She was a married woman and the mistress of a divorced man. My friend who I'll call Mary, just lost the man she'd been with for nine years, I'll call him Bert.
Mary and her husband, who has custody of the sons, let's call him Johnny, had never divorced and no love lost either. Bert was divorced and still friends with his ex-wife who got to keep their house.
Mary traveled the country with Bert all those nine years. These travels were not at all luxurious so you know, we were sure the relationship wasn't at all about wealth and all about love. They got along very well, had several mutual interests, and he supported her.
The situation was difficult. Mary and Bert stayed together other against the wishes of her husband, who will not give her a divorce, and the needs of her children; that's what my girlfriends and me thought. We thought it was really unfair somehow that Mary's daughter went to live with a relative and her sons stayed in the family home with Johnny. She had been declared an unfit mother; if Johnny was going to punish her it was with the children.
I asked Mary more than once why she didn't go ahead and get that divorce. She and Bert were in their 40's and her children were almost adults. She said she had twice saved the money to do so, but then some other expense came up. Johnny and Bert didn't come up with money for a divorce either.
Then Bert became terminally ill. They were living in California, the no fault divorce state, at the time. I told Mary that while they were living in California, she should get divorced from her still husband Johnny, who could not protest in their state. In California you don't need the approval of a spouse to divorce because no one can hold you to a marriage you don't want to be in.
Since there was no real property, no homes or luxury items to sell or split up, and she could even do the paperwork for a couple hundred dollars, a simple do-it-yourself-with-the-help-of-a-paralegal kind of divorce was possible. I wanted Mary to be possibly protected by marrying Bert because he was veteran and entitled to some benefits since he'd been wounded in Iraq. I knew that it had been years since she'd been employed and had never been self supporting.
Mary and Bert headed back to their home state when the going got real rough and Bert had to be near a VA hospital. She nursed him day and night until the end, with his ex- wife there too. Then he died.
Here's where the slut part comes in.
Mary told me "Everyone grieves in their own way."
Does grieving include hooking up with a high school boyfriend the night Bert died? I don't mean going out for coffee.
Does grieving include using the Internet to meet men, long distance and local, right after she got the hair cut that the already elfin Mary called "very Audrey Hepburn?"
At first I didn't get it. I thought that Mary was just e-mailing and chatting with men from Britain, her favorite country, and a place she hopes to visit and maybe live in someday, out of loneliness. Knowing that anyone can pose to be anything on the Internet, especially when one of the men she was texting with claimed to be an Elvis Impersonator and used Elvisisms to charm her, I cautioned her not to get involved in fantacies.
I told her it was best if she met met who were more local. I cautioned her that after a few emails back and forth it's time to meet the person in person and see if there's a mutual attraction.
That's when Mary told me she had just hooked up with a man in town who kept his promise and gave her the gas money to get back home. What was worse? He had sent her a picture by e-mail of his private part first. Was she shopping private parts? How tacky! She planned to go back for seconds and thirds. I didn't think this was grieving. I thought it was manic. Mostly, I thought it was disloyal to Burt.
C 2012 Missy Rapport / Mistress Manifesto All Rights Reserved including International Rights.
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