Unconditional Love

When I met my husband, he was a hot property in the small town. He was playing several women off each other, using "the other woman" -- his self-described "best friend" -- as ballast, while he learned how much fun it was to be single again. He told me he was miserable. He hated being alone, but he didn't like any one of the women in his life enough to rule anything out with any of the others. There were women with whom he would have dinner, spend quality time, and then deposit at their doorsteps with good night kisses. And then there were women whom he'd call on his way home, asking if they could meet him for a night cap and, well, more. If only, he said, he could find ONE PERSON who blended the best of both worlds.

One of his late night women desperately wanted to be that person. She was a single mom who won a college education in her divorce settlement. She was in her final year of school when he met her, well along the path, she said, to her new life. Still, she was weighed down by so many things from her old life, that she was always lurching from crisis to crisis. This woman was not dumb, but she had a history of making dumb choices. As a consequence, even as she did all the right things to make a better life for herself and her kids, she never stopped believing that all she really needed was a knight in shining armor to bail her out. If I had met her under different circumstances, I'm sure I would have tried to help her succeed in spite of herself.

She fell for my husband hard. And why not? He was smart, successful, good looking, talented, single, straight -- from all appearances, an amazing catch. It didn't seem to bother her that he was only available late at night or at the last minute. Between school and her dysfunctional family, her life was so chaotic that his odd hours didn't seem strange to her. It was enough that he paid for her drinks and treated her like a grown up when they were together. She dropped a lot of hints about her precarious situation -- always on the edge of eviction, barely one step ahead of the bill collectors, constantly fighting with her ex for overdue child support -- but he never offered to step in and save her.

When she started using the "L" word, he told her that he didn't believe in love. Every time he thought he'd been in love, he'd been burned. All he wanted this time around was amiable companionship, a little physical chemistry, and no entangling complications. Fine, she said; she figured that if she stuck around long enough, he'd realize before long that he was in love with her too. Poor girl, she never stood a chance.

About five minutes after we met, my husband decided that I was his ONE PERSON. When he returned from our first date, he vowed to make changes in his life. He promised to cut off all the women he was seeing and devote himself only to me. He did, after a fashion -- mostly, he just stopped calling. When they called or e-mailed, he'd find some gentle excuse to put them off. Nearly all took the hint and bowed out gracefully. Not this woman.

She started stalking him. She called at all hours of the day and night, and always from different numbers so he wouldn't automatically know it was her. She spammed him with pleading e-mails. She showed up at places where she knew he (or his friends) were likely to be. The final straw came one night when she talked her way into his building and convinced the maintenance man to let her into his apartment. I know this, because he was laying in bed talking to me on the phone when it happened.

An hour later, he called back. "She's gone."

The next day, he forwarded me an e-mail she sent at 4:00 in the morning. In it, she told him that she forgave him for falling in love with me, and made a long list of reasons why he should keep seeing her on the side. Her number one reason: she would love him unconditionally. When I wrote back, I told him I couldn't make that same promise. Because, I said, there would always be a line that, once he crossed it, would betray everything that was good between us. And up to that point, I could promise that I would give him everything I had. But once he crossed it, I would be done. No man -- not even you -- is worth losing my soul, I told him.

I didn't define that line. I still haven't. But I know it's there, and I know that he's been teetering on the edge of it for a long time.


The Wife Who Knows