What Did I Do that was Wrong? 03

Leanne's and Mark's body language were a bit different as they came in this time, exactly three weeks after I'd first met them. Neither was happy, and Mark in particular had an air of dread, but he was less defeated-looking and she was at least a little more relaxed. I was far from confident, but tried to see these as good signs.

"Thanks for coming in," I said after we'd shaken hands and sat down.

"Over the last couple of weeks, as you know, I've met several times with each of you individually, and I'm very grateful for your honesty with me." I smiled as warmly as I could, and they both responded with more tentative smiles.

"Today I think we should begin the process of working through what happened a couple of months ago, the day Mark came back from his trip."

Mark grimaced and started to object. I turned directly to him and held up my hand.

"Mark, what would you do if someone on a job site fell and got his arm impaled on a sharp piece of metal? You'd take him to a doctor and get the piece of metal removed, right? Because if you left it in it would continue to hurt, and it might get infected and make your co-worker's condition worse.

"And it might hurt a lot to take the thing out--but the doctor would still do it, right?"

He sighed, nodding his head. "Yes, I see your point, Tom. Although," he gave me an ironic smile, "I imagine the doctor would use some anesthesia first--are you proposing to dope me up?"

I laughed. "You got me," I said. "This conversation may be very painful, for both of you. But there really is no alternative. Not talking about it isn't working, and it hasn't been working for a couple of months now--would you agree?"

They both nodded.

"Well, then. Mark, can you tell Leanne about that afternoon--about what you saw, and how you felt?"

He sat for a few moments. Then he began talking in a monotone, looking across the room at the far wall. He recounted getting the earlier flight, leaving the phone messages, driving home and seeing a strange car in the driveway. How he didn't know what to do next--he started walking towards the house, only to hear a man's voice in the back yard.

"I knew I should just turn and walk away--but I couldn't. I went around the side of the house, and I ... I saw you with him."

Mark stopped. He glanced briefly at Leanne, then away again. We both waited for him to continue. Leanne had her arms crossed tightly on her chest, and looked as though she was holding her breath.

Finally he went on, still not looking at either of us.

"He was standing in front of you with his ... with his cock sticking out, and you had your hands on his hips. It looked like you'd been sucking on him. Then you put a condom on him, and led him over to that big air mattress on the grass. And you laid down, and he got on top of you, and the two of you started fucking.

"I was kind of frozen--I couldn't move. I watched for a couple of minutes, I guess, and then suddenly I had to get out of there. I hurried back to the car, drove to the mall, and spent a couple of hours just wandering around, until it was late enough that I could come home."

There was silence again. Leanne looked very pale--she was watching Mark intently. He continued to look at nothing.

"Mark," I said finally, "I know this is hard. What is it about what you saw that upset you--that continues to upset you? After all, you knew that Leanne had sex with other men; you agreed to it."

His eyes moved to my face, then away again. He looked at the floor, and seemed to be gathering himself.

"It's a couple of things. I don't know exactly, but I do know about a couple of things. First, I ... well, this is obvious. Yes, I knew that Leanne ... sometimes fucked other guys, but I never expected to have to see it or be confronted by it in any way. She's been very discreet, so ... so it was a shock.

"Then there's the fact that it was in our back yard. A very private place, just our own, where we've spent so much time together."

He looked up at me, agony on his face. "We've made love there so many times, on that mattress. On the grass, or sometimes in the pool together. We both loved the house the first time we saw it, because of the privacy--we knew right away we wanted to buy it.

"And here was Leanne, fucking some guy..." He stopped for a moment, and I saw his hands were tightly clutching the arms of his chair.

"Here she was having sex with some guy, right where we'd made love so often ourselves. In our private place--our home."

Leanne looked as though she wanted to speak, and I quietly gestured to her to wait. There was more silence.

"But that's not all of it, is it, Mark?"

"No. It was ... it was the way they made love."

I noticed that he simply couldn't look at Leanne or address her directly, and he'd stopped saying "you" and switched to "she". He had to tell the story in the third person.

"I always imagined ... when I thought about her and other men, I ... I guess I tried hard to think of something sweaty and impersonal. Like a whore with a customer, maybe, or a good massage, or a squash game. Maybe that was naïve... But I think that's how she encouraged me to see it, too.

"But what I saw, it was... Dammit, it was love-making! It was gentle, and loving, and incredibly intimate.

"She kissed him, so affectionately, so lingeringly! And she smiled into his eyes, and rubbed her hands over his back gently, and murmured to him while they were doing it."

Suddenly, to my surprise, he swung around in his chair and looked right at Leanne.

"It wasn't just casual sex--it wasn't just a hot meaningless fuck! It was you being intimate with another man, in a way that you're only supposed to be with me! You were loving him, Goddammit!"

Mark stood and walked swiftly to the window, where he stood, looking out. I could see his fists clenching.

Leanne looked terrified--she sat far back in her chair, as though Mark's words had physically pressed on her. She was near tears, and looked imploringly at me. Again I made a gesture intended to comfort her, but to say, "don't speak yet--wait."

Without turning around Mark began to speak again. "Until that day, I could convince myself--just barely--that Leanne's need to fuck other people had nothing to do with me. That it was entirely separate, like she always insisted it was. And I knew she loved me."

Now he turned around to glare at us, his face flushed. "But it was bullshit! It's not separate, it never was and it never will be. That was no fucking squash game, it was making love!

"You were doing with him what you should be doing only with me! That's what marriage means, at least to me."

We were frozen in our places for nearly a minute, and then Mark unclenched his tense body and returned to his seat, again looking at nothing. I heard Leanne's shuddering breath, and looked over to see tears on her cheeks.

"Leanne?" I said quietly.

She turned to me, looking sad and frightened. "I don't know what to say, Tom."

Turning to Mark she said, "I'm so sorry, honey. To me it was just casual sex--I swear. I was just...having sex with a guy I'd been with a couple of times before. It was nice out in the sunshine, it was relaxed....

"But it wasn't making love, believe me! It was nothing like what you and I have! Not to me.

"I had no idea what you saw, or how it made you feel. I'm so sorry."

More silence in the room. I said, "Leanne, maybe you could tell Mark how you happened to be at your house that day."

She picked up on my intentions right away. "Mark, I almost never have sex with anyone else at our house. This just happened, on the spur of the moment. I knew Theo from several years ago, and I ran into him that morning. He'd given up his apartment and was moving away. He doesn't even know my real name! Or that it was our house--I told him it was an empty house that was about to go on the market."

"You sure seemed comfortable with him--relaxed, easy." Mark's words were quiet, but definitely an accusation. He was still looking at nothing.

In a steady voice Leanne said, "yes--like I said I knew him from a few years ago, and we'd had sex three or four times back then.

"But dammit, Mark, he was nothing to me--he IS nothing to me. Despite how it looked to you, I swear, it was just casual...casual, well, fucking."

"That's not what I saw." Mark's voice came from deep within him, almost unwillingly.

Leanne moved to kneel next to Mark's chair. She grasped his arm with both hands, but he still wouldn't look at her.

"I am so sorry, Mark. Sorry for all of it--that you saw us, that it looked that way to you."

They remained in that position for a couple of minutes, her kneeling and holding his arm, him looking away. Finally she rose and returned to her seat, looking older and sadder than before.

"You both are in a lot of pain right now," I said. "You know, during the past couple of weeks each of you has asked me, 'what did I do that was wrong?' "

They looked up at me, both of them a bit surprised, and I went on.

"Neither of you did anything wrong, as far as I'm concerned. Leanne, you were completely honest with Mark about a very difficult subject. When he proposed, you told him you needed to keep having sex with other men. That's how you felt, and it wasn't wrong to tell him that.

"Mark, you struggled with it, but decided finally that you could live with Leanne seeing other men—casually, purely for sex, and out of your sight. It wasn't something you wanted, but you loved Leanne enough that you were willing to put up with it.

"Each of you was honest and brave. But now the situation has changed. Your arrangement might have gone on indefinitely, or it might not have. But in any case, Mark's coming home early and seeing Leanne with someone has changed things.

"It's clear that you love one another very much, and that both of you value your marriage. The question is, what happens now? Can you move forward in that marriage together, and if so how?"

Silence. Both of them were looking at me, serious expressions on their faces.

Mark said, "I don't know if we can—or if I can, to be more specific. Yes, I love Leanne—even more now than when I asked her to marry me. But it feels like everything has changed, and I ... I just ... don't know."

Leanne turned in her chair to face Mark directly. She waited until he was looking at her.

"Mark, I want to tell you something. I haven't been with another man since the day you saw me in the back yard. And I'm not going to be. I'm done with that—I want to be an old-fashioned faithful wife for the rest of my life."

"Are you sure you can do that?" Mark's voice was bitter. "After all these years, all those men, all those cocks? Sure you're ready to give 'em all up?"

"Stop it, Mark! I know you're hurting—but I am too! I love you and I miss you. I want you back.

"And yes, I'm sure. I guess I've realized that when you asked me to marry you I was scared. I loved you so much, and getting to spend the rest of my life with you was more than I ever could have hoped for. I think I didn't really believe it would come true. Continuing what I'd been doing—seeing other guys for casual sex—was a way of protecting myself, of keeping one foot out the door or something.

"I don't know if I'm making myself clear. But I don't want one foot out the door anymore. All I want is you."

Another long silence. I was proud of Leanne, who had responded just as I hoped she would.

Finally Mark smiled a little. He said, "I'm glad you said that, babe.

"Because I was coming in here today with an ultimatum: me or them. Marriage to me, or all the sex you wanted with other guys, but not both."

Leanne smiled and said, "I've made my choice, honey."

He reached out and took her hand, and they sat quietly, just looking at one another.

Then Mark stood up and said, gruffly, "c'mere". I could hear the emotion in his voice. Leanne jumped up and he embraced her tightly, holding her as though making sure she'd never get away again.

She clung to him, kissing his neck, running her hands through his hair, whispering "I love you, baby". When they finally broke apart they both turned to me, smiling, each with one arm still wrapped around the other.

"Thank you, Tom," Mark said with a smile. "You've really helped us—at least I know you've really helped me. I guess it's up to us to take it from here."

He stepped forward as if to shake my hand in farewell, and I had to smile to myself. For a smart guy Mark was certainly being a little naïve about how things were going to go!

"Why don't you and Leanne sit down again for a minute, Mark?"

He seemed surprised by my suggestion, but did as I said, still holding Leanne's hand and smiling.

"If you'll allow me to beat that analogy to death, I think we've taken the piece of metal out. Surgery was successful!

"But I don't think we're quite ready to stop working together yet. With all the strong emotions you both have been feeling, it's going to be a while before things stop being turbulent.

"I'd like to continue to see each of you alone once a week, and the two of you together as well. We can taper our meetings off as soon as we're all confident about how things are going."

Leanne nodded slightly, still smiling and clinging to her husband's hand, but Mark looked a bit dubious. "Is that really necessary, Tom? I'm feeling pretty damn good right now!"

"Trust me on this one, Mark. There's been a lot of stuff stirred up, and it will need a little time to settle. Believe me, I'm not trying to milk your insurance for the extra sessions—I've got plenty of patients to see."

We worked out a schedule for the next month or so, with me promising again that we could cancel any appointments we felt weren't needed. Then, before I let them go, I said a couple more things I thought were important.

"It may be that things will still get tense once in a while—try not to be surprised by that, and don't get discouraged, either. Talk things through, as much as you're comfortable with. Mark doesn't need to know everything about your past activities, Leanne, but he may decide there are things he wants to hear about. If so, be honest with him. I'm sure you will be.

"Mark, do your best to let Leanne know how you're feeling. Don't hide your negative feelings from her, if they come up. Let her in—give her a chance to reassure you. She loves you very much, so let her remind you of that if you need it.

"And above all, both of you—try to be kind. When feelings run high, try not to say things that might be hurtful, that might linger in your spouse's mind in a painful way. You can say 'I'm feeling hurt' or 'I'm feeling resentful' without lashing out."

All my words were carefully considered, but I could see my intended audience wasn't paying much attention. They were gazing at one another, faces full of affection and relief. It was not hard to predict that their next stop was going to be the marital bedroom!

But that didn't mean everything was fine in their marriage—not yet, and not by a long shot. The operation had been successful, but whether the patient lived or died was still somewhat up in the air.

****************

Over the next few weeks I never knew which couple I was going to see. Sometimes Leanne and Mark were smiling, even giggling. It didn't require an expert to see that things were going well, and that lots of good sex was taking place.

At the very next appointment, though, they might be full of tension. Usually it was Mark who was cold and distant, while Leanne and I both tried to get him to open up about what he was feeling.

In my individual sessions with each of them I heard the same story: Mark was experiencing volatile emotional swings, from loving and sexually eager husband to distant and insecure partner. And because of his nature and upbringing, he found it very hard to talk about his feelings when he was upset.

"Look, Mark," I said to him in one of his sessions alone with me. "You've been through something difficult and traumatic. The fact that it sometimes gets to you is only natural—it's not a sign of weakness."

He nodded, but it was clear he didn't particularly believe me. Finally, though, I got him talking, and what he had to say was about his lingering lack of confidence where Leanne was concerned.

"I know she loves me, Tom—I know it. And for the most part things between us have been pretty good, even great sometimes. We're loving with each other, you know—being extra considerate—and we're having as much sex as back in the first couple of years of our marriage. It's terrific, too, most of the time.

"It's just ... well, I guess I have moments when that picture, of her and Theo, comes into my mind. And then I can't think about anything else. About her and the other men—were there 20 of them, or 500, or a thousand? And did she look so loving and intimate with all of them? Did they all please her the way he obviously did?

"I mean, there had to be a reason she needed all that strange cock, right? She can tell me it had nothing to do with me, but how could it NOT have to do with me?"

He sat with his hand covering his eyes, and I got virtually nothing out of him for the rest of the session.

My private conversations with Leanne were a mirror image of those with Mark.

"When he's happy with me, Tom, it's fantastic!" she said. "He's as loving as ever, and so full of fun. And we're having a great time in bed.

"But then, apparently out of nowhere, he gets quiet and withdrawn; disappears to his office after dinner, or looks past me while I'm trying to talk to him. I don't know what to do.

"Being patient and letting him come out of it doesn't seem to work, or at least not for several days. And pushing him to talk just seems to drive him away from me."

"Has he given you any idea what's on his mind during these times?" I asked.

"Only that ... that the picture in his mind of me with Theo still bothers him. I know he's still feeling insecure as a lover sometimes, even though he has no reason to be.

"Once or twice he's said something like, 'I just don't get it, Leanne. Either I wasn't enough for you, or...or what? What OTHER reason was there why you needed...' "

Leanne started to cry a little. "He didn't finish the sentence, but I knew what he was going to say. '...why you needed so much strange dick?' "

I sighed to myself. "I'm sure you can see why that question would trouble him. Is there any answer you can give him?"

Usually Leanne bristled when I broached this subject—but this time she looked thoughtful.

"You and I have talked a lot about my father, Tom, and it's pretty clear what you think. I suppose you're probably right. Growing up I could never get his attention, and the only thing that ever worked was my attractiveness and sexuality. I couldn't match Mary or Kaitlyn for brains or sports, but when I started to be a looker, he stopped ignoring me so much.

"But it's not as simple as 'I fuck other guys to get the attention my father denied me,' though!" She looked a little defiant.

"I don't think it's that simple either, Leanne," I replied mildly. "Most behaviors aren't about any one single reason. No doubt liking sex has a lot to do with it—and most people, regardless of their upbringing, enjoy feeling attractive to others.

"But I do think that your father's coldness is a factor. And it may be that, having learned you could never win his love in a wholehearted way, you concluded that short-term involvements with a lot of men who were drawn to you would be much safer. Far less chance of being hurt, of being let down."

These were issues we'd talked about a number of times before, and I hoped that discussing them with me would help Leanne be clearer about her own motivations for her past promiscuity—whatever the outcome of her marital problems might be.