Me - 5’4” #125

He was a second class petty officer with a wife and a baby. The wife was fucking gorgeous. I saw them together a few times on the base and it was obvious they were a happy and loving couple.

My friend was R E L E N T L E S S in her efforts to drag this man into bed with her. It didn’t matter that we told her to leave that happily married man alone. It didn’t matter how many times we managed to pull her away when we wound up at the same places. She found a way.

He eventually broke and they spent several nights together.

You just know this cracked a door open for him and cheating became something he would do again.

My conclusions were my friend was a truly awful person and that men in general were weak and could not remain faithful if a determined woman (or man) set their sights on them.

So, when Wasband and I were dating I brought up some rules.

If you are far away from me and something happens ie: you fall into a vagina with your dick—remember I am not your priest, I don’t want your confessions

Don’t learn something new and come home to try it out on me —because I’m gonna know.

The most important rule. Don’t bring me home anything that can’t be washed off

My mistake—was assuming wedding vows would supersede the above three rules going forward. Him: the broadcast journalist, stumbling through his wedding vows should have clued me in.

My drunk ass managed to repeat our vows perfectly.

What? You thought I could get married sober?

The cheating started (or was at least somewhat obvious) after I had my/our second child.

I don’t think he cheated in Iceland as he was voted by his coworkers as the man least likely to cheat.

Yeah, he cheated during OCS in Pensacola while me and the kids were in NY

Pretty sure he cheated in D.C.

He definitely cheated in Bahrain. (TAD in Jordan)

He stopped trying to hide it in Japan. This is also where I stopped caring.

Our son’s second grade teacher (his partner in crimes) would call him at home upset about something and I was short with him after. Not because she called but because he was impatient with her and not being helpful.

Texas is where I slipped (back) into a friend/sibling kind of relationship with him. I’d ask if he had fun whenever he went out and afirmative answers were met with approval from me.

Good. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself because why do something at all if it’s not fun. Amirite?

“Karen is very depressed and has been for years. We need to get her on the right medication.” Said to both of us during therapy.

“You should go to legal and find out what your options are.” Said to wasband when I was out of the room

Aside from his atrocious temper and cheating he was as close to perfect as a man could get.

The way we could make each other laugh

Before children and when we both worked we shared the cleaning.

I laundered and ironed my uniforms and he laundered and ironed his. Even after I got out of the navy and took on the hausfrau duties, he still took care of his uniforms.

When I cooked I could always count on him to help with the dishes

He adored my cooking

He went to every prenatal appointment

He was perfect during my labor and deliveries

He flushed the toilet while peeing so the sound of urinating was covered

If I got up in the night to use the bathroom, in his sleep, he would sit up and reach for me to guide me to the bed

He was the magnetized big spoon, always on my ass even if I switched sides of the bed in the middle of the night. This goes on the good and not great list 🙄

We passive aggressively shared middle of the night child duties. What does that mean, you ask? When the baby wakes up in the middle of the night one parent responds first. It will continue like that for a while, maybe a few weeks before the decision is made to pretend to be asleep so the other parent would get up. See? This right here is something we could have and should have discussed. We could have alternated months.

He never, not once, said anything derogatory to me about my weight or recovery after pregnancy

When the nurses told him to make sure I had good healthy meals while recovering he was on it 100%. I have a picture of me in bed the day after Megan was born with this huge breakfast in front of me.

We were always kind to each other. Privately and in public.

He was so protective of me.

He had to be escorted out of the delivery room when he got a peep at the epidural needle coupled with how short the doctor was being with me.

Doctor: You act like you’ve never gotten a needle before

Me: (30+ hours into labor) Not in my fucking back I haven’t.

😂So dramatic.

A doctor on the base decided to get on his anti abortion soap box when I went in for a post abortive check up. I didn’t let him examine me, got dressed, went to a phone and told him what happened (crying) and he went straight to the hospital to give them hell and to lodge a legitimate complaint against the doctor. (I could have never done this) I fielded multiple calls over the next couple days from medical trying to get me to come in for an exam with a different doctor. I didn’t go because fuck those fuckers.

He went to that same (pro life) doctor shortly thereafter for a vasectomy. No soap box lecture to him though.

He was a physically affectionate man and I sometimes couldn’t handle closeness.

When we were in Iceland we went to Gulfoss, a huge waterfall. Gorgeous. At that time safety railings around nature was not a thing.

I am terrified of heights and wanted nothing to do with getting anywhere near the edge of anything. He wanted to get a picture of Megan with the waterfall as a backdrop.

I sat on a bench where we could see the waterfall (quite a ways back) with a death grip on Michael. All I could think about was Megan falling in and me seeing her pink jacket going over the falls. Immediately following that thought with—if she goes in he should just throw himself in after her.

Another time when we were hiking in an area covered in lava rocks. I had to remind him to hold Michael’s hand because if he stumbled on those rocks he’d be hurt. Stop trying to make a “man” out of a two year old and hold his hand.

In recent news there’s a man, a father, too involved in the tv, his cell phone, his betting—that his son drowned in their pool after treading water for two minutes.

The mom was running errands and was gone for 22 minutes.

I am a blood thirsty bitch.

I think his punishment should be to tread water until he is too tired to stay afloat. Rescuing him at this point would be completely optional.

I could always count on Wasband becoming an asshole when driving. He was aggressive on the road and took everything like it was either a challenge or an insult.

*wasn’t that a 🚩when you were still early in the relationship? Yes, it was. I mistakenly thought I could show him that things didn’t have to be so serious, or rage inducing and he would get better. He would learn to regulate himself through my brilliant example. WRONG. Since we’re all diagnosing ourselves and each other on the interwebs—look up explosive rage disorder. Anyway.

I remember us navigating around a neighborhood in Japan when he was driving. We ended up on this one narrow stretch that had only enough room for one car. Not one car and a sidewalk, not one car and a pedestrian, it was one or the other. We ended up behind a young woman and he was losing it. Teeth grinding, fists clenched on the wheel while he lost his mind.

“Why are you angry? Just look at this gorgeous woman walking in front of us!”

Her clothes, sexy business attire. Her shoes, stunning. Her stroll? Pure cat walk. Her hair? Just this smooth dark perfection of waist length silk.

“Look at all this you have to look at” Hopefully the young lady in front of us couldn’t feel the waves of rage pouring off him.

My driving is entirely different. I get lost easily where I shouldn’t. I have zero sense of direction. Using a paper map to navigate from one side of the country to another? No problem. In town? I regularly will miss a turn and have to hang a U turn at the next intersection. This sometimes turns into me wandering around completely lost before I’ve righted myself. I call that a Karen turn. If he were driving these things would be enough to send him spiraling into a rage.

Side note* I really think how I was taught to drive and who taught me to drive has a lot to do with my chill behind the wheel. My first bf taught me to drive. I was 21. Both my brothers had their licenses but neither they nor my father would teach me when I asked. I was too shy in high school to ever put myself in a car full of learners who might be boys.

On our first date he tossed me his keys and said you drive. My flabbers were gasted. Everything was amusing to him. I took a curve/corner almost on two wheels because of this sign and he thought it was great fun.

Okay kids behind the wheel is not the right place to learn the meaning of road signs.

We would regularly take that firebird out to the country and hit 125 mph on some back roads. One time he lost control (but not really because he righted us) going around a corner. We spun in one direction a couple times, came up briefly on two wheels, dropped back down did another couple 360’s in the other direction, again momentarily up in two wheels, dropped back down, did a couple 180’s, fishtailed a bit and bump bump very gently landed in a shallow shoulder. What was I doing through all this? Laughing my ass off. As soon as we stopped he was immediately worried about his insurance rates going up (on the off hand chance anyone saw us) so we jumped out, pushed the car out of the ditch, and drove away. That was some stunt driver level craziness. This is the guy who taught me how to drive standard, how to drive a motorcycle and how to do doughnuts in an iced over parking lot so I’d never be afraid to drive in icy or slippery conditions. Plus, it was good fun.

This was the Nothing Will Ever Phase You school of driving. I highly recommend something similar for all new drivers. Maybe wear a seatbelt even though we sure didn’t because it wasn’t the law yet.

Anywho.

The highway is like a moving stream of consciousness. If you’re tapped into it, nothing surprises you. No blinker? No problem. I knew you were going to do that and I was already ready already for your foolishness.

Back to wasband, I was driving us home from the base one night. We weren’t off the base yet so it was bumper to bumper creeping along at a walkers pace with lots of sitting still. You know when you are talking to someone and you hold their gaze? I was doing that with wasband. He was visibly struggling. His desire to look off to the sidewalk where a this young lady was walking was just killing him. I held his gaze while conversing with him far longer than I needed to on purpose because it’s fair. I finally said, “okay, you can look now.”

“Oh, thank god!”

I laughed and he was all you did that on purpose. Yep. I sure did.

Then, there were the nights he drove home from the base. It was occasionally a solid 30 minute temper tantrum. He joked he knew when to slam on the breaks by my gasp. Eventually, I started taking my glasses off for the drive home. I made sure he knew that no corrective gasping could be relied upon for our drive home. Everything was perfectly blurry and it was like looking into a kaleidoscope. Ohhh, ahhh, look at the pretty lights.

I figured we were always going to make it to wherever our destination was. We might arrive in the car, maybe an ambulance, or even a body bag, but regardless we would get where we were going. It mattered not.

We’ve all been gathered at a table to listen to somebody talk to us about the aliens that will be arriving.

There’s pressure from the speaker about how serious this is and how we should all be treating this with some gravitas. People around us are whispering to each other nervously

All I’m feeling is excitement while the people at this table are quietly freaking out.

He was here for our son’s graduation. This was after his divorce from Akiko.

We went out for coffee and he drove us in a rental car. He drove like a crazy person and mentioned that for his time in Afghanistan and Pakistan he had been required to take a driving course for war zones.

We talked. He talked about all his overseas work. I said he was still running. He said I knew him too well.

He talked about his divorce from wife #2 and how he ended up chasing her back to Japan to ask what about their future. He got the parallels between that marriage and ours.

Akiko probably didn’t enjoy being dropped off in a foreign country (Florida) while he went to play PAO hero all over the globe.

I remember on the day our divorce was finalized—sitting with him on the couch, crying while holding his hand and asking who I was going to grow old with.

He never said he was sorry.

But, he did say he screwed up.

*Let me insert a memory here of my mom talking to my dad. She was very calm, softly telling him everything he was doing or did wrong. My dad sitting with his head hanging, “You’re right Mary, you’re right.”

My brothers both still married to their first (and only) wives. My sisters and myself all divorced.*

Then, we talked about the kids before he drove me home—like a lunatic.

He spent the rest of the day with the kids and asked if I wouldn’t mind giving him a ride to his hotel that evening after he dropped off his rental.

I drove him to his hotel and before he got out of the car I said to wait a second because I was going to hug him. Which I did. I got out of the car and walked around to him. It was a short hug. I told him to take care of himself. Then, I left. I don’t think I even looked at him.

At that point we’d had 18 years together followed by six years apart and it ended with the kind of hug you give someone to be polite, when you’d rather not be touched at all.

I did not cry on the drive home.

I think if I had to give myself an emotional category it would be detached or avoidant detached.