Tuesday, December 11, 2007

An Open Marriage

It's not that easy to keep secrets in our house. The place is frightfully small, and my husband works from home, so we're together a lot. Anyone would find it hard to hide much of anything under the circumstances. So, I'm not exactly sure why I didn't realize sooner that he was cheating on me.

Sure, he seemed kind of squirrely sometimes, but I chalked it up to him just having an off day. Then, he was avoiding eye contact when we were together, but still I thought I was simply being paranoid. Sometimes, he tried strange new things, but wouldn't tell me how he on earth he came up with such clever techniques. I couldn't ignore his behavior any longer when he started scurrying off to his office at odd hours. I knew he was on the computer, but doing what? I finally demanded an explanation.

Needless to say, I was shocked. I always thought that we had the same hopes and dreams, the same goals in life. Then, if you can believe it, he tried to blame me for his indiscretions. He said that I was too hard on him, and that he didn't know how else to cope. He didn't even attempt to stop all the nonsense. He just kept right on doing it, right in front of me, like it was perfectly normal.

I tried to understand why things had turned out this way for us, but the longer it went on, the angrier I became. I eventually decided that two could play that game, and I cheated, too. At first, it was all about spite, but, over time, I began to see things in a different light. Couldn't it spice things up between us? Wouldn't our time together be a little more interesting? After fifteen years of the same old same old, it would certainly be educational. In the end, couldn't we both be winners?

I'm sure there are many out there who would say this is just plain wrong, and I'm not proposing everyone try things our way. However, there is something magical about being open to new ideas. I know that for me and Rhett, anyway, the best decision we've made in a long, long time is, without a doubt, agreeing that we could both use a word builder to play Scrabulous.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You had me really scared for a minute! (All the better the laugh at the end!)

ps - sorry funky user id... won't allow a wordpress comment. It's really stacie

Sheila @ Dr Cason.org said...

Wow...I was just sucked right in!

She

wordandcraft said...

Stacie - Sorry for the scare!;) Rhett and I were just joking along these lines, and I couldn't resist turning it into a post. My biggest fear is that some of my friends will start to read it, but be so freaked out that they won't finish!

Sheila - That's kind of what I was going for... was it okay in the end?

Sheila @ Dr Cason.org said...

You know it was so real that even when the end came I thought you just changed subjects!

Then I read the comments and went back and read it again and again and then was like ...of course! You are so clever! Such a good writer. I loved it!