Chapter 6: Janet Explains her Problem

When Tom picked me up, my first reaction was alarm. For the past 17 years we have had a deep subliminal connection. It is a sort of subconscious link between him and me that we have had since the first day we met. That connection was utterly dead and I was terrified.

I had spent three and a half days doing continuous soul searching and I had a lot to tell him. I might add that none of it reflected well on me. But, if he was unable to get past the simple fact of my cheating I was doomed, no matter what I had discovered about myself.

I got in his car and we drove the 15 miles to the marina. It was a beautiful day and I concentrated on looking away from him out the window. I was afraid of what I might see in his face. He said nothing to me in the half hour it took to get from our house to the boat.

We have been sailing together for 15 years and so the process of getting out into the Sound is almost automatic. He does his jobs and I do mine. We were silent throughout. I had gone from dread to sheer terror. I was frightened the entire week after those pictures first arrived. But I had no idea what fear was, until now. I thought I was going to throw up.

We motored out of the bay and into the Sound and then we set the sails. In about twenty minutes we reached a point in the open water where there was no ship traffic. In fact, you couldn’t see anything but water for miles around us. Tom deployed the anchor. The sun was hot, but being out on the water made it pleasant, not uncomfortable.

I was so agitated that I couldn’t stand up any longer. So I sat down on the side bench nearest the navigator’s table. Tom asked me where I wanted to talk. I told him that right here in the sunlight was as good a place as any. I told him that I HAD to know what he was thinking.

He started out by telling me that he could forgive me for my actions with that evil man. He said that he was not happy I had fucked him. But that he could see how I was manipulated into it and that he truly believed that what I had done was an aberration; the result of a rare alignment of malevolent stars. He cautioned that it had better NOT happen again, which I suppose I deserved but it hurt to hear it anyhow.

My heart sailed upward like a kid’s balloon. I would have started to cry with relief except I had vowed to be brave for him and I had important insights that I needed to share. He turned to me with an oddly forbidding look on his face and said, “Now it’s your turn.”

I had been rehearsing my speech for hours. Except now I was tongue tied. I was sitting there looking at the deck without the slightest idea of what to say. So I started in with the obvious.

I said, “I love you. I have loved you from the day I met you. I will never stop loving you. I have thought about what motivated me to act the way I did and I have some ideas that I want to share with you. We have always worked through the problems in our life together and I need you to help me with this.”

I asked him, “Do you believe in your heart of hearts that I thought that those pictures were real. That I had no idea you could manufacture “proof” like that?”

He looked at me lovingly and said, “Yes, I have lived with you long enough to know that you are a total idiot when it comes to digital things. They looked authentic on the surface; even to me. And there is nothing in your entire history that would lead you to suspect that kind of treachery.”

I said, “So you agree that I believed that you had betrayed me in the most hurtful way possible.”

He said. “I know how I would feel if I saw pictures of you doing that. I’d be shocked and disheartened beyond any possibility of redemption. It would destroy everything that I held sacred in my life.”

He added, “And before you ask the question I can tell you that I would think that I had never known you in the first place. I recognize that was how you must have felt and I can relate to your state of mind. I would be completely overwhelmed.”

I said with such extreme emotion in my voice that it even surprised me, “That is only part of it.” He looked puzzled.

I started out, “It might seem incredible to you, as it does to me now, that I would immediately turn to another man, given how much we have meant to each other. But I am the pretty girl. I have always been able to manipulate men. They’re like dogs. All I have to do is give them is a little scratch behind the ears, and they do whatever I want them to do. So I have been conditioned to always have a man take care of any unpleasant situations for me.”

I added with sadness in my voice, “That power has made me weak, because, I never learned to swim in troubled water. All my life I have counted on my beauty to insulate me from everything bad in this world. Oh, it was never the actual beauty. But because of my face and figure I have never had to fight my own battles. All I had to do was play the damsel in distress and hordes of white knights would ride to my rescue. I NOW realize how shamelessly I used that ploy.”

I said with love, “You filled THAT role for me for the past 17 years. And you made my world a haven of peace, contentment and absolute security. I am proud to be your wife and happy to spend a career working in a place where I can be dedicated to making children happy.”

Then I added, “Nevertheless, I am ashamed to admit that my complete dependence on you made me utterly helpless in the hands of somebody smart enough to see that I was hollow inside. So, when I thought you had betrayed me I was caught in a hurricane. And Murphy was there like the proverbial life raft to save me from drowning.”

Then I stopped and looked at him with sincerity. I said, “My subsequent actions have convinced me that even though I appear to be a mature woman, I have the personal strength and integrity of a child. Without a man around to protect me I am naïve, fragile and exposed to the dangers of the world.”

I added sadly, “Given my personal weakness, imagine how alone and frightened I was when you were removed from my life. Then you will understand what drove my actions that week. I was beyond panic stricken and so I naturally turned to a man to solve my problems.”

I said, trying to maintain my resolute tone of voice, “I was sure you had abandoned me and I was completely lost. I called Murphy because he was YOUR friend, not mine. I thought he could be trusted because YOU trusted him. And he straightaway became my emotional prop in your absence. Before you go to the trouble of pointing it out, I am not missing the fact that I must have associated him with you, since he got through my defenses a lot faster than normal.”

I said, “He had plenty of time in advance to plan the seduction and because I am weak and naive he easily led me to my downfall. He was totally non-threatening and he seemed to sincerely care about my pain. And let me assure you that I was feeling very, VERY sorry for myself during that period. So his sympathy especially resonated with me.”

I added, “More important, and God forgive me for this, I absolutely hated you for what I thought you had done to me. He kept whispering in my ear that the pictures were only the tip of the iceberg. He said that you betrayed me numerous times before, but he just didn’t have the proof like he had this time.”

I grimaced and said, “I would have spoken to you right away if he had not kept waving that ‘proof’ in my face. Every time I suggested talking to you, he would drag out a new horror to show me. I know now that he was just keeping me on a leash by stoking the fires of my jealousy. But at the time it seemed like he was the only caring friend I had and I absolutely didn’t know who YOU were.”

I added, “And he always came off as somebody who cared about BOTH of us. He did a masterful job of acting the reluctant and embarrassed friend every time he showed me a new picture, like he was ashamed to be the one to tell me. He left the impression that although he loved you he simply could not sanction your behavior, like he was the moral son dismayed by the actions of his older brother.”

I said, “And because I trusted him I let him lead me into a view of the situation that he had deliberately designed to make me as totally dependent on him as I had previously been on YOU.”

Tom looked like he was going to say something. Before he could, I hastily added, “You don’t need to tell me. I know that he should never have been able to so easily shove me off course. I should have been steering by my own internal compass and strong enough to make the right decisions. But because I was so dependent on you, I couldn’t handle your betraying me and I threw myself into the arms of any friendly face willing to help me cope.”

I continued with, “IF I had had the courage to stand up for myself I would have immediately involved you in the discussion. You are my husband and you are the person who I had pledged my trust to. I want you to understand that I recognize and accept that it was my lack of personal strength that put me where I am now. And I know that I will have to become a stronger and more independent woman before I will trust myself, let alone ask YOU to trust me. But I have no way of even knowing where to begin building those qualities into my life. That is where I hope you can help me.”

I looked at him pleadingly and said, “I want to be better for you because I am sure that without the confidence to face things there will be another time; a time when I will be challenged and fail again.”

Then, realizing what I had just implied I said with horror, “I don’t mean to suggest that I will EVER be unfaithful to you. Experience is the key for me. Ever since I was a teenager I have had every kind of man, old, young, handsome and ugly constantly hitting on me at every public situation, or social event. But from long experience I know what they are doing and I am expert at deflecting them.”

I added, “I thought that I had experienced every conceivable trick a man could pull to get into my pants, but those were like simple flirtations compared to what Murphy did to me. He attacked me through YOU. He knew that you were the center of my life. So when he made me doubt you I was totally lost. I am not an intellectual like you are. I have to experience something in order to recognize it and now that I have experienced Murphy’s kind of deceit I can assure you that I will never be fooled that way again.”

Finally, I said, “I know that I will never doubt you; EVER. But I cannot go through life being so easily manipulated by people because I lack the strength and integrity to think for myself. I would rather die than hurt you again. And I am terrified that I will get pulled into another situation where I do that very thing. So I need to fix the part of me that won’t face unpleasant things. In short I am going to have to learn to cope independent of you.”

Then I turned my sad gaze at him and said hesitantly, “So maybe I need to live by myself for a while until I am confident that I am a grown woman with the courage to do the right thing. I swear to you that I am suggesting this only because I want to grow to be the person you deserve. I am not interested in another man and it would kill me to not be with you.”

I added, “But I want the old bond between us back and there is no other way I can see reestablishing it, except by re-earning your trust. I know I destroyed our special married connection by my actions. I want to prove to you that you can trust me again. The only way that I can think to do that is by proving to BOTH of us that I can handle life without you.”

He fell back in his seat like I had slapped him. He seemed surprised and I thought I detected a hint of pride in his eyes. He sat for a long time with his hands clasped staring at the deck in front of him.

Finally, he said, “What you just said is a very good start. I was afraid that you were going to react to my forgiving you like that meant that we could go back to business as usual. And that was simply not going to happen. I really, honestly, sincerely don’t care if you fucked the guy. Well actually I do A LOT. But I can forgive THAT because I can see exactly how it happened and I believe that you are a lot wiser now.”

He added, “What really hurts is that you semi-fell in love with another man over the short period of one week. The visions of you dancing romantically and tenderly with him and making out with him and parading around seductively in front of him keep me awake at night. And I have not been able to get rid of the anger that I feel every time I think about it.”

He said, “It will take a while, if ever, for me to get over your willingly sharing your special self with that asshole. I can appreciate that he worked very hard to worm his way that close to you. But the fact that you so easily fell into the trap is something that I simply can’t understand or forgive right now. And that is what we have to resolve before we can ever get our marriage to the way it was.”

He said, “What you just told me gives me a much better idea of why that was even possible. I realize that you have always been dependent on men. And with a face and body like yours I can understand why men would be falling all over themselves to slay whatever dragons needed slaying. Hell, I have been proud to be your knight in shining armor for the past 17 years.”

He smiled grimly and said, “So, I suppose that if I suddenly morphed from white knight to dragon, it would be natural for you to turn to somebody else to handle the problem. And it speaks well for you that you recognize that it is your essential lack of personal integrity that is the root of the problem.”

He added, “I can see that you need to build up your self-confidence. That is, if you are ever going to be a true other half of this marriage. I also believe that the only way you can grow stronger is if we do NOT fall back into the same old married routine. I want to add that I admire your courage in seeing that; and wanting to take the first affirmative step to solve the problem.”

He said, “To be honest though, I would have taken that step for you since there is no way I can simply ignore the past two weeks.”

Then Tom looked speculatively at me, like he had more to say but wasn’t sure how to bring it up. I thought “Oh shit!!”

He looked seriously at me and said, “Murphy is on the run from the Feds. He has been a very bad boy and as a result he is probably looking at life in a Federal prison.” I gasped. I had no idea I was playing with that kind of fire.

Tom looked even more penetratingly at me and said, “Murphy was planning on setting up housekeeping in Cuba and he told the Cubans that you would have to come along with him as part of his deal.”

Frankly, I didn’t even know what Tom was talking about. I said, “I don’t understand, I don’t know why he would mention my name? Are you implying he thought I would just run away with him to Cuba?”

Tom said, “Apparently, he thought that you were attached enough to him that you would be willing to go along to his new residence.”