Forgiveness with Retribution

"Damn, Nancy, do you know what I would give to meet a man like Ron? As you well know, I picked a loser. He beat the crap out of me and I never once cheated on him. He beat me more times than I want to remember just because he had a bad day. It was like kicking the cat, and I was the cat.

"Now what about you. Here you have a man that treats you like a queen and you end up treating him like shit. Not once, but for four months. Four months, Nancy. Four fuckin' months. You are unbelievable. Damn it, Nancy. Do you even begin to know how he must feel?

"How about Marie and Terri? Did you think of them when you had your orgasms? Do you know what you have done? Do you fuckin' know what you have caused?"

"I know, Fran, I know!"

Nancy said that while she might not have every word right, that was really close. She said she was certain about Francine saying, "Do you know what I would give to meet a man like Ron."

"So, are you saying you would really rather that I chose someone else if I decide to schedule a date? Is that what you are saying, Nancy?"

"Let me brew us some coffee and think about that," she answered.

A few minutes later, as she poured our coffee, she said, "I guess I would actually prefer it if you dated Francine. At least she loves our daughters and they love her. If the very worst outcome for me happened, you would have a good wife and our daughters would be in good hands. Also, your wife and your ex could be good friends. If you want to do it, you have my blessing."

"I didn't say I wanted to, I just said she would be my choice. I don't think that dating another woman would fix what haunts me. I don't think fucking another woman would make us even, either. I don't even know what getting even means. Can we just drop this conversation?"

"Just one more thing," she said with a mischievous smile. She dialed a number and put her phone on speaker. When Francine answered, Nancy said, "Fran, guess who my husband wants to schedule his first date with under our open marriage agreement."

"When you told me about it, Sis, I was hoping that neither one of you would schedule any dates."

"Well, sit down for this. He wants to date you."

"He didn't say that. I know he didn't say that."

"He did, indeed. So, what will you tell him?"

"I will tell him that it is plain as day what that means. Out of all of the women in the world, he picked the one that was the closest thing possible to a carbon copy of you, Sis. I think that speaks volumes. It says that he already has what he is looking for."

Nancy's mischievous smile was replaced by tears. "Oh, Fran, you always know just what to say. That is so sweet. You are the best big sister ever."

"I didn't mean to make you cry, girl. I just stated an obvious fact."

"Tears of joy, Sis. Tears of joy."

A few days later, our daughters came to me with a request. They wanted to join a dancing class that was being held at school. They would have a dance every Friday night. The teacher and her husband were champion ballroom dancers. It would be held in a room at the school and there would always be two sets of parents acting as chaperones. I looked at the advertisement that they handed me and nearly choked at the price tag.

"Dad, the price includes snacks and drinks. Don't forget, it is for a whole year."

"Does it take a year to learn?"

"It probably does to get to the level of participating in dance competitions. It would be great to be able to compete. It takes a couple to compete, so there is a good chance we might meet some nice boys too. Daddy, please," they both begged.

All of a sudden, I had a brainstorm. "Have you talked to your mom about this?"

"No. We wanted you to do that."

"I will. I'll get back to you."

I had been wondering lately about trying to change the direction at home. Nancy had tried to do that once, and I rejected her. Maybe I should start practicing forgiveness instead of talking about it. Maybe there has been enough retribution. I'm not happy. Nancy is not happy. Our girls are not happy. No one is winning the way things are, so maybe we need a change of direction. Maybe this is an opportunity to do just that.

The next day, I made several calls and wrote a pretty big check.

That evening, I told Nancy that I needed to talk to her. She said, "Ok, talk away." She looked a little bit worried.

I told her about the girls request to take the dance class and asked her if she would approve. "Of course, I would," she replied. "I just wish that I had done something like that. It would have been something else to really learn to dance instead of just stumbling through like I do. I love to dance and it looks like maybe they take after me in at least one way!"

"The price doesn't bother you?"

"Not at all, as long as you are paying," she laughed. I hadn't heard her laugh like that since before that awful Friday. I loved her laugh. "Seriously, honey, I am for it and we can afford it," she said with a nice smile.

Wow, this is breakthrough night. First a real laugh and then she calls me honey. "I'm glad that you approve, since I already bought the tickets," I said with a grin. "I also decided I wouldn't mind learning to dance better myself. I have always regretted that I am such a klutz that I couldn't dance with you very much at parties and such. Knowing how to dance could come in handy for me."

I told her that the same couple that is teaching at school also teaches adults in a big garage on their property. "So, I signed up for Wednesday nights," I stated. I handed her the tickets. Her happy face turned sad. "Oh, you have four tickets here. I guess that means you are going to be scheduling some dates on Wednesday nights," she said in a sad voice.

"Well, I was really hoping to do both Wednesday nights and Friday nights. We need to volunteer to chaperone on some Fridays too, assuming that you are good with spending that many nights dancing with a klutz like me, Nanny. I realize that you probably don't need the lessons, but I sure could use...."

I didn't get to finish my sentence. She had her arms wrapped around me tighter than I thought was possible. She was hugging and she was bawling. I mean, really bawling. I have never heard her bawl like that before.

I'm sorry, Nanny, I didn't mean to upset you if you don't want..."

She kissed me on the lips harder than ever before! Isn't she ever going to let me finish a sentence?

"I'm not upset, you silly man, I'm happy. I am so happy. This is the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me. Oh, honey, I am really happy. We are going to learn to dance together and we get to dance with our girls too. This is soooo good. We can learn together. There is so much that I don't know. We will learn together, my love. Maybe we can get good enough to compete. Wouldn't that be a hoot!"

"I doubt that we will get that good, Nanny, but I think we will have fun and that it will be good for us."

Well, she was right. We did get good. We got really good. We had good teachers, of course, but it turned out that I did have pretty good coordination and I really loved dancing. Needless to say, Nancy was a natural and she taught me as much as our instructors did. Together, we were awesome. We were told that by our toughest critics, Marie and Terri.

We are having a great time! I thought that our daughters might be uncomfortable dancing on the same floor with their parents, but they were thrilled. I'm not sure that the boys that became their steady dance partners, Bob and Jim, felt that way at first. Now, we are good friends and there is a good chance that Bob and Jim may turn out to be more than dance partners before too long. Boyfriends? Probably, maybe already! Son's in-law? Maybe someday, who knows?

I know some of my friends think that I should have dumped Nancy. That might work for some people, especially if they had a bad marriage to begin with. I only know that when I was being vindictive, nobody in our family was happy. When I finally did forgive and began doing things to prove it, all of us became happy. It was my decision, and I am happy with it. They don't like it? So, shoot me.

Is it back to the way it was before the affair? No, not really. My trust has taken a blow that I will never recover from. I am always in 'trust but verify' mode. I can't help it, that's just the way that it is. When we are on the dance floor and some other guy asks her to dance, I watch them like a hawk. So far, she has never danced with any guy more than once, but I keep watching.

Also, Peggy, one of the girls that she works with, is married to a good friend of mine. He knows about Nancy's affair and he tells me everything that Peggy mentions about Nancy. He told me that Nancy never interacts with clients. Betty, the founder of the company, is the one that has lunch and so forth with clients. Nancy refuses to do that.

One time, according to Peggy, a client came to Nancy's desk and asked her to go to lunch with him. "I'm buying and you get to choose," he told her.

She told him that she was running behind and needed to have lunch at her desk while she worked. "If I don't get it done, I will have to stay late to complete this work. I really don't want to take any evening time away from my husband and my two teenage daughters, so I really must decline your kind offer," she stated. So far, so good.

Maybe you are wondering what about after the kids are gone and the "open marriage" agreement has expired. Well, how about this paraphrase? "Fooled me once, you got by, fool me twice, it's goodbye."

I just can't go through that again. I will be gone in an instant. Not to see Shelly, but to see a divorce attorney. You can bank on that. I really don't believe it will come to that, but then I didn't expect or suspect the first time either.

Back to dancing. We did pretty good in our first two competitions, but no cigar. Tonight, was different. Tonight, we walked away with the #1 trophy. Our first big win of what we hope will be a long string of wins!

That brings us full circle. It brings us back to the way this story started.

"How are we going to celebrate this? This deserves a big celebration, don't you think? I have no idea how to act as a winner. I handled losing just fine, but I don't know how to handle winning. You are going to have to show me how, Nanny."

"Honey, you were born a winner. You have never been anything but a winner, so just act naturally. We will enjoy some time with our friends tonight and we will be humble winners. When we get to our room after this is over, that's when the celebration begins. Boy, are we going to celebrate. If you think you are tired now, honey, just wait until we get to our room."

I just felt in my heart that something really good would happen if I learned to dance a lot better. Should have done it a long time ago.

The end of the New Ending of an old story by lucsmith.