Our Story Part II

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Rob

Thinking ahead through this week’s post there are a couple of housekeeping points that I realized should be made. First, I have named the other couple Joe and Helen (Joe is very generic and I don’t think I have any friends named Helen) and second, I am not going to get into a lot of gory details but will focus on the symptoms. Some specifics will be made for clarity and understanding, but the gory details were just a result of where our marriage was and were not the problem. That is a very important realization that Meredith and I have come to over the last 13 years…the affair was not the problem.  The affair was a symptom or end result of the real problem.

With those notes made, let’s get into Part II.

I have heard it said that if you want to boil a frog, you can’t just drop it into a pot of boiling water; the frog will feel the heat and jump out. You have to put the frog in a pot of cold water and turn up the heat slowly. The frog won’t realize what’s happening until its too late. Now I am not claiming to be a victim in this story. In fact, I will tell you that I am wholly responsible for my action and at any point in time could have changed the course. But like in every situation, there were several people involved and we all played our part. But back to the frog. The point is an affair doesn’t just happen all at once. If it did…we would see the danger signs and jump out. It happens slowly.

If you read Part I you understand that we were living a passionless marriage and, to be honest, passionless lives. We had our roles and we did our jobs. The church we attended encouraged the traditional family roles and taught them regularly, maybe not blatantly from the pulpit, but certainly in the men’s and women’s Bible Study groups, the examples of the leadership couples and the suggested reading list. Meredith was to have dinner on the table when I came home from work, she was not to question my authority as the “leader” of our home and the children were her responsibility and should be seen and not heard. Neither of us really liked the system but to go “Against the Grain” (haha) would mean social suicide. Our entire lives were wrapped up in that church and Meredith and I were not always willing to buck the system…that endearing quality came later.

So, as I said, neither one of us really liked the system, but it was the system. Enter Joe and Helen. They were another couple who attended the same church. They had a family very similar to ours. Over a period of time, we found many things in common and spent a lot of time together as families. They became the people that we had to share transparency with because we couldn’t keep up the game of charades with people who saw the “real” in our lives. We shared our good times and our bad. We shared our strengths and our weaknesses. We shared our happiness and our frustration. As we shared our lives it became clear that none of us were happy.

When you’re stuck in a place you don’t want to be…looking for any way out is a very dangerous game. Joe and I began making plans to go into business together. Our thought was…if the money got better, everything else will be better. We were obviously wrong, but that’s where we were. We discussed several plans and even did a few things to get the ball rolling. The problem was, the wives weren’t supportive…well, let me clarify that. What I heard from Meredith was “I don’t like it…this won’t work…you better not do this”. I felt like she didn’t believe in my abilities and that just ticked me off.  But I wasn’t looking for her approval because I was in charge in the marriage so I didn’t really care what she thought.  When I shared Meredith’s opinion with Joe and Helen, he said “well we’ll just show her” but Helen came to me privately and said “I don’t trust Joe…but I think it will be great if you’re involved”. WOW…a woman who believed in me. That was a nice change, but also the planted seed that quickly grew into an emotional affair.