A high school friend of the LTR lost her husband last year in an auto accident. His death left five children ages 3-13 without a father. This guy, I’ll call him Dave, was on the way to pick up one of his sons from school when he was sideswiped on the freeway. I often wonder if the kid feels any guilt (not that he should, but the mind can play tricks on you) since his father was going out of his way to pick the kid up. But I digress. I am actually going to write about Dave and Lucy’s marriage, relationship, and events since his death.
Dave and Lucy were high school sweethearts…of a semi-dysfunctional kind. Full dysfunction only blossomed after their first child came into the world. Dave and Lucy dated through most of high school. There was an underlying co-dependency that none of their friends could understand. Lucy stepped out on Dave once while they were in high school and fucked some other dude that made her gina tingle. Dave forgave Lucy but also never trusted her again. He also had some jealousy issues and constantly tried to check up on Lucy.
After high-school graduation, Dave got a job and Lucy made a go at college. College lasted less than a year before she gave up. Dave and Lucy were married a year after they graduated from high school. Shortly there after Lucy got pregnant, and their little family was expanding. Lucy got an office job doing menial clerical work. Dave got a good blue collar job working as a mechanic.
Every couple of years Lucy would have another child and Dave would feel more and more trapped. Dave started going out for drinks with his single work buddies and coming home late or not at all. Dave started having one night stands with anonymous women. He justified it by holding Lucy’s cheating behavior during high school as an excuse. Then a few years back he told Lucy that he was addicted to sex and Lucy wasn’t putting out often enough to satisfy him. She was upset, but unwilling to leave.
Dave was verbally abusive, Lucy was too. He’d insult her, she’d be a crazy harpy. A sickness that was eating at both of them. Lucy would try to withhold sex from her husband. Dave decided he wouldn’t put up with that behavior from his wife, and he’d force himself upon her. Lucy would complain that her husband had raped her on several occasions. The friends would tut tut and tell her she would be better off leaving Dave. Would she go? Ha, no. the next thing you know, she’d be pregnant again and everything, by Lucy’s account, would be one big happy family again.
It never seemed Lucy would get away from Dave, but then a funny thing happened. Lucy, now a full on cougar at the ripe age of 32 started receiving attention from a young 22 year old cub at work. He made her feel attractive, wanted, and desired. That was enough. Lucy started making plans. She kicked Dave out, and filed for her legal separation (Dave and Lucy lived in one of those states that requires 1 year of legal separation prior to finalizing a divorce). Lucy’s friends were overjoyed. Lucy talked positively about the changes she was making in her life, and then a short month into their separation, Dave was killed.
Lucy has moved on, and yet she hasn’t. There are unresolved issues. While on the one hand she’ll decry his abusive ways, the ‘rape’, and philandering, on the other hand it is obvious that any man she’s with will be measured against Dave….and found wanting. The heroic/tragic image of Dave is her own legend and creation myth. Forever competing against a ghost.
