The Other Woman

It started with the cologne. I noticed the new scent on him in the morning's as he kissed me goodbye and headed off to work. The scent that would always make me want to just jump his bones. There was a quick passing thought in my mind wondering where I was when he purchased this new cologne. I cataloged it in the back of my mind but verbal acknowledgment
never escaped my tongue because I was busy. Busy starting a new home business of my own. It had become my dream to start my own business after being disappointed with so many unsuccessful interviews.

I had become weighed down with start up costs and planning for the immediate future. That really didn’t give me anytime to spend with my husband, but I was sure that he understood why. I suppose my warning, red alarm fire signals should have gone off then...
but they didn't.

         A few weeks later I got our credit card bill and noticed a fee for the new gym downtown. He never took an interest in working out before, but now - there it was. There was a time in the past that I thought back to when he, out of nowhere, came home from hanging out with his friends and wanted to change his hairstyle and started working out. It was always my thought that he was most definitely trying to impress some other woman.

I shoved the statement into the pile of "to be paid" bills and thought to ask him about it (actually rib him about it) later, but forgot.

Setting up a business is hard work - and it was on my mind from the moment I woke up
until I took off my glasses at night and hit my pillow, still crunching numbers.
The funny thing (if you can call it that), was that he seemed more attentive,
more "around" then usual, almost to the point of being annoying. I guess I shouldn't have been so offhand and preoccupied - but I thought that we had built up enough history (19 years of marriage) to coast out small periods of outside interests.

         A few more weeks passed and he started "staying late" at work. Glad for a few extra hours each night to work on my own growing project, I barely looked up at the clock when it chimed 5pm, and then 6, and then 7. When he would roll in around 7:30, looking tired out, I would pop a frozen dinner in the microwave and ask him to check on it while I jumped in the shower. He would eat in front of the TV where he would usually fall asleep. He would always ask me to come and spend some time with him whenever he got off from work, but starting a successful “business” was my only focus then. Most of the time I would have already grabbed a snack or just a light meal in between my work.
We went on this way for a while and I didn't put everything together, until I found the notes.  I would always check his pants before I would wash, but this time I was shocked at what I found. Scribbled love notes on the backs of receipts and napkins, shoved in the back pocket of a pair of his jeans. Poorly written love notes, I might add. They were scrawled and desperate and quite rambling. There was never a time in our entire relationship or marriage that my husband had ever written me any love notes. I was always the “note writer”. I instantly became angry and started questioning everything now. Who was this “special woman” ,who had obviously stolen his heart, to have him doing things that he had never done for me before.
First, my husband started working out and now I start finding love notes in his pockets. What was going on with him, or should I say with us? That’s when it hit me like a baseball bat- I had lost my husband to someone else.

Everything came together and I remembered that first time I caught the scent of his new cologne. Then I thought of the gym and his newly trim waistline. There was also the designer pin striped suit that came after that which fit him just right, in all the right places. This was all coming from a man that wouldn’t even buy himself any sexy silk boxers to wear to bed with me. The late nights at work - and now these very obviously personal notes, full of a passion that I thought only I stirred in him. It was clear that I was the victim of my own preoccupation - and being smacked in the face with reality, I planned to tell him so and see if there was any shred of a chance to repair the damage that had been done. Even though I felt responsible to a certain degree it was definite that I had my priorities all wrong. I went through all of the emotions: shock, rage, sadness, and the all encompassing numbness which comes from knowing you are losing the one thing that you just can't bear to lose.

So, I put away the paperwork. I took off the glasses. I manicured my fingernails and shaved my legs and even the sensitive area of my body..
I knew that I needed to at least feel a little more like the woman I thought he used to love, when he looked me in the eyes and told me the horrible truth.
That day, I called him at work and asked him to meet me for dinner at an upper class restaurant that we frequented when we first got married. Surprisingly, he jumped at the chance and my heart fell. He couldn't wait to be done with me. I thought that maybe he was just so anxious to tell me the truth and I made things easier for him by requesting we have dinner together.

The night came all too quickly and I was so nervous waiting for him to arrive at the restaurant that I felt like I would faint before he got there. After all, this was my one great love - and I was losing him to something that I felt I could have prevented. There was no way that I wasn’t going to fight for what was mine. This is the man that I married for better or worse until death we do part. This was my soul mate and I wanted nothing more than to just live happy with him. If giving up my dream of starting my own business was something that I had to do to save my marriage then I was ready. I was ready to pack up my laptop and never lay eyes on it ever again. I would be the little “house wife” if that was my husband’s desire.                                     

When he walked in the door, I had a good 20 seconds or so before he saw me and I really, really looked at him for the first time in months. Handsome was not the word. He looked vibrantly alive and, oh my soul, he was my husband.

When he saw me, he waved with eagerness and quickly made his way to the chair across from me. My palms were sweating and I thought my heart would stop it's beat from the look of impending freedom in his eyes. I was shaking as I took the notes out of my pocket and unfolded them slowly. When I handed them to him his fingers brushed mine and, in that moment, I felt like the loss was going to be more than I could live with. My husband. I just wondered what would make him play with my emotions like this? He was really making me cry on the inside and it seemed as though my love was growing for him even more now. They say that you don’t miss a good thing until it’s gone and I was surely already missing my husband even before hearing the painful truth.

He looked at me and said: "I didn't want you to find them like this."
I replied: "Do you really think that there would have been an actual GOOD way for me to find them?"
"Yes", he said, "like this..."

I had went from silent tears to anger with those words. Without another thought I said to my husband,” So you just don’t care anything about us anymore? What did I do that was so wrong to…”

My husband gently placed his finger over my lips as he said, “Shhh baby.”

At that pivotal moment in my existence, when time slowed... and then stopped...,
he took a sealed card out of his suit pocket and handed it to me.
It read as follows:

"My dearest, hard working wife,
You are my passion. My soul. My reason for getting up and going to work every day because I know that I will be coming home to see you. I think of you every minute that we are apart and I yearn for you. Do you still yearn for me after these 19 years? I know that you have been putting your energy into starting your business and I am so proud of you, but I have to admit that I have missed you. I've missed your touch, your conversation and even the quiet silence that we used to share SO..."

The card ended there. He reached in his pocket and pulled out another envelope - this one golden colored.
"I got you this..."

I opened the card to find a certificate for 15 dance lessons.
He said: "You have been asking me for 19 years to go dancing with you, and I've never known how, and quite frankly, I've had no desire to learn. Maybe I was lazy, or maybe just embarrassed that I would make a fool out of myself. But - I've been secretly taking some lessons and I would like you to join me. Next month is our 20 year anniversary and, honey, I promise you, I'm taking you dancing."

I couldn't even speak. The tears were closing my throat and right on the brim of spilling. I finally stammered: "When did you start taking dance lessons?"

"I've been going after work for the past couple of weeks, and I'm mighty proud to say that I probably won't step on your toes too badly when we go together".
There was the grin I loved. So rugged. So aged to perfection. So... my husband.
Then, he lowered his voice and leaned in a little closer to me.
"Look.", he said, "I've done everything I can to recapture your attention. I know that I've changed through the years so I did my best to clean up and become a man you would be attracted to again. I bought new after-shave. You didn't notice. I lost 15 lbs. You didn't say a word. I missed dinners after dinners only to come home to you still burning the midnight oil, oblivious to the fact that I was so much later than usual. I almost... I almost thought I was losing you. So I sat back and thought about where I had taken you for granted. I thought about what else I could do to truly prove to you that you were my everything. That's when the dance lessons idea came to me."

I reached for my napkin to wipe the tear that had managed to escape my heart and run down my face. I was almost embarrassed now.
I asked, holding them up, “so these notes are for me?”

My husband grabbed both my hands and gently kissed my fingers. He stared deep into my eyes as he said,
"Yes. You caught me. You know that I'm not the most romantic guy in the world and it took me forever to get my thoughts together to put on paper. I didn't want you to find them that way... I wanted to really make it a romantic moment. But, all that aside..., what do you think? Will you drop the paperwork for awhile and go dancing with me?"

My answer was lost in the kiss that I gave him across the table. For, in that very instant, I realized that the "other woman", who had broken my heart and stopped me in my tracts to realize what the most important thing in my life was, was none other than silly old me.