Plight of the Wayward Spouse: A Cautionary Tale

Facebook link and LinkedIn link, published on June 7, 2016

Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. He who said these words must have drunk the juice and put on the t-shirt. Otherwise he lacks the authority to state these words categorically and with such finality.

Gabriel and Martha are your typical couple.  They met in the most unlikely circumstances. Fell in love and chose marriage to cement a long term relationship. Based on the concept of love banks, they deposited love units into one another’s account at such an accelerated rate. Long phone calls. Walks in the streets and parks. Dinner in exclusive places. Night outs accumulated fabulous experiences between them.

Their transition from dating to honeymoon was seamless. Literally became one, but not yet! Gabriel found Martha to be beautiful, intelligent and full of life. She found him attractive. The best description of a gentleman. So fond of each other that they eclipsed their past broken relationships in every way.

Being away from each other filled their moments with misery. Such a love-struck couple. However, they didn’t realize at the time of naivety. They needed more than love for marriage to survive the pressures of life.

After the honeymoon

Their first year of their marriage was an extremely happy one. Without really thinking about it, Gabriel and Martha met each other’s basic needs quite well. Gabriel remained affectionate and patient. Caring as he was when they dated. Martha responded passionately during lovemaking. Spending considerable time together sharing their hopes and dreams in long conversations.

Martha took tennis lessons so that she can keep up with Gabriel in his favorite recreational pastime. What more would a man ask for than recreational companionship from his wife!

Gabriel was honest in everything. He was proud of his attractive wife. Feeling particularly pleased with how she handled details around their house, while keeping her secretarial job on part time basis. Gabriel earned an excellent income as a Computer Analyst.

They agreed that Martha would work as much as she (felt) like. At least for now.

Martha felt secure with Gabriel. He gave every sign he loved being settled down with a home and family. She felt proud of Gabriel and often told him so. During their first year of married bliss, their love banks accumulated love points more slowly than before the marriage. Mainly because they shared a much wider variety of experiences than they had while dating.

Now they were together when they felt good and when they felt bad. Credits and debts in their love bank accounts were aligned with the ups and downs in life. On their fifth anniversary, Gabriel still felt madly in love with Martha. She felt the same about him.

Starting a family and little Tiffany arrived on their 6th anniversary.

Critical changes started taking place in that sixth year. Martha was still the joy of Gabriel’s life, but he noticed an increase in her ‘down times’. Tiffany was a little doll. Gabriel loved her dearly. Nonetheless, she brought new demands like being nursed. There were also negative experiences because she was a cry baby.

Gabriel did not enjoy changing baby’s diaper in the middle of the night. It was not his idea of a pleasant time.

Martha’s decision not to stay at home after her maternity leave meant she could not nurse Tiffany. This left Gabriel with his share of responsibilities. These responsibilities included holding her feeding bottle.

Moreover, Martha had a tough time losing baby fat. In church, Gabriel was often seen with Tiffany strapped on his chest. His hands would either hold a feeding bottle or a carry-case. The carry-case contained clothes for changing the baby, a feeder, and a liner.

He was the admiration of many women. Seeing a young dad assuming non-traditional gender roles. Inside he was getting out of joint with his relationship with the baby’s mama.

As a net result of all these little vicissitudes, Martha’s balance in Gabriel’s love bank dropped over the year. Around Tiffany’s second birthday, Martha got restless. She wanted to be more than just a part time secretary. To have a more important career and not waiting until all of her children were grown and gone.

She asked Gabriel if he would object if she returned to college, finish her Bachelor’s degree and pursue an MBA. ‘It will take six years of classes,’ Martha explained. ‘I’ll quit my part-time job. I want to concentrate on the baby during the day. I will take most of the classwork at night’.

Gabriel agreed to her idea enthusiastically and without second thoughts. He enjoyed a solid and stable income by then. They didn’t really need Martha’s pay check. He baby-sat when Martha went for classes or needed time to finish class assignments.

Enter Lizzy and rock the boat!

Martha enrolled in for evening classes. Earning excellent grades. But those grades required sacrifice, which Gabriel was not too happy about, at all. What bothered him most was that Martha rarely seemed in the mood to make love.

Gabriel understood her dilemma. College consumed a lot of her energy. Any energy residues were devoted to housekeeping and caring for Tiffany. By bed-time Martha dropped like a bag of cement. It would be inconsiderate of Gabriel to insist on love making under those circumstances.

Gabriel adapted to the situation. Engaging in less frequent and more hurried love making when he found Martha in the mood. He missed the attention she used to give him and the tennis games they played on Saturday mornings. Martha seldom spent time with him, much less played tennis on Saturdays. Instead on weekends she did housework and caught up on assignments ahead of Monday classes.

Gabriel and Martha continued in this pattern for the next two years.

Martha’s account in Gabriel’s love bank dipped slowly, but steadily. Gabriel begun wondering what happened to the lovely creature he married. She seemed lost in her books. Ironically, Martha didn’t want to discuss any of her classes with him. ‘It’s all stuff you had years ago,’ Martha told him. ‘Besides, you’re a math expert, and I’m only a part time secretary.’

Such were the low punches that Martha gave Gabriel in the middle of studying or taking her assignments. Nonetheless, she appreciated all Gabriel’s sacrifices and his overall commitment to his family.

Things will be better as soon as I get my degree, she told herself.

Martha plunged on into academia. Not quite realizing how her husband felt or was thrown out of balance. Meanwhile, at his workplace, Gabriel was seconded to a project with an attractive Product Manager named Lizzy. They spent more than the working hours together. The project included benchmarking visits to best practice countries to improve their company’s competitiveness in service provision.

Conversations between the two crossed the emotional boundaries of personal space.  Quickly yielded to the allure of being best friends forever. It didn’t take long for Gabriel to feel comfortable. He shared both the good and bad experiences of his life and wife with Lizzy. They talked about anything and everything, literally.

Fast enough, Lizzy made deposits of love units into Gabriel’s love bank. The working environment was facilitative. The out of the country tours elevated their teenage excitement and ecstasy to a whole new level!

Their conversations reminded Gabriel of the ‘old days’ with Martha.

Gabriel started feeling frustrated due to Martha’s lack of time for sex. It seemed she had time for nothing but studying. When he felt this way, he ventilated with Lizzy. Finding her quite sympathetic. Her knee-jack reaction was the urge to ‘shield’ this handsome face from the barbs of life.

Weeks and months flew by. Martha finished her Bachelor’s degree and launched into her Masters’ program. ‘Only two more years and it will be over, ‘ she told Gabriel. ‘You’ve been wonderful to back me up like this.’ Gabriel smiled. He said he was glad to do it. Inside, he felt like a husk filled with piles of skeletons.

‘She’s just so wrapped up in that degree,’ Gabriel told Lizzy at coffee the next day. She can’t think of anything else. ‘I want her to have it, but I’m wondering if the cost is too high to pay.’ That week, Martha was deeply engrossed with studying for CATs.

Gabriel received a special project at the same time. It forced him into a great deal of overtime. Lizzy helped him. One night as Gabriel and Lizzy worked late, alone, it happened. One moment Gabriel was telling Lizzy about how lonely he felt. The next moment she was in his arms, and they made love, just like that!

When the stolen moment of passion was over, they were getting ready to go home for the night. Gabriel was visibly agitated and guilt ridden. Lizzy sensed his feelings and told him she didn’t want to wreck his marriage or come between him and Martha.

‘Look’ she said, ‘I have to be honest. I’ve fallen in love with you. I want to make you happy. Why don’t we just make love together when we can? That will be all I want.’ All this far, it had been a slow fade.

Like lyrics of the Slow fade song, ‘it’s the second glance that ties your hands as darkness pulls the strings’. Gabriel had completely given himself away to wild passions and an extramarital affair with a colleague. On his way home Gabriel decided he didn’t feel so guilty after all. In fact, he started feeling elated. Through no fault of her own, Martha was unable at present to meet his sexual needs.

Now Lizzy wanted nothing more than to fill in as a temporary sexual partner.

Why not let her? It was helping meet her needs, too? Gabriel rationalized. It will all be temporary of course – until Martha is finished with college and can have more energy for sex. Whatever guilt Gabriel felt, he quickly quashed with a thought of his unfulfilled needs.

From that time on, Gabriel and Lizzy made love at least once a week and sometimes more often. Every sexual encounter was wildly passionate and Gabriel had fallen for her hook, line and sinker! In short, Gabriel thought Lizzy was terrific and he fell very much in love with her. With no sexual frustrations, Gabriel’s relationship with Martha improved a great deal. When Martha had a brief break from studies and wanted to make love, Gabriel was an enthusiastic partner. Those moments, unfortunately, were infrequent.

A folklore is told of a frog that fell into a vessel that was filled with water. While the water was heating, the frog adjusted its body temperatures in tandem. Just when the water was about to reach boiling point, the frog could not adjust anymore. It was at that point that the frog decided to jump out. It tried several times to escape. Still, it failed because it had lost all its strength in adjusting to the rising water temperature.

Soon enough the frog died and pundits were called upon to find out what killed the frog. Most thought the boiling water was the cause of death. The frog could not decide when to jump out. This inability led to its death.

Sure enough, Gabriel had overstayed his welcome in the relationship. He had gotten cosy. Time demanded that he and Lizzy work out their weekly rendezvous to a science. He never gave the right and wrong of the situation a second thought. His newly acquired twisted thoughts consoled him that cheating is never cheating until you get caught (by your spouse).

The work project they had been assigned had continued to demand overtime.

Martha never suspected a thing. In fact, she would have never known Lizzy existed if it hadn’t been for Jane, her good friend. Jane learned about Gabriel and Lizzy’s cozy coffee breaks from another woman. Her husband worked in Gabriel’s division.

She got suspicious and did a bit of snooping. She discovered Gabriel and Lizzy’s affair and went right to Martha with breaking news. At first Martha did not believe Jane. She checked for herself. Caught Gabriel red-handed and red-faced.

Gabriel was shaken (to the core)!

He never imagined he’d be discovered. Least of all by his wife. If Martha had never known about Lizzy, she could never have been hurt. For the first time, Gabriel felt deeply guilty. He begged Martha to forgive him and tried to explain why he did it. ‘I could see how hard you were working with your studies. I didn’t want to be selfish. I didn’t want to demand that we make love‘. Sounding gibberish.

‘The thing with Lizzy just happened – then I guess I let it continue because I needed it. I never meant to hurt you. Now I can see that I was selfish after all and really stupid. I promise you it won’t happen again.’

Martha was heartbroken and furious. Why couldn’t Gabriel have said something? Why did he have to betray their marriage in order to meet his needs? For the first time Martha saw that her drive for her degrees had become a booby trap. She wept uncontrollably. Gabriel was equally devastated. He again begged Martha to forgive him and swore he will never see Lizzy again.

Love compelled Martha to forgive him and she tried to make some changes. She cut back on classes to make time for tennis again. She tried to make love to Gabriel several times a week, with passion and enthusiasm. Her salvaging efforts were a little too late.

Gabriel intended to be faithful, but in the first weeks after the confrontation he suffered severe depression. He had lost emotional control. Having to choose which of the two women to love or leave.

He loved both Martha and Lizzy. He missed Lizzy, but he couldn’t leave Martha. Gabriel loved and needed both women. They both had significant balances in his love bank. He didn’t seem how do life without either of them.

Hard as it was, he tried to stay away from Lizzy. He got back together with her to relieve his depression. He discovered she had also been depressed in his absence. She welcomed him back in a wild evening of lovemaking.

They schemed more elaborate ways to get together without being discovered. Before long Martha became suspicious. Soon she knew and came to terms with the fact that she was sharing her husband with another woman. His husband had become addicted.

What Next?

Martha wanted, rather demanded that Gabriel gets rid of the other woman because it drove her crazy. Lizzy on the other hand had by then grown tired of being noble and patient. She pressured Gabriel to divorce his wife and marry her.

Trouble was, the wayward spouse, in this case Gabriel couldn’t bring himself to give up either. His lover provided some of his needs (unlimited sex and admiration). His wife provided others (recreational companionship, domestic support and societal respect).

Gabriel turned out to be like the proverbial donkey between two bales of hay.

Instead of starving to death because it couldn’t decide which bale to choose, it tried to nibble on both bales. This affirms the lyrics ‘thoughts invade, choices are made and a price will be paid. Daddies never crumble in a day. Families never crumble in a day.’ It’s a slow fade… in slurping stolen waters and eating bread in secret!

Views expressed in this article are my own

Joseph N. Mungai is inspired by people’s life experiences. Do you have a intriguing life story and need a ghost writer? Email: j.mungai@hotmail.co.uk