He was married before me. She was a hair dresser, and he walked into her barber shop. She cut his hair, he left, then he turned around, went right back through the doors, and asked her out. I’ve seen her picture. She’s beautiful, attractive, and stylish. He was an idiot to screw things up with her.
I think it was a year into their marriage that he got orders to South Korea. She wasn’t allowed to go, and from what he says, she didn’t want to. This was before text messaging, before solid emails, before free long distance and inexpensive cell phones. This was during the Prodigy and AOL eras, when you cursed incoming calls for booting you off the bulletin boards.
According to him, she told him that he was in Korea, she was in the U.S., and she’d see him when he came home the next year.
I don’t blame him for hooking up with the brunette that was there. She pursued him for weeks, and he had been drinking - the first time, at least. In a place like Korea, with a wife at home who is ignoring you, I can even understand why he sought comfort from another woman.
After a couple months, the guilt caught up with him and he told his wife what had happened. When he returned home, she agreed to work it out, and then she cheated on him and told him she couldn’t do it. Technically, her mother told him that she [the wife] couldn’t do it, and he accepted the statement and walked away without another contact.
He told me about his first marriage while we were in the car. We were just friends, and he said, ”Most women won’t even consider dating a man who is divorced - especially since he cheated on his wife.”
”Wait, what? You were married? And you cheated? YOU?”
It was hard to believe that the man in the driver’s seat, in the khakis and polo shirt, who spent every spare moment at church, had cheated on his wife. In that moment, I was so impressed. He had been through hell, and he had beat it. He had come out on top. He had learned, and he would never repeat that mistake again.
I think I wish he had cheated on me.
Adultery is almost easy. It’s nearly socially acceptable. Your spouse cheats? Dump ‘em. You don’t deserve that.
Mental health is different. No one ever says, ”Your husband is addicted to cigarettes? And you’re a severe asthmatic? Dump him!” They say, ”That’s awful. Didn’t you know he was a smoker before you married him?”
He’s addicted to alcohol? Uhm, didn’t y’all go on dates to bars? How come you didn’t know he likes to drink?
He’s addicted to gambling? How on earth did THAT catch you by surprise?
In other words, how could you be so stupid?
That’s a damn good question.
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