That’s an unfair headline, but I’m going with it for now until I think of something more appropriate.  Regardless, I am basically recovering from the date Friday night when I went out with my wife and her ‘boy friend’.

I wrote about this before hand a few days back

Things that completely Derail your Week: Server problems, Noisy Neighbors Construction and Your Wife’s boyfriend

Now, before I go any further, I need to say some things up front.  This site is called There’s Something about Harry.  I’m Harry, its a play on my middle name.  I started this site almost 4 years ago and the site has no purpose.  If you are reading this, all you are going to get is a little insight into my thoughts, a snapshot in time of my mind.

Years back, I created the site to practice some things with html and css.  Then soon after I used it to break writers block, going through a number of silly exercises to get my creative juices flowing.  Back then I was working as a new blogger, a ghost writer and a business developer.

Anyway, this site never had a purpose other than to be a support for me.  That is something that I appreciate a great deal more the last few days, as my site has turned into my therapist.

Time for Therapy

Deep Breathe, ok one more of those, Deep Breath

So after I wrote that last article a few things happened.  I wrote that article Thursday afternoon.  I was pretty sure I was not going to go out with my wife who had been invited by a guy she met on our anniversary when we went out to celebrate 16 years of marriage.  She’s a flirt in a physical way, and he flirted back heavily.

They exchanged contact information and developed a ‘friendship’ in the days and weeks that followed.  I didn’t know about the friendship until sometime around Tuesday night, which was about 3 weeks after the fact give or take a few days.

We had plans to go and see the New Moon premier after midnight Thursday night, Becky and a friend from work (female) and her friend/old boyfriend.

I wasn’t super thrilled about seeing the premier, but that was mostly because I’m not crazy about the twilight movies.  They are a little too teenage focused for me.

Twilight Series Spoiler alert

The books are fine enough, even though I get a little annoyed that

1. Edward takes too long to figure out that he should turn Bella into a vampire (3 books) sorry about the spoiler . .
2. Edward, a 109 year old male, doesn’t realize that he is capable of producing sperm, and that a girl could get pregnant from sperm

End of spoiler

But my wife loves the series, the books, the movies, the sound tracks, pretty much the whole works and she reads a lot of vampire books and series now as a result.

So we went, and I had a good time.  We stopped by a bar on the way.  I had two killian’s red beers before the movie and I enjoyed it.  The movie complex ran the movie in 9 different theaters and the place was packed.  The movie wasn’t quite as teeny bopper focused as Twilight.  The special effects were alright (the werewolves in the early scenes were a little goofy).  The romeo and juliet vibe between bella and edward is realized in a campy romantic way, and Jacob’s ability to steal a scene really showed its teeth in New Moon.  I almost got the sense that whenever there was a scene with Edward, the movie was going down hill and whenever a scene with Jacob showed up things were better.  But from an artistic perspective that’s kind of the point of the second book and probably done intentionally in the movie too.

Throughout the night, I made a couple joking comments via twitter, and all in all it was a decent night,but . . . I was dreading Friday night and the DATE.

To make things more complex, my wife was awaiting the results of her National Boards.  They were due sometime on Friday.  So the night out at How at the Moon in Charlotte, took on a new importance.  It was either going to be a celebration or a consolation for my wife depending on if she passed her boards or not.  She completed them last spring and it takes the board something like 6 months to tally up scores.  Rather ridiculous if you ask me, and I know a thing or two about board processes.  If you haven’t been through a medical board, or a military board, or an educational board, you might liken it to something like a CPA exam or sitting for the Bar exam.

Friday, we woke up late after being up late.  We got the kids on the bus for school and Becky dropped our youngest off at school.

Sometime in the mid morning she got her results back, and she did not pass all of her boards.  So she now has to redo/retake some of these.  This is a grueling process and a shit load of work.  Not to mention she (we) had to pay $4k out of pocket last year for her to take them.  Now we will have to pay another $1k to retest, and finances have not been great this year, nor last year.  We’re going to do it, but its not going to be easy.

She was pretty upset, and despite all of my issues with the DATE, I did everything I could to make her feel better.  We went out to eat, and went shopping at Kohls for something for her to wear to the DATE that night, then we went around to two of the schools picking up our daughters.

Got home, she took a nap and I picked up our son.

Sometime after that I think I wrote that article above.

She might have had another nap as well.  Stress and being out late, and me hemming and hawing about whether I would go or not, mostly me leaning towards not going at all, or possibly driving her there, dropping her off and picking her up after she was done and ready to leave so that she had a safe trip to and from without any cabs or opportunity to go home with her boyfriend. (I didn’t think that latter aspect was likely, but well, we’re all human.)

We did talk about things throughout the day a bit.  It was helping (me) to talk about it, but I didn’t get a chance to really express my feelings until I wrote the blog article.  When I did write it, that was my subjective perspective.  I’m not an objective writer, by choice.  I can write objectively with the best of them, but I see little value in objectivity, something I won’t go into in this article because it doesn’t relate.

People, friends and family, kept asking me if I was going and wishing me a good time.  I kept telling them, I’m not sure if I’m going or not.  They didn’t understand.  Got a lot of weird looks that day, but they didn’t know about my wife’s friend nor did they have the visuals of him groping her stuck in their head.

Ultimately, towards the last minute, I decided to go.  I had a lot of reasons for this, but primarily I wanted to BE THERE, I wanted to present myself as a candidate for my wife’s attentions.  I didn’t feel like this was fair, we’re married.  Now, I don’t believe in marriage for a lot of reasons, never have, never will (new fodder for the fire in this).  But for those that do believe in marriage (sorry about that flawed condition if you have it) people tend to think that if you are married you should not fall for someone else, you shouldn’t flirt with someone else, you shouldn’t make your spouse/significant other jealous, yada yada yada.

That’s all bullshit.  People are humans and we aren’t wired that way.  I know that, appreciate it, and live aware of it.  I don’t embrace the fact in a free love kind of way popular in the 60’s, but I know that things can happen.  That emotions and feelings can develop.

I mentioned in the article that I did not want to lose Becky.  I love Becky.  I didn’t want to compete for her, because that goes against my nature, against the few beliefs I have, but that night I chose to at least be there.

She needed my support for the boards, she needed a designated driver, and any other time, I would have loved to go and have a good time.

Before we left I had a shot of seagrams.  Becky drove, we picked up her girl friend and we headed to Charlotte.  I had a couple more beers before switching to diet coke and sobering up.  I just couldn’t face the night with the edge that was present in my head.  Plus, its a fucking dueling paino bar.  You almost can’t go there and deal with the place on a normal night without some alcohol. (The performers are good, and funny, but alcohol is part of the experience.)

We arrived and joined the table that the boyfriend had won, driving the invitation and my purpose as the DD.  He was sitting with another couple, some friends, 1 of which he worked with I think.  It was their first time at a piano bar, and I don’t think they were really into it(they were drinking, but probably not enough).  I couldn’t really make much contact with the boyfriend.  I figured if I did, I’d probably end up doing something I would regret.  That might have ranged anywhere from cracking a bunch of jokes, insulting him out right, belittling him in front of a crowd, throwing stuff, taking a cheap shot at him with my fist, starting a full blown fight, getting pissed at my wife and storming out, ditching her there, or who knows what else.

So I basically watched the band and sang along.  I put on a good face and held it together pretty well.

On the drive there, I got a tweet from someone that commented about the fact that I had mentioned in a tweet that I was heading out with my wife so she could be with her boyfriend.

@capitalfellow

@brettbum sounds more emasculating than dumb. #goodluckwiththat

I think he was responding to one of these messages, but I’m not sure which:

Some people would read that and feel a little embarrassed, others might even feel like it was a little insulting or described them as being less than . . . .something.

For me it actually kicked off a little bit of courage.  I’ve never bought into the whole masculinity crap.  I don’t fret about my masculinity.  I’m actually extremely confident in myself and don’t have to live up to some goofy stereotype. (like driving your wife to a date with her boyfriend is bad apparently).

OK, I need to set something a little straight.  I’m referring to the guy as boyfriend and the event as a date.  But in fairness, that is more me writing.  When I write, especially about my life, there are a lot of odd things that have happened to me over the years.  For example, I had a run in with organized criminals in china that were knocking off Motorola 2 way radios and selling them on the black market, these ended up as key parts used for IEDs in Iraq.  I became a whistleblower, they threatened to kill me.  My life is not uneventful.

To deal with shit like that (and this) I have to use words that help me summarize the experience in terms that others will understand quickly, otherwise, I’ll write or say 10,000 words explaining a fine point.  So when I call it a date, she wasn’t going out on a date just to be with this guy, but that’s the easiest way I can convey the event and the emotions in my head that I experienced then when I thought about the event.

My wife is not a bad person.  I don’t think she has cheated on me.  I don’t think she intended to hurt me.  ( I was hurt, but I don’t think the intent was there.) And she did need to go out and have a good time that night to lick her wounds from the results of the boards.

Anyway, for now, I’m going to keep referring to things this way.  I have to partly for my own peace of mind to help exorcise the daemons in my head.  I have to say the words enough so that they won’t have any power of me or my emotions any more, because right now they are tearing me up inside.

So anyway the comment actually helped me remember who I was a bit, and remember more importantly where I came from and how I came to be, and that gave me some strength to put it into perspective and when I got there, I didn’t just drop Becky off and come back later.  I went in and stayed until we left later, together.

Now, while we were there things weren’t all perfect.  I was having a mostly good time for the first few hours as long as I didn’t look the wrong way.  I opened up a tab, Becky and her friend had a shot, bought by a third couple that joined us late.

We sent in a lot of song requests, including one from me, Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum.  That song has a lot of history for me and symbolizes the energy I need to get through very very difficult personal situations.  I’ve turned to it in times of need many times over the years.  I haven’t had need of it in a few years.

I gave $5 to get that one played, normally I give $2 or $3.  The piano player saw it and gave me a look, like fat chance.  (they didn’t play Every day is Halloween, on Halloween when we were there for our anniversary), so I figured that I just lost $5.

But much later that evening they played it.  That helped quite a bit, but before we got there, I was writing up a later song request, when the other piano player turned the spot light on me (we were at a table close to the stage) and said that he’d have to get me up on stage because I was not singing along to the current song (I wasn’t even paying attention because I was writing a song request).  He made some joke about me being ‘too cool for school’ and the blazer I was wearing and told me to get my Nicholas Cage ass up on the stage.
I went and had to sing the chorus of Chuck Berry’s “My Ding Aling” in front of an audience, including my wife’s boyfriend.

I was a good sport, but holding that microphone at that point in time was a dangerous thing.  I was having a hard time singing, not because I was embarrassed about the song, but because, I thought about ripping into the boyfriend with the mic or explaining to the audience the situation that had brought me up on stage to be the subject of a ridiculous song.  I also thought about throwing the microphone at the guy, but doubted my aim given my high level of fury.  That and the spotlights in my eyes were messing with me a bit.

So I kind of sang, in a William “Bubba” Shatner kind of way.

That was not my last time on stage singing that night.

the next time was more comfortable for strange reasons.

The night went on, Becky had a great time, danced quite a bit (with the crowd of other women that were dancing in front of and on the stage).  She was having a good time, and I was happy for her.

Later that night, they brought a guy up on stage.  He’d just gotten back from Africa or Iraq (not sure which) where he had been serving with the military.  I think his first name was Jerry.  For some reason I got a feeling he was a Doctor, just had that look.  Before you know it they were calling out to have all veterans come up on stage.

I’m a veteran, I joined the army when the US was building up on the Kuwait border in the fall of 1990.  I started Basic, the day the war started.  I served during but not in the first Persian Gulf War.  I later supported the mission to Somalia and Haiti, I worked the Balkans desk in the early 90’s but never deployed.  I see myself as a veteran, but I see a big difference in veterans that have been deployed to a foreign country to fight and those that haven’t.  Normally, I don’t stand up for recognition during these types of things, but this time with the encouragement of Becky I found myself heading up on stage, where my Nicolas Cage ass joined with other veterans to sing Proud to be an American, a country song (not terribly fond of country music) which I learned to sing along to and drink copious amounts of beer when I was in the Army stationed in Texas years ago.

That felt better than singing My Ding aling in front of my wife’s boy friend.

As the night went on, I mostly held in there.  My wife sat across from me the entire night pretty much.  One of her beefs with me is that I don’t flirt with her in public, I don’t hang on her, tickle her, kiss/fondle her stuff like that.  Its mostly true.  Its not her, its me.  I try but it just doesn’t manifest, which is one of the things that drove her to flirt with the other guy weeks earlier, and knowing that I don’t give her what she wants in this way, I didn’t mind, then.

But I couldn’t quite do it Friday night either.  I was trying to keep a level head and not do something that would make me look like a complete asshole and might increase my wife’s sympathy for the other guy, like ridiculing him on stage, or throwing a beer bottle at his head.

Towards the end of the night, most of the people from our table’s party had left, including a woman that had come to be something of an almost date with my wife’s boyfriend.  She was uncomfortable all night long, I think they are mismatched, and that’s just me being honest.  Some strange lady at the bar that night even tried to set this girl up with her brother at a different table, taking her away from my wife’s boyfriend and his chances of possibly connecting with someone else (besides my wife).

I seriously felt bad for the guy for the way she was treating him.  I don’t dislike this guy (for the most part).  I see my issues or complaints here as a problem in my own head.  A personal emotional weakness that I didn’t know I had, or something new that has developed over 16 years of a ‘safe’ marriage relationship.

However, she eventually left kind of early, after playing text messaging games most of the night.  She did finally start to sing along after a couple Blue Moon beers at the very end for 20-30 minutes.

But when she left, the boyfriend was at one end of the group of tables separated by the rest of us by at least one chair.  My wife eventually moved chairs on the opposite side of the tables and sat next to him.  She was trying to flirt

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