Rebecca

I met Rebecca in a bar; she went home with me that first night. We started spending time together and I liked having a girlfriend.
I convinced her to move in with me after only a couple months. She was already 34 and ready to enter a child-bearing relationship; I was 29 and lonely. I worked on her house that became a rental.
Living together worked but she visited with her previous boyfriend when I had to go to work on Saturdays. She put away my objections reminding me that: I didn't 'own her', she was only my girlfriend, and since Dwight was married there was no danger of her leaving me for him. Besides -I thought- he got there first and I was moving in on his girl more than the other way around. She said she was finishing up with him. That summer I asked her to marry me because I wanted children too. I stipulated that she'd have to give up other men and be only with me if we married. She said that she was done with Dwight and this would not be a problem.
We had the wedding in my big apartment. Rebecca orchestrated the whole thing and when we stopped using birth-control she got pregnant right away. She wanted to name our first child Miriam.
We'd been married only weeks and had a total family: Rebecca, me and Miriam. We bought a bigger house to have a family in and sold my two-flat.
Then Miriam died. A problem with the placenta starved the baby to death during the sixth month of the pregnancy. Rebecca felt terrible about the child dying in utero, as if she had failed as a woman, and we mourned. She understandibly didn't want to have sex: it was too sad and she was too sore from the C-section. Rebecca asked for a divorce; I knew that she felt like a failure and that LOVE CONQUORS ALL so I loved her and held her. I was sad too but I wanted our new family to work out.

Rebecca asked for a divorce many times. She must have been ashamed of her continuing infidelity. She became ultra critical of me and everything I did. I thought it was normal after one year of marriage and the loss of a baby to have the wife become mean.

That summer Rebecca became healthier; we started having sex again; she quit her job because of associations and started needing some evenings away from me too. I saw Dwight the first time when I came home from work on Saturday and they were coming down the stairs together. She introduced him as a contractor who was making a bid on re-hab' work to the house but unable to describe what work. She let him out the front door; se later denied that I saw their silouette on the curtain when they kissed on the front porch and I stood inside.
When I came home from work Friday Rebecca wanted to go hear a band and we drove down to the hipster neighborhood. She was unable to tell me anything about why she wanted to hear them and only vaguely remembered the name. We got drinks at a small table and Rebecca made a shivering gasp. She pointed out Dwight who was setting up for the band. I said: "That's the polish contractor you had in the house last Saturday.". She denied it: No, They just look similar. Soon she excused herself to the ladies room. The band started and were finishing their first set when Rebecca returned to the table. She said it had taken her so long because there was a line of women. She wanted to go. I asked if she wanted to hear the band; she didn't and we got up to go. On the way out we passed the ladies room I pointed and noted there was no line. Rebecca hurried in, It was clear she'd not gone before, while I waited a little more.
She denied that she had been with Dwight when I told her, on the way home, what I'd seen.
I saw Dwight several times over the next months. Usually leaving my house when I came home from work.