A few years ago I put together and headed a special team at work, consisting of myself, a close female friend, and a male. We became a close team just by personality and the nature of our work. He was single when we began working together and private in his personal affairs. When he married, I recall us being surprised. I also recall noticeable stress as they adjusted to one another.

He and I continued to come together as friends and more. It was quite some time before we became lovers. I remember all the subtleties that developed as two people became closer. These were the dynamics of a man and a woman staking a claim and becoming more inclusive.

A year later emotional intimacy began to surface, and we openly talked about feelings and desires. We acted on our feelings, and headstrong went into an affair lasting the following year. It was difficult balancing the pull to be near each other with the burden of guilt and secrecy.

When it came out in the open at work, we reorganized the team and moved forward. We still continued to see each other until recently. I was out on training for some time, and that was a good opportunity for me to break away.

When I returned I learned they purchased a house together. Prior to this purchase, there was no house and no kids. Honestly, looking back, it was not that I thought I had the better relationship or was competing for his love.

It was the many small indicators that they had no marriage. There wasn’t gossip, just messages picked up if one were paying attention. I have broken away now, and it is a most painful process. I will spend the next year overseas for work.

We have never had that final conversation, the one that brings closure or at least allows each person to rid themselves of some guilt and shame. I know life moves forward, and we end up in different places. But I feel we are so unresolved now that we will resurface somewhere down the road.

Yvonne

Yvonne, when Wayne was growing up, he spent much of his time fishing, hiking, and camping. One of his friends sometimes brought a banjo, and after dinner around the fire he would play and sing.

Wayne’s favorite was “The Big Rock Candy Mountain,” a hobo ballad. The Big Rock Candy Mountains are a tramp’s paradise, where the sun shines every day on the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees. Alcohol trickles through the rocks, the hens lay soft-boiled eggs, and the hobos banished the jerk who invented work.

There must be a lost verse to that song, the verse about closure, because the only place where you are likely to find closure is the Big Rock Candy Mountains. This world does not work in terms of closure. We are born in the middle of things, and we leave in the middle of things.

In this life the only closure we normally get is the closure which occurs within ourselves. You want to believe nuance over a public ceremony and a binding legal contract. You want to believe rumor over the gold band on his wife’s hand.

That’s more than self-serving. It’s self-deceiving. With you he didn’t mention his engagement, wedding, or house plans. What would have happened to his chances for an affair if he had? His percentages would have dropped, wouldn’t they?

You don’t want closure but for this relationship to continue, because if it doesn’t, then he was just having sex with you. If you want one rule to follow in life, it’s this. Stop listening to what people say and start looking at what they do.

Who is this guy? A man who commits adultery on his new bride, just another bum in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

Tamara