Judgement or not

When you read what follows I know it may, or may not, make you think less of me. I can't help that. I hope it does not make you think less of Cindy. She was a sweet girl, only 19 at the time, I was 21.

According to Wikipedia, Open Marriage was a best selling book 1972 by Nena O'Neill and George O'Neill. It was on the New York Times best-seller list for 40 weeks. Cindy and I were readers. I can't remember if we read the book, but we may have. We certainly were aware of all the media hype then surrounding the book.

We talked about it and were even titillated by the idea of having other lovers. It was a fantasy we shared while we were having sex sometimes. Cindy was attracted to other women. She shared that fantasy too. She had at that time never had that experience.

When we became lovers, I was Cindy's second or third lover and she was my third. In the 1970's our country was in the middle of a sexual revolution. Please read the upcoming blog posts on Mary and Infidelity before passing judgement. We all make mistakes. But, was this a mistake or just a reaction to circumstances? Looking back I think maybe it saved our marriage.

Still it was not well timed or well thought out. We were in a very stressful situation and I was not helping. In 1977 Cindy had her affair with my brother Darryl.

Darryl lived out of state, thousands of miles away. He would come to visit our dad and, as it turned out, Cindy too. He was 35 and married with kids. At one point, perhaps during one of our conversations about open marriage, I seem to remember Cindy saying she felt attracted to Darryl and asking if she could have sex with him. I said no, it was not a good time for us to open our marriage. I did not know she had already done so.

In the summer of 1977 dad died. I quit the railroad. We moved to the state capitol. Sometime after that Cindy told me of her affair. She wanted to admit her guilt and unburden herself. I was crushed and left, I went to my mom's house.