My Husband's Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me (20 page)

She leaned down and opened a cupboard, drawing out a kettle. She was dressed in a suit, with a short sleeved blazer and capri pants in an off white color. Underneath the blazer, I could see that she was wearing only a bra, which she apparently didn’t need. She had a completely flat chest. And here I had been imagining a big bosomed sex goddess! She was so thin I wondered if she had an eating disorder. I doubted she weighed more than a hundred pounds. Her figure resembled that of a ten year old.
Had her daughter been adopted?
She stared at my cleavage.
Did Brian prefer women with no curves?
I wondered.

When our beverages were ready, Helen offered me a cookie from a delicate china plate with a beautiful floral design.

“I haven’t been able to eat since Brian told me about the affair,” I said. “But thank you for offering.”

She winced a little. I wasn’t going to play politeness games with her. She might as well know the extent of the pain she was causing me, as much as it was possible to reveal.

She motioned for me to join her in the living room. I took my seat on the sofa, carefully placing my bag of teaching supplies on the end table beside me. Helen didn’t ask any questions about the gift bag I was toting along like a purse.

“Brian is a very special man,” she began, sitting in a rocking chair, facing me head-on. She said this as if she was delivering some enlightening information I had never been aware of before. She must have assumed I was like many wives who seemed to have disdain for their husbands rather than respect.

She was wrong. I smiled at her, feeling totally relaxed and in complete control. The reason for this was unexplainable.

“Yes, he certainly is,” I replied. “I love him very much. So tell me a little bit about yourself. I would like to get to know you a bit.”

“Well Richard is my second husband,” Helen said.

She looked extremely nervous, and I felt I was intimidating her. I knew that I often did this unwittingly, therefore I usually made an extra effort to be friendly when meeting people.

But today I made no effort to soften the impression I was making. When a moment of silence came in the conversation, I used it to my advantage. I was comfortable with the silence. Helen quickly filled in the pauses, revealing more of herself.

“I married my first husband young. He was a lot older than me. I really wasn’t ready for marriage but my father kind of pushed me into it. Richard is quite a bit older than me too. How old are you?” she asked.

“I’m thirty-eight. How old are you?”

“Thirty-seven,” she replied apparently disappointed. “I thought you were a lot older than that.”

I wondered why she thought that, or maybe she was just trying to insult me, indirectly saying that I looked old. I knew I didn’t.

“What was your first husband like?” I questioned as if I were just making small talk.

“He was a bad man, very violent,” she said. “But I didn’t realize that before we were married. It’s funny how people seem to change after you marry them. I saw my first husband recently, while I was with Brian, shopping on Robson Street.” Robson is a famous shopping area in downtown Vancouver. I was glad Brian had already told me about this shopping day. It would have been rough to hear it for the first time in this situation.

“Yes, Brian told me all about your shopping adventure. So tell me about seeing your ex husband. What happened? Did you and Brian talk with him?”

“No, we were walking down the street, and we saw him about a block away. I quickly grabbed Brian and told him we had to go the other way. The moment I saw him, I remembered the violence. He used to beat me sometimes. I had a flashback. Brian didn’t really know what to say. We went the other way for quite some time, before I was ready to head back to Robson. I was so afraid,” she told me.

Normally, I would have felt sorry for a person relaying such a story, but I wasn’t really feeling sorry for Helen.

“What attracted you to your first husband?” I asked once again as if I were just making conversation, really I had an ulterior motive. I was trying to get to know Helen and she was doing an amazing job of revealing her life to the woman whose husband she planned on making her third husband.

“Well my first husband was the strong silent type. I didn’t know how important it would be to have a husband who could share his feelings, someone soft and gentle. My first husband wasn’t very good in bed either. He was really fast. He had no idea how to please a woman. Brian is a very talented lover.”

I honestly thought she was going a bit far here and purposefully being insensitive or trying to provoke me.

“Yes, I am the one who taught Brian how to make love so well. I am fully satisfied every time we make love. It wasn’t always this way in the beginning. When Brian and I first met, he got so turned on by me that we were married for well over a year before I ever saw him without a full blown erection. The moment he saw me, he had a rise.” I said. I could see this had not been her experience and it made her feel a little inadequate. If she wanted to play games of subtle intimidation, I could certainly go there. She backed off from the topic of sex.

Throughout the conversation, she was fidgeting nervously and unable to look me in the eyes. Whenever she looked towards me I looked straight at her. I wanted to make eye contact, but it didn’t happen. I thought it was good for her to sit face to face with the woman she had hurt.

“Also my first husband refused to have children,” she continued as if explaining these things would suddenly make me understand that she needed to marry Brian.

“Why didn’t you leave him sooner, if he was violent?” I questioned.

“I was just trying to make it work. I didn’t think divorce was right. I really am a loving, caring person.” I wondered why she felt a need to keep making this statement. The only reason I could think of was that deep down, she didn’t believe it. She was trying to convince herself.

“How soon did you meet Richard after your divorce?”

“Actually, I met Richard before my divorce. He works for the company my dad founded, you know. At the time, I was working there too and my father introduced us. We shared a common interest in sports. I love sports.” I hardly needed enlightenment about this fact.

It intimidated me. Nonetheless I listened patiently, careful not to lose sight of my motive.

“Were you attracted to Richard, because he was good at sports?”

“Well that was part of it. He talked about wanting to have children. He was very caring and sensitive and he really listened to me. I was so hurt from my first marriage, I found him irresistible.”

“Did you end up making love to Richard, while you were still married to your first husband?”

“Yes,” she confessed. “I couldn’t resist.” I saw her pain, and I actually felt compassion for her.

“If I had lived your life perhaps I would have done the same,” I heard myself say. This statement implied
I don’t condemn you, nor do I condone what you have done, but I identify with you and do not think of myself as better than you.
I saw that she liked me and knew she sensed the Love inside of me and longed for it, but she didn’t know this Love did not come from me.

We talked like this for about half an hour. I stayed relaxed and controlled, surprising myself with the kindness and compassion I felt for this very real woman who sat in front of me under these painful and strained circumstances.

I wished Brian had included me in his initial desire to help Helen with her marriage to Richard. Brian had said if the circumstances were different he was sure I would have liked her. I felt he was right.

I was surprised by how easy it was to get Helen to open up and reveal her story, but then she didn’t know what I was up to.

The time had come for me to illustrate to Helen how the pain in her life was not about to be magically resolved, like she thought it would be, by marrying Brian.

“Helen, before I go, I do have something I would like to say to you,” I said, kindly. “Just one thought, if you don’t mind.”

She nodded for me to go ahead.

“I want to share an illustration with you that someone shared once with me,” I said, carefully pulling my prepared sheets of construction paper and glue out of the bag. She looked a little surprised, but as if she was going to tolerate me.

I held up the first sheet, the bright solid yellow one.

“This sheet,” I said, “represents you as a young woman. You are a loving and kind person. You are bright and full of energy like the sun. You are athletic, competitive and beautiful. You get good grades in school.

“You also have some aches and pains. You don’t have a very good relationship with your father. He is too busy making money. And your mother is more concerned with appearances at the country club than she is about you.

“But you have dreams: you want to have a family, a husband to love you and a nice home with a white picket fence in a lovely neighborhood. You dream of being loved and adored by your husband, and of making him happy. You visualize family picnics in the park.”

I was only repeating the things she had told me, filling in a few gaps. I had her attention. I was describing her dreams, longings and heartaches accurately.

Carefully I pulled out the blue sheet of construction paper.

“This is your first husband, Steve. Steve is strong, confident and older which you find very attractive. You see in him the potential to meet the void in your heart, which is there because your father didn’t meet your emotional needs. Steve has established himself financially. He wines you and dines you in fine restaurants. He buys you flowers and gifts. He doesn’t talk much, but you interpret his lack of communication skills as confidence. If only you could marry Steve, you would have a wonderful life.

“So you do whatever you can to win his affections. Eventually he asks you to marry him and you accept. Then you go about the happy work of making wedding plans. The future seems as bright as the

stars. After all look at him. Mr. Blue, perfect, flawless.”

I turned the undamaged blue construction paper about admiringly.

“Finally the big day arrives and you exchange your wedding vows promising to love, honor and cherish each other. Pastor Elmer is there to perform the ceremony,” I explained squeezing glue in circles on the yellow sheet, representing Helen and attaching it to the blue one representing her first husband.

“And so here you are after the ceremonyjoined as one.” I showed her the two sheets of construction paper, now glued together.

“You love each other very much,” I said, pressing the two sheets firmly together at every inch.

“It’s you,” I showed the yellow side, “and him,” I showed the blue side, “attached together married, Mr. and Mrs. One-unit-together and you both plan to spend the rest of your lives with each other in happy marital bliss.

“You know there will be bumps along the way, but right now you are sure you will be able to work everything out. You meant it when you said, ‘for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.’”

“Yes, I did mean it,” Helen said, apparently completely drawn into the illustration. “You’re exactly right.”

“Yes,” I smiled, “And how can anyone know just how difficult living with one person can be? And why is it that people seem to change after you marry them? At this point you are sure you will be married for a lifetime. After all you have enough money. You are attractive. He is attractive. You share friends in common. He takes care of you, buys you the finer things in life. It’s going to be a great life,” I said.

I kept talking about the confidence we often have when we are young, making sure that I allowed adequate time for the glue to dry.

“But then,” I said, “there was that day, when Steve promised to take you out for dinner, but he stayed at the office until about nine o’clock and didn’t even bother to phone home. You waited and waited, hurt and disappointed. It was completely thoughtless and insensitive of him. You had a big fight about it later.”

I tore off a small chunk of blue, separating it from the yellow paper.

“After you had been married for a year, you realized he no longer bought you flowers like when you were courting.”

I tore off another small chunk of blue as I told her story.

“Then he forgot your birthday, and when you challenged him he became angry. You had never seen this before. In his rage he slapped you across the face with an open palm, and it hurt.”

I tore off another piece. Helen watched.

“You were committed to the marriage, so you forgave him, but the issue never got resolved. After two years of marriage you wanted to have children. Of course you would have children, you thought, but he refused.”

I tore off another chunk of blue paper.

“And when you brought up having children again, he beat you, leaving you bruised.”

I tore off a big chunk of blue.

“You didn’t know who to turn to or what to do. You were scared.”

I snuck a peak at Helen’s eyes, they were red and misty. I could see that she was working hard to hold back tears. I was describing her story accurately.