Jeez what a weekend. It all started as an innocent request. True, my emotions are colored by my infatuation. But I can 100% honestly say my request was innocent. I asked Mrs if it would be ok for Sandy to sleep in the guest room at my Mom's house for a match that is coming up. Mrs is going to be there up until the day of the match. This means Sandy would be there right after Mrs left. Ladies, pay attention. What follows is a glimpse at the intracacies of the male psyche... or self justifications... or delusions... you can decide.
I know I know.. this can go nowhere positive. My motivations for the request are simple. Sandy wants to shoot. She can't afford a hotel. I have a solution. Period. I figured, it's at my Mom's house... Mrs will have just been there... my sister is there... there is no way there can be any hanky panky. Mrs blew a gasket. Which led to an enormous fight. Ultimately, she said "Fine... ask her if she wants to stay... if you don't you'll just mope and be an asshole for several weeks". To which I replied "You know... your insecurities are really unattractive". Can you hear that lead balloon whistling towards it's inevitable crash? Then the gloves came off. Immediately, it was no longer about me being a dick... or making an unreasonable request... or her insecurities. It was all about Sandy. The implication that I'm having an affair. That Sandy is a woman stealing harlotte. On and on.
Now in spite of my infatuation, Sandy has done nothing more than flirt and talk shit. Nothing more than any other woman I am friends with. The infatuation to this point is solely on my side. So what did I do? I made a full on assault of her hatred an opinion of Sandy. In my mind, whatever she was directing at Sandy was MY fault, not Sandy's. Furthermore, I haven't even done anything... In fact, as soon as I realized my infatuation... I backed off. I have kept the chit chat to shooting... I backed off of the playful banter. I had only 1 conversation with her since Wed. night. Ultimately, the conversation came back around to my "insecurity" comment. Which, in spite of my feelings towards Sandy, is true. Since day 1 with Mrs... she always questions my feelings. When I played in the band, she would come up to me in mid-set, mid-SONG, lean in and say "Do you love me?" Which would REALLLLLY piss me off. In the band, I am 100% focused on the groove. Anyway, there is history and I think I've probably covered it ad nauseum in the archives.
We stood in the kitchen arguing about her projecting her insecurities onto others and making them into evil bitches. The argument started to wind down. I acknowledged while I believe my points are valid, my methods left a lot to be desired. She was acknowledging her insecurities. Then my phone rang. I looked at the ID... of all the rotten timing... guess who? Straight out of a bad b-movie drama... it was Sandy. I answered the phone as non-commitally as I could muster. She called to ask a shooting question. Specifically about a supplier with which I happen to get a decent discount. This was a followup to the 1 call previously mentioned. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing untowards... just really... really.... REALLY... bad timing.
I couldn't help myself. I started laughing. I tried to explain to Mrs what the call was about. I couldn't stop smiling the whole time. I was trying my best not to laugh and failing miserably. Not because it was Sandy and I was all giddy talking to my crush. But at the pure absurdity of the moment. I'm arguing about the "supposed harlotte" and damned if she didn't interupt THE argument. Also, because I guess Sandy sensed it was a bad time and asked "Am I interupting you enjoying your wife and family?" The question was purely innocent and truly intended to let me gracefully say I'm busy right now. But the phrase "enjoying your wife" leapt out at me causing me to laugh even more. How the hell do you answer that? "Oh yeah... I'm in a marriage ending smack down right now".... or "we were just about to get naked and fight over our communal property". I simply said "Yes". She said "Ok... I'll see you tomorrow" (at the match) and hung up.
Mrs eyes welled up. I could see it in her face. She had just made the leap that not only was Sandy a home wrecking, man stealing, bitch... but that
I was a two timing son of a fatherless whore as well. We finished our argument where we left off. Acknowledging our feelings, foibles, and fuax pas. But I could sense a... coldness now.
We went about the rest of our evening. We had rented a movie. Sister, Mrs, and I went into the movie room. Within 30 minutes both Eliza and Mrs were asleep. Eventually they wandered off to bed. I made it to bed after midnight.
As an interesting side note which I may post about later, I had both and erotic and emotionally meaningful dream about Hot Friend. I woke up wondering what the hell that was about.... that I dreamt about Hot Friend and not Sandy.. and that the dream had an emotional honesty as it pertained to Hot Friend. Something to ponder later... one crisis at a time.
My eyes popped open about an hour before my alarm. Mrs was not in bed. I think her departure actually woke me up because I could hear her footsteps upstairs. I lay there trying to go back to sleep. My mind raced to the argument before. I started to wonder what in the hell she could be doing upstairs at that hour of the morning. Then it hit me... the computer. My brain immediately searched my actions the night before. Did I leave up Pluff Mud Musings up... any of the e-mails for my alter ego? Any sites linking back to PMM?!?! Panic started to set in. This simple little request was about to snowball out of control. Finally, I couldn't take it any more. Under the pretense of getting my gear ready for the match, I went upstairs. Mrs was not in fact pouring over the PMM archives. She was however reading an article on MSN. She quickly closed the screen. I thought to myself "That can't be good".
I went about the business of getting my gear together. Guns... magazines... ammo... belt and holster... eye protection.. ear protection... Mrs asked me a couple of benign normal questions. What time would we be done? Did I need lunch? Finally, after a few minutes, she left. I continued packing my gear. Then I got on the computer and checked the history. Nothing linking or related to PMM.... whew!! But... there were several MSN searches for "affair" and "women befriending married men". I felt my blood pressure rise. Now she's accusing me (at least via actions) of having a damned affair! The snowball has reached avalanche proportions.
I started fuming. My mind began to play out the next 10 years of my life and I saw us having this argument over and over. Maybe this is what I really want and it's why I'm in this situation in the first place. There are probably a thousand reasons why I am drawn to women for friendship including sexual desire. In MY mind... the key word was "sexual". Not emotional. True I have an infatuation with Sandy. But I recognize it as that. Infatuation. And unrequited at that. It will pass. But what about the future. What about true friendships? I see the relationship between a couple of other friends I have (a male and a female) and I'm actually jealous. I don't make friends with guys very well. I am always drawn to women. Those two are the closest of friends and they are not together romatically. And you can tell. They are best friends... period. If you really break it down... I don't have any close friends like that. Chester is probably the closest and I have a love/hate relationship with him. I find it... unsatisfying from that perspective. What happens if I finally get close to someone and they happen to be female? What if my infatuation fades with Sandy and it's replaced with true friendship? Am I going to live in fear of Mrs insecurites? You can see my dilema. On one hand, Mrs is wrong. But on the other... maybe not so much. Maybe in my zeal to let Mrs into my shooting world and the friends I have met, my infatuation has become obvious. Maybe it was better to just shut my mouth, keep Mrs in the dark and enjoy the relationships for whatever they are. But that's not where I am. Either way... I was pissed at being accused (as I saw it) of doing something that I haven't. I went to the match wondering what the hell would happen when I saw Sandy and what I was going to do about my situation at home.
We shot the match. I went through the shoot thinking I was screwing up. I had a bunch of stupid mental mistakes and felt like I was probably going to get beaten by Chester again (there would be no living with him if I did). Turns out, I was 1/2 right. I placed better than I thought (and solidly whooped Chester too). In fact, I placed better than I ever have. But if I hadn't made as many mistakes... say only 1/2... I would've probably placed several places higher. Which means I guess the practice is paying off in that I did in fact shoot poorly. But my idea of poor vs. reality seems to be skewed now. In other words poor to me is better than average in reality. At least that's my hope.
After the match I walked in the house ready for a fight. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, Eliza decided she was too tired to drive home and stayed another night. It meant I would skulk around the house waiting for the fight.
Around 10:00 Eliza went to bed. Mrs found me and said "Would you come to our room please?" When I got there, she started reading a letter she wrote earlier in the day. The more she read, the more pissed off I got. Again, she attacked Sandy. She compared her to an ex-boyfriend who came sniffing around a while back (I never mentioned it because I never once gave the guy a second thought). She drew all of the wrong conclusions about Sandy. I thought about the searches I saw earlier and, at least in my mind, I heard Mrs accusing me of having an affair. I told her I was done. I wasn't going to go through this for the rest of my life. I'm not going to tip-toe through every endeavor I undertake just to avoid her insecurities. I did this with my ex-wife and eventually, her insecurities led her to cheat on me to get attention. I told Mrs I was going to move out.
I had pride in myself in never uttering those words. In hindsight, I wonder if I uttered them out of frustration? Relief? Maybe I was admitting to myself I was really just looking for a way to get out of the marriage and I grabbed the thinnest thread. That I was being wrongly accused of something I hadn't done. That I recognized the potential not 24 hours earlier.... was this my way of seeing an opening for greener grasses? The thing was... the only thing holding me back was C. It tears at my heart to think of what it would do to her.
Mrs wouldn't leave me alone. She chased me around the house. I was trying to get away from her. She wouldn't let me. She stood in the doorway of the room where I was planning to sleep. I started to push her out of the door but thought she might use that against me later. I grabbed my coat and started to walk out of the door to go find a place to park my truck and sleep (good thing I didn't, the temperature plummeted into the 20s). Mrs cornered me again and threw the fact that I would be leaving C at me. She pleaded with me to hear her out. I threw out the searches she did. We argued about her motivations. We argued how I was so quick to decide to leave. Finally we settled into an uneasy peace. She didn't search for "affair". She doesn't know Sandy. She's wrong about her motivations. I accept that she isn't accusing me of cheating.
We talked much more calmly about the future. We discussed much more intimately the reasons why I befriend women over men and how that plays into Mrs insecurities. Eventually, we came to a much more peaceful resolution.
Yesterday, we spent the day as if nothing happened. Today, I wonder what really happened. I talked to Sandy this morning mostly because I want to clean the gun Eliza borrowed to shoot. I also learned a great deal about some things that Chester did. Like... spend time at Sandy's house trying to get into Maria's pants. I'm not sure how I feel about her today. And how did that play into the argument? I can't deny my attraction to Sandy. From a logical point, I haven't done anything wrong. But to a degree... Mrs was right. But would she be right overall? Would Sandy be interested. If she were, what would I do? What does it mean that I was so ready to walk out the door? Was I truly offended that I was being accused of cheating? Or that, at least emotionally, I was.