Three Couples, One Divorce — Whose?

As with many married couples; our friends seemed to have grown past the romantic period where the old chemicals were working their positive magic

This is a story featuring my friends and business associates Boyd and Carl. They don’t know each other. Their only connection is they both know me. One is my attorney and one is my investment advisor.

Many years ago each had a long term relationship with a wonderful woman. At least it seemed that way to me. One of the women was an elementary school teacher who eventually went on to become a principal and the other woman was an office manager.

My two male friends went on to marry their girlfriends after exclusively relating for a number of years.

My wife and I would socialize with both couples but never together. We found them both enjoyable but for different reasons. Nothing premeditated but the stars never aligned that we had the opportunity to be with all four friends at the same time.

One night after all of us had started families of our own, my wife and I had the opportunity to see both couples on sequential weekends. As with many married couples; our friends seem to have grown past the romantic period where the old chemicals were working their positive magic.

Friday night we went out to dinner with the investment advisor Boyd and his wife. They had been married for eight years and had a son six and a younger daughter. We went to a pub in Philadelphia that we’d read good things about on Yelp.

As we were lead to our table by a very attractive hostess, my friend, the investment advisor, seemed to be extra attentive to her — and she to him. All throughout dinner I would see his eyes following her whenever she chaperoned our fellow diners to their respective tables. When she past our table, Boyd would make a comment to her to get her attention. I noticed this — and so did his wife.

Finally Boyd’s wife could contain herself no longer.

“Boyd,” she exclaimed, “You’re embarrassing yourself. Please stop or I’ll walk right out of here.”

Boyd’s retort appalled my wife and I’m sure his. “Honey,” he reasoned, “I’ve owned a Ford for five years now. I love my car. Just about everywhere I go I take that car. But I can still appreciate a BMW when I see one, can’t I?”

Ironically, we went out with my friend Carl and his wife of 10 years the next weekend and something similar happened. After we were seated at high end restaurant in a Philadelphia suburb our waiter approached our table. He introduce himself and the nightly specials. Carl’s wife seemed to find the waiter fetching enough to turn her charm on him to the point of being noticeable. Seemed to be beyond flirting.

Carl brought this to his wife’s attention at the end of dinner — after we had finished dessert. He’d had an evening of his wife paying a suspiciously undue attention to our food server eliciting not so subtle responses from him. “What do you see in that guy? I’m more successful than he is, I’m probably smarter than he is, I’m better looking than he is…..” Carl pronounced.

His wife cut him off, “You may be right Carl. I paid attention to him precisely because he is NOT you!”

Both my wife and I found each of these statements egregious and unacceptable in any relationship. We both opined the lack of sensitivity from Boyd and the wife of Carl. We agreed that we’d just witnessed the type of seeds that tend to grow into divorce. Feeling very secure and superior, we speculated on which couple would be in court first.

Boyd, still my investment advisor and Carl, still my attorney are still married.

My ex-wife and I don’t get a chance to see them as much socially since our divorce.