Chapter 18: Rescue Mission

Through the counseling, Mel and I discovered that we had different ways we wanted to be loved. I needed to be loved in two primary ways: first, through our physical relationship and second, through supportive words that showed that Mel cared.

Physical touch is too easily laughed off as sex, particularly from a guy’s point of view. Yet what I really needed was physical gestures from Mel that signaled she loved me; for instance, a touch on the shoulder, a hug, holding my arm to her at a party, a passionate kiss, or a snuggle in bed by her warm, naked body. Yeah, sex might follow some of those.

The words of affirmation I also needed from Mel would be encouraging. They’d be a verbal intimacy, and help soothe how I felt about life, and help me rise to my full potential. They’d be little requests filled with love and not demands or judgments. They’d show she loved me and wanted me in her life and how proud she was of me. They might even have greater value if she used them in front of other people.

Mel, on the other hand, wanted my time – quality time. For at least some portion of each day, she wanted to have my undivided attention on her, and on Ashley, our toddler daughter. She wanted me to share more of my life with her as well as listen to what she was thinking about or doing. She didn’t want advice; she wanted my empathic listening, shown by my probing questions and willingness to suspend judgment. These ‘meaningful’ and intimate communications would signal to her that I truly loved her.

Also high on her list was that I would often give her little gifts of some kind, not necessarily expensive things, but just some tangible symbol of my love for her – even if it was as simple as a pretty flower I’d picked beside the road as I drove home. That flower showed that I’d been thinking about her.

As we learned and discussed each other’s ‘love languages’, as the counselor called them, we got closer to each other and came into a much deeper understanding of our love for each other and how to express it in a way that made sense to our love object. In the end, I’d never felt closer to Mel nor she to me.

Our love life had suffered during the ‘downturn’ in our marriage. As the love replaced the emptiness we both felt in our marriage, so did our physical relationship. According to the counselor, we shed a lot of our ‘baggage’ and found new ways to ‘fill each other’s tanks with love.’

Thus we found ourselves more in love than ever in our lives and then, by mutual choice and by plan, Mel was pregnant again.

The months drifted by and all too soon the Pixie grew to more resemble a waddling beach ball with a head. Hormones kicked in too. Some days I was wonderful and could do no wrong; other days, the opposite opinion prevailed. I rolled with the mood shifts, as I knew they were just a temporary phenomenon characteristic of pregnant women. We’d been through these shifts with Ashley. What I did find hard to roll with was the negative impact on our love life. By the six-month mark, Mel had gotten so big – or rather the baby and packing case had – that she couldn’t handle intercourse comfortably.

And then the phone rang one Saturday morning in mid-June.

I answered the landline phone to find a shrieking, sobbing, hysterical female voice on the other end of the line that I could not identify. The voice was trying to sound cogent and doing a very poor job of it. One word would come through and then the tears and sobbing would restart.

“Mel, I think it’s for you,” I said with a mix of concern and humor as I passed her the phone. I assumed one of her friends was having a total meltdown over something.

“Hello,” Mel said politely, unsure of why I’d passed the phone to her.

I heard Mel speaking, “Oh, dear. Darling, get hold of yourself, I can’t even understand you.” A long pause transpired and Mel said, “Oh, now that’s a little better. Tell me what’s wrong. Are you okay? Are you in danger or threatened? Where are you?”

I listened to one side of the conversation, occasionally hearing only a muffled shriek from the earpiece even though it was against Mel’s ear.

Mel tried to mouth to me who it was but I couldn’t decipher her pantomime or read her lips. She kept saying comforting words to whoever was on the phone and urging them to ‘get a hold of themselves’.

As Mel talked soothing words into the phone, I took Ashley out of her highchair and indicated to her mother that we’d go out in the backyard. I led the toddler out of the house and left Mel to deal with the distressed female on the phone.

Half an hour later, Mel waddled out onto the back deck and waved to me. Ashley and I were in the sandbox building and destroying sand castles mostly built with plastic Solo cups.

“That was Katie. She’s left Dan, or rather he’s left her, or more accurately, kicked her out.” The last time I’d seen either of them was at their wedding about four years earlier. They’d dropped off our radar screen as far as I knew except for an occasional card or rare call.

“Oh wow!” I uttered as Ashley pummeled the carefully crafted sandcastle I’d just left for her. “Why? What happened?”

Mel went on, “Seems the two of them have just grown apart and become lonely souls. Near as I could get out of her between bouts of sobbing, they were both co-existing and living in a very dead and very cold marriage then he told her last night that she had twenty-four hours to clear out of ‘his’ house. Apparently, he’s moving in some new honey tonight.”

I stood and went to Mel. I wrapped the small beach ball in my arms and told her, “Honey, I’d never do anything like that to you. We’ve got the beat. Besides we know the best counselor in the state who’ll glue us back together again. Did Dan and Katie try counseling.” I hugged and kissed her forehead.