Scarlet letters

Monday, June 23, 2014
Me: Good morning hot stuff! 8:39 AM
Kris: Good morning! 9:23 AM
Kris: Have some fun for me today. mine is fun-filled with text threats, bitching, fighting.(I know u can’t imagine why). ANOTHER way you’re “different”. 😉 1:53 PM
Me: I am thinking of you, sending sweet, calming vibes! At the bank with Mom! Mwah! 2:03 PM
Kris: Thanks! Oh…here’s a random thought that fits right in with your current “mundane” 😉 activities – getting an occasional bj isn’t different. getting good ones so regularly with someone who seems to LIKE giving them IS! 🙂 2:06 PM
Kris: B sure to tell the truth when mom asks what you’re giggling at. “good girl”. Alfalfa 2:07 PM
Me: Now we’re eating Taiwanese food! Wish you were sitting opposite us! 2:27 PM
Me: Having fun at Walgreens now! Looking at band aids, hoping your head is okay. 3:08 PM
Kris: You’re getting bad as me…with minute by minute “mundane” updates…but love it. head’s ok – long shallow scrape – took bandaid off. just adds to decorations on Santa’s chrome dome (people r so complimentary lately…can hardly stand it). ;). !!! 4:24 PM
Me: Part of me says I should be quiet, let you focus on other things. Other part wants you to know I’m thinking of you, wishing you well, maybe make you smilie! 4:27 PM
Kris: I’m ok….dealing….don’t need to be quiet….or give me more than usual (wonderful!). I’ll let u know if i need something special or different. But for now just be your usual “Sassy Self”. Including not replying right away to every text–especially from work (sorry for reminding). Enjoy rest of day! 4:35 PM
Me: Looking at the photos from yesterday… so many good views! Feel so lucky to have seen Wingaersheek from the other side! 5:23 PM
Kris: Glad you enjoyed! Happy to give u at least SOME kind of pleasure! (Pay u a quarter later.). 😉 5:29 PM
Me: I’m headed out to the “intersection with fast food.” Picking up crap from KFC, then taco Bell, then Wendy’s!” Whee! 7:56 PM
Kris: Last message may be too long, may need to email. Ends in: “(And YOU can FUCK me ANY TIME YOU LIKE!!!).”. IF you didn’t’ get it let me know. I’ll email it. “Highly-entertaining”. Mwah! 8:27 PM
Me: Back with lots of bad food! I didn’t get your long message but it sounds intriguing! 8:48 PM
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From: Sassy
To: Kris
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 9:16 PM
Subject: Infidelity essay
Here’s that essay I mentioned.  
[from the blog “Prowling with Kat” http://prowlingwithkat.com/infidelity/]
Infidelity
———-
I’ve been thinking about this concept a lot lately.  Unfaithfulness. Infidelity.
Essentially, it means not keeping your promise, and it has come to be used almost exclusively with the act of not maintaining sexual fidelity.
Marriages split up because one spouse had sex with someone outside the marriage. It has come to the point where it is almost the single most valued thing in a marriage. “I can put up with anything as long as he doesn’t cheat on me.”  Really?
I’ve been told many times that if I’m going to cheat, I should just end it, as if sexual fidelity is all there is and if you don’t have that you have nothing. That’s just bullshit.
A long term marriage is a very complicated thing. It involves being with someone day in and day out, often while raising children, and doing your best to support, not squash, each other’s hopes and dreams.  It involves sickness and puke and seeing your partner in the most physically unattractive ways and still trying to maintain a sexual attraction. It involves a massive amount of forgiveness and humility. And love. Especially love.
I’ve shared with you before that my marriage vows were rather unconventional and didn’t include most of the typical language of marriage vows, but the point was the same. I promised to be his partner in life, no matter what. That’s it in a nutshell. I promised that nothing would ever make me walk away from him. Nothing means nothing. I promised to be in it for the long haul – in sickness, health, good times, bad times.While our vows didn’t include a sexual fidelity component, most do, and it was pretty much understood in ours.  We just didn’t say it.
The core of my commitment – and his – was that we would stay together no matter what. I would consider my husband truly unfaithful if he walked way from the marriage.  Anything short of that may fall under the “sickness, worst of times, or poorer” part, but it’s certainly not cause to leave the marriage.
A word to my divorced friends….I’m not judging you.  To make a long term marriage work,both people must be fully committed and do their part to make the marriage work. If one party has checked out there’s often nothing the other can do.
For those of you thinking, “What about abusive relationships?” I’ll admit that my “no matter what” promise has two conditions – physically abusing me or abusing our children in ANY way. In those cases, I would leave immediately, but I can’t say what would happen in the long run.  I’ve seen many families recover from such awful situations.  Each has to judge for him/herself.
But I digress…..again.  What I’m trying to say is that sexual infidelity does not erase years of fidelity to all the other promises. My husband has been with many other women during our marriage, and I didn’t know about it until fairly recently. Should that outweigh everything he’s done to honor our marriage over the past 27 years? Of course not. He’s been my partner through thick and thin for a long, long time.  He’s the father of my children.  So what if he likes to fuck younger women?  If it were a problem for me, we’d have to deal with that, but if it were so much of a problem that I’d throw everything away because of it, I’d be an idiot.
The opposite is also true.  If he was so twisted up over me having sexual encounters with other men that he couldn’t see all the good in our relationship, he’d be an idiot.  But he can see beyond it.  He doesn’t like it, and it was very upsetting for him when he first discovered it, but it’s not going to destroy the marriage. Our marriage is about much, much more than sex. Most married couples understand that, but then they turn bat shit crazy over a single incident of cheating. It’s illogical and shortsighted.
Let’s look at it from another angle. If a marriage is reasonably good in most respects (or even if it isn’t right now, but you believe in staying together no matter what), but the sex life is dead and there is nothing you can do to revive it, is it so bad to have those needs met elsewhere?  Obviously, I don’t think so, but I am aware that I am in a minority. Does it make any sense at all to let sexual dysfunction or the lack of marital sex cause the downfall of the whole relationship?  Not to me.
I’m not saying that all marriages should be open relationships, but it’s silly to let lack of sex poison things. It’s just one piece of the marital relationship, after all.
Yes, I do think that the best case scenario is to have a healthy intimacy with your spouse that includes an awesome and ever-exciting sex life. If you’ve been married over 20 years and you have that and neither of you has cheated, God bless you. You have life’s golden ticket.  Don’t take it for granted.
If you’re unmarried, or if you’ve been married for less than 18-20 years, you need to stop pushing morality that you can’t possibly understand onto other people. I often wonder how many marriages split up because one spouse cheats and the other is pushed and prodded into divorce by well meaning friends and family members who don’t truly understand the value of a long term loving, albeit imperfect, relationship with another human being.
Too often, we try to make very complex things simpler by narrowing them down to a few simple rules. That’s what has happened with marriage and infidelity. Unfortunately, no matter how much you try to make it simpler, marriage isn’t so easily “managed,” neither is anything truly valuable in life.
If someone were to ask me if my husband has been faithful to me over these past 27 years, my answer would be, “In almost every way, and certainly in all the ways that really matter. I’m a very fortunate woman.” His answer would be the same.
=====
From: Kris
To: Sassy
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 9:49 PM
Re: Infidelity essay
Hi Sassy,
Interesting essay. Agree with some parts–not all.  Think there’s a little “rationalizing” in there at points–but get it in general. 
Here’s what I wrote in a text to you earlier tonight (that was too long to be delivered apparently):
Wife texted that she “wants to talk” which means she’s still highly pissed but may be slowly calming down.  She has talked to kids to get them on her side, has talked to people she works with (cuz she’s a “boundary-less”, senseless idiot when she’s either highly-anxious or very enraged–which right now she’s both–at different times), has talked to numerous friends, has talked to the senior pastor of the church we attend…because I bought a bike! Whee. 🙂 what fun!   
Why don’t we just bring back public humiliation in the town square?  Instead of a scarlet letter “A” (which would also actually fit me), I’d wear the scarlet letters “LB-HD” (“lying, bike-hiding deceiver”).  Small children walking by with their mothers could deride me and throw things at me.  Their mothers could use me as an object lesson to scare them into behaving. “See that man over there, Johnny?  If you don’t want to end up like him you’d better always tell the truth and never lie or hide anything.” LOL!!!!   This may sound bizarre to you–sweet, gentle, respectful “Sassy”–but her saying she “wants to talk” means the beginning of negotiating peace.  
(I hear you humming with lusty pleasure as you chomp on that fast food! LOL!)   I’m back on black coffee–AND MY BIKE!   FUCK ‘EM IF THEY CAN’T TAKE A JOKE!  (And YOU can FUCK me ANYTIME YOU LIKE!)
Well, I  thought the above was funny.  You may not.  I’ve got a twisted sense of humor.
Anyhow—I think I need to take your advice and close this Yahoo email address and Yahoo messenger– and open some under new names.  Any advice about how to do it so that no traces are left anywhere?
Crazy Kris  
=====
From: Sassy
To: Kris
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 11:04 PM
Subject: Re: Infidelity essay
Hiya Kris! 
Thank you for writing.  It is fascinating to see inside your head for awhile.  I do get the humor and the sadness and your free spirit! 
Reading that infidelity post helps crystalize what I think in which parts I agree or disagree.  And know that I am not alone in dealing with these issues. 
I’m so glad your W is ready to talk and there might be some peace for you. I hope you can have a productive talk… that she might listen, or give you clues on how to resolve it.  I think you have a right to complain about her blabbing to everyone.  I am surprised she would want everyone to know she is married to an ass (in her opinion).  I’ve gotten more and more private as I get older.  I can not imagine bitching about Hubby to my family. They already think poorly of him.  Don’t want to exacerbate the situation.  I consider keeping his secrets to be one of my main wifely duties!  Hubby’s trick is to mouth off on Facebook.  I told him once not to do that with our personal business, when he posted something way too private about my breast cancer treatment, and he has not done it again. 
Do you like going to church? I’d certainly consider it a good excuse never to go back if she told the senior pastor that you… OMG… bought
a motorcycle!!  What was the pastor’s advice, I wonder?  
Thank you again for not confessing, for not outing me.  The wisdom in the EMR world is “Deny, deny, deny.”  The less said the better?
Here’s a link to an article on getting rid of a Yahoo account.  If it were me, I’d 
1) Set up a new one.  
2) Forward anything you want to keep (not much) to it.  
3) Delete the emails in the inbox, drafts, sent messages, any folders.  
4) Delete all the chats. 
5) Then all the trash. 
6) Do what it says here –
You may want to consider other free email services such as Gmail, hotmail, etc. if she is using Yahoo so your logins don’t mingle with hers.  
Another thing we might do is to share an account and leave messages in the drafts folder, just text a code word when there is a new one to read, then delete them at regular intervals.  No inbox or sent mail or contacts to be found. 
Just tossing out ideas… I can help with whatever appeals.  I would assume she is going to get on your computer and your phone the first chance she gets – clean them up!  Don’t leave them logged on, unguarded when you are say… in the shower or bathroom.  
I’d better get to bed. Take care dear man.  Your different gal is here waiting.
-S

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