She got a really good lawyer who finagled her way onto the docket of one Edith Vine, a Judge Judy wannabe who was notorious for trying to keep people together, and we had to go to counseling. I almost got a contempt order for mouthing off.
“This is just bullsh… foolishness your honor. I don’t want to work it out. I don’t want to save the marriage. I just want out.”
She got really icy with me.
“Mr. James, you don’t have to like it, but you do have to go, and I better hear you’re participating. Do you understand?”
I was pissed, so I really pushed it. The bitch was so full of shit her eyeballs were turning brown.
“I understand, Your Honor. But tell me, didn’t you go to counseling with your recently departed husband? Did it help? Seems I remember the divorce going through anyway.”
“Let me ask you a hypothetical question, ma’am. If I were to say you were a terrible judge with no concept at all of the human condition and it would be a great service to the people of this community if you lost your reelection bid, would it piss you more because I dared say it, or because I was right?”
I’ve never seen anyone go from pale to red and back again that fast. She pounded her gavel angrily.
“Baliff! Take this man and have him processed for contempt.”
My lawyer and close friend was up in a flash.
“Hold on just a second, Your Honor. Are you going to jail a man for asking a hypothetical question? Your opponent in the race would eat that up. Please, he meant nothing by it.”
He’s right, Your Honor. It was just a question. I take it back.”
I just couldn’t resist.
“However, when you lose this November, and you’re just a citizen on the street like the rest of us, I’m going to make it a point to look you up, and give you a detailed opinion of your skills.”
All right, so I dodged the contempt bullet, but she got back at me by raising the mandatory sessions from six to twelve.
The first three sessions were very frustrating to both her and the therapist. I loved to read, and instead of answering in real words, used quotes from books and poems. Shakespeare was a gold mine, lots of cheating sluts in his work.
They got through my defenses on the fourth session. Maybe I was tired, maybe I wasn’t as focused as I should have been. When she cried this time I knew she actually meant it. The other times she turned it on and off too easily, this time she couldn’t stop.
The therapist had asked why I married her. I was surprised.
“Because I loved her. I knew how she was. I’d watched her all the way through high school and most of college manipulate everyone around her to get what she wanted. It’s why I never tried to date her. In the end she had to ask me out.”
“I went because I was curious. What could she possibly want with me? I wasn’t rich, I don’t think I’m that good looking, and I wasn’t into games.”
“We went to a party thrown by one of her friends. Her boyfriend, who she told me she had broken up with, was there. She tried to use me to prove she could get anyone she wanted, so he had better fall in line. Took me about three minutes to figure it out. After that I decided to have a little fun.”
“I pretty much ignored her the rest of the evening, danced with her friends, flirted, did a little groping, all where she could see me. She was furious.”
“She finally got me outside and lit into me.”
“What the hell are you doing? You’re supposed to be with me. The one you brought, remember? Behave!”
It shocked her when I laughed.
“What the hell do you think I’m doing? I’m obviously the goat here, to beard your boyfriend, who you forgot to tell me you were still involved with. I figured since you were a lost cause, I’d do a little trolling. You need to find a new set of friends. Loyalty must be missing from their dictionary. I’ve already got three numbers, and Sue pretty much told me that after I took you home tonight I should come back for a little after party party.”
“Apparently no one had ever talked to her like that before. She started crying. Until recently[I gave her a pointed look]I could never resist a crying woman.”
I told her I’d make a deal. She acted like she was actually my date tonight, and I’d act like I was hers.”
“We went back in, and she clung to my arm the rest of the night. We ignored everyone else, danced only with each other. After a while we actually relaxed and had a good time.”
“I think she was really surprised when I left her at her door with just a small kiss. I had no intention of ever dating her again, but she viewed me as a challenge. Slowly she wormed her way into my heart. I told her early on I wasn’t into her games. We broke up a couple times before she got the message.”
“To wrap it all up, we married. I had the mumps as a child. It was possible I could father a child but not probable. When we found out I offered to let her out of the marriage. She chewed me out. I wanted to adopt, but she found one excuse after another until I figured it was too late. A good thing now, in retrospect.”
“But, Counselor, she slowly slid back into her old ways. Complacency, I suspect. It was little things, but as time went by they got bigger. What she didn’t understand was I didn’t give a shit what kind of car she wanted, or the style of furniture in the house. Stuff like that doesn’t matter the least to me. If it made her happy, okay.”
“But then she changed jobs, got a new set of friends. She started wanting girls nights out. Again, I trusted her, so it didn’t matter. She started coming home later and later, then one night she came in at two, hair mussed, clothes wrinkled, lipstick smeared. That was the beginning of the end.”
“She knew she had screwed up badly. She apologized, saying she was drunk and it never went beyond kissing.”
I left her, for two weeks. She begged, cried, swore she would get counseling. I got weak, I did still love the stupid bitch, still can’t tell you why.”
“Things got better. She realized she had control issues, really worked on them. Changed jobs again, to ‘get away from the sluts’ she said. Jumped from the frying pan into the fire, in my opinion. If the last bunch were sluts, this group were screaming whores.”
“Slowly, slowly, she fell in with them. Girls night out started up again.”
“Then the Cancun thing came up. I looked up the resort, it catered to singles and people with ‘alternative lifestyles’. I knew without a doubt if she was she’d come back a slut who broke her vows. And it burned up all her vacation time, ruining the plans we’d already made. I tried to talk to her, she used platitudes and bullshit that came straight out of the Cheaters Handbook.
I reached my limit, gave her my ultimatum. Stay with me and try to work on our marriage, go and come back to the divorce dance. She refused to cancel, so I packed up and left before she did.”
“She must have gotten a case of the smarts, because she never got on the plane. It was too late by then. I started the proceedings. And here we are. Yes she’s sorry. Yes she’ll go into counseling. But will it be enough, did she learn anything, can she change? My question is do I want to hang around long enough to see?”