Part 3: I Don't Think I Can Do That.

So, six months into the tragedy I am enduring Connie and Bruce seeing each other for hours every week. By then, Connie has agreed to go to a counselor with me, saying, “It won’t make any difference.” She is still my wife, but she won’t work with me with the counselor on our marriage. Her apparent purpose in attending is to try to convince the counselor that our marriage is over and to get the counselor to convince me to—I don’t know what—leave her and the kids maybe? I am in a crazy state of despair. I can’t figure out why she hasn’t left and yet won’t stop seeing Bruce. I keep hoping she is staying because she hasn’t really made up her mind to leave.

I know Bruce’s former boss, I guess he’s the person who held the title director of intellectual properties out at Dow before Bruce. He had retired and moved away from our town. I had always known him to be an honorable man with high moral convictions. I had also heard Connie tell me how much Bruce respected him. In a fit of despair, I called this man one evening and told him about Connie and Bruce. I asked him if he would consider calling Bruce and asking him to consider not seeing Connie for six months so we can look at our marriage without the distraction of him standing outside of it and inviting Connie to leave. Sound familiar?

This man of integrity, former elder of a Church of Christ, told me how sorry he was that “this thing had happened.” However, in response to my plea he said, “I don’t think I can do that.”