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The next few months were rough on all of us. The children and I learned to cope without Linda, and we settled into a routine. I learned all the things Linda used to do, mostly by trial and error. It wasn’t easy being “Mr. Mom,” but I managed with help from my mother. Linda’s parents pitched in as well. After a while, the children got to where they didn’t miss their mother as much. Emma had been undergoing counseling, which helped a lot.
Linda, by the way, tried killing herself two more times, and was saved, again by her mother. After the third time, she was declared incompetent and placed in a long-term mental health facility run by the state. I’ve heard that she spends much of her day in a near-catatonic state, not speaking to anyone. She eats, breathes, goes to the bathroom, and sleeps, but that’s pretty much it. The rest of the time, she sits in her room, rocking back and forth, apparently dreaming of happier times.
In July, I decided to sell the house. There were just had too many memories associated with it. The hardest ones weren’t the ones from after she left, they were the ones from before. The memories of the wonderful life that was destroyed were the most gut-wrenching.
Thanks to the help of a counselor named Samantha Curtis, I was slowly putting my life back together. I didn’t have much of a social life due to all the hours I spent with the children. They were still my first priority. Even if I had time, I came to the conclusion that I could never trust another woman the way I had trusted Linda. I felt that if I was so wrong about her how could I really know what anyone was like. Samantha tried to get me to change how I felt about that but we eventually hit a brick wall that I couldn’t get passed. We kept trying though.
In October my phone rang and I saw it was the hospital Linda was at. “Hello this is Jim Carlisle.”
A man replied, “Mr. Carlisle this is Doctor Webb at the Blue Lake Village Hospital your wife.”
I interrupted him, “Former wife.”
“Ah yes, um, where your former wife is being treated.” There was a slight pause.
“What can I do for you Doctor?”
“Well, as part of Linda’s treatment I was wondering if, well if you would be willing to be part of a session with her.”
I was a little shocked and thought for a second. “You know we’re divorced and I’ve made it clear I have no interest in trying to reconcile with her?”
There was another slight pause and then he continued, “I understand that. This isn’t for your marriage, it’s for her to hear from you what her actions did to you. I know you had some interactions with her right after she, um, after she.”
The doctor paused seeming to struggle for words to describe what she did so I helped him out. “After she abandoned me publicly in front of friends to have an affair on a night she pledged was to be a special night with me?”
He answered sounding a little uncomfortable, “Yes after that. I know you two had words. But what I would like is for you to talk about what her actions did to you without the raw emotions of the event being so recent. I believe there would be value in her treatment if you could talk about it in a less emotional setting and with some months to reflect on what she did.”
I thought for a minute. No question I made myself clear to her immediately after her betrayal. However, I imagined it could bring me some peace of mind to describe my thoughts more calmly and hear her reaction now. “I have a question. Will it just be me talking or will Linda have to respond to what I say? I guess I’m asking if this will be a conversation between Linda and I that you moderate?”
“Yes, that is the plan.”
“Ok I’m willing to do that. I have another question. Her parents told me that she pretty much just sits there quiet rocking in a chair in almost a vegetative state. Is that true?”
The doctor didn’t answer for a second then replied, “I’m not at liberty to.”
I cut in, “Listen doc, you’re asking me to do this which I can assure you will be gut wrenching to me. I’m in therapy now and to be blunt don’t think I’ll ever recover some of what I lost. I will never be able to fully trust another human being again. Do you understand the implications of that for someone in their thirties? Do you?”
“I do,” the doctor responded softly. There was another pause and then he sighed, “I can tell you that Linda does sit and for the most part doesn’t talk. She began talking a little over a month ago to some extent. She has made some progress but I will just say that she is a deeply damaged person from what she did. I think if she gets to hear directly from you it will fill in things for her that would help her recovery progress.”
“Ok what are the next steps in this?” I asked.
Sounding somewhat surprised that I agreed to participate, “Well, I would like to have a meeting with you and your therapist to get some basic information together. If you want, you can have your therapist with us when you and Linda talk. Would you like that?”
I sighed, “Yeah that’s probably a good idea.”
A few days later I met with Dr. Webb and Samantha. The doctor gave us an idea of Linda’s condition. It was clear that the aftermath of that night effectively killed the Linda I had known. Not only had she tried to kill herself several times, she was unable to take care of herself at all for well over a month. She needed to be given IV nutrition since she wasn’t eating. She also would only talk to herself having imaginary conversations with me. At other times she would just sit there crying.
I asked about who had visited her and the list was short, just her parents. None of her friends had even tried to see her. Dee the queen of all bitches who I hated with all my heart didn’t even visit. That bitch helped kill my marriage and was partly responsible for destroying Linda. She should have bent over backwards to help her now, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Dr. Webb said that Linda said her first words that weren’t just talking to herself in August, over five months after that night. It took over a month before the doctor was able to have a conversation with her of any substance at all.
The doctor outlined the agenda for the discussion. He had a set of questions he wanted me to speak to. I asked if he could give them to me ahead of time so I could write up answers. I thought that would help me take the edge off of my answers and make sure I covered everything I wanted to. While he understood my reasoning, he resisted. True he didn’t want me coming in and showing her raw unedited anger, however he didn’t want my answers to be emotionless. He felt some tempered emotion would be helpful in conveying what I went through.
We set the date for the discussion the following week. As I walked out of the facility with Samantha she stopped me and pointed towards a bench in a garden. “Let’s chat for a minute.” We sat and she started, “What are your feelings about this?”