Chapter 5

And so, my dear reader, I pause again in an attempt to flesh out a few things that may be confusing or that might not make sense in the narrow lens in which this story is focused.

I have mentioned "the children" several times during this story, and I feel it is only right to mention that they are not my children by birth, but instead, my stepchildren. I always treaded lightly when it came to that subject, because, at the time I stepped into their lives, they most likely felt I was trying to take their mother away from them.

The year was 2004. My future wife and I met, of all places, an online fetish site. She had divorced her husband of many years because she needed to be free to experience what she felt she was missing in life ... a master, a dominant, an overwhelming physical relationship based on pain and sex.

I, too, was divorced, from a beautiful Filipina who seemed more concerned with my paycheck than my well-being. We had moved from Virginia to California at her urging, so she could be closer to her relatives. The last year we were married were nothing but fights and stress and constant belittling and badgering, and eventually it all just fell apart, leading me to move back to Virginia to work for an old friend. She asked me to take her back, saying she wanted nothing more than to be my wife. However, when I weighed the peace I felt being 3000 miles away vs. the pain I felt everytime I heard her voice, the word "no" escaped from lips everytime.

Funnily enough, she has called me several times in the last few years, once after my mother died, and a few times within the last few months. She once said she knew I would come back to her when I was old so she could take care of me. Perhaps she is trying to fulfill her own prophecy?

At any rate, my future wife lived in western New York, and I lived in central Virginia. I drove up to see her every other weekend for a while, spending 48 hours with her and 24 hours on the road, with little sleep.

I met all three of her children during these trips, and enjoyed talking with them. Still, they knew I was angling to get their mother out of New York and back to Virginia. To say they weren't happy about it would be understating things greatly.

Still, she joined me in Richmond in mid-2004 ... until her first betrayal took her away from me.

You might ask ... how did we get back together? Perseverance, mostly. I wrote her daily emails, pestered her friends, and continued to make sure she knew I loved her until she finally got back in contact with me.