I am sitting in this library, trying to write a letter to my wife to explain why I'm no longer at home. I received the sad news two weeks ago. Well, that's not totally true. I suspected something when she came home late a month ago, went right to the bedroom, and showered before coming down to supper. I later noticed her panties in the hamper when I went to throw my own underwear in. I noticed something shiny, and I picked her panties up and could see something crusty in the gusset. I sniffed and smelled the odor of dried cum. That's when I started to worry.

Why would she have crusty panties when we hadn't made love since last night? It was too fresh to have come from me after all that time. Who could it be from? She had to have cheated on me with someone tonight, but with whom? I wracked my mind trying to think of who it could be. Was it someone that she worked with? I know most of the guys she works with are very happily married. Is it someone new? Who could it be?

I spend a very sleepless night after seeing the evidence of her cheating. Shelly was snuggled to my back, spooned to me, just like always, but I was awake most of the night, trying to think of what I had done to drive her away from me and our family. I fell asleep around five, out of sheer exhaustion, tears still streaming down my cheeks, and soaking the pillow. I heard the alarm shortly afterward and reluctantly got up to try to start the day.

I went and woke the children while she showered again. I guessed that she needed to wash the stink of betrayal off her body, but it was too late for that; I already knew. I had to try to pull myself together, if for no other reason than to protect the children. I tried very hard to act normally, but it is an onerous chore to act normally when your heart has been torn asunder by an act as cruel as a cheating spouse.

It finally hit me as I was driving into work that morning. I knew the only person who could command such secrecy from her. It had to be Tim; I could think of no one else that could have the kind of hold over Shelly that Tim could command. She once told me that she didn't know how or why, but he always knew how to get to her. She was never as happy as when his parents told her that he had moved to the West Coast after college. Who else would she cheat on me with? No one, I thought, but then I never thought that she would cheat on me. How naive of me.

Once I had decided that, I needed to know more, I called my good friend and lawyer, James Goodman. I had met James in middle school, and we became fast friends. He became a family law attorney, and he did our living wills, powers of attorney, and set up the college funds for our children's future, as a favor to me.

"How are you, Jim?"

"How the heck are you, Rob? Are you just touching base since I haven't heard from you in a while, or is there trouble brewing and you needing my expert assistance?"

"It's the latter this time, Jim. I think that Shelly is cheating on me, and I think I know who with, as well."

I explained my discovery and my concerns. I gave him some background about Shelly and Timothy Dorsett. I asked if he knew of a good PI that I could contact; someone discrete, but very thorough. He said he had just the man and he would let me know.

"Please let me handle everything, Rob; you just try to keep it together long enough for me to find out what's really going on. Can you promise me that much?"

"This is probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do, Jim. I can't promise anything, but I'll try, and I owe you big on this one, Jim."

"Not hardly; I still owe you plenty after what you did for me and my family out at Hamilton Pool that day."

"Can't you ever forget about that, Jim? I just did what anyone else would do, I didn't do anything special."

"Nothing special; you were the only one who dove off that cliff to save my stupid sister when she hit the rocks by diving in the wrong spot. If you hadn't acted as quickly as you did, she would have drowned before any of us could have gotten to her. I don't think we can ever be even after that. Now you just hold it together for a few more days, Rob, and I'll get everything I can on this Timothy and Shelly. Call me anytime you need to talk, and I mean that. Now let me get to work and you go chill."

"Thanks, Jim, I'll try."

I sat at my desk, holding my head in my hands, and finally let loose. I cried like a baby; I couldn't help it. I love Shelly so much; she and our children are my life. How could I go on without her? I would have to try. I'm sure that the courts would take the children away from me if I tried to keep them. They are still very biased toward the woman, even today. The courts a man will throw him in jail if doesn't pay child support or alimony, which I think is stupid. How can a man repay the ex if he is in jail and not working? It makes no damn sense at all. Turn it around though, and the courts do nothing if the ex-wife isn't paying. Sure you can go back to court, pay all that extra money for the lawyers, court costs, and all they might do is issue a judgment and it dies there. It's so unfair.

After an hour of feeling sorry for myself, Amy Prior, my PA, buzzed me with a problem that needed my attention. I said I would get right on it and went into the restroom down the hall, washed my face, and tried to do what I knew best; work and solve problems.

My name is Robert Sampson, and I'm 36 years old, six-one, and about 195 lbs now. I try to keep fit with exercise and martial arts. I have dark brown hair that is starting to turn a little grey at the temples. I'm the IT manager for my company, and the next step up is Director of Data Services, but that as far as I'll go. We live comfortably. Shelly is also 36, about five-seven, and 110 lbs. She has a slight middle-age belly pooch that some women get after three children and many years of marriage, but she is as beautiful to me now as the day I met her.

Shelly was such a lonely girl when I first met her in college. She had thrown herself into her studies so that her parents' hard-earned money wouldn't be wasted, but she was heartbroken. She had let her appearance go, and she dressed like an urchin. No makeup, no fancy dresses, just jeans and big blouses or baggy shirts. Her hair was dirty and unkempt when I first saw her in the library. She almost stank with body odor, and yet I saw something inside of her that I loved. Something I could cherish if it was brought to the surface.

From that day on, I felt I had to help her become the beautiful woman I could see hiding inside that tough outer shell. I could see the vulnerable treasure inside. I kept trying to talk to her. I followed her almost everywhere, and she finally relented to talk to me. She slowly came out of her shell during that semester, and I thought that she saw a light at the end of the tunnel of despair that she was encased in. Shelly is much as she was when we met, well except for her hygiene, demeanor, and dress. The beauty that I saw inside her is now shining out so everyone can see what I saw that day.

But back to then; she finally relented to a date; more to get rid of me than for any other reason, I think. I was the happiest and proudest man in the world to have her on my arm. True, she had not convinced herself that she was beautiful yet, but I didn't care. She went out with me, and I rejoiced to the heavens that my angel had arisen from the dark clutches of hell and granted me an audience.

I truly fell head over heels in love with her that night, and I have never wavered since. Well, not until I found those panties last night. I have never once doubted that our love was strong enough to withstand the test of time during the whole fifteen years we have been together.

We became a couple by the end of our junior year. I knew she was the one for me by Thanksgiving of that year, and I asked for her hand in front of her whole family. I had asked her father for her hand earlier in the day, and he gladly granted it. He did warn me about Timothy, but I dismissed it as past history since he was out of the picture.

I knew nothing of her love for Timothy, and she never said anything until after I asked her to marry me. When we got back to the dorm on Friday, she explained how long she and Tim were together, about the breakup, and I rejoiced that he was now a part of her past. I now know that was a wrong decision on my part.

When we wed after graduation, I was sure that there was never a man as happy as I was. I had the love of my life, someone I just knew would be with me forever, and we could grow old together watching our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren grow up to be great people.

We both were able to get great jobs in our fields; Shelly as an accountant, and later a CPA, at Harris and Associates. I found my niche in computers, working for Saunders Manufacturing. We were blessed with our son, Robert Junior, a year after we were married. We had Stephanie two years later, and Jason came along five years after that. She said that was enough, and we decided to have her tubes tied. I was more than willing to undergo the knife rather than her, but she insisted that she would get it done since they were going to be there in the vicinity anyway. I now wonder if she somehow knew what would come later and wanted to be prepared.

The years have been kind to us, and here we are both successful in our fields; her as chief accountant at Harris, and me as the IT manager at Saunders, but now comes the part I hate. Shelly started traveling about a year ago, and I think that she met Tim again on one of her trips. That's the only explanation I could come up with.

I threw myself into my work to get through this, and then when I got home; it was for my life with our children. I didn't ignore Shelly, but it was really hard to interact with her like I had before I knew the awful truth of her betrayal.

In bed later that night, Shelly asked, "Rob, Honey, what's wrong? You seem to be troubled; is there anything I can do for you?"

"Shell, it's just some trouble at work, this new product line is causing problems. The machines won't talk to the computers, and the software is real garbage. It won't properly interface with the machines, and nothing is getting done like it should. I guess we are going to have to rewrite all the software; either that or throw it all away as a bad investment."

"Oh, Rob, I know that you can figure it out. That's why they promoted you to your position. You can solve this; just think about it and the answer on how to fix this problem will come to you and make it go away. You just rest here in my arms and I will make all your troubles go away."

"Thanks, Baby, you're too good for me."

Boy, it took an awful lot of willpower not to throw the real reason I was down in the dumps back at her. I never knew that I had the knack to lie and act like that. It was all I could do not to shiver and shake with the disgust and grief that she was causing me, let alone lay here in her lying, cheating arms and pretend to love her. I would rather cut my own arm or leg off to escape the trap of her supposed love for me. God, who does she think she is? I know what she is; she is a lying, cheating slut of a wife. Sure, she has given me fifteen years of happiness, but then how does she repay that love and happiness? She shits on me with this loser, Tim. It might have been out of habit or maybe even exhaustion, but whatever; I drifted off to sleep in her arms and slept the whole night through. Shelly wasn't in our bed when I awoke, but I heard her in the bathroom. I glanced at the clock and noticed that it was time to start another day.

I got up, woke RJ, Steffie, and Jason, and started them out on their new day. Shelly was finished in the bathroom when I came back into the master suite, so I immediately went to shower and get ready for another day of misery and shame. Yes, shame, shame that someone would soon know all the intimate details about my life with Shelly. Everyone would know that I couldn't keep my wife satisfied either at home or in the bedroom. They would find the ugly details that Shelly created when she decided to cuckold me and shit on her family. This was supposed to be something private, but it was now just someone's dirty laundry. I really hoped that it didn't become public knowledge. Of course, knowing Jim, nothing would be said, but the implication was there that I couldn't keep my wife happy at home. Why else would she stray?

When I got downstairs this morning, I couldn't look at Shelly like I always had in the past. The anger inside me was too fresh, too raw. I said, "No breakfast for me today; I need to get right to work. I think I may have a solution to my problem. See you all tonight, love ya," and I left. I left without kissing my kids or my wife for the very first time ever. I may just have screwed up everything. Shell is going to worry about that last bit; no breakfast and no kisses. God, I hope that I haven't really screwed the pooch this time. My carelessness may just cause her to think and stop her cheating. Only time will tell.

Once at work, I really did have a problem with some new software that we had purchased, it wasn't performing as advertised. I sat down in my conference room with my programmers and dissected the software. We broke it down to the very program itself and started going through it code line by code line. We were about halfway through when I noticed something that didn't look quite right. I waited to see if anyone else spotted it. Not half a minute later, Jeff, my head programmer, said, "Rob, I think I found it. It's in line 65 on page 623."

"Good catch, Jeff, I see what it is, but I'm unsure of what it's supposed to be. Dig a little deeper and see if you can find what it should be. "I'll call the supplier and see if they know of a fix for this, or if they even know it's there."

Once we had found the first problem, Jeff led Scotty and Sandra in looking to see what the software programmers were trying to accomplish. In the meantime, I called the developer and asked if they had had any complaints about their new software.

I got the standard answer that I always get when we have problems. It's not their fault that our machines don't properly interface with their software. The software has been tested and there have been no complaints. I hung up on them thinking we would have to solve our own problems and rewrite the program to do what's intended. The bosses were trying to save some money by getting off the shelf programs for certain common component parts that we made.

While I had the conversation, Jeff and his programmers had found seven additional problems. Enough was enough; I called the developer back and told them that we would cancel the orders for the other fourteen copies of the software that we needed for this operation, and we would be either buying our software elsewhere, or developing our own in future.

I then called Marie Castillo in purchasing and told her to cancel the order number BH-2395437X. We had found several severe problems with the initial copy they sent for our evaluation. I did ask if Marie knew of any other companies that could have made an order for that software.

"Rob, Gary Eastern over at Holland Manufacturing called and asked if we had experienced any problems with it, and I said I didn't think so. He said to give him a call if we did. He is their purchasing rep that I talk to all the time. Do you need his number, Rob?"

"Sure, give it to me, but I have Marshall Thompson's number and he is my counterpart over there." Marie gave me Gary's number and I called him. He, in turn, said that I really should talk to Marshall.

Holland was a company that manufactured much the same as we did here, and we were competitors to some extent, but only on a few items. They were based out of Dallas, whereas we were based out of Austin, well Round Rock, but we say Austin because most people don't have a clue where Round Rock is. We both manufactured piece parts for large and super large earthmoving equipment, graders, dump trucks, and even some of the parts for drilling rigs and platforms, although a lot of that is slow these days.

That was my next call, and as the day went, between Marshall, his programmers, our programmers, and me, we found all the errors, wrote fixes that both of us could use, and we had a working program when I left at seven that night. I had called Shell at work telling her I would be home late and she could hear the conference going on in the background behind me.

When I dragged my tired body home, Shelly was in the kitchen unloading the dishwasher. I collapsed in a kitchen chair and asked if there were any leftovers. She dropped what she was doing, reached into the refrigerator, got a plate from the dishwasher, fixed me some leftover shepherd's pie, and nuked it in the microwave for me. I went to the upper cupboard and got my bottle of Tullamore Dew, poured myself almost two fingers in a glass, and put a couple of ice cubes in to cool it down.

Two small things that I did gave Shelly a clue that I was not only tired, but I was angry and not in any mood for friendliness tonight. I was to be left alone. The two things: one was the two fingers for the first drink, and the second was that I didn't put the bottle back in the cupboard. She knew from past experience that tonight was a night to give me the space that I wanted and leave me alone. This all stemmed from a night we both want to forget about, which happened five or six years ago.

We were having a real problem with a computer virus that was morphing from one symptom to another each time we encountered it. It was driving me and all of us in the IT department nuts. I was still a programming supervisor, the job that Jeff has now. Anyway, we had been working on this problem for the better part of a week and thought we had it solved. It morphed again just before I left for the day. God, I was fit to be tied. I came home and Shelly was busy helping Steffie with some homework. I interrupted her and Steffie, and said, "I need some food and a drink. If you get the food, I'll get the drink, then you can go back to your tutoring. I'll be in the kitchen waiting."

I went back downstairs to get my bottle and a glass. I didn't even bother with the ice tonight. I poured two fingers and drained the glass. I was just pouring another two fingers into the glass about five minutes later, and Shell said, "Rob, I know you've had a rough week, but that is no excuse to talk to me like that, especially in front of the children. You need to apologize to both me and Stephanie."

"Shelly, my dear wife; from now on, when you hear or see me reach for my whiskey right when I come home from work, do not mess with me, just obey my barks and treat me like a rabid dog until I can get over the stress and problem I have of the moment. Is that understood? I will apologize to you in front of Steffie after I have calmed down, and not before, okay? Now for some food, I don't even care what it is, I just need some food."

I poured another two fingers and stared at the glass, taking slow sips. Shelly stared at me, and she saw the fire and desperation in my eyes and my face when I looked up. She also saw the anger that was there that she mistakenly thought was at her, but wasn't.

There has been only about three more times since then that I have come home and grabbed my Dew before I even said hello. Shelly and the kids have always given me room and kind of walked on eggshells when I was in this mood. I did apologize to both Shelly and Stephanie about an hour later that fateful night. I think I had solved my problem at work by then.

This time it was a combination of things that had me going to my security blanket. My Dew wasn't really a security blanket; it was what I turned to when I needed to think really hard about a problem that looked totally insurmountable. For those doubting Thomas's out there, this bottle I was pouring from is the very same bottle from five or six years ago. The blend of Irish whiskeys in Tullamore Dew never seems to go bad, and with the taste and its medicinal properties, it's the medicine that I reach for when things get so rough that I can't cope with them any normal way.

This bottle was a gift from my father on our first anniversary. He said he still had the first jug that he bought when he was stationed in England back in 1974. He said that it came in an old ceramic jug when he bought it. He has put another bottle into his jug once since then, but he said it was medicine and only to be used when absolutely necessary. He said that 'when things look hopeless and totally out of control, pour a finger or two, contemplate the problem, and you'll soon find the answer.' He was right, so now I had to contemplate my problems. First, could we fix the error in the program? If so, Marshall and I would create a new program from the two botched programs that we had received from the developer and we go from there, but did we want to patent the program and sell it to others who had the same problem we had encountered. The funny thing was that the program worked perfectly with our older Hass ST 30 and ST40 CNC machines, but it crapped out on the newer ES-5 machines. So it had to do with changing from three axes to four axes machines. That's it, it is not accepting the fourth axis commands, or it's getting confused with that part of the program. Okay, one problem solved.

Now for the real problem of Shelly and her lover; I'm just not sure what I can do to solve that problem right now. I guess I need to put it on the back burner until I get more information. By the time I had finished eating, I had come to the conclusion that I would have to wait to find out what's really happening.

I tried to be a loving spouse now and act like I normally did, and since my adopting a wait and see attitude, I felt that I could cope with things with Shelly until I knew for sure.

I went upstairs, showered, changed into my robe and silky shorts, and came back down to veg out in front of the TV.

I didn't have to fake tiredness tonight, and Shelly cuddled with me and held me on the couch. I got a real surprise when we went upstairs to bed. Shelly was in thigh-high stockings and her six inch CMF heels. She had left me to close the house up and check on the kids, so when I arrived she had fixed her hair such that it was all spread out and fluffy, and she had a touch of makeup on, giving her a glow, and you could almost see the heat emanating from her body like you would by looking at a mirage in the desert. She took charge and had me stripped and in bed in a thrice. She then began by kissing me from my head and working toward my toes. About the time she got to my stomach, I asked, "To what do I owe this treatment? Is there anything special that you are making up for?" Damn, I think I might have blown again; I will have to be ever vigilant about what I say to Shell.