In Love We Trust

"If you're not 100% sure you can handle this, it would be kinder both to Paul and yourself to end things now, as amicably as possible."

"I can do it; I know I can!"

"You're not listening to me! Take some time. If you can get away that would be ideal, but then again going away may just fuel Paul's suspicions. Find some quiet time; go to your room and close the door and think about this carefully. If you decide to do this you have to be all in, there can be no turning back."

"Thank you, Doctor, I understand."

"Now comes the really hard part! You have to make Paul understand that nothing worse than what he already knows about has happened, then convince him to give you a chance to earn his trust. It helps that he has allowed you to stay in the house, albeit in separate bedrooms. It would be much harder if you were living apart."

It took a few months of hard work, but I eventually was able to convince Paul that I hadn't slept with Mark. Paul was eventually able to control his temper and talk to Mark, his story matched mine in every detail and Mary Jones was able to confirm that we had not yet crossed that line, at least before the trip.

**********

My "conversation" with Mark Jacobs, and my talk with Mary Jones did their part to reassure me that Lana and Mark didn't have sex. I was, of course, still troubled by the fact that Lana and Mark had planned on sleeping together. I really only had their word that they hadn't, but I decided to trust my gut and my gut told me that they were telling me the truth.

Once I was able to believe that Lana hadn't slept with Mark, I was able to occasionally take Lana into my bed, though we still slept in our own rooms.

**********

Trust, as Dr. Chisholm predicted was a tougher nut to crack. I tried to be as open with Paul as I could, but found myself bristling at Paul's suspicious looks. I made an appointment with Dr. Chisholm, and was near tears as I took my seat in her office.

"Doctor, I don't know if I can do this! If I leave the room just to go to the bathroom, when I come back he gives me a look like he's wondering what I was doing!"

"Now, Lana, you knew that it was going to be hard and take some time, and it's only been a month since you convinced Paul that you hadn't slept with Mark."

"I know, I know, I keep thinking that it's been four months since everything came to a head, and I get impatient."

"We went all over this. You knew it was going to be hard. If you don't think you're able to handle it maybe you should just ask Paul for a divorce."

"But, I don't want a divorce!"

"Maybe it's time for another joint session; try to get Paul to learn to trust you a little more."

"Anything you say, Doctor, anything!"

**********

Two days later, Lana and I walked into Dr. Chisholm's office, both of us on edge. As we took our seats in front of Dr. Chisholm's desk, the doctor opened the conversation.

"Paul, I want to start by complimenting you on how far you have come. I know this whole experience has been very hard on you, and your willingness to stick it out does you credit."

"Thank you, Doctor."

"One issue remains that threatens to undo all the hard work that you and Lana have done to try to preserve your marriage."

"And that would be..."

"Trust. Don't misunderstand me; this is not your fault. I warned Lana from the beginning that this would be the most difficult part of the process. The problem, from Lana's perspective, is that even though she hasn't done anything to betray your trust," I started to interrupt when Dr. Chisholm held up her hand and continued, "Since the incident with Mark, you don't seem to be able to show her any trust at all."

"Well, can you blame me?"

"Blame isn't the issue, Paul. You made the decision to work on trying to preserve this marriage. You would have been entirely within your rights to end the marriage, but you didn't. When you didn't, you made an implied commitment to do your part to keep your marriage intact."

"And I haven't?"

"I'm sorry, Paul, you haven't. Your continued refusal to show Lana the slightest bit of trust, even when she has been totally trustworthy, leaves Lana feeling that she has a hopeless task."

"And just what exactly am I supposed to do about that?"

"I see only two possible paths. One, you decide that you can't get past her betrayal and you part ways, freeing each of you up to find more compatible partners."

"And the second path?"

"You make up your mind that you will show Lana some trust. I'm not talking about total trust as you had before Mark Jacobs came on the scene, that would be unrealistic. You need to show her some trust, unless and until she betrays that trust. As she earns your trust, you show her more and more trust until you approach your former level. As I told Lana, a complete return to your former level is probably never going to happen, but you can still reach a livable level."

"I'm not sure that I can do that; she cut me pretty deep."

"Well, once again as I told Lana, that is a decision only you can make, and I wouldn't make it lightly, but if you honestly cannot do it, the kindest thing that you can do is get a divorce and end the pain. I suggest you take a few days to think it over. If you can get away and avoid distractions that would be ideal, but if you decide to stick it out, you have to commit."

"Alright, Doctor, I've gone this far, I guess I owe it to what we had to give it another shot."

"Paul, that's all Lana can ask."

"Yes, Paul," said Lana, "Thank you."

For the next few weeks, I made a real effort to give Lana a little benefit of the doubt. I tried to keep my suspicions to myself, and more importantly, not let them show on my face. The more I thought about it the more I did not want to lose Lana, as the love we had shared before this kept trying to break through my shell.

What finally broke through my defenses, and made me determined to join Lana in fighting for our marriage was, ironically, a call from Ann Jacobs.

One Sunday, while Lana was out shopping and I was alone with my thoughts, enjoying a cold beer, the phone rang with an unfamiliar number on the display. Normally, I would let these calls go to voice mail, but something made me pick up.

"Hello?" I said.

"Paul, is that you? This is Ann, Ann Jacobs."

"Oh, hi, Ann! How are you doing? I haven't talked to you since my 'talk' with Mark just before you left town."

"About as well as can be expected, Paul. The move back here didn't accomplish what we had hoped, and Mark and I are getting divorced. I was just wondering how you and Lana were doing."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Ann. I guess you could say that Lana and I are a work-in-progress. Lana has been seeing a counselor and I have been joining her on occasion. We were making some progress, especially when I accepted that they hadn't had sex, and was able to forgive her for their little get-away."

"That sounds good, Paul, and I'm happy for you. So, what's the problem? You said you were a work-in-progress."

"Trust," I said. "While I was able to forgive her for what she did and was going to do, I was having difficulty letting go of my distrust, and I'm afraid it showed through. Lana got increasingly frustrated, to the point that she was considering divorce."

"Oh, Paul, that's terrible! I was sure that she was in love with you and didn't want a divorce."

"I know, that shows you how frustrated and upset she is. I have been making an extra effort, and things are improving, but I don't know if it's a case of 'too little, too late'".

"Paul, I'm going to tell you something I haven't told anyone before. Maybe it will help, maybe it won't."

"That sounds mysterious, Ann, but if you think it might help, I'm all ears!"

"Okay, Paul, here goes. This wasn't Mark's first time."

"What?!"

"Yes, Paul, Mark has cheated on me before, more than once. In fact, that was the reason for our move to your town, and it shows you how desperate I was that I was willing to move back here, but it just didn't work. We weren't back a week before he was up to his old tricks. He was even playing again with one of his sluts from before."

"Well, you certainly have my sympathy, Ann, but I'm not sure how this helps me and my situation."

"I'm not really sure either, Paul, I just thought that it might help to have the whole picture. Not to excuse Lana, but this wasn't a simple case of a boss using her position to pressure a subordinate into an inappropriate relationship. Lana may very well have opened the door, but Mark is an experienced predator who, I'm sure, played her for all he was worth.

"This wasn't Mark's first rodeo, and my understanding, and I think your belief, is that this is the first time that Lana over-stepped her bounds?"

"Yes, that's right. There's no way to be totally sure, of course, but I'm about as sure as I can be that Lana has never betrayed her vows."

"And you say that she seems truly remorseful, and is doing all she can to show you that she is rededicating herself to the marriage?"

"Yes, I would have to say that is true."

"Well, speaking as someone on the opposite end of that spectrum, I wish I had your opportunity, and if I were you I'd grab it with both hands!"

"Thank you, Ann, I appreciate the call, and I will definitely give all that you said much thought."

"You're quite welcome, Paul, and good luck."

"Thank you again, Ann. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, Paul."

As I hung up the phone, I took a long swig of my now somewhat warm beer, leaned back in my chair, closed my eyes and tried to make some sense of all the thoughts racing through my brain.

I was just coming to a conclusion, when Lana came in the front door.

**********

"Hi, Paul, I'm home," I said as I placed my packages on the sideboard in the front hall.

Hearing no answer, I walked towards the back of the house looking for Paul in the den.

Entering the den, I saw Paul lying back in the chair with his eyes closed, the half empty beer bottle on the table beside him.

Worried I said, "Paul, are you okay?"

**********

Sitting up, I looked at Lana, seeing her with new eyes.

I stood up, walked over to her, took her in my arms in a great big hug as tears ran down my face.

"What's the matter, Paul? Are you okay? Are our parents okay?"

"Everyone is fine, Lana."

"Then why are you crying?"

"I'm crying because I just realized how close I came to losing you, how close I came to driving you away, and how much I love you and don't want to lose you."

"You won't lose me, Paul, you'll have to throw me away!"

"I'll never do that, but can you forgive me?"

"Forgive you? I don't understand. I'm the one that betrayed your trust!"

"Yes, but I'm the one that was resisting your efforts to regain it, and I want to tell you that I am committing myself to working with you to not only restore our marriage, but to re-build it stronger than ever."

"Mark, I can't tell you how much hearing that means to me, but I have to ask, what brought on this change?"

"Believe it or not, it was a call from Ann Jacobs."

Lana's back went up a bit. "Ann Jacobs, what did she want?"

I couldn't help noticing Lana's reaction, gave a soft chuckle and put my arm around Lana reassuringly.

"Nothing for you to worry about, Honey, she just had some news and advice for me."

"And just what could she have to say that would cause this reaction?"

"Well, first of all she told me that she and Mark are divorcing..."

Lana again stiffened.

"She told me some things about her and Mark's history that threw a bit of a different light on what happened with you, but most importantly she made me see how much I had to lose if we couldn't fix things.

"I had been thinking about what she said, and was just coming to the conclusion that I didn't want to lose 'us', when you came in. That's why I was crying."

**********

I felt a huge weight being lifted off of my heart as I began crying, and this seemed to trigger more tears from Paul as we fell into each other's arms and hugged until we heard our stomachs growl!

Laughing, we retired to the kitchen and prepared dinner, laughing and joking as if the past several months hadn't happened. As we quietly ate our dinner, we realized that things couldn't be this simple. We still knew that we had made a significant breakthrough, and we decided to call Dr. Chisholm first thing Monday morning to set up an appointment. We went to bed feeling confident that we had taken the first step towards restoring our marriage.

Author's Note --

I know that some (many?) will lambaste this as "unfinished". They are certainly welcome to their opinion, but in MY opinion it IS finished, Paul and Lana have reconciled. Yes, I could write more pages detailing the ups and downs of their reconciliation process, but as I have decided that they WILL reconcile I don't see that as necessary.

Now, if they were to fail, then I would need to show why, and would have, but that is a moot point.

I welcome constructive comments.