Chapter 1

I thought the happiest day of my life was when I married my long time sweetheart Becky from my hometown of Brownwood, Texas. Now I know that this was possibly the worst day of my life, and in more ways than one this event nearly utterly screwed up the next twenty years of my life.

To be simple, Becky was the proverbial girl living next door to me and we had lived our entire childhood together. We were both born in the same month and year (August 1960), went to the same schools, had mostly the same classes and on most Saturday afternoons we went to the same movie matinees together. By the time we were both sixteen, nearly everyone in town assumed that we would undoubtedly marry later as "High School Sweethearts", but it didn't quite happen that way.

Late in the summer just before our sophomore year of high school, one Anthony (Tony) Brown moved into the vacant house on the other side of Becky's and our love triangle was born. His family had moved into Brownwood from a smaller nearby town in order that Tony might be able to play football for our local high school, which was considered a real "powerhouse" and was always heavily scouted by the college recruiters.

Tony was tall dark and extremely athletic, and I knew I was in trouble the first time I watched Becky stare at him while her was mowing his lawn with his shirt off. It was immediately obvious that her heart began to beat in a way that it apparently never had for me. I wasn't a total pasty skinned fat blob or a scarecrow; I was admittedly slightly chunky and wasn't much into sports but I did enjoy baseball and could pitch well enough to be our schools #2 starter right off the bat during the spring season of my freshman year.

As soon as school started, Becky began to devote her every effort into making Tony her new main boyfriend, and as she was easily the prettiest girl in school she soon had few other rivals for his attention. Within weeks they were "an item" and after the Homecoming game a few weeks later it was common knowledge around school that Becky and Tony "had done it" under the stadium bleachers after the game.

Naturally, this angered me considerably, and I never surrendered without first putting up a fight. After I heard about the bleacher incident I immediately confronted her about her relationship with Tony the next time she came over to ask me for help with her homework. The conversation got off to a bad start and soon I was directly complaining that apparently now she only remembered me when she had homework to be done at the last moment, obviously so that she could spend more time the rest of the week spreading her legs for her new boyfriend. Some other unpleasant words were exchanged; the most biting comment from her being that, "Tony was at least a man, while I was still apparently just a jealous boy."

We parted immediately afterwards in considerable anger, and we had very little to do with each other for at least the next year and a half. I became obsessed with my studies (I had decided that I wanted to be an accountant just like my father), and refocused all of my outside school activities to purely academic ones instead of athletic ones. Once I saw that Becky had no interest whatsoever in watching me pitch for our school baseball team the next spring, I dropped the sport to the considerable dismay of my coach, and instead became active in the Astronomy, Science, Math and Chess clubs instead. Tony had destroyed any love I might have had for sports and I concentrated myself on improving my mind instead.

Early in my senior year the school bought its very first Apple Computer, and I found my new heaven. I read and reread the limited manuals that came with it until I knew them in my sleep. I took every odd job that I could find, mostly involving pretty hard work I would have preferred to have avoided otherwise, and bought more computer books from a specialty bookstore in Dallas. It didn't take me long at all to write my first computer program and I felt like there was nothing I couldn't accomplish with it. I was pinching every penny I could earn to save up for my own computer. They were expensive then, nearly the price of a car, but I had my goals set for after graduation.

With my head stuck either in a programming manual or squinting at a computer monitor, I honestly hadn't been paying much attention at all to what Becky and Tony had been up to; frankly, by that point I really didn't care. Tony became, of course, a "High School Football Legend" and by the time his senior year had started, he had been offered full scholarships to every top University and College in the state, and was even considering offers from a number of out of state schools with "elite powerhouse" football reputations. In the end he selected a school in southern California and was openly bragging to his many friends about all of the "fine tanned tail" he had banged on his recruiting visit there.

It was no secret to anyone that Tony always had a "girl or two on the side", but Becky had apparently pretended never to notice this, and was clearly planning for their "life together in California". It came as quite a terrible and sudden shock to her to find out immediately after graduation, that she was very much now on his back-burner. He immediately left for college in California ... without her, or even saying goodbye.

She was devastated, and naturally the shoulder she ran to cry on was mine. In those days we considered it "just being a friend", but nowadays there's a new and better term for it. I was her "Intellectual Whore" whom she would now run to and tell me all of her emotional and relationship problems, repeatedly telling me how much she "cared for me", but yet keeping herself emotionally detached enough to never show the slightest inclination towards accepting me as her lover - but making me believe that it was still a possibility. And I let her get away with it, for nearly the next two years!

Bitter? Darned right I was!

By the end of 1979, I had bought my first computer, a used Apple II, and had programmed my first useful piece of accounting software that I now used daily at my part-time job as a bookkeeper while I attended the local Junior College at night. Becky was casually working part time and going to school but was showing little enthusiasm for either activity. Our relationship was getting a bit closer; we were actually dating again now and going regularly to the movies and dinner, if I could afford it. She still had her heart set on Tony, although he never called her anymore and barely even wrote occasional postcards, and he rarely came home for visits from school ... but when he did, Becky would race back to his side.

That changed the next Christmas time when Tony rode into town like the conquering hero he always pretended to be. He was already a big shot in college football and his eyes were already looking towards his Pro career. Everyone in town treated him like a rock superstar, and Becky, forgetting that he had dumped her several times before, ran back once again into his arms and once again spread her legs willing for him, which naturally he accepted.

A few days later I got the expected tear filled phone call from Becky that she had once again been dumped by Tony. This time, just moments after having sex with her, he had told her to leave because he needed to "get ready for a date with another girl." This was too much even for Becky, who ran crying into my arms yet once again immediately afterwards.

I still don't know how or why it happened, but a few minutes later she was naked and in my arms and I soon lost my virginity into the womb of the woman I had loved, not an hour after she had been previously used by her boyfriend. Yes, I was weak and should never have let this happen. More fool me!

After our frantic but unplanned coupling, Becky became upset and started into a crying fit shortly thereafter, as she "hadn't meant for this to happen" and she was "confused". She dressed nearly immediately and ran for home. I didn't see or talk to her again for nearly three months, until she announced to me that she was pregnant and I was "the father". At the time it never occurred to me to question her further about her prior sex with Tony (unprotected of course), not to mention that on our only coupling I had been getting his sloppy seconds.

I guess in the end it was a "man thing". We did have unprotected sex together, and it was indeed barely possible that the child was "mine". It was therefore my 'responsibility' to own up to my actions and do what I could to make things right.

I offered to marry her, but she did not accept right away. I know now that she spent a considerable amount of time on the phone trying to call Tony in California trying to get him to take responsibility for "his child" and marry her. Allegedly, Tony had laughed and told her to "let your geek friend raise it for me" and then he hung up on her.

In the end, there was a small private ceremony at the local Justice of the Peace's office with Becky and her mother both competing to see who could be the most unhappy about the wedding. It should have been a day of joy and happiness for us; instead the mood was like everyone was at a funeral. It ought to have been the happiest day in my life - but it sure didn't feel like it. She had wanted Tony, but had to "settle" for me.

Money was a terrible issue from the beginning; neither of us had any. We lived at home with my parents who had always liked Becky and had been supportive of us "doing the right thing". Becky dropped out of Junior College and worked as much as she could, but she was having a troublesome pregnancy and nearly miscarried a few times before being put on bed rest for her last two months before delivery.

Becky, I believe, prayed every day that she would miscarry the child and probably only the strong religious beliefs of her parents kept her from aborting the child as soon as it was discovered before our marriage. On the other hand, it is quite possible that she really believed that Tony wanted her to keep and raise his child and possibly her would return for it and her someday.

Nearly from the very start it was obvious that Becky and I were married in name only, and she certainly never shared any of her inner thoughts with me.

I reduced my school schedule a bit so that I could work as a bookkeeper full time for a full forty hour week paycheck, and I also took every little part time job I could get, but there weren't many. Even while only paying a small token rent to my parents, with all of the doctor bills, pregnancy clothes and a small car payment for a used junker that got me to work, school and back, we were just barely making ends meet. Instead of "glowing" as soon-to-be mothers are said to do, Becky instead become more and more depressed. We didn't talk much, and hardly ever had sex at all and none at all her last three months.

Even what little sex we did have wasn't very good. Becky would just lay there motionlessly on the bed and let me do her, often with an obviously bored or distracted expression on her face. Clearly, I didn't match up or compare at all with her dream stud lover, Tony.

Our daughter Olivia was born a little early in late August and even her naming started another fight between us. Becky had written in the child's name on the birth certificate without even asking for my input. More importantly, Olivia was the name of Tony's mother. From my viewpoint, she had named "our baby" after her ex-boyfriend's mother. Naturally, that Olivia was very pleased by this and always treated the baby as if it was her own granddaughter, and I think she strongly suspected that it really was.

Rather than reviving after the difficult birth of her child, Becky spun herself into an even deeper cycle of anger and depression. Today, everyone knows about 'post partum depression' but that treatable illness was virtually unknown then. Becky became even colder to me and seemed to have little or no love for the child whatsoever. More and more, I had to assume more of the childcare responsibilities in addition to all of my other duties, and soon everything was suffering as a result.

I believe that Becky would have wanted a divorce by this point, except that then she would probably would have received sole custody of the child - a virtual guarantee in that era, especially in a small town in rural Texas. Instead, for the next two years we became strangers living in the same house, with our sex life or any other meaningful signs of any real emotional attachment, quite nonexistent. I tried to provide little Olivia with a bit of the extra love that her mother seemed incapable of showing to her, but I knew that it wasn't enough. How do you explain to a two year old that her mother doesn't love her and obviously wishes daily that she had never been born?

At work my marital unhappiness was soon well known, and I had several offers of 'companionship'. Once, when I was at a very low emotional moment during the joyless Christmas season of 1981, I accepted one of those offers from a young coworker named Marlie. We went to a motel on the outskirts of town and had fun for 3 hours. I felt guilty over the breaking of marital vows, but what vows had she kept for me? I was certainly not loved or cherished, let alone honored or even remotely obeyed.

Those 3 hours of sheer joy probably saved my own mental health. For those few brief moments someone 'cared about me' and I was able to experience genuine and compassionate lovemaking! I realized then that my current life utterly sucked and something had to be done other than the current status quo of both of us wallowing in utter misery.

I returned home and proudly confessed my affair and told her that I'd 'do it again' if Becky didn't get her ass off of the floor and contribute something — anything, to this marriage. This earnest and very sincere confession seemed to shock Becky out of the worst of her malaise. We had a huge fight that lasted for days, but at the end of it we decided that we would not divorce and would try and work out some of the mess that was our relationship.