A New Look for Marriage

First part of, probably, three. The subject matter is a very particular fetish that some like and others don't. If you are of the latter...you should probably ask yourself why you made it this far first, and then ask yourself if you really want to read further. Anyways, you've been warned :)

*****

It's impossible to know what life will be like in six months or in a year. I had to escape my own head to see, plainly, all that I have. I spent an entire night staring down my own insecurities, desires and pleasures, most of which I was too shy to name. It wasn't about becoming a better person; it was about appreciating my husband and the other relationships in my life. It took a radical departure from the normal malaise of life. It was totally liberating and at the same time terrifying. Emerging with him still by my side brought it full circle and renewed our bonds in ways few can understand. If you had the chance to stand with your partner and see your relationship in a mirror, what would you see? What would it take to clean the glass? How close to the edge would you be willing to step?

I was not prepared, as much as I tried in the moments that led to the penultimate moment, I could not have prepared. In that moment my life turned upside down and I felt my ego wash away. Emotional barriers fell by the wayside. We looked in the mirror and asked ourselves, "what have we had become?" Could we see ourselves uncorrupted by culture? Pure? Open? Uninfluenced by external standards? Gratified by depravity? We answered yes to each question in the absence of shame.

Our marriage, not always perfect, but it had always made sense. We met in University, casual acquaintances at first, but before long, friends. Being involved at the time I never thought it was more than that, but we became good friends. Ours was the sort of friendship that provoked jealous overtures, which put me at odds with my romance. Bitter arguments, which pitted us against him, shrouded in deceptions, broke the relationship clean. It drove me to my former friend, new lover and future husband.

Our passion for each other was a slow burn but overwhelming in its explosion. We screwed and we screwed a lot. Up to four times a day, often finding it hard to do anything else. He was passionate above all else. Holding me so close, he made each time feel like the most important time. It was so overwhelming that I was pregnant within the first weeks of our love. I was determined to keep the baby and he was determined to stay. We agreed to get married by conversation and not bended knee. We didn't even have a ring and I didn't care. A few wedding dress alterations later, we were married within the year and a family not long after. We never really had a period of time as a dating couple.

Before getting into the particulars of this particular tale, I will get it out of the way that I have not been a perfect wife. The rocky patches in our marriage have been, almost invariably, my doing, facilitated by my deceit and wild mood swings. I undermined our family's collective identity bound by social constructs with my indiscretions. In other words, I have had affairs. My husband, on the other hand, has been loyal and stood by in forgiveness. Our marriage turned twenty this year and has produced two lovely children. Our eldest moving out to attend university has raised questions as to just what we are.

The simple answer, and the pedantic one, is that we are a middle-aged married couple. We're both 44 and painfully typical by outward appearances. I don't know if you would call us middle class or upper-middle class, the distinctions never really meant much to me. In terms of material, we would never be accused of lacking those comforts. Our own piece of suburbia is what we call home. It's a place I enjoy, where our children were raised and, by the standards of society, should have been enough to calm any other desires.

Colin, my husband, is a partner in an engineering consulting firm. His focus is largely his work and providing for his family. He loves his work and I don't resent that. We certainly don't need the money and outside of a few tools and golf clubs he almost never spends it on himself. Despite his busy schedule, he always makes sure that his Sundays are free to do at least one activity with our daughter. He is a positive influence in her life and she provides the same for him in kind.

I have some reclusive tendencies; as such, I do need a significant amount of time to myself. I'm a scientist at work and at heart, in that I'm intensely curious about the natural world. I can often get lost in my various distractions, intellectual and otherwise, but I have always made time for the kids too. Our devotion for each other has always been shown through our devotion to them. Neither him nor I ever giving a thought to what would be left when they were fully-grown.

I can admit that I'm a vain person. I feel intense pressures to look better than "her" whoever she might be. I enjoy stealing the attention of men even if just for a sidelong glance. I take care of myself and spend an extraordinary amount of time doing so. I'm always looking for the perfect look to match my age and place. I think it's trashy when a woman my age tries to look twenty years younger. The goal is to look sexy without looking like you're trying to look sexy. Showing just the right amount of cleavage and making sure everything fits tight in just the right places both provide a lot of currency on this account.

I'm 5'7" and have some curves in my hips with medium, 34b, breasts. I have some wrinkles around my eyes and mouth, but I'm somewhat of a subtle make-up artist who can make them disappear as if natural. My eyes are grey and take on the reflection of my surroundings. Some people think they change colour with my mood, but this is almost certainly a perception. My deep brown hair is long and curls a bit when I don't straighten it. I have some greys but I tend to pluck them out. Always slight in youth, my skin stayed smooth as I have gotten a little move curvy. I look good naked and I'm not ashamed of that.

I want to look good for my husband but more so I want to look good for myself. The ugly side of this is that I seek validation to my vanity both externally and internally. When my internal validation is failing, I look to the other to set the balance.

After my first affair several years ago, we had found ourselves in couple's therapy.

"Michelle, how were you feeling in the summer emotionally?" Dr. Rosalie asked in a calm almost hypnotic voice.

"Why not just ask her why she had the damn affair?" Colin interjected before she even got the last word out.

She calmly responded, "Colin we are trying to establish the emotional framework of the relationship and not throw blame around."

"Why not? I mean I deserve the blame, right? You can't tell me that I don't deserve the blame for this?" I said while making every effort not to cry.

"That's not the purpose of this session Michelle. If you can, try to remember how you felt before all that started, back in the summer."

"I don't know, I suppose I was feeling bored..."

"Bored! You're feeling bored! The one who shuts herself in her room is feeling bored with me?!" Colin interrupted.

"Not with you! With myself!" I broke down into tears. "I love you; it's myself I don't love all the time. And I don't know why I did it. Ok?"

"You obviously did it because you're bored. I'm not exciting enough for you. That's why you did it." He said while looking away toward the wall on the far side of the pastel red themed office.

"It wasn't that either. I just felt like I didn't have an identity. Like everybody just saw me as this boring mother of two and that's that."

"That's what you are Michelle." He didn't turn his head to look at me.

I found myself at a loss for words and tried, unsuccessfully, to choke back tears until I was openly sobbing.

"Baby, Michelle, I didn't mean that. Really, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. Really I'm sorry."

Dr. Rosalie remained silent but I could feel her presence. We were having this highly personal conversation and needed a moderator to have it. The notion bothered me profoundly.

"It wasn't your fault." I said between tissues. "It was my fault."

Finding an opportune time to moderate the discussion Dr. Rosalie turned to Colin and coldly asked, "And just how did the affair make you feel?"

I felt like I was on trial under a spotlight. I had been completely broken down and now it was time for them to gang up and take me to task for everything that I had done. This was his chance to tell me what a terrible person I am before a witness, to let me know how much I let him down and worst of all that he would want a divorce. But he didn't do any of that and he never even mentioned a divorce.

"I felt like she didn't love me anymore. Like I'm nothing to her." I could sense the anguish in his voice.

"Well, that's not true." I interrupted.

"Then why did you do it Michelle?"

"I have problems with impulses and managing manic pressures."

"But you fucked him?"

"Yeah, I did, and I'm not proud of it."

"Not proud of what Michelle?"

Dr. Roselie attempted to steer the conversation back to civility. "Colin, I don't think this will fix the problem."

"Let her answer. Not proud of what Michelle?"

"Of getting fucked, ok? He fucked me."

"How many times?"

"What does it matter?"

"It matters. How many times?" He insisted.

"I don't know." I said honestly.

"A lot?"

"Yes." I said in shame under my breath.

The pencil he had been pressing into his knuckle snapped like a twig with a crisp cracking sound. The rouge room made pale with the late afternoon sun felt thick and heavy. The three of us sat in silence for what seemed to be an eternity in a matter of seconds. I had horrible images of being choked by my husband in a fit of bitter rage. It even seemed preferable to dealing with any more questions. I could see the hurt each answer provoked and I just wanted it to stop.

"Colin, do you still love me?" Breaking the silence I pleaded for him to answer.

"Why'd you do it?"

"Can you look at me?"

With some degree of effort, he broke his focus on the other end of the room and rested his eyes on me. I must have looked pathetic and his resolve softened upon seeing my desperate eyes pleading for an answer. "Do you?"

"Yes, I never stopped loving you. This isn't about not loving you. It's about trusting you."

"You can trust me now, I did what I did and it's over." I lied in fear of losing him. I hoped it would be true someday but in truth, I wasn't sure if I trusted myself.

"I'll always love you Michelle."

"Then are we going to work this out?"

"Yeah, of course."

The drive home was awkward and uncomfortable. We hadn't talked much about the affair until that afternoon. The car was silent, but we held hands in quiet solidarity to a commitment to try to work things out. One thing was clear though, things had changed. The idyllic façade of a perfect marriage had dissolved but we remained devoted to each other.

The fact is that we never had a perfect marriage. For all his positive attributes, Colin has always been insanely jealous. This would rear its ugly head from anything from men looking at me to any form of mild flirting, with the latter leading to our biggest fights. I never flirted with intention, it's just part of my personality that I can repress but alcohol can take the lid off it. Sometimes, while drinking, I would be more outgoing and maybe laugh at a handsome man's jokes or touch a little bit too far up his sleeve for comfort.

The worst time was at a friend's wedding. I danced the same guy twice, maybe three times, I don't really remember. The guy may have grabbed my ass; my husband said that he did, I don't remember that either. In any event, what followed was the biggest fight of our marriage. I learned a few synonyms for the word "whore" that night, doors were slammed and I belittled him in ways I knew would hurt. He figures that other people had seen, as if they were all watching me as closely as he was.

We both felt pressure to play a role and present a public image. I started to realize just how much of his ego depended on me. To him, I was his public validation and he wanted me to play the part. He wanted me to look better than the other wives and wanted my attachment to him shown through aloofness to others.

One affair later and now, I was on parole. Wounds to the ego can be the hardest to heal. The ego develops, and invariably becomes entangled, in social constructs; it comes to rely on them. You compare yourself to friends, neighbours and peers and it's their perceived judgement by which you begin to shape your own self-image. His ego could survive intact if nobody found out. Sworn to absolute secrecy, I promised never to mention it again; that was the clear understanding. Even while accounting for my time and movements, the affair was never to even be alluded to lest it were to slip to hearing ears.

Over time the leash lightened and we fell back into previous habits and ways of living. He must have gotten tired of turning over rocks and finding nothing and informally ended my parole. I didn't plan on doing it, I certainly didn't plan on doing it more than once, but it creeped up and once again took control. The affair had been going on for four month when he asked me to leave my husband for him. I broke it off immediately.

Nobody knew, I didn't have to tell anyone and nobody would have ever known. I covered my tracks carefully and made sure not to leave a scent. If you knew me, you would have never guessed. I had become an expert at compartmentalizing emotions; at times, I could even fool myself. I would see him when I was supposedly at the gym or yoga practice. I made sure I took a shower before returning home and had good reason to be wearing different clothes. I could have just continued the lie and, invariably, moved to the next one. I knew that wasn't fair. I could lie in the short term, but I couldn't allow our marriage to be a lie. He had a right to know and he had the right to decide without being kept in the dark. That much I owned him.

I took Lisa, our daughter, to my parent's house and returned home. I made sure nothing in the house was out of order and clean. I waited and prepared for the worst. My indiscretions do in fact cause me a great amount of pain and guilt. I sat in the kitchen and waited. It felt like an eternity. The only noise was the buzzing of the refrigerator. I listened to its irregular hums in the soft light of the mid-afternoon feeling as if I wasn't in my home. Something looked different or, more likely, something felt different.

"Honey, we need to talk." I wasted no time upon his arrival. The sun was still casting its last rays on the tiled floor in the kitchen. I sat sideways at the table and fought to keep my composure. In the pit of my stomach burned an anxiety that I never want to feel again. Colin had never been violent and he had never hit me, but I felt, if I ever deserved it, I deserved it in that moment.

"Where's Lisa Michelle?"

"I took her to my parent's" I said softly and intently.

"Why?" He asked while being struck with confusion and foreboding all at the same time; I could tell h3 knew something wasn't right. "What's going on? Tell me?"

"Honey, please sit down?" I kept my eyes fixed on the retreating sunbeam which cut the patterned tile in half.

"Is something wrong?" He sounded mildly panicked.

"Just sit down, please?" I soothed in my softest tone.

He absent-mindedly sat in the wooden kitchen chair situated across from me on long end of the table. His face dripped with apprehension and concern; he could, no doubt, tell this wasn't going to be good.

"I don't know where to start, so I will just start. I met this guy and we started talking."

"Michelle what do you mean started talking?" His voice lowered

"At first, we started talking, going to lunch and stuff."

"What stuff?"

I was looking for a way to explain a lot using as few words as possible. I wasn't trying to explain myself or provide any excuses but I needed a way to start and get it out there.

"He doesn't work there anymore, he got another job and..."

"Michelle, what stuff?"

"We kept talking on email and sometimes coffee."

"And what now, are you still talking?"

"No, I don't talk to him anymore." I couldn't look up and I was trying my best to not get emotional.

"So what, you talked to him, just talked, right?"

"He wanted to meet me." The burning in my stomach had moved to all parts of my body and my head was pulsing with trepidation.

"Michelle, what happened? Did you meet him?"

"Yes"

His calm demeanor was throwing me off. I expected him to chastise me like the last time. I expected broken furniture. I expected him to call me all sorts of names. I didn't expect him to respond with calm measured questions.

"Where did you meet him Michelle?"

"We went out."

"Then what?"

"I don't know."

"Did he try to kiss you? Michelle, what happened?" I could hear the anguish in his voice and decided to cut right to the heart of it.

"He fucked me. Honey, I'm sorry, he fucked me." I couldn't fight back the tears. They were not of the crocodile variety. The hurt I felt for this was real.

My husband had moved his chair closer, almost the length of the table, close enough to touch knees. He didn't hit me. Instead, he took my hand in his and placed them on my knee.

"Do you hate me know?" I sobbed.

He leaned forward in his chair and looked into our hands. In obvious disappointment he said, "No Michelle, I don't hate you and will never hate you."

"But I have a problem." I said in a pleading voice.

He put his other hand on top of mine so that one was on top and one beneath. My hand wrinkled from the sweat and cold from my disrupted circulation, felt warm in his soft grip.

"It's over?"

"Yes, we don't talk anymore."

"Are you ok?" He asked sympathetically.

I had done this terrible thing to him and he was asking me if I was ok. I didn't know what to make of it. I couldn't could sense any malice in him, he genuinely seemed to sense how much pain I was in and wanted to know if I was ok.

"I hurt you. Are you ok?" I tried to remind him about what we were talking about.

He moved his chair next to mine. I nearly collapsed in his arms and sobbed with my face buried in his shoulder. He held me tight, like when we first met, and told me, "Everything's going to be ok." The conviction in his voice left no room for doubt. We talked softly throughout the afternoon and early evening. We discussed finding help for me, for a way to control my impulses. We talked about getting older and about my insecurities in trying to hold on to my youth. We spoke until late into the night. I had to lean on his support to get to the bedroom where he helped me out of my clothes.

I sat on my side of the bed, topless, my back turned to him with my legs on the floor. "So what do you want now?" I asked once silence filled our bedroom walls.

He crawled across the bed and whispered softly in my ear, "I want to make love to my wife."

"Nothing I want more." I said while turning my head and engaging in a passionate kiss.

It took months before we became intimate again when it happened several years ago. We kissed softly as I squirmed out of my panties. "Are you ok?" he asked again. I nodded slightly in the affirmative but with still watery eyes obvious in my shame. With my legs parted and he entered me slowly but with purpose. Once he pushed in all the way our eyes locked and we engaged in a long open mouth kiss, our hips locked together unmoving. We continued like this for what must have been an hour, him slowly taking it out before slowly putting in all the way in and returning to kisses. We had never made love like this before and it was euphoric.