You Have Brains In Your Head……If Only I Didn’t…

Today was an interesting day, long and painful.  I woke up bright and early at 5 AM like normal and got ready for my commute.  As I got in the car I looked at my phone and I had 5 new text messages.  Who the hell would text me in the middle of the night.  I should have known.  Yip, you probably guessed it.  It was the other woman…

So I read through the texts put them all in one text that I was going to send to my wife because I told her I would let her know if she tried to contact me again.  But I have not sent it yet.  I really did not want to ruin her day.  I figured I would do it tonight where we can sit and talk about them.  It has been haunting me all day.  I had to delete them right away or I was afraid I might be too tempted to respond.  She knows I am not having the best of days, I told her that much but she has seemed so happy I did not want to ruin it.

The first text just wanted to know how I was.  If I was doing ok.  Well I am not, but I am not really sharing that with anyone.  Then she told me she was having a really hard time today and she didn’t think she could make it through.  Ughhhh….  That is the type that I would normally respond to even if I didn’t want to.  I always seem to have a need to help other people.  The next text told me not to respond as she knows we shouldn’t be talking.  Then in the next one she tells me she is ok and the final text lets me know that she was able to get drunk so she could get through her night.

It just kills me.  I should not feel like I am responsible (maybe that’s not the right word) but I do.  I feel like I should be there for her and I am not sure why.  Do I have feelings for her?  Yes but as I said before, hell I don’t even understand how I feel about myself so how can I even start to understand how I feel about other people.  I was proud of myself for not responding, but it has been like a cloud following me all day.  It is so close but I know if I do I will be sucked right back in and I think she knows that too.

Hopefully, my wife will understand why I did not immediately send it to her at 6 AM when I would not see her tonight until 9:30.  That is a long time to worry and build things up in your head.  I know, I have been doing it all day but I felt like if anyone should be doing the worrying and suffering it should be me.

Alright so on to my story.  I forgot to add something in here.  A few years back we were good friends with another family that had kids the same ages as ours and they all went to the same school.  The husband was in the medical field and worked long 10-12 hour shifts and the hospital was an hour away.  This meant that he was not around to help much and he really wasn’t very handy anyways so it really didn’t matter.  Well every time we would go over there I would help the wife out with something that needed to be done.

They were a fun couple that was our ages and we had very similar personalities and we just all had a good time hanging out with each other.  We would always go out as a family or they would come to our house all together.  We hung out with them and once you get to know me my sarcastic wit comes out.  I do not think that I was ever flirtatious with the wife but she knew I was in the health and fitness field and so she would ask for workouts and suggestions on how to lose weight.  She got contacts and kept asking us out when her husband was at work because she was lonely.  I didn’t actually notice any of this, my wife had to point it out later.  I was oblivious to what was going on.

During the summer a few years ago I sent my wife and the kids back to see her family.  They were going for 10 or 12 days and I had to work so I stayed behind.  She asked to come to dinner while my wife was away and I really did not think anything of it.  Her kids would be there (not that I even considered anything would happen) but I really didn’t feel comfortable just going by myself even if her husband was home.  So I politely declined.

A few days into my family being gone some big storms passed through the area that knocked a lot of people’s power out.  Their’s was one of the houses that was out of power.  Her kids were scared (they were really whiny kids), she was scared, her husband was working.  But the big thing was that a huge limb off one of their trees fell and was blocking the road to get out anywhere.  She called and I happened to be home so I went out.  It is what I would have done for anyone.  It was evening time (5 or 6ish) and her husband was due home around 11.

I got there and the limb was huge.  I was going to have to cut it up in order to get it off the road.  I didn’t think to bring a chainsaw and all they had was a little hand saw.  I got to work with the hand saw and within a few hours just as it was getting dark I had got it into enough pieces that I could move it to the side of the road.  I was hot and sweaty and went in to see how they were doing.  They only had a couple of small flashlights and they were hiding in the basement because the thunderstorms kept rolling in and out.  I knew they probably were not prepared and so I had brought a couple of lanterns with me and cards to keep the kids busy.

I brought them in and set everything up and then got their little generator running to keep their basement from flooding.  By this time it was very dark and it was time to get the kids in bed.  I helped her get them arranged in the two basement rooms so they would not be woken up and get scared from the storms.  Once they were in bed, I was tired.  So I sat down on her couch while drinking a cold one.  We talked for a while and she told me about how she was regretful that she did not explore some other relationships early on in her life.  She got married very young (20ish) so she had dated a few people but there was a lot of family and religious pressure to get married right away.  So she married her husband.

She told me she did love him but sometimes she thinks about what might have been.  Now this was before I had begun to believe that my wife just did not find me attractive nor did she want me.  Our marriage was on the decline but I was not at the breaking point yet.  So as she is talking she starts crying and so I give her a friendly hug to comfort her.  As I gave her the hug and looked down at her, I then realized what was going on.  “Oh, shit!”  That is what went through my head right then.  I know she wanted me to kiss her.  I could read it in her face, her eyes, they way she had wrapped her arms around me.  I broke the eye contact and then all contact.  I talked with her for another 15 or so minutes before her husband finally showed up.  I was pretty freaked by this point.  I played the conversation back through my head and I figured out that she was telling me that should would have loved to meet someone just like me.  How she really wished we had met (it was possible based on location) when we were younger and maybe something could have happened.  She basically told me that she thought she was in love with me without actually saying the words.

I replayed this in my head as I was having a conversation with her husband.  I don’t even know what we talked about.  Anyway, I told him I needed to go and get cleaned up and that if HE needed help tomorrow to give me a call.  As soon as I got in the car I called my wife.  I did the right fucking thing.  I called her and told her what had happened.  I told her everything about how I felt about it and what I think she was doing.  My wife wasn’t overly surprised because she had recognized the behavior way before I did, but she was upset at this lady.  I convinced her not to call and wait and talk with her once she got back.

That situation sucked and added to our already declining marriage.  Why, you might ask?  Well this family was our primary friends and it was really the only other woman who my wife really did anything with and now it was ruined.  The next few weeks were miserable as they exchanged conversations back and forth.  She denied everything and basically said I misunderstood what was going on, but her previous behavior did not support this.  So my wife ended up losing her only close friend on this side of the country and it was all because I did the right thing.

It pisses me off just writing it.  She lost her friend and this pushed her faster into her already growing depression.  It really sucks.

We still do things off and on with their family but not nearly as much.  Her husband has no clue, but she did start investing the energy she was putting on me into her husband.  As those were my parting words that night before her husband got home.  I told her if she wasn’t happy she should do something about it.  You won’t know if you are in a bad marriage and need out unless you put in the work to make it what you want.  How ironic…

This really pissed off my wife because as our marriage fell apart theirs seemed to get better.  She hated it and never wanted to go out there again.  She was so angry that this woman would put this stressor on our marriage and then end up with a better marriage.  She still fumes over it.

I should have listened to the advice I gave her that night, but I guess I couldn’t find the forest because of all the trees in the way.  If only I just had brains in my head that worked.  I always seem to be able to give great advice but I can never see what I need for my life only what others need for theirs.   Maybe it is gods way of punishing me, but then again if there is a god he has really been punishing me my whole life (but not something we need to get into).

I remember my wife telling her mom about it when she came to visit us.  Her mom looked at this lady and looked my wife and said, “Honey, you have nothing to worry about.” I found that funny, because at the time she didn’t.  Not one thing.  Oh, how things changed.

I really loved her family.  They accepted me as their own and because I have no contact with my family they were like the family I never had.  Now I cannot dare bring them into my life.  I have told my wife that I cannot be part of them again.  It is too much.  I was so young and they entrusted her to me and I failed.  I wish I hadn’t but I did and I know I can’t be part of them.  But maybe that will be my blog for later once I finish how I got to where I am (the big Why?). I am off to have a long uncomfortable conversation with my wife, wish me luck…

You have brains in your head – Dr. Seuss