We actually stayed up past midnight this New Year’s Eve, half expecting some major problems with the Y2K issue. We started watching television early when Australia’s clocks changed over. Except for the fireworks, it was all quite anti-climactic relative to the hyped-up expectations of catastrophic system malfunctions.
I didn’t know finding a new home was going to be such a catastrophe. Lou is still traveling to California weekly until the end of the month and has nothing lined up after that. In February, we move into an apartment near the plant and Anjelica’s new school until we find a permanent place to buy.
After all these years, I should be used to it, but knowing he is out west screwing around is driving me nuts. I haven’t been able to sleep and keep going over and over everything in my head. I don’t know why I thought we would magically have a fresh start in our marriage by moving. As if the woman in New Jersey was the problem. She came after many others and was replaced by new women as quickly as a movie cowboy reloads his six-shooter. I believe it is worse now that he is doing bodybuilding competitions and is anxious to brag and send posing pictures to women online. He called me with some lame excuse for why he needed me to e-mail pictures of him flexing that I had uploaded on my work laptop. I knew why he wanted them, and yet, I sent the photos anyway. The only good thing about me actually seeing the e-mails and pictures of other women on his computers is that I actually know for a fact that I’m not crazy, despite his relentless efforts to convince me otherwise. He always tells me it is all my paranoid imagination, and that he isn’t doing anything online except talking. I have never actually accused him of cheating on me. I have said that all the time he spends searching for and talking to other women online makes me feel like he is looking for something better than me, and that if he keeps looking, he will find it. I don’t even bother anymore explaining how I feel about that, since according to him, I was making it happen by talking about it.
One night, while he was away, I kept obsessing over and over and over and over about what he was doing, and I considered e-mailing the other women, and confronting him. But I know the truth would just be denied and the blame turned around on me for having spied in the first place. I know it isn’t right, but I decided that instead of obsessing, I was going to do the same thing he does. I have not cheated on him in well over a decade, and I never thought I would ever do it again. I’ve certainly flirted outrageously online with both Bruce and Alan, but I know that both of them are in long term, serious relationships, and I would never actually do anything. So, in the middle of a sleepless night, I got out of bed, went online, and started looking for someone local to hook up with myself. My goal was to find someone who is married and already cheating on his wife but with no intention of leaving her, is financially well off, and is conveniently located. I wanted someone with more at risk than me if we got caught. I do not want to get caught, and I do not want to be trapped. It was easy enough to find candidates by looking at profiles on AOL. I picked a few guys with potential, added them to my buddy list so I could see when they came online, and then did some chatting of my own to narrow it down to one. I picked a high-profile professional with a wife and kids and a successful practice near Wilmington. We talked on the phone a few times, and I decided to do it. I made it clear that it is very short term, since I am moving next month, and that my motivation is purely out of spite, because I know my husband cheats on me. My terms and motive don’t seem to be an issue.
I was nervous, and almost backed out many times, right up until the last minute. Turns out he is a nice guy and is actually becoming a good friend. It doesn’t take a genius to guess that maybe I am looking to understand Lou by talking to him. It seems his wife is cold and psycho, but he doesn’t want to split up because of money and the kids. I don’t see myself when he describes her, but who knows how Lou describes me to other women. Maybe he and Lou are the same, and Lou actually is a sad, unhappy person trapped with someone he doesn’t even like anymore and wonders why ever he married her in the first place but stays for the sake of the child and because he doesn’t want to deal with the financial loss of a divorce. That sounds like me, except that I don’t care about the money at all. I do feel trapped, that’s for sure. I just don’t know by what. In any case, I haven’t found any answers, but I have found a friend and a distraction.