“Hmm,” Dante murmured. “I suppose she is right.”
“Yes, well that was the first of the revelations,” Mary said wryly. “By the time I left her office, I was thinking less like a victim, and acknowledging my part in things. I had told even myself that I wanted my marriage to work, but my actions said something else entirely. In truth, I hadn’t wanted Joe back as a partner; I’d wanted to punish him pure and simple. And I had. I’d got exactly what I’d wanted,” she said wryly. “And then Linda made me begin to question Joe’s motives in all of this. Why had he put up with my punishing him? Why had he stayed married to me when I offered him nothing but food he disliked, a cat he couldn’t breathe around, and children who grew increasingly distant from him? What had been in it for him?”
“She suggested I put off the divorce, and that we work together first, her and I, and once we got to a space where I felt comfortable, bring in Joe for couples counseling.”
“I was sure Joe would never agree to couples counseling,” she admitted quietly. “But I was wrong. We set the divorce aside. I moved back to the house with the kids and he got a temporary apartment close to work while I started therapy. But it wasn’t long before my whole attitude was changed and I was able to see things more clearly. And then the couples counseling started. I found out the first session that after I’d spoken to him about the couples counseling, Joe had called Linda and asked if he could see her one-on-one like I was doing. So he’d been working too. We both knew what our motivations were, and understood what we’d each been doing, and it was just a matter of admitting it to each other, and finding out a way to deal with each other without falling into old patterns.”
“And what was he doing?” Dante asked dryly. “Aside from having affairs at every turn?”
“Joe hadn’t intended on having the first affair,” Mary said quietly. “That had developed over long hours together working a project. He said he knew he should have arranged for her to be transferred the moment he realized what was happening, but he’d been afraid of looking stupid or weak at work. It had been a mistake.”
“I’ll say,” Dante muttered.
“No one’s perfect,” she repeated solemnly. “And there were extenuating circumstances. We’d been married three years when I finally got pregnant. I expected it would happen right away, but it didn’t. It took three years, so for three years I was just a housewife, cleaning house and cooking meals and getting comments from friends and family like didn’t I want to do anything? Didn’t I feel I should stop being a burden to Joe and get a job?” She paused and then admitted, “It wasn’t very good for my self-esteem. I felt like a failure because I wasn’t getting pregnant and started having problems with depression. I doubt I was great fun to live with after the first year or so.”
“That does not—” Dante began, but she continued over him.
“Then when I finally did get pregnant? Well . . . I was over the moon, of course, and sick as a dog. I spent more time hanging over the toilet than anything else. Joe used to come home from work to a mess, no food and would spend hours just rubbing my back and holding my hair out of the way as I threw up. My doctor said he’d never seen such a bad case of morning sickness. Which is a misnomer by the way, it was morning, noon and night sickness.”
“Then Joe had a big project come up. If it was a success, he’d get a promotion. If not . . .” She shrugged. “He started working late hours on it, probably partially because he needed to, but maybe also a little to avoid coming home to my misery.”
“And he started the affair with his secretary,” Dante said quietly and glanced over to see her nod in response. His mouth tightened as he shifted his eyes back to the road, and he growled, “You were carrying his child, Mary, and apparently very sick in doing so. It is not okay that he had an affair.”
“Oh, of course it isn’t,” she agreed. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying it was okay that he had the affair. He should have talked to me. I was so miserable myself; I didn’t realize how miserable he was. He should have suggested I see a specialist and see if anything could be done about the nausea. Or, he could have suggested I get a friend or family member in to help me. Or found any other way to handle it. But he didn’t. He had the affair. That was his choice, and what he had to live with afterward.”