The Brothers Grimm Never Wrote Anything Like This

Once upon a time, there were three lonely, insecure, and immature people. Somehow these three people would be thrown together in an episode of life that seemingly had nothing but tragedy and heartache as an epilogue. However, life seldom goes according to the "shoulds" and the "oughts" and little did they know how each of their three lives would change for the better through their interesting and sad triangle.

The first person in this triangle, oh let's call her TS for now, was a married middle-aged woman in an unhappy marriage. She felt trapped and unable to move on. She wanted desperately to have her life back as her own but was too scared to try to make it on her own. She stayed in her marriage and made a fairly common mistake. She decided to lie and cheat rather than confront the problems. She wasted a lot of time seeking physical solace outside the marriage. Life became more complicated though when TS met and fell in love with the second person in this triangle, a man, oh let's call him BJ for the purposes of this story. BJ was also married and also unhappy in his marriage. This made their love complicated, but their love was very real. Being not very mature TS expected a lot of BJ but expected BJ to understand her weaknesses and hesitations. She refused to leave her marriage even after BJ had taken the step to leave his. TS convinced herself that she was in the right to try to juggle it all, to keep the facade of marriage intact and hold on to the man that she loved with all her heart. Without a doubt, TS's actions contributed to the problems that arose.

As mentioned before, the second person in this triangle was BJ. BJ was also a liar and cheater when he met TS. He had hoped for love for a long time but had settled for many unsatisfying trysts with women who were, for one reason or another, not really available to him. He fell in love with TS, started making long term plans with her and even left his wife. Once he was out of his marriage it was disheartening to him that TS continued in her marriage in spite of her complaints about it. BJ started to doubt that TS would ever get out of her marriage, and at one point, he met another woman, let's just call her Ser for this story, one who was divorced and available. He was attracted to Ser and decided to pursue a relationship with her. He still loved TS but with her unavailability and the connection he felt with Ser it seemed to be best to leave TS behind and be with Ser. Not that being with Ser would be easy for BJ knew it would not as they faced some big obstacles, not the least of which was that Ser lived far away from BJ, farther even than TS had and that had been a problem, but Ser said so many things he wanted to hear that he really wanted to believe that life would finally be good for him with Ser.

The third party to this triad, Ser, was a woman who, like TS and BJ, was lonely and had suffered a failed marriage. She also had her share of men, some of whom she felt a strong attraction, but none of whom were long term partnership material for one reason or another. Ser knew BJ was involved with TS and felt some remorse that TS would be hurt by her relationship with BJ, but she was drawn to BJ and couldn't bring herself to turn away from him. She pursued him vigorously and hoped that she had found in BJ a man who would be the right one for her.

In the end, Ser and BJ ended up not being right for one another. However, having BJ in the picture helped Ser's lover to leave his wife and move in with Ser so Ser may get her happily ever after. BJ leaving TS spurred TS to make the big leap into divorce from her husband so that TS would be available for a real relationship in the future. As for BJ he learned that things aren't always as they appear, and he did some growing up, getting some of his priorities and points of view adjusted. All in all, some good things came out of some bad situations and bad decisions for all three in this triangle.

Now, who is the villain in this story? Is there one? Is there a victim anywhere or a hero? Not in my mind. What I see here are three people who for their own misguided reasons made some bad decisions. Is any one of us blameless? Hardly. Is any one of us despicable or evil? I think not. We all do what we think is best at the time and try to learn something from our mistakes.

I will admit that I tell this story to defend myself as I know that many will not understand what has happened this weekend nor will they think that I am making wise decisions about my life. I understand that people like to see things as black and white, but the reality is that there are many shades of gray.

With all that said, those who were placing bets should now settle up. BJ and I are reconciling. We talked at length this weekend. We dealt with our issues. We came to an understanding. Life ain't no fairy tale and whether our story will have a happy ending is yet to be known, but we are happy to be together again.

Let the fireworks begin.