Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Easy Way Out?

This was my first story written in 2000. The theme this week was 'Escape'. I'm not sure how this one will be recieved. I do know it didn't win any kind of award. I'm just posting them as I wrote them. I can see a lot that could be re-written in this one. 

Yeah I know Susan you're my daughter and I love you dearly but you don't know as much about your old mom as you think you do. You say you're fed up with Fred and just can't take it anymore. Well I understand that.

Oh I know you always thought your Daddy and I had a perfect marriage. We tried not to ever fight in front of you kids or drag you into our problems. But believe me baby girl they were there whether you saw them or not.

I myself was close to leaving on many an occasion for a few years. Things would just get so overwhelming with you kids to raise and a house to run and everything. There was a time I could find so much wrong. Your daddy and I were drifting apart. He had his career and I had you all and the house. We had no interests in common anymore.

What honey? Yeah I know now we do lots of things together. Do you think that just happened? We had to learn to do that. We had to seek out things in common and work hard on enjoying them together.

There was a time when I could barely even talk to your father though. It seemed to me like he'd stopped loving me. He'd go to work and come home and play with you kids and then by the time you were all in bed and it was my time with him he'd be too tired to do anything but go to sleep. I even had a period of time that I resented you kids for taking my husband from me.

I wanted to leave really bad. I even went as far as to look at apartments and look into getting a job. I also ended up finding a friend that understood me. He was going through the same things in his life. He felt his wife no longer loved him, she hadn't had sex with him in a couple of years except as kind of an afterthought and it was never pleasant for him and they were drifting apart. We met….well where we met doesn't matter but we talked with increasing frequency until we were at the point of talking a couple of times a day. Anytime we could work it in.

Yes honey I had an affair with him. I shouldn't have I know. But to tell the truth it saved my marriage. I don't expect anybody to believe that but as pleasant as it was to get everything I wanted and missed at home I never gave up getting that from your Daddy and began to learn to talk to him and teach him what I wanted. I also learned to look at what he was doing right.

Why didn't I leave if I was so unhappy? Why don't you? The same reasons I bet in large part. First of all once I looked at it I really did love your Daddy but that took a while to see. I liked the lifestyle he provided me. I was afraid of what it would be like "out there". Would my friend and I really be happy together. Would he even really leave his wife? Oh I found millions of reasons to stay and millions of reasons to leave it seemed.

Remember the story I told you about the old hound dog on the porch who was laying on the nail and would howl every now and then but how it didn't hurt enough for him to move. I came to realize I was like that. It didn't hurt enough to make me really move.

Oh Susan dear there were days when I wanted to run away so bad. Just leave everything and escape. I wanted it so bad I'd lie in bed and cry all day while you kids were gone to school. But then slowly as time passed and our affair started to kind of wind down I realized that I did love your daddy. And what's more my friend realized he really loved his wife. We eventually ended things. We still keep in touch and I know he tried to make things work for years before his wife finally asked for a divorce. It turns out she later had an affair and left him.

No honey I've not seriously been tempted to go be with him now. At one time I would have but for one thing he's never asked and never will while your daddy and I are doing well.

Oh yes Daddy knows, he's known longer than I thought he knew but he is not a stupid man. He knows me very well and knows that if he'd told me to stop or leave I'd have left at that point. It is he says why he started working harder on our marriage together, just another reason I'm saying my affair saved my marriage.

No as far as I know he's never done it. I'm not going to ask because I don't want to know but I'm pretty sure what the answer would be.

Now honey I'm not telling you to go and have an affair. What I'm telling you is that we all get to a point we want to just run away and escape life. You could do it. You could leave Fred and strike out on your own but honey you married him for a reason and you have several years together. Do you really want to take the easy way out and just escape or do you want to buckle down and build a life for yourself? I can tell you thatwhen you have your family around you on your 50th anniversary as we just have you will be glad you chose the hard road and made it work.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

THAT IS SO TRUE.....
"CHOSE THE HARD ROAD AND MADE IT WORK."
THAT IS LIFE.....
LOVE THE STORY...
BRINx