Continued from Part 2

She pulls into their driveway.  Nervous, shaken, and confused as she walks into the house.  Like usual he was home first, sitting on the couch watching television, waiting for her to get home. 

She smiles at him and looks at him quizzically.  She still hadn’t decided how she was going to bring up the subject.  All she knew was she had to make him talk about it.

She sat down on the couch next to him, he could feel her tension. 

“What’s wrong with you?” He blurts out.

Taken aback she takes a deep breath.  “So, who have you been talking to?”

“I told you, its just a friend. Why do you keep asking?” He snaps back.

Overcome with emotion, she begins crying, it had been building all day and the scenarios she had been playing in her head had pushed her past her threshold.  She gets up from the couch and quickly exits to the bedroom where she sits on the bed and begins to weep. 

Realizing he had just upset her, he follows her into the bedroom to comfort her.  In a soft spoken tone, he asks  “Honey, what is the matter?”

“Who is this girl that you are talking to?”
“She’s just a friend, from high school.”
“An ex-girlfriend?”
“No, just a friend”
“What’s her name?”
“Marie”
“Marie huh?  Why are you calling her” She knows she has a different name.
“She’s my friend, I don’t have many friends, you know that, it is just somebody to talk to.”
Tears are streaming down her face.  She can’t hold them back any more.
“Why haven’t you told me that you talk to her? I feel like you are hiding your relationship with her from me.  And, who’s Jessica?”
His face turns from pink to white and that look that he’s been caught is clear on his face. 
“Her name is Marie Jessica.”
“And she’s not an ex-girlfriend?  That name sounds like that girl you dated in high school.”
“No, she’s just a friend.”
Her sadness is turning to anger as she begins to see that he is lying to her. 
“Besides” he says.  “I wasn’t hiding anything from you.”
“You never said anything about talking to her.  You talk to her for 45 minutes on the phone, multiple times.  And you never talk to her when I’m around.  That’s hiding something to me.”
“Well, if I was hiding it I wouldn’t have talked to her on my cell phone where you could see it.”
“Oh, but hoping I don’t and never mentioning it isn’t the same thing?  And if I was talking to one of my ex-boyfriends for 45 minute conversations, you wouldn’t care?”
“No, I don’t know why you are so mad.  I’ve told you that she is just a friend.”
“Whatever, leave me alone!”

Is she overreacting?  If that was your spouse, would you be upset?  What should she do next?

Continued from Part 1

MySpace Comment

Trying to clear her mind, she logs into her MySpace account to chit chat with friends.  She goes to post a comment on her husband’s page.  Guess what she notices…a new friend.  She clicks on the picture to view her profile, the city name is the first words she sees. 

She scrolls up and down and looks at her comments to see if he had posted anything.  He hadn’t.  Could this be the girl?  Her name sounds familiar.

She can feel her heart beating in her throat.  She knows now that she needs to give him the opportunity to explain himself, but how she wonders.

It is approaching lunchtime and she is now completely distracted from working.  Wondering if her marriage, one that she has fought hard to save, even though many nights she has wanted to walk out, was worth saving this time.  Before they were married she had told him, “If you ever have the urge to cheat on me, leave me first.” 

Every scenario she could think of was racing through her mind.  Should I be angry?  Should I be sad?  Should I care?  Why is he calling her?   What are they talking about? Why hasn’t he told me? 

She dials his number.  “Hello” he says unsuspecting of any questions about to come.

“Hey, whatcha doin’?” She says.  He could tell by the tone in her voice that something was up.

“What’s the matter?” He asks.

“Nothing, why?” Trying not to tip him off to her feelings. 

“You sound like something’s wrong.” He says.

“I dunno, tired, I guess.  Hey, I was looking at the phone bill, do you know anybody in Iowa?”

A long pause.  “Yeah, I have friend there.  Why?” He asks.

“Well there are alot of calls on the phone bill and I wanted to make sure they were actually ours.  You never talk about talking to anyone in Iowa and if somebody was using our phone that shouldn’t we need to call the phone company.” She explains.

“Oh, yeah, their mine.” Then quickly changes the subject.

She can’t bear to talk to him anymore and ends the conversation.  Now he’s admitted to talking to her, at least he was honest about that.   But, this conversation isn’t over, how is she going to deal with this when she gets home.  She breaks down thinking about why she is even in this situation. 

Tonight, she’d rather go anywhere else than home.

What should she say?  Should she ask for an explanation?  What if he makes up a bogus story?  Is this cheating?  What would she do if he admits to an affair?

Remember the pay phone?

A wife was reviewing the cell phone bill when she discovered a number out of place on her husbands statment.  She wasn’t looking particularly for anything out of order and really had no reason to be looking other than the bill had been getting increasingly more and more expensive.  

“Odd” She thought.  “That number is long distance.”  The other thing that stood out to her was that each call from that same number lasted on average 45 minutes.  Sprinkled throughout the last statement she began to also notice the short amount of time the calls lasted when he spoke to her. 

A relationship was full of ups and downs, but even though they had argued they worked through it.  They had been getting along quite well lately. 

As she sat and read the bill over and over, tension, fear, and worry began to overcome her.   She copied the number and pasted it into the google search box with the mouse pointer hover over the search button.  A hesitation, a deep breath, and then click.   Nothing.

Now what?  Reverse Phone Number Lookup.  Cellphone, no name.   Her heart is pounding.  There is no clear explanation why he would be talking to someone for 45 minutes from a city from another state and not tell her about it.  

What should she do?  Does it matter who it is?  They are married, they pay for the phones with joint funds.  He’s never mentioned talking to this person…why is he hiding it?