“What?” he asked with confusion, casting another glance her way.
She smiled at his expression and admitted, “That was my reaction, but then she said that the way I told the story, I hadn’t made a single decision or choice. Linda said I was taking the victim’s role. That, yes, Joe had suggested I didn’t need an education, but was it possible it was because he’d realized that I was unsettled about what to take and perhaps a little afraid and so had tried to make my decision easier by giving me the option to be a housewife? If I’d really wanted that education to fall back on, wouldn’t I have spoken up about it and insisted? Even if only to take part-time courses to see what I liked? After all, as I’d told her, he was making good money, and I wasn’t pregnant for the first three years of our marriage. I could have taken courses until we were blessed with that baby if I’d really wanted to. Wouldn’t he have allowed that?”
Mary paused and out of the corner of his eye, he saw her raise her coffee cup for a sip. After swallowing, she continued. “I had to admit that yes, he probably would have been fine with that. And she said, so, I hadn’t really been interested or wanted a degree. He hadn’t forced me not to go on to further my education.”
“Hmm,” Dante murmured. “I suppose she is right.”
“Yes, well that was the first of the revelations,” Mary said wryly. “By the time I left her office, I was thinking less like a victim, and acknowledging my part in things. I had told even myself that I wanted my marriage to work, but my actions said something else entirely. In truth, I hadn’t wanted Joe back as a partner; I’d wanted to punish him pure and simple. And I had. I’d got exactly what I’d wanted,” she said wryly. “And then Linda made me begin to question Joe’s motives in all of this. Why had he put up with my punishing him? Why had he stayed married to me when I offered him nothing but food he disliked, a cat he couldn’t breathe around, and children who grew increasingly distant from him? What had been in it for him?”
“She suggested I put off the divorce, and that we work together first, her and I, and once we got to a space where I felt comfortable, bring in Joe for couples counseling.”
“I was sure Joe would never agree to couples counseling,” she admitted quietly. “But I was wrong. We set the divorce aside. I moved back to the house with the kids and he got a temporary apartment close to work while I started therapy. But it wasn’t long before my whole attitude was changed and I was able to see things more clearly. And then the couples counseling started. I found out the first session that after I’d spoken to him about the couples counseling, Joe had called Linda and asked if he could see her one-on-one like I was doing. So he’d been working too. We both knew what our motivations were, and understood what we’d each been doing, and it was just a matter of admitting it to each other, and finding out a way to deal with each other without falling into old patterns.”
“And what was he doing?” Dante asked dryly. “Aside from having affairs at every turn?”
“Joe hadn’t intended on having the first affair,” Mary said quietly. “That had developed over long hours together working a project. He said he knew he should have arranged for her to be transferred the moment he realized what was happening, but he’d been afraid of looking stupid or weak at work. It had been a mistake.”
“I’ll say,” Dante muttered.
“No one’s perfect,” she repeated solemnly. “And there were extenuating circumstances. We’d been married three years when I finally got pregnant. I expected it would happen right away, but it didn’t. It took three years, so for three years I was just a housewife, cleaning house and cooking meals and getting comments from friends and family like didn’t I want to do anything? Didn’t I feel I should stop being a burden to Joe and get a job?” She paused and then admitted, “It wasn’t very good for my self-esteem. I felt like a failure because I wasn’t getting pregnant and started having problems with depression. I doubt I was great fun to live with after the first year or so.”
“That does not—” Dante began, but she continued over him.
“Then when I finally did get pregnant? Well . . . I was over the moon, of course, and sick as a dog. I spent more time hanging over the toilet than anything else. Joe used to come home from work to a mess, no food and would spend hours just rubbing my back and holding my hair out of the way as I threw up. My doctor said he’d never seen such a bad case of morning sickness. Which is a misnomer by the way, it was morning, noon and night sickness.”
“Then Joe had a big project come up. If it was a success, he’d get a promotion. If not . . .” She shrugged. “He started working late hours on it, probably partially because he needed to, but maybe also a little to avoid coming home to my misery.”
“And he started the affair with his secretary,” Dante said quietly and glanced over to see her nod in response. His mouth tightened as he shifted his eyes back to the road, and he growled, “You were carrying his child, Mary, and apparently very sick in doing so. It is not okay that he had an affair.”
“Oh, of course it isn’t,” she agreed. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying it was okay that he had the affair. He should have talked to me. I was so miserable myself; I didn’t realize how miserable he was. He should have suggested I see a specialist and see if anything could be done about the nausea. Or, he could have suggested I get a friend or family member in to help me. Or found any other way to handle it. But he didn’t. He had the affair. That was his choice, and what he had to live with afterward.”
“My choice was in what I did when I began to suspect he might be having an affair. I didn’t talk to him either. I too turned to someone else and hired a private detective. And then when the detective gave me that address, I chose to go to the motel and catch him rather than simply confront him with the information when he came home. And when he didn’t satisfy my need for confrontation and my “Ah ha!” moment at the motel, I was the one who drove out of there like a maniac, straight into a semi.”
“Most of my anger was at myself for doing that, but I buried it under my anger at him and blamed him for everything. He, in turn, felt guilty about his part in it and so let me punish him for the next fifteen years rather than leave me to find a healthier relationship and happiness. He even refused to see his own biological children because he felt that would be the ultimate betrayal.”
“The affairs were not?” Dante asked with disbelief.
“The first one was, but after that, as I said, I wanted nothing to do with him in that area. He figured I didn’t care anymore if he slept around, but acknowledging and being a part of the life of a child he’d had a part in creating when I couldn’t have children anymore . . . ? To him, that seemed like the ultimate betrayal. Especially when he felt guilty for his part in the accident that caused the miscarriage and my inability to have those children. He felt like he’d ruined everything, especially me. And I felt the same way. So I punished him, and he took it. But it was a punishment for me too. I wasn’t any happier than he was.”
“And yet you stayed together,” he said grimly.
“We almost didn’t,” she admitted. “I mean, when I realized how much time I had wasted on punishing us both . . . And I think he felt the same way. Like we’d done enough damage. But Linda suggested we at least see if anything could be salvaged. We’d been in love once. Could we get past the hurt of the past and find that love again?”
“She sounds like a quack to me,” he said abruptly, anger sliding through him for everything she’d been through. Mary was a beautiful, smart, and caring woman. She should have been loved and cherished, not cheated on and betrayed and that quack counselor should have said as much and encouraged her to get the hell away from Joe Winslow.
“Joe said the same thing,” Mary said with a chuckle. “He’d liked her until then, but that suggestion convinced him she was a quack and he said it to her face. She just smiled and asked, “What’s wrong? Are you afraid? Besides, what have you got to lose? If it doesn’t work, you divorce, just a couple months or so later. But if it works . . .”