Awkward & Pointless

The countdown to our meeting was tense to say the least.  The plan was to meet Jaymie at Richard's office after our son's soccer game.  I may have said this meeting was set up for the Saturday right after DDay.  That seems wrong.  I think it was the second Saturday after DDay.  Details like that don't really matter, except I am fairly certain I didn't have the strength to deal with Jaymie face to face just 4 days into the collapse of life as I knew it.

Richard was freaking out.  I've never seen him so nervous.  I didn't know he was capable of so many emotions.  Seriously, he was like a teenage girl right before her period.  Guess that's what happens when you are caught with your hand in the pussy jar.  (Sorry.  That was crass, but I'm not gonna delete it.)

He was insistent that I tell him exactly what he was supposed to say to Jaymie during the meeting.  That would kind of defeat the purpose, right?  I wanted him to tell her the truth!  Or, at least what he told me was the truth....He never loved her!  It was fun.  He thought he deserved a mistress. It was exciting, but he lied through his teeth when he told her they would be together forever.  It wasn't real love.  It was a selfish fantasy, nothing more.

I was a complete fool. (do I say that a lot?)  Thought I could ram-rod a confrontation that would help me figure it all out, fix everything.  If not everything, than perhaps start to climb out of the depths of relationship ruin and see a way forward.  Such a good reason to write this blog!  Try to save others from making the same ignorant mistakes I made!  Shine a little light on the utter darkness that is DDay!  Richard did love her.  It was a love enveloped in the fog of his breakdown, but I am sure it felt real to him.  Took me another month to get him to admit it, even though I knew it on DDay because of "the Flinch."

The drive to Richard's office was 45 minutes of nerves on steroids.  Richard, still scared to death that he would say the wrong thing and I'd throw him out of the house again.  (I let him back on the third night, in the guest bedroom.  The lovely, Dr. K, suggested it.)  For me, it was about facing a pathetic, immature girl that let herself be swept up by a man old enough to be her grandfather.  I felt nothing but disdain for her.  I wasn't nervous, because I was in control, my comfort zone.  Not nervous, but oh, so angry!   I felt explosive.  I had to reel it in and get through this, accomplish my goal...as lame as it was.  I thought this would make it better for me.  I was soooo grasping at straws.  If I could be convinced that Richard was only in it for hot sex with a young hard body, that might be less painful.  If he really loved someone else, truly gave her a piece of his heart, I couldn't fathom how our marriage could be redeemed.

We arrived first and waited on the street by the main entrance.  She was late.  Hey, no one wants to be on time to face the jury when the verdict is sure to be "Guilty as Hell"!  She drove by once.  I remember Richard spotting her instantly.  "There she is."  He seemed to breathe out in relief and anticipation.  Not the reaction I expected.  Nothing is normal in my new reality.  She parked.  Headed toward the door and never looked me in the eye once.  Into the elevator we went.  Google AWKWARD.  You'll find an image of the 3 of us in that elevator.

We decided to sit in Richard's conference room.  She chose a chair at the back.  I sat with Richard on the opposite side of the table.  Can't you just see it??  Jaymie trying to look composed.  Sitting up so very straight with her hands folded in her lap.  Striving for the essence of dignity, knowing there might as well have been a colossal "A" stitched to the front of her chest.  I was sitting across from her on the edge of my seat, ready to hear MY husband set this little piece of morally corrupt trash straight.  Richard never sat down.  He squirmed, fidgeted and tried to use humor to lighten the mood.  He can be such an ass.  He actually started the conversation with, "So...no chance of a three way, huh?"  I seethed, "Get on with it."

I am about to disappoint you.  If I tell you what was said in the meeting, I'd be making most of it up.  Only one of us cried.  That was my poor hormonal husband.  Jaymie had her head down for the most part.  She spoke after Richard finished telling her their affair was not real and he was more sorry than he could say.  She spoke, but I can't remember a damn word of it.  What could she say...I'm such an idiot....I'm truly sorry...your husband is pretty good in bed for an old guy...What?  I didn't go there to hear a thing from her.  I wanted, no...I thought I NEEDED, to hear Richard tell her it was over and it had never been real.  Reality is honest.  In his midlife crisis, she was his Porsche.

I've held on to one clear memory of this ill-conceived meeting, at the end, I had my say.  I told Jaymie any woman capable of causing so much hurt to another woman, was not at real woman at all.  A person so selfish might never earn her place in the ranks of womanhood.  I was trying to give her the smallest benefit of the doubt because of her age.  I told her that, too.  Then I said, "I hope the pain you have brought to my family comes back to you ten fold."  Then, she said that she was not there to defend herself, as if there was any defense for fucking another woman's husband.  I told her that, too.  Got in the last word.  Meeting ajourned.

She left alone.   Richard and I waited to give her time to get to her car so she could drive her worthless ass back to Mommy and Daddy's house.  On our ride home, Richard was sweating it out, waiting for my approval of his performance.  That's all it was.  An Oscar worthy performance.