[Continued from "Correctional Officer, Part 3."  This "story" has taken me much longer to write than I thought.  I didn't realize how much I didn't want to rehash this stuff in my mind.  But I'm doing it because ultimately it'll help me process.  (Wow, am I a douche.)  So please be patient with me when the various parts are posted so far apart.]

It was about this time that my husband began acting very oddly.  We had been married for over seven years at the time.  I had cheated on him right after we got married, but as far as he was concerned I had been faithful since. (I had not.)  It had never been an issue that I had male friends.  Until CO.

I’d had male friends that the Ex liked.  Guys who were my friends had become very close with him, after I introduced them.  Two of the Ex’s best friends were guys that had been my friends first.  At the time we had a big circle of people with whom we hung out, mostly other couples, and there was definitely some friendly flirting amongst the crowd.  There were women who obviously had crushes on the Ex, as well as guys who seemed enamored of me (I never fucked any of them.) so I didn’t think it was anything new when I befriended CO and T.

I told the Ex all about CO and T.  Maybe I was a bit too effusive, but I was excited to meet new and interesting people.  Maybe the Ex would have felt more comfortable if he had had a chance to meet them.  No matter, the Ex began telling me I shouldn’t talk to them on the phone so much.  What?

I don’t like being told what to do, and especially when I know I’m not doing anything wrong.  I assured the Ex that these guys were dorks who lived in a place to which I would never again go.  Never before had the Ex acted so strangely and jealous.  There was no reason to be jealous.  I assured him, a lot.  But I was not about to stop being friends with someone because my husband couldn’t handle it.

In the mean time the Ex continued to go out on most weekends without me.  I had no problem with that.  Usually when he went out I stayed in and talked on the phone with CO and T.  Or watched tv.  The Ex claimed he needed to go out, that he needed to be social.  I felt guilty leaving our geriatric dog (not Isis, Otter, RIP) home alone and knew we’d save a lot of money if only one of us went out.  I was fine staying home, because that was time I could be alone, which I require as much as the Ex requires to be social.

When the Ex went out I assumed he flirted.  I had no problem with it, and didn’t see why he was having trouble with me staying home, alone, and talking on the phone.  It didn’t make any damn sense.

We had (I thought) an understanding that our privacy should be respected.  We had separate sign-ins on the single computer we shared.  We had separate email addresses with our own passwords.  One night I came home and saw that he had left the window open on what appeared to be some Internet flirting.  I did not care; I think it’s appropriate to have some flirtatious outlets even in a monogamous relationship.  He had fallen asleep and I jokingly asked him what his password was.  He was so sleepy he was about to tell me, but I stopped him.  That part of his life was his and I had no interest in invading it.  I closed the window on the program and went about my own computer business.

As far as cheating went, we had a don’t ask, don’t tell policy.  Early in our relationship we had agreed that sometimes things happen, at a party for example, that may make us feel guilty, but that there was no reason to tell the other person because telling would only serve to cause pain.  We had also agreed that we would tell the other person if we had fallen in love with someone else.

But that certainly was not the case here; I had befriended a couple of interesting guys and liked spending time talking to them.  I also emailed CO a lot, and talked to him on the phone occasionally.  But that was it.  As far as I was concerned both CO and T were in a shit town (strike 1), were sexually inexperienced (strike 2), and thought sex only came with love (strike 3).  Uh, NOT interested.

But my husband would not trust me or believe me, which was pissing me off to no end.  He had been doing an awful lot of shit that I hated but put up with for years so I figured this was just one thing that he hated but with which he’d have to deal.

More to come ….

I swear.  True story.

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