Affair In The Air

I boarded a jet leaving a large east coast airport bound for Seattle and looked down the aisles wondering who would be my companions in the other two seats for the final six hours of my trip at 30,000 feet.

As I flowed with the human serpentine line that inched through the massive aircraft's center aisle, my gaze jumped between both the overhead seat numbers and the people on board. I noted a couple down the aisle ahead on my left... they cuddled and kissed and intertwined fingers, snug as two bed bugs on a flying rug... lost in each others' gaze.

They were not teenagers,  not twenties, not middle aged. Couldn't figure how old they were. I did note, when they surfaced for air, they were both quite attractive. He could've passed for a anchorman, she an actress. Your proverbial beautiful people, totally and completely in love.

Turned out, they were my seat mates.

"S'cuse me" I said, as I began the polite and challenging art of climbing between the two that allowed entry to my window seat cross country.

At this point, I'll spare  you the infinite details that find their way into books and paragraphs describing everything and everyone in the place.

Suffice to say, by the time we completed our ascent and we were above the cloud cover, the conversation began to flow quickly and freely. No alcohol was involved in this conversation, just coffee  

Admittedly, I was curious about their relationship.
Their's was a raw, pure, unfiltered level of love/intimacy I usually don't witness.
It wasn't sexual or inappropriate for an airplane, it was pure tender essence of a mutual admiration society.
Yet there was  also something odd about it.
It was surrounded by a mysterious veil I was determined to lift.

So I did my thing.
My investigator thing... that appears to be anything but that.
It's how I get doors to open quickly, people to talk freely, secrets to surface freely.

Sometimes, the best opening line is the one that starts with the obvious.
I figured that would work in this case.

"Wow. You guys are both so attracted and clearly so in love," I said as I settled in my seat and noted empty wedding ring fingers.
"What's your secret?"

They both laughed and blushed.
"No kidding, " I said, " You're two peas in a pod. How long have you been been together?"
"Well,"  he said, his voice lowered, "Six months. But we're not officially together yet."

"We're each married to other people," she whispered.
I watched both sets of their eyes lower then raise in unison to mine, looking for some sign of judgment which was not there.

"My wife is psychotic," he said.
"My husband's a loser" she added.

I  leaned in, furthered the rapport and whispered the obvious question.
'Do your current spouses know you guys are together?"

"My wife knows I want out. She doesn't know there's someone else" he whispered back.

"My husband knows I want out but doesn't know about him," she added. "Thing is, he thinks I'm just going through a phase.  He's doing everything he can to win me back. It's  really rough," she said.

They shared more details.

The handsome  man told me  his future ex wife the psycho, was a bitter, angry woman since the day they first married. She screamed frequently, punched holes in doors and walls. She was wealthy, had a trust fund and chose not to work.

His beautiful blond mistress seated beside me told me her  soon-to-be-ex husband was a nice guy with no drive, no energy, no initiative. "He's a woos," she said. She went on to explain he wanted nothing more out of life than the remote and ESPN.

I asked if either had kids.

"No" they both said in unison.
That truly made me happy.
The kids are always the ones hurt most in a divorce.

I told them divorce is one tough thing for an ex to bear. Divorce because of betrayal... it takes it up a couple notches.

Certainly, many  ex's go over the edge, kill themselves or others. Most, fortunately, make it through.

Imho, there is no way to survive a divorce when you are the one being dumped on... without sinking, at least temporarily... into a pit of despair, self-loathing, helplessness and hopelessness.
Some swim in rivers of denial.
Some turn to drugs and alcohol.
Some never find their way back.

Add children to the equation and now you have serious collateral damage.
Children of divorcing parents/splitting couples feel the brunt of the pain and are inextricably altered by that experience for life.

Kids innately believe the divorce was their fault.
With divorce and kids,  the children's  lives.... their sense of security, stability, the  role models who birthed them...it's all collapsed like a house of cards.
No matter how cool you think you are in your divorce,  there is nothing cool about a divorce/break-up to a child whose world has been hosed.

That said, for  many reasons... some times... people are just not meant to be together.
And I believe it is truly better to be single, than to be in a miserable marriage --  in which one partner is cheating, using drugs, alcohol, being verbally, physically abusive, or not contributing to your marriage on any level.

In my humble opinion, its better for  kids to be in a home with a happy single parent instead of squished between two volatile parents who release their mutual venom on the kids.

That said, back to the plane.
The illicit lovers continued to weave their tale for me which was, in part, not unlike a movie I recently saw, "Up in The Air".

Being  P.I. and a human being who is married a second time... suffice to say, I know of what I speak when it comes to divorce, children, relationships, old and new.
I am a wealth of advice, which is what people pay me for when they have needed an assist in backgrounds, domestics, custody cases.

So I sat  there next to them on the plane, noted 1.5 hours  pass as they told me every detail of the story and the business they set up together.
They showed me a presentation on their laptop.
They even gave me their business cards....
All this, before they asked me a single question.

"What do you do for a living?"
I smiled slightly...  couldn't help myself... internally contemplated the next moves their minds and emotions would make.
"I'm an Private Investigator"

"Oh shiiiiit" the man sat, his  faced seemed to turn white.
I didn't know that was possible with a spray tan.
His girlfrind just stared at me wide-eyed, mouth open.

"It's okay, it's okay," I laughed, and moved quickly into damage control mode.
"This really is just a  coincidence. You just happened to tell me everything before you asked me what I do. Consider it nothing more than a lesson learned." I laughed again.

The woman spoke, "We were talking, on the way to the airport this morning, whether one of our spouses would ever hire someone to follow us." She clearly did not believe me.

"Trust me," I said, "Your spouses didn't hire me.  This is really just one of those karmic flukes.
I am so no not interested in bringing harm to you or anyone,  or having you bring a conflict of interest of lawsuit my way, ok"

That convinced them.

Then their next round of questions inevitably ensued.
Because behind every marriage is a complex web of co-mingled  financial assets.... and time, which can also be valued as asset.

I braced for the barrage of questions that came at once.
When to file separation?
How to handle car payments, mortgage payments?
The bank accounts?
How to protect assets?
Taxes ?
How to handle what was once called alimony and is now called  maintenance?

The answer I gave every question was the same
Each state has its own laws.
They need legal counsel.
They need to file separation.

And, I concluded. They need to stop hiding.
When they do, then that  secretive part of their relationship, which is intoxicating in itself, will go away...and they will get to know themselves better... as they face their divorces. And then each other.

I said they've been together 6 months, the high they are feeling is  hormone driven.  The hormones they are  experiencing will start to decline about 9-10 months, maybe longer. The divorces will challenge and change what is now... i told them will evolve from an affair into a real relationship.

The rest of the flight was like any flight... though towards the end,  all banter between us stopped.
I played with my camera, photographed the mountains and the clouds, they played with each other.

When the plane landed and we headed for baggage I observed them looking for me for, so I kept a nice distance.... in the train.... in the baggage area... I just disappeared.

Meantime, the soon-to-exes, the ones who were left and/or cheated on... have no clue what their alleged spouses were up to on that plane and on the ground.  They are the ones I think about as I blog this.  The ones who were left. They are the ones who have a tsunami coming and no warning system.
I  worry because I have been there.
And the only comfort I get in pondering their  unknown fate is knowing I survived mine.
Sometimes... just getting through it... is the most we can hope for.