My husbands at work, my husband is always at work. For the last three months he has spent more and more time working. Overtime, weekend shifts, business trips!? Why would a local office manager even need to take business trips?
To begin with it was nice, a relief even. We were getting on top of each other the smallest thing turned into a ridiculous argument and money was tight just to make things worse. Then he started doing extra hours here and there, staying late on occasion. The space did us good and the thought of the extra money just had a relaxing effect on most of the little mole hills that would normally turn into mountains.
But slowly it has started to increase and it’s becoming more suspicious; the extra money has not materialised and I just cannot fathom a reason he would suddenly be going on weekend business trips when in 10years at the same job he has never once been on one before.
Of course at times I have tentatively questioned these anomalies, but there is always a reasonable explanation, even if it is delivered in an unnecessarily defensive manner.
I hate to think about myself as the suspicious nagging wife, who inadvertently drives her husband to have an affair, but all the signs are there. I’ve spoken in depth with Cassie my closest friend. She has known me only for 5years more than she has known me with Jake, so if anyone has insight it would be her, plus her husband, Phillip, is quite chummy with Jake so I was hoping he might have confided in him, if there was something going on.
As it turned out, he hadn’t, but then as Cassie rightly pointed out over steaming cups of tea and chocolate biscuits, if he was doing anything untoward would he really be stupid enough to broadcast it to my best friends husband?
Ever the optimist is Cassie.
Nevertheless, she makes a good point and she agrees with me, that something is up. Her marriage is far from perfect, but it works, they both work hard at it and the majority of the time they come together as a team rather than rival gangs like me and Jake inevitably are.
So here I am stewing over paranoid thoughts as my ever absent Husband “works”, well works at getting some blonde bimbo into bed I bet!
I need a distraction, if I’m going to make this marriage work I need to trust him.
Here he is working every hour god sends to scrape together enough money to provide a better life for us, to try and improve this rut we have fallen into, and here I am doubting his efforts and destroying anything good that might have come from it.
Right, shaking the dark mist from my head I stand impulsively. There has to be an immediate task waiting for my attention. Granted I feel a little woozy from the second large glass of wine I have glugged down tonight. Drinking on your own of an evening, even with your meal is still a bit sad; But once a bottle of red has been opened it always seems a waste to leave it half full, so it has become a bit of a ritual for me to polish it off while watching bad T.V snuggled under a blanket in our once homely sitting room, that now, without my husband, always feels somewhat cold.
Anyway enough digressing, the wine must be depressing me more than I thought. Washing! There is always a mountain of that to get through, and as far as house chores go that is probably the safest to do when tipsy.
Padding through to the bathroom first, I grab some discarded socks and pants and two damp towels, tucking them under my arm I cant resist running into the hall so I skid across the hard wood floors stopping in perfect form outside the bedroom door. This practice is reserved solely for when I’m home alone; As much as I firmly believe no adult ever grows out of wearing fluffy socks to slide around shiny floors, they tend to resist the urge when in public and so, I too adhere to this unspoken rule.
Just the sight of the washing basket puts me off this idea, it’s packed down tightly and still full to the brim, but I’ve started now, so I’ve at least got to do one load before I relent to the calling sofa.
Dumping the towels to one side I start routing through pulling out anything