by M. E. Carter
“I’m not worried about it.”
“You realize if she gets all that money, she will have the right to do whatever she wants with it. She could use it to vacation in the Bahamas if she wanted.”
He’s pissing me off now. “She wouldn’t do that. She’s the best woman I know. Our kids are her biggest priority, and she’s been squirreling money away for their college since she was pregnant. Each time. Three accounts opened at the beginning of each pregnancy. She’s not going to squander the money.”
He purses his lips but doesn’t say anything else.
I pick up my phone and look at the clock. I have no idea how long these things take, but I’m giving her whatever she wants so I’m assuming it won’t take long. I check my email, look at the team website, post the obligatory Twitter post the Mutiny PR department wants us to make a priority. Look at the clock again.
It’s been fifteen minutes. What could be taking so long?
I go back to surfing the Net. Check my bank account balance. Try to get lost in Candy Crush. Look at the clock again. Another ten minutes.
Seriously. Shouldn’t they be done already?
Knowing my Mari is in the other room telling that man what she needs to make her happy to divorce me, to end our marriage, makes me bonkers. What I want is to barrel into the other room, take her in my arms, say something that will make all the hurt I caused go away, and go home with her for dinner and our nightly routine. Well, their nightly routine. I have no idea what that routine might entail anymore. Because I’m an asshole of epic proportions.
My head snaps up with the door opens again and my nerves kick in.
“Well,” Dennis proclaims as he sits down, “there’s good news and bad news.”
Bad news? The only way there could be bad news is if she said I couldn’t see the kids. Or if she decided she was getting married again.
A shock of anxiety runs through me at that thought. I don’t know the nature of her relationship with that man, that Tom she went on a date with. We’ve been separated for over seven months. It’s possible, right? I fell in love with her the moment I met her. Seven months isn’t unrealistic, and if he figured out how wonderful she is, he could have swept her off her feet already.
“The good news,” he continues, like I’m not having a panic attack on the inside, “is she agrees you can see the kids whenever you want. The order can’t be written that way because it’s not enforceable, but she’s not going to fight you on coordinating as much time with them as you want.”
I clear my throat. “And the bad news?” This is it. Please God, don’t let her be in love with someone else.
“She wants the house, the savings accounts, and fifty percent of your retirement.”
I stare blankly at him trying to process what I just heard. She’s not in love with someone else. The relief I feel is almost tangible.
“Done,” I finally say. “She can have it.”
“Wait a minute,” my attorney butts in. “Santos, you’re giving her almost everything you have.”
“So? She gave me my kids. It’s only fair.”
He and the mediator exchange another look. “Dennis, can you give me a minute with my client?”
He nods and slips out of the room to do whatever it is mediators do when they aren’t negotiating the demise of people’s lives.
“Did you and Mariana ever go to marriage counseling?”
Ronald’s question surprises me. I figured he was about to lay into me more about the benefits of protecting my future as a retiree. “No. What’s there to discuss? I cheated on her. More than once. I am completely at fault, and there’s no coming back from that.”
He sighs. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I don’t think you’re ready for this divorce until you guys explore all your options.”
I scoff. “Because you can ever be ready for divorce?”
“You’d be surprised. Some people have already made an emotional disconnection and have no feeling toward the other person, good or bad. But it seems to me that you’re still thinking like a married man.”
“Whether I’m married to Mari or not, they are still my family and I am still responsible to provide for them. You can’t change my mind on that.”
“And I’m not trying to. But I think we need to stop where we’re at and pitch a different idea to the other party involved.”
I cock my head at him. “What kind of idea?”
He grabs his pen and starts writing on his notepad. “It’s called Redesigning Your Marriage. Here’s the web address.” He turns the notepad so I can see and plug the website into my phone. “It’s a four day, intensive couples’ therapy program. You learn where the breakdown is in your marriage, better skills and coping mechanisms for those breakdowns, that type of thing.”
While he’s talking, I’m looking at the web page. The customer testimonies are amazing. But I’m still not convinced.
“Ron, I had sex with other women. Not woman. Women. Plural. You’re telling me this therapy thing can help us get past that.”
He leans forward on his arms and looks me directly in the eye. “My wife and I did it. Five years later, we’re still married and happier than we were when we got married. I can’t guarantee it will work, but I can guarantee you will feel so much better that you did everything possible to save your marriage.”
I look at him skeptically.
“There was a guy in our class that had cheated on his wife and got the other woman pregnant.”
“Ouch.”
“Yep. Santos, they’re still married. Last year they got custody of his son.”
“Really?”
“It’s possible to come back from almost anything, if you’re willing to put in the work.”
I look at the website again and make a decision to quickly type out a text.
Mari, before we go any further, look at this website. I need to know we did everything possible before throwing away ten years. I don’t want to regret anything else. Please consider going to it with me.
I attach the website and press send.
The next handful of minutes are some of the longest of my life. Finally, my phone alerts me to a response.
Mari: Set it up and I’ll go. I can’t live with regret either.
I breathe through a giant smile. It’s my last chance to prove to her that I’m willing to do whatever it takes. It’s a small chance, but it’s going to work. Any outcome other than victory isn’t in my nature.
I can’t believe I agreed to this.
That mantra keeps running through my head.
The day after Santos basically stopped our divorce proceedings so we could make one last ditch effort at our marriage, he had everything set up: time off work, reservations to the conference, hotel room. The only thing I had to do was convince my mother to come stay with the kids.
She wasn’t happy about why she was staying with them, but she pretended to overlook it so she could have some uninterrupted grandma time.
When we got here, I was surprised to see how many people were also trying to save their marriage. I guess with fifty percent of all marriages ending this way, it shouldn’t have been so jarring. But it was. It was horrible to see how many of us are trying make these life-altering decisions, and many of us with children. In a weird way, though, I guess it made me not feel so alone. Misery does love company, I suppose.
But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was when Darryl, that’s the name of the guy who’s running the whole thing, when Darryl made everyone stand up to say their name and why they are here.
Santos, being the big personality that he is, immediately stood up and shared all our private pain.
“I’m Santos and I’m here because I cheated on my wife. A lot. And I want to stop doing that so we can still be together because she’s the best thing in my entire life.”
He got accolades for being honest, which made me want to roll my eyes and forget the whole thing. Instead, I stood up and was brutally honest
as well.
“I’m Mariana and I don’t really know why I’m here. With the number of times I’ve been cheated on, I don’t see how it’s possible to ever trust him again.”
I knew it sounded bitter and like I didn’t even plan on trying this weekend, but honestly, right now I do feel bitter. Maybe it’s just a defense mechanism so I don’t feel any more hurt. I just can’t take any more hurt. So yes, I’m bitter. Darryl shocked the hell out of me when he responded to my brutal honestly.
“I appreciate your honesty, Mariana. Now I’m going to be honest with you. Not every couple leaves this conference with a marriage that is still intact. Marriage is hard, even when there isn’t such significant betrayal. But you still have to know how to divorce nicely, especially if you have children and are going to be attached to each other while those kids grow up. Even if you decide to dissolve your marriage, we hope to help you do it amicably.”
That was not encouraging, but at least it was validating. Because the reality is, I'm still not sure what to do. I miss my husband. I love my husband. I don’t see how I’ll get past the hurt. Ever.
So now I sit here in a group of four couples and one facilitator, discussing what went wrong in our marriages. And it’s depressing the hell out of me.
“Santos,” our facilitator, Anne, says. “Why don’t you tell me where you think the breakdown in your marriage is.” Anne was randomly assigned to this group of people for our “group therapy” times. She’s older, maybe in her mid-60’s, but isn’t old by any means. Her blondish-gray hair is cut in a longer pixie cut and she has a welcoming smile. I like her. Although I think I’d like her more if we were out to lunch or at a charity event, not discussing personal details of our lives we’d rather keep hidden.
Santos leans forward and rests his elbow on his knees. “Well, I think it all sort of started when we were dating. We never really talked about monogamy. Ever.”
I quirk an eyebrow. Is he really going to blame years of infidelity on a misunderstanding? I practically bite my tongue off to keep from responding.
“Don’t get me wrong. I know I shouldn’t have been cheating on my wife. But I realized the other day that when I met her, I was already in this pattern because of my job, and it just sort of continued.”
“You travel a lot for work?” Anne asks. And this is where it gets sticky. We’re in a private, counseling situation. But Santos is still a public figure. Even though almost no one in the room will recognize him out of context, it still makes us both pause to think about how to answer the question.
“Um, yeah. I play soccer for a living so I travel all the time.” We both look around the circle of people, waiting to see if there’s any reaction. When there’s nothing major, he continues. “After a game, I’m just on this, this high and the only way I can kind of come down from it is to, well, you know.”
Anne nods. “You have a hard time coming down from the adrenaline? Is that what you mean?”
“Yeah. I’ve never been able to, not since I was a kid.”
“That’s not terribly unusual, actually,” she divulges.
“It’s not?”
“It’s just about balancing the chemicals in your brain. But what you’re also saying is you were using other women to get the release you needed, instead of going to your wife.”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “I didn’t ever go looking for it. But, I mean, the women are always there, ya know? They just kind of… offer themselves to us, so it was easy to just do it.”
For whatever reason, it hits me at this moment that there has never been a time in our entire relationship when Santos wasn’t cheating on me. Not in college. Not when we first got married. Not when I was pregnant. Not ever.
I breathe heavily as I calculate how many years we’ve been together by how many games he plays every season, home and away. That means…
“Wait,” I interrupt. “Exactly how many women have you cheated on me with?”
“I… don’t really know.” He has the nerve to say it sheepishly, like he’s being shy or some shit like that.
I cock my head at him, anger raging through me. “Are we talking dozens? Hundreds? What?”
He looks at the floor and shrugs. “I don’t know.”
I stare at him in disbelief. For the first time, the depth of his infidelity is sinking in. This wasn’t just getting caught up in the moment at parties. This was serial cheating. Like he had a whole different life I never even knew about.
“Mariana.” I look up as Anne addresses me. “I can see you’re feeling a lot of different emotions right now. Can you tell me what you’re feeling?”
I shake my head. “I don’t even know what I’m feeling right now. I’m so… I’m so pissed. How could you do that to me? To us?”
Santos flinches, but it’s Anne who addresses me again. “What else are you feeling, Mariana? I know you’re angry. What else?”
“I…” My brain spins out of control and it’s taking a lot of effort to figure out how to answer her questions. “Humiliated. He didn’t just get bored and lonely. He was never faithful from the beginning.” I turn to look at him again. “You weren’t, were you? You have never been faithful to me, have you? I was never enough, was I?”
His eyes snap up to mine and he starts to speak, but I don’t let him.
“How could I miss this?” I say, more to myself than anyone else. “All those years, and I just, never knew. How could I never know?”
“What are you feeling?” Anne asks me again.
“Like everything I thought my marriage was, everything I prided myself on, none of it was even real.”
“That’s not true.” Santos sits straight up to address me. “Nothing is more real than my feelings for you.”
I scoff.
“I know I have been a shitty husband and I have made some terrible, terrible choices. But you are my best friend. You have been for ten years. You are the best thing that ever happened in my life and I never, ever want you to doubt that.”
The tears sting my eyes and I have no choice but to let them go. “I doubt everything you say now.”
He looks like he’s been punched in the gut, which basically mirrors how I feel right now.
The conversations continue around me, but I don’t hear them. I’m too deep in my thoughts, my emotions after the information I just learned. Too stunned to realize my entire marriage, from the very beginning, has been a lie. It’s always been a lie.
Suddenly, people are standing up and milling about. I look up at Santos, confused.
“We’re breaking for lunch,” he remarks.
I just nod and stand up, stretching my back from all the sitting.
“Mariana?” I turn to face the woman who had been sitting a few chairs down from me. She has long brown hair and a bright smile. Behind her, a man with short dark hair and goatee stands behind her. “I’m Victoria, and this is my husband, Drew. Would you guys like to go to lunch with us? We’re just going across the street to the shopping complex to find some fast food.”
I look to Santos, who nods his head. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”
We all move to the parking lot in an uncomfortable silence. Not only have we just met these people, but they know some very intimate details of our relationship. And we know theirs. Well, Santos does. I couldn’t much listen with the bombshell going off in my own brain. It’s strange. On one hand, I wouldn’t mind getting to know these people. Victoria seems nice. On the other, I don’t want to get to know anyone here more than I have to.
“Let’s take my truck since we have to cross a major road,” Drew offers, leading the way to a huge, souped-up F-150. We all climb in, men in the front, women in the back, and the awkward silence continues as we make our way to lunch.
With the exception of a few questions about which restaurant to eat at, the conversations stay at a minimum until we’re all seated with our food.
“Is anyone else feeling really, really uncomfortable sharing all these things we don’t want people to know i
n this group?” Drew asks, as he unwraps his sandwich.
Collectively, we all laugh and breathe sighs of relief that we aren’t the only ones feeling this way.
“I’m all about therapy, if it’ll help,” Santos confesses. “But damn. I didn’t realize it was going to be so brutal.”
“At least we got Anne,” Victoria adds. “That other trainer, Roderick, I was watching him during that whole intro thing. He was giving me the creeps.”
“Everyone gives you the creeps, babe,” Drew teases.
“Not like this.” She licks some mustard off her thumb and wipes her hands on her napkin. I love Firehouse Subs. But they can be messy. “His eyes are shifty and he stands too close to people. But Anne seems really nice.”
“She kind of reminds me of my friend’s mom,” I say. “She was always really easy to talk to. Not that I want to talk.”
“That’s kind of what we’re here for.” I look up at Santos when his foot taps mine under the table. “If we can talk about stuff here and figure it out, we can get through anything.”
I give him a small smile before shifting the conversation away from us. It’s already been too much for me. I need a break from the intensity. “So how long have you and Drew been married?”
“Eight years and two boys. I like to include them in the year count because I’m pretty sure kids add about fifty years to marriage stress levels.” She giggles and Drew rolls his eyes. As much as I like them, you can still tell there’s some tension between them. “What about you guys?”
“Ten years and three kids.”
“Boys? Girls?”
“Two girls and a boy.” I can feel my face beaming. Nothing calms me like the thought of my kids. “The girls are five and three. Baby Theo is fourteen months.”
