Critical Wife Failure

By Jennifer Frances

"I should tell you up front. This is not a love story. Sure, it’s got a boy and it’s got a girl. They meet, fall in love, and get married. And they are happy. Classic fairy tale stuff. But the thing that they never tell you about fairy tales is what comes after. What comes after the “ever after.” As I said, this isn’t a love story. This is a story about how it can all fall apart. And how, with the right people and a good sense of humor, you can put it back together and maybe find something even better."

At least that is what my friend Sophie has to say about my story, because she agrees that the pen is mightier than divorce. In any case, it is how I coped with a relationship that ended suddenly and allowed me to take the worst and laugh about it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365079139

Book preview

Critical Wife Failure

Critical Wife Failure

By Jennifer Frances

Copyright

Copyright Ⓒ 2016 by Jennifer Frances

All rights reserved.  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First printing 2016

ISBN #: 978-1-365-07913-9

www.criticalwifefailure.com

Dedication

To my sisters, for their patience, love, and understanding.  Thank you for laughing and crying with me.

Author’s Note

I want to be clear that there is no black and white to this story.  It is full of grey areas, much like how some neighborhoods of San Francisco can be pocketed in, whilst others bask in the sun.  I don’t picture myself as a saintly wronged women.  I have made many mistakes in my lifetime and surely made a few in my marriage.  In fact, if I step in a church, I usually expect to spontaneously combust.

I know that my former husband has own view of our marriage and why it ended.  Maybe he got tired of my cellulite or I farted in my sleep one too many times.  The point is, he has reasons and he has his side.  Neither should his opinion of how things happened nor his feelings be discounted. This tale was not meant to point fingers, lay blame, or serve as revenge, it is simply a slice in the pie of my life and I wrote about it to get through it.   You can decide which one of us sucks more for yourself, but you are only hearing my view.

Having said that, I have changed the names of those involved in this section of my life story to protect the innocent and the ones who may or may not have kinda sucked.

Leaving Day

Oh God. Oh no, please God, no.

That is all I could think of. I mean, that is, if I was even thinking at all.  When it first happened, it was all I could do to just sit there with my jaw unhinged in disbelief.   I mean, of course I was stunned. I had just been hit by a bus and I wasn’t even crossing the fucking street.  OK, not literally, but figuratively.

It happens to so many people.  I guess some may have a fleeting thought on their wedding day that this can happen, but we take those vows and choose to believe that the person we are marrying is good and would never hurt us - not intentionally, not terribly, horribly and seemingly without a second thought.  But they can.  And many of them do, the fuckers.  Well hey, I suppose if a man could leave a woman like Sandra Bullock, America’s sweetheart, for some tattooed bimbo, then this could happen to anyone, right?  I just didn’t expect it to happen to me.

The day it happened to me, I went to work early.  I roused my husband to kiss him goodbye and tell him that I loved him, as I always did.  Normally, he would roll over sleepily, stretch, quite possibly fart, and respond with, Love you too, babe.  But not that morning.  Oh no, that morning it was, I’m sleeping.  No stretching, no farting, just to the point. RED FUCKING FLAG, I tell you now.  But then it was just one of a thousand red flags I had missed. Hindsight and all that shit,

The night before had been a bad night (we’ll get to that later), so I thought he was just a little angry and we would talk about it when I got home.  I didn’t really think too much of it. I even called him during the day to test the waters and he seemed distracted, but fine.  My very words were, I guess last night wasn’t as bad as I thought, before I hung up.  He said nothing.  Like an idiot, I chose to believe my own words instead of the clanging warning siren that was going off in my gut, like an overdose of sriracha.

When I drove up to the house after work, I saw my husband through the window.  He was standing just like the end-scene in the Blair Witch Project. You know, when the guy is standing in the corner with his head hanging low, waiting for execution or something?  (Forgot to say spoiler alert if you haven’t seen it, but oh well.)  I saw him standing that way with his eyes cast down and I knew.  I knew that something was wrong and I was walking into a booby trap and I was probably going to get killed.  The gut bomb sirens were in full force now and when  I reluctantly got through the door he immediately walked over and put his arms around me.

We need to talk. he said.  Jesus, don’t you love those words?  They are right up there with You have cancer,  I ran over your dog,or Kenny G is releasing another album.  No one wants to hear that shit.

You’re scaring me, I said and my heart began to pound.  This was bad.  This was very, very bad.  This was like somebody has died, bad. He took my hand and led me into the bedroom.  I don’t know what symbolism or weirdo Freudian shit that might mean, but that is where he chose to say what he was going to say. You are really starting to scare me, I repeated and I could feel a slight tremble in my voice. He sat me down on the bed and held my hand.  This was getting so much worse than somebody has died.

I am unhappy.  We haven’t been communicating, and I am leaving.

That Texan drawl of his that I had always found so comforting before had become cold and calculated. He spit it out as if the words were bullets on a Powerpoint presentation: one, two and three.  There was a pause, and I tried to swallow. No response: my throat had constricted like it was being squeezed by python and my heart felt like an alien about to burst through my chest.  WHAT THE FUCK?  Whaaaa? I tried to swallow once more, but the snake was wound too tightly.

A thousand questions raced through my head: Where is this coming from?  You are unhappy?  You are leaving me? I don’t understand, wait...what? From what I knew we had a pretty good marriage, but apparently I had been hallucinating happiness.  Well, sure we had a few problems - well one major problem, really - but marriage-ending ones?  

He looked me in the eye, briefly, and then he looked down - bracing himself for the next blow he was about to deal out.  With a deep breath he whispered, I want to have kids. As he said it, I could hear the shame dripping off his lips.

And he should have been ashamed.  You see, I can’t have kids.  Trying to have my husband’s children had resulted in several miscarriages and one near fatality for me.  At the time, he’d soothed my fears of being unable to have children with words of love.  Now he was throwing it in my face, my biggest weakness, sweeping the leg like that evil bastard in The Karate Kid.  It was the lowest blow.  Already on the floor, my heart sank underground.

Why didn’t you say something two years ago?  We could have done something sooner, I managed to croak through the snake.

I didn’t know I really wanted them, he breathed, still looking down, looking anywhere, but at me.

BULLSHIT.  Does this have something to do with her? I spit out.

The her had been the only real  problem between us lately. God, please tell me it has nothing to do with her, I prayed.  I could take a lot and I had already taken it all in the last three minutes.  I looked up at him pleadingly, hoping he could at least give me one thing as he took everything else away. 

He dropped my hand and put both of his hands up. The international sign for, "Whoa, wait a minute."

But there was no minute.

My therapist wanted to make sure this was separate from all that. 

Have you ever been under a waterfall?  A billion drops of water, each one tiny and harmless, falling so hard and fast they sound like an avalanche?  Well, an ocean opened up right then.  Did you answer my question?  Did you say THERAPIST? I didn’t know you were going to a therapist!  Where have I been? Where is this all coming from?

The brain slowly put things together. Wait, I choked out.  Is she leaving her husband?

Yes, he replied.

My teeth clashed together and my jaw clenched like a bear trap and I got up and walked out of the room and into the kitchen on autopilot.  He followed me, eager to give me some justification for the shitstorm of crap he had just handed me. 

No No NO.  This isn’t happening. Please tell me, God, that this isn’t happening.  THIS ISN’T FUCKING HAPPENING.  Not to me, not to US.

Jen, I know this is hard and I was going to wait until after the holidays but I didn’t want to if I am just going to leave anyway. 

I felt like puking all over his Texan drawl.  Gee, thanks buddy, that is so sweet of you to think of doing this sooner rather than later and at the holidays.  What a great guy you are!  Let’s go back to the part where you throw having children in my face while we are at it!

In that moment, even the snake around my throat gasped in surprise.  I found my voice.

You unimaginable bastard, I hissed as I turned around to look at him.  He opened his mouth like a fish and I screamed, YOU DON’T GET TO TALK. 

Apparently, I was not handling this well. I was furious but  in the next second reality truck hit and I sobbed,  Wait. You want a divorce?  You don’t even want to go to counseling?  Oh God, please. Please let’s go to counseling. Don’t say that you want the big D  You are not that far gone with her are you?

He sighed. His face, so familiar looked exhausted. Why would we go to counseling when you have done nothing wrong, Jen?

Umm, maybe because this is a fucking marriage and you are supposed to work it out because YOU MADE A PROMISE and you are not just supposed to leave without TRYING for fucks sake!

I didn’t say it, though.  This was all wrong.  We could talk about this, couldn’t we? Why wouldn’t he want to talk about it?  My mind pinwheeled, reasons flashing like colors and passing as quickly, dismissed.  Then it dawned on me.  Like I had known when I drove up to the house - only the booby trap had one more trick left.  One more blade.

I didn’t want to know.  I didn’t want to say the words but that fucking snake, he abandoned me at an opportune time.

Did you cheat? I whispered and my heart skipped a beat.  I couldn’t look at him I was so afraid.

He paused.  Oh how looking back makes it clear - that infamous pause held a thousand unspoken truths.  This wasn’t the first time he had paused before answering a question about our marriage either.  And it wouldn’t be the last.

No… but I have wanted to before.  Another pause.  I’m sorry.

No… you aren’t, I said, shaking my head.  He wasn’t sorry or he wouldn’t be leaving me suddenly without an explanation.  A real explanation, that is.  I didn’t even ask him what he meant by wanting to cheat before.  I just wheeled on him: Go now please.  Just go.

Then just as quickly, I was spinning again like a Wheel of Fucking Misfortune.  The ticker in my mind landed suddenly on the fact that, not only was the person I loved leaving me, but my financial support and medical insurance was going with him.  I had no career anymore - I’d left it to become his wife, making myself dependent on him for income and everything else.

Jesus Christ, how am I going to support myself? I moaned.

Is there anything I can do? he asked.

You can send me checks. I fired back at him, when I really wanted to beg him to stay.

I know. 

He knew.  How long had he fucking known?  And why hadn’t I?  All he could do at that point was shrug a Well, I guess that’s that gesture and say, Can I get a Dr. Pepper before I leave?

WHAT?  A Dr. Pepper?  Well of course, my dear!  A Dr. Pepper is just what one needs after ripping a marriage apart.  I mean, breaking hearts is thirsty work, guys!  Gee honey, would you like me to grab it for you before you walk out of our life?  I’d be happy to!   Would you like some ice to go with that or do you have enough packed around that fucking heart of yours?

Naturally, what I actually said was, Sure, take it.  Take what you want.  Take everything.

He grabbed a soda from the fridge and walked out the door - and seemingly out of our marriage.  WHAM.  I had been hit by a bus.  A hole was blown through my chest, leaving a black spot where my heart and the life I’d known had been.  I was cast in the fires of Mt. Doom.  With few words and in less time, he had taken everything and I was left there with my mouth open like an idiot. WHY?  Oh God, why? Oh no. Oh God, no. Please God, no.

Shaking, I sat on our couch.  I looked around our beautiful home which we had shared so happily as husband and wife, and I started to cry.  I didn’t stop for a long, long time.

Part One: Before Leaving Day

Meeting Day

Let’s back up for a minute though.  I can’t tell you how it ends before I tell you how it really began now, can I? The story of how my husband and I met is a good one.  I mean, it is fairy tale shit. 

How it happened was that my only niece, Kate, was graduating college from a certain military academy.  It was the same college that her mom, dad, and brother had all attended.  My dad could have had the back of his car filled with bumper stickers that said, My (fill in family member) goes to… because we’ve had so many family and extended family members go to that school.  

Anyhoo, I was looking forward to it because the graduation was going to be a fun dysfunctional family reunion.  My attitude was a stark contrast to the year before when we all came out for my Nephew #1’s  graduation.  At that time attending the ceremony made me a little miserable.  I had recently broken up with yet another douchebag and was completely buttsore because I felt like I was never going to find someone to love and have a family with.  I even told Nephew #1 that I may as well start wearing ugly hats and collecting felines. 

The year Kate graduated was totally different though. Somehow, I had miraculously reached a point in my life where I was happy.  Fucking finally.  I was 36 years old and just two months before the graduation trip a light bulb finally clicked and I got it (cue choir of angels singing hallelujah).  After years being upset that I wasn’t the CEO of my own corporation, with a handsome husband, a three bedroom house, 2.2 children and a golden retriever and in one little a-ha! moment that was all done.  Amazing fucking zen lightning bolt of WTF had I been complaining about? One day, I simply decided to be happy with what I had. 

Do it.  Just decide to be happy. It will turn your life around, I swear.

So, I didn’t have all of those things.  Big friggin’ deal.  What I did have was a job in entertainment advertising that allowed me to be involved in one of my passions: movies.  I got to see them all for free before they were released and I enjoyed them all, even the bad ones.  I actually got paid to do stuff like go to LucasFilm and watch films that were up for Academy Award nomination.  I loved it.  It didn’t set the world on fire financially, but I was actually happy to go to work every single day. How many people can say that?

I didn’t have a husband, but I did have a lot of pretty amazing friends and family.  Like my  two awesome sisters. 

Jane, the eldest, was eleven years my senior and she was the perfect balance of telling me what was what and spoiling me rotten as one does with a baby sister.  She left the house when I was young but even so, she was more like a mom to me than my own mother sometimes. She was a Type A BadASS and handled things very differently than I did, but I looked up to her and was thankful for her guidance.

My middle sister, Wally (a nickname we called each other from Leave it to Beaver), had always been my closest friend although we were eight years apart.  As far back as I can remember, she was always there for me.  From when I was young and scared to when I was a teenager and horrible, and even when I was in my twenties and worse, she was always there.  She herself had married a cheating asshole in her twenties and divorced him.  I convinced her to move up to San Francisco to be near me and she met her second husband shortly thereafter.  They bought a house in Napa, which was an hour from the city and had Nephew #2 and Nephew #3.  I saw them all often and reveled in spending time with them.

I didn’t have a house of my own but I had a gorgeous studio apartment on Nob Hill, my own space with hardwood floors.  I walked to work and the gym.  On weekends I ran down to the Golden Gate bridge and back (or should I say up, because every way is up in San Francisco.)  I went to baseball games, bars, and art shows with friends and read in the park.  Occasionally, I even got laid.  Maybe I lacked some conventional happiness markers, but my life was pretty dang good.  I finally started to turn that half-empty bullshit into a cup that runneth over with pretty fucking awesome.  So it was with a new attitude that I flew out to spend time with my family and watch my beautiful only niece graduate with pride.

If you have never seen one, an academy graduation far surpasses a normal one.  There are parades, ceremonies, dinners, and airplane fly-bys.  The night before the Big Ceremony, each graduate becomes a commissioned officer and I watched with with tears of joy as Jane and brother-in-law pinned on Kate’s uniform doodads.  The next day, Kate shook the President’s (YES, the US President’s!) hand and got her diploma.  She was an officer, engaged to be married, on her way to medical school and we had a lot to celebrate. 

The after-party was at a small bed & breakfast, and all the family was there along with some of Kate’s friends.  I remember the sun setting and I was talking, holding a glass of that beautiful liquid from the Napa Valley, that flows so freely when my family is around. 

I heard Jane yell, Jennifer! Remember, she was eleven years older and in the military and when she hollered, she meant it.  This usually signified that I was in trouble. 

I turned around, curiosity mixed with a hint of fear and said, Ummm, what?

She pointed her thumb at a cute-ish guy sitting next to her and said, This is the man I want you to marry! 

Oh great.  She was always thinking of marital prospects for me, most of whom made my vagina go dry just looking at them. 

The guy looked at me with a grin on his face and coyly replied, Well, if we’re getting married you’d better come sit next to me so I can see if I like you. 

What do we have here?  Sense of humor and cute? Maybe I should buy a lotto ticket!  Of course I immediately plunked myself beside him and we began talking.  He’d known my sister a while and his name was… Well, let’s just call him Ender.  No, not for Marriage Ender, although that would be fitting at this point.  We will call him Ender because he strongly identified the title character - child, mind you - from Ender’s Game.  That Ender was complex, kind, a bit socially awkward.  He was also strongly prone to isolation. 

Remember those thousand red flags I missed?  Mark this number one.

He was Kate’s classmate but had entered the academy late at 21 - that made him a few years older than my niece, but still 12 years my junior.  Maybe I  wasn’t going to buy that lotto ticket after all.  It was a bummer, but that didn’t stop me from talking to him.   He’d met my sister while working with the Academy swim team, since Kate was a swimmer.  With a computer science major finished, he was bound for grad school and his Master’s in August.  He had light brown hair and greenish eyes; he was from Texas and he was smart.  And funny. I liked smart and I definitely liked funny.

One by one, friends left and family members went to their rooms.  Eventually it was only Ender, my dad, and me talking.  My dad was hammered.  To this day he maintains it was the altitude and not a gazillion bourbon and waters that made him so drunk, so we let the old man have his delusions. He was so far gone that I had to help him to his room.  Ender walked behind me as I propped up my dad, waiting to catch us both if my feat of strength failed.  Eventually I got him to the room he was sharing with my mother and I opened the door and sort of shoved my dad in. 

Ender looked at me with a raised eyebrow and said, Shouldn’t we make sure he’s OK?

I smiled and shrugged.  Nah, he’s my mom’s problem now! 

Ender shook his head and chuckled.  Later he would tell that part of the story over and over again because he got a big kick out of it. I think that moment, that first day, is what made him fall in love with me.  Either that, or the fact that I got him to see The Dark Knight on IMAX before it was released in theaters - but it was one of those two events. Such is the scope of my power.  After gently releasing my drunken dad to my mother’s care, we sat in the the living room and continued to talk. 

I remember him  saying he’d seen me the night before with my family, but couldn’t think of an excuse to come talk to me. The rest of the details about are a bit fuzzy and I wish they weren’t.  I wish I had a crystal clear memory of all the conversations that we had in the beginning, when we were falling in love.  I wish I had an area of my brain that could lock away all the nice things we had said to one another, so that they wouldn’t be tainted by PowerPoint bullets of: I am unhappy, we aren’t communicating and I’m leaving you.  So they couldn’t be overshadowed by, Can I get a Dr. Pepper before I leave?

Ender and I wound up getting to know each other until three o’clock in the morning.  He was at the start of a two month vacation before reporting to grad school and didn’t have much planned.  I said he was welcome to come visit me in San Francisco, if he wanted to.  Keeping in mind his young age, I didn’t really consider him relationship material, but I was more than willing to have him come visit.  We exchanged numbers and when he got up to leave, he asked, Can I get a hug?

Can I get an AMEN?! I smiled as I got up and said,Of course! and then noticed his height for the first time. My god, you are tall!  How tall are you?

He laughed and said, I am 6’3 and I will call you."

Also laughing, I said,Well I’m 5’3, which makes me an Oompa-Loompa compared to you."  We said our goodbyes and I went to bed thinking how nice he was.  Just nice, that’s all.  Ok, maybe a little cute too. And funny.

The Men Before Meeting Day

Because there are no secrets in my nosy family, everyone knew I had stayed up late talking to Ender. I got teased mercilessly, because that’s what you do when you love someone in my family. They seemed to be more excited about it than I was, but I indulged them in their high school fantasies and said maybe I would ask him to the school dance, but they had to pass him a note in math class to let him know I thought he was cute first.   Knowing my dating history, they had a reason to be excited that I might have the slightest interest in a nice guy for once.

It was so bad that I had finally reached a point where I was resolved that being on my own was better than the dating struggle.  I was done looking for a relationship.  I mean, I don’t like to say I was a slut in the past, per se, but I was a bit of a penis connoisseur.  OK I was a little slutty, jeesh!  Just to give you an idea of how it went with some of my winning male companions we will do a little walk down memory lane - and you will see why Ender was a breath of fresh penis.   I will just go over the highlights of my collection of Assholes because were I to cover all of them, we would have a novel longer than War and Peace or War and Penis, if you will.

Ahh dating.  Nothing is so fun and so torturous at the same time.

Anyway, the first guy I fell in love with was High School Boyfriend. HSB and I dated for three years, which is an eternity in high school time.   We met simply because he told someone that he thought I was pretty (who me?) and I somehow grew a pair of balls and managed to go up and talk to him.  I considered him out of my league at the time.  I mean the guy was surfer blonde with blue eyes and had a great body.  He was voted Most Attractive and all of that crap and I mostly blended in with the woodwork. I mean, I knew all the popular kids and hung out with them but never really felt I was one of them. I went to AP classes and like to read uncool stuff like books about dragons and I certainly didn’t dance or cheerlead.  Nevertheless, HSB and I fell in love and like an American cliche, I lost my virginity on prom night.   To this day, I am glad that he was the one I gave it up to. He  was a nice, handsome, and smart guy and he treated me like gold. Had it been the 1950s I would have married him right out of school,  instead, I went to college. Years later, when my mom told me that she had run into him and that he was getting married, I cried.  I always dreamed that I would find him again and we would be the ones getting married, but no and that is OK. He was and I hope still is a wonderful person and if he is happy, he certainly deserves it.  Being married to him probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway as I was afraid to fart in front of him.  You have to be able to fart in front of your spouse.

After HSB, I was sure I would meet The One in college but it was all about hooking up and I wasn’t a fan at the time. After graduation I embarked on a five year relationship with Cartoon Boy and I thought he was going to be IT. For five years I gave it a good try, then realized I would be miserable if I married him.  All he did was smoke pot and watch cartoons and I guess I just wanted a little more from a partner in life. Like maybe someone who would respond with more than a grunt and avert their eyes from the television when I addressed them. I finally