with her though, and it was clear I would never be forgiven for my mistake. I have issues.</p> <p> I recall the showdown talk we had a little over a month ago when I agreed to start looking for work outside the home again. The discussion hadn’t gone well. There was a lot of resentment, confirmed in an e-mail she sent me the next day recapping all my shortcomings with such venom I was too stunned to even reply. Little did I know though how thin the ice really was – she’d already begun the affair by then and this day was but a few short weeks away.</p> <p> I lay all this out to Steve and Angelina. It’s all true, I say. I can’t deny any of it. I can’t blame her for not wanting to be married to a loser anymore. I don’t know why I am the way I am or why I failed to address what are in some cases lifelong personal deficiencies. I was so damn complacent. I have issues. God damn all my issues. I need help.</p> <p> They try to support me. They tell me not to be so hard on myself, that Helen has played a huge role in all this herself. They cite her single-minded career focus and neglect of the kids, taking for granted that I’m always there to pick up the slack so she can work and travel to her heart’s content; her lack of appreciation for the role I play in other ways running the household; the enormity of her betrayal, for which there is no excuse or justification whatever her problems with me are; and her sexually inappropriate behaviour in general.</p> <p> Helen has always been preternaturally sexual. Tall, slim yet curvaceous, with dark hair and a fine alabaster complexion, she is attractive, vivacious, flirtatious, uninhibited, sexually adventurous, and of above average sexual appetite and experience. Interesting qualities in a practicing Catholic, but they were a big part of what attracted me to her.</p> <p>By contrast, I have a relatively sheltered sexual history by virtue of having always been Mr. Long Term Relationship. Helen was only my third girlfriend. We met at university on the U.S. mid-Atlantic coast, where she had moved from upstate Pennsylvania to attend medical school and I was an undergraduate exchange student from the University of East Anglia. After a relatively whirlwind romance of around two years, some eight months of which were spent apart when I returned to England to complete my bachelor’s degree, I moved back to the same part of the U.S. to be with her and we married shortly thereafter when we were both twenty-four years old. We’ve been here ever since. At six feet four, I am tall, slim (though I have been carrying about twenty pounds of excess weight in recent years), and possessed of the dark hair and fair skin of my Anglo-Black Irish heritage. People always said Helen and I made a handsome couple, and the differences in our sexual histories never really bothered me, though I envied some of her exploits after failing to sow most of my wild oats in my youth.</p> <p> The stories from Helen’s turbulent teen years were racy stuff indeed. There was no shortage of boyfriends with whom she was sexually active. She confessed to me that she had become pregnant during this time and had had an abortion. Another of the stories from this period that always stuck with me was the time she said she took a wrong number call at home. She got talking to the man on the other end, and they arranged to meet that night. He picked her up in his car, they parked somewhere, and they had a sexual encounter. When they were finished, he dropped her home, and that was it. I always used to marvel that that must be the luckiest misdial in history, and that guy probably talks about it to this day.</p> <p> There had been numerous examples of Helen exhibiting her hypersexual traits throughout our marriage. There was her first extramarital escapade within a year of us being wed, of course. Then, following the birth of our son, she got a boob job to counteract the after effects of breast feeding, which left her formerly pert but shapely bosom flaccid and shapeless. This seemed to embolden her further, and she loved showing off her new boobs at every opportunity.</p> <p> Not long after the operation, we traveled to England to visit my family. During a dinner at my sister’s house in which my entire family was present, including spouses and significant others of my sisters we were meeting for the first time, talk turned to Helen’s new boobs. Quick as a flash, she lifted up her top and gave the whole table, my parents included, a view of her ample new cleavage enhanced by a skimpy bra. I could tell a few were shocked, but we all laughed. That was Helen.</p> <p> A few years later, Helen traveled across country to attend a meeting. Upon her return, she told me that a few of the participants had relaxed after a long day in the hotel hot tub. She said she had joined a group of four or five male colleagues in the tub wearing only a pair of G-string panties. I was shocked, but she assured me it was innocent and nothing more had happened. Nevertheless, I questioned the appropriateness of her behaviour and told her most husbands would be outraged by it. Ultimately though, I shrugged it off. That was Helen.</p> <p> A few years ago, we started attending summer pool parties hosted by friends of ours. The group included some mutual friends and a lot of people we hadn’t met before. The format typically involved plenty of drinking, dinner, then frolicking in the pool for those who wanted to. From the very first party, Helen went into the pool wearing only a pair of G-string panties. At subsequent parties, a few other women also went topless, but never with Helen’s brazenness. We all laughed. That was Helen.</p> <p> At a New Year’s party involving the same group, we all had a lot to drink and by the end of the night Helen was flashing her boobs again. She even posed for photos that way. By that time, everyone had already seen them from the pool parties, so it didn’t seem like a big deal. We all laughed. That was Helen.</p> <p> Then at another dinner party hosted by Steve and Angelina, talk turned to the prospect of Helen’s fortieth birthday, which was approaching within a year or two. Helen announced during dinner that what she wanted more than anything as a present for the occasion was a threesome involving her, me, and another man. We all laughed, but she was serious. That’s what she really wanted. That was Helen.</p> <p> Over the years, Helen also has expressed more than once the opinion that extramarital sex is little more than “glorified masturbation” if it's simply a physical act divorced from any emotional element. This should have been a big red flag to me, but I always used to shrug it off as simply an unusual point of view. After all, that was Helen, and I loved and trusted her. More fool me.</p> <p> She has followed all this up since by joining Cake, a women’s club that hosts sexually themed events in New York, of which she has so far attended a few but not the most outrageous; frequently repeating her desire for the ménage a trois, which I have resisted; and expressing an interest in pornography featuring group sex and sex between white women and black men. We’ve always enjoyed pornography as an enhancement to our sex life, so I didn’t think anything of it.</p> <p> Most recently, a few weeks before all this came to a head, she attended a male strip club with a female colleague for a “girl’s night out.” The colleague is African-American and she took Helen to a club she knows featuring all African-American performers. According to Helen, the dancers aren’t totally nude, but sheath their erect or semi-erect penises in pouches that leave nothing to the imagination. Helen told me during the course of the evening, one of the dancers appeared next to her at their table to do a private dance for them. She said she’d expressed doubt that his penis was real due to its large size.</p> <p> “Touch it,” she said her friend told her. She told me she did, to everyone’s great delight. I was shocked but once again laughed it off. That was Helen.</p> <p> Throughout all this, Helen has seemed either oblivious or uncaring to how this appears to others. I have seen women react to her antics with clear hostility in their facial expressions and body language, since she is viewed by them as sexually voracious and predatory and a threat to them through her flirtatiousness with their husbands. Angelina later confided in me how shocked she’d been at her dinner party by Helen’s expressed desire for the threesome and how sorry she felt for me because she thought I’d been publicly humiliated. I’d told her not to worry. That was just Helen. And besides, I have to confess that I enjoyed having such a wild and sexy wife, especially with many of my friends confiding in me how much their own sex lives had waned due to decreased interest on the part of their wives.</p> <p> But it seems in part at least like these chickens are finally coming home to roost. I tell Steve and Angelina that while all that may be true, I’m still 70% to blame for creating the conditions that allowed all this to happen. They say it’s more like 51%-49%, and they think Helen’s the majority stakeholder. But I cannot be consoled and I leave their house in tears to return home.</p> <p> Helen is interacting with the kids when I come back in, and a thought suddenly strikes me. I need to protect myself. I need proof of her adultery in case she changes her story on her lawyer’s advice. That kind of thing happens every day when lawyers get their hooks in. I go upstairs to her study to take a look at her e-mail while she’s preoccupied downstairs, suspecting there may be some evidence there. Nothing in her inbox or sent items. Then I check her deleted items. There they are – two exchanges between her and this other man that leave no doubt what’s been going on. Judging by the name on his e-mail address, Pascal, it seems he’s French – as if I need another reason to hate the French.</p> <p> It's predictably tawdry fare. “I can hear your voice in my ear and feel you pushing inside me,” she purrs in one e-mail to him. “Mmmm. Feels so good, even just to imagine it. I can't wait to feel it for real,” she continues. In one e-mail, she signs off: “Kisses all over your gorgeous smooth body.” In the other, she bids him adieu with: “Feeling you kiss me all over.” They have even evolved a cutesie pet name for her, which seems ludicrously premature. Nevertheless, she refers to herself as his “porcupine.” Perhaps she neglected to shave her legs before she slept with him for the first time? God, I feel sick.</p> <p> The words are like daggers twisting in my heart, but I need proof. I want to print them out, but there isn’t time because Helen could come upstairs at any moment. I forward them to my e-mail on my PC downstairs in my basement study, then delete the forwarding from her sent items to cover my tracks.</p> <p> I also go through the bills, remembering that we recently received the phone bills in the mail. I check Helen’s mobile phone bill, and sure enough there are some thirty calls logged between her and an out-of-state number. Some are brief, presumably messages left; others are long, some almost an hour long. It’s obvious who they’re to. I make a copy of the bill and add it to the e-mails. I make multiple copies of everything and secrete them about the house.</p> <p> The rest of the night is a haze. I’m definitely in a state of shock. A steel grip has clamped on my gut and won’t let go. I have no appetite and eat nothing the rest of the night. Helen says she’ll sleep in the basement guest room and I can have our bed for now. I don’t expect to get much if any sleep tonight. Helen gives me a Valium to help me sleep and goes downstairs as we begin our new life apart.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, <em>by Richard Pearce. For more information, go to</em> <a href="http://www.lulu.com">www.lulu.com</a> <em>See also </em>Life As A Divorced Dad <em>at</em> <a href="http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk">http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk</a></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2006/05/25/june_2~829604/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2006-05-14:/2006/05/14/june_1~797916/kevdc2006-05-14T08:27:39+02:002006-05-14T08:27:39+02:00 <p> I get my sister’s worried reply. She wants to know more than my dark hints. She calls me this afternoon. I don’t keep in regular phone contact with either of my sisters, so this is a big deal in its way. I confide in her my suspicion that Helen is having an affair. I trot out my list of reasons. My sister agrees – it looks bad.</p> <p> “A person’s gut feeling is rarely wrong,” she says. “But only ask a question if you’re prepared for the answer.”</p> <p> Whether or not I’m prepared, the question can wait to be asked no longer. Something’s got to give.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce. <em>For more information, go to </em>www.lulu.com <em>See also </em>Life As A Divorced Dad <em>at</em> <a href="http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk">http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2006/05/14/june_1~797916/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2006-05-06:/2006/05/06/may_31~780158/kevdc2006-05-06T16:28:15+02:002006-05-06T16:28:15+02:00 <p> Helen returned last night. She’s invited some work colleagues over and I was informed I’d be doing all the shopping and cooking for the event. I wasn’t pleased and let her know it. She’s been gone all weekend, leaving me alone once again to mind our two children. Now I’m going to have to work all day to entertain her colleagues while she’ll be too preoccupied once more to make up for the lack of time she spends with the kids (a major bone of contention between us since their births, since her single-minded pursuit of her career leaves little time for them).</p> <p> I am withdrawn and antisocial tonight. I stay outside by the grill while the food cooks rather than going in to converse with the guests and popping out every so often to check it. When I do interact, it is cursorily. The dark thoughts are plaguing my mind. Helen seems to be enjoying herself with her friends nevertheless.</p> <p> Finally, my native English sang-froid slips. I’ve had enough. I can’t even make a pretense at forcing conviviality anymore. After dinner, I quietly leave Helen and our guests downstairs and slip upstairs to our bedroom to get away. I put the TV on as a diversion, but my thoughts are only about one thing. Later, after the guests leave, Helen remarks at my lack of social grace on the night.</p> <p> “Don’t you see how that appears to people?” she asks.</p> <p> “I don’t care,” I reply sullenly.</p> <p> “I’m beginning to think we have irreconcilable differences,” she says, and goes back downstairs. “Irreconcilable differences.” Isn’t that the phrase frequently used in divorce proceedings? The choice of words leaps out at me, and is so telling that I immediately send my sister back home in England an e-mail hinting at big trouble looming in my marriage. Suspicious anxiety has taken up a permanent residence in my gut. It’s a horrible, insidious feeling.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce. <em>For more information, go to</em> <a href="http://www.lulu.com">www.lulu.com</a> <em>See also </em>Life As A Divorced Dad <em>at</em> <a href="http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk">http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk</a></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2006/05/06/may_31~780158/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2006-05-01:/2006/05/01/may_27~768477/kevdc2006-05-01T14:42:00+02:002006-05-01T14:42:00+02:00 <p> Last night, we consummated Helen’s promise of intimacy. I am momentarily relieved, but the suspicion keeps nagging at me. It’s been keeping me awake at night. Increasingly, it’s all I can think about during the day. Next weekend, she leaves on another business trip, back to an area where she was for several days two months ago working on a research project.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce. <em>For more information, go to</em> <a href="http://www.lulu.com">www.lulu.com</a> <em>See also </em>Life As A Divorced Dad <em>at</em> <a href="http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk">http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2006/05/01/may_27~768477/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2006-04-22:/2006/04/22/may_26~748047/kevdc2006-04-22T20:55:07+02:002006-04-22T20:55:07+02:00 <p> Helen calls me from her office. She’s feeling frisky again. She intimates that she will treat me to some sexual activity tonight. I am relieved that the drought will end and my doubts on that score at least will be answered.</p> <p> “That’s good,” I say, “because I was getting tempted to ask you a question.”</p> <p> “What question?” she replies. Is that an anxious, knowing edge to her voice?</p> <p> “No, no,” I reply. “There’s no need now, and besides, some questions are better left unasked.”</p> <p> “Okay,” she says. “See you tonight.”</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce. <em>For more information, go to <a href="http://www.lulu.com">www.lulu.com</a> See also</em> Life As A Divorced Dad <em>at <a href="http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk">http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk</a></em></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2006/04/22/may_26~748047/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk,2006-04-14:/2006/04/14/may_24~727673/kevdc2006-04-14T17:15:43+02:002006-04-14T17:28:20+02:00 <p> I think my wife is having an affair.</p> <p> I was doing the laundry today, as usual, when I noticed some new, sexy, frilly panties among the standard laundry bundle that also comprised the dirty clothes of myself and our two children. Lacy G-string and bra sets of various hues and designs by Aubade – expensive stuff, a cut above Victoria's Secret. I’ve never seen this lingerie before, so my wife hasn’t been wearing it for my benefit. Whose then? A sick feeling has formed in my stomach. Suspicion is a nasty, pernicious, cancerous thing.</p> <p> The fact that we haven’t been intimate in several weeks suddenly seems to take on an added significance. That’s unusual for us. Throughout our fifteen-year marriage, our sex life has been pretty good, with the exception of a dip after the birth of our son. We have always been sexually compatible, though in other areas we’ve had our share of the typical ups and downs in any long term relationship. Now the current drought, albeit a brief one I’ve put down to the stresses of her relentlessly busy work schedule, plus the fact that there has been some growing tension between us in recent months. We’ve been palpably growing apart.</p> <p> There’s more. She’s working out regularly. She’s always meaning to work out, but because she’s so busy as a successful physician at one of the nation’s top medical centers, she only did so infrequently. But she’s really been going at it lately. I thought it had to do with the coming summer bikini season and didn’t think anything more of it. Now I’m not so sure. Not by a long shot.</p> <p> She’s also spending more time than ever away on business trips. Her career has always demanded a good deal of travel, and it has increased in recent years as she took on more outside consulting work and a new research project took shape. But even allowing for all that, her travel has gotten excessive in recent months.</p> <p> It’s all increasingly ominous. My gut is nagging me, and you know what they say about gut feelings. I try putting these dark thoughts to the back of my mind, where they slowly fester. I have decided to start keeping a journal to help me sort through the jumble of thoughts and emotions swirling inside me. Nothing in my life to date has remotely prepared me for the situation which I fear is developing. Keeping a diary may help me get through it.</p> <p><em>Excerpted from </em>Diary Of A Divorce, by Richard Pearce. <em>For more information, go to</em> <a href="http://www.lulu.com">www.lulu.com</a> <em>See also </em>Life As A Divorced Dad <em>at</em> <a href="http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk">http://www.singledad.blog.co.uk</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://diaryofadivorce.blog.co.uk/2006/04/14/may_24~727673/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>