2 May 00
 
   
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Wally

    There are two people you should never have an affair with.  Your boss, and a married person.  There are others, but these two are fairly universal and rather undisputed, but I was of the belief that this guideline was up for interpretation, if the affair were serving some kind of healing purpose.  Well, what could you expect?  I was very young and unwise, but of course, I thought I knew everything.
    In my affair with Wally, I broke both these prohibitions.
    I don't give Wally a pseudonym.  I don't think he deserves the discretion.
    Two years this thing dragged on.  From time to time I grew weary of being the other woman, clothed in deception and ever watchful, so I broke up with him and took another boyfriend, but he eventually cried and begged me, saying his life was unbearable without me.  And I badly wanted him, so in my weakness I always caved.  Sometimes he did this to me, and I was the one crying and begging.  What a sick relationship.
    The fabric of this underlaid much of my experience where I was stationed in the Army, probably the happiest assignment Uncle Sam ever gave me, although that happiness had little to do with Wally, but rather with team cohesion and morale and a definite sense of purpose.  Together we did much that was of real and tangible use, and that means something.  But I have digressed.
    So, when my reassignment came through, and I was going to the other end of the country, I told him that I would not keep this up; unbearable enough it was at close quarters, how much more horrible at long distance.  I told him I'd have nothing more to do with him until there were a divorce decree.
    I should not have been so specific, I guess.
    So I went and began to get close to somebody else, and had a good thing getting rolling there, when I heard from him that he was on his way.  I didn't want to see him but he had something to show me.  It was a divorce decree.
    I was stunned.  I was moved.  I was loyal.  He asked me to marry him, and I accepted.
    This devastated the one I was getting close to.  But I thought I was doing the right thing.
    So, off to Reno with us, and then back to find an apartment.  He needed to go back to the other coast for his belongings, and so that took a week, but finally he was back and we were making a home together.  Such consummate joy!
    It was about a week later that he broke the news to me.  He'd taken a job, the job of his dreams, the job he'd never thought he'd win.  It was a civilian covert job, but it involved being based in Peru.  He'd already accepted.  He'd have two weeks vacation every year, and one of those two weeks he'd want to spend on the other coast with his children.  Of course.  He'd already accepted.
    I screamed at him.  How could he?  How could he expect me to be married to someone I'd see one week a year?  How could he take this without saying anything to me?  I told him to choose. He chose the job.  I chose to consult a lawyer.

(to be continued...)
 

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