The Cheater's Bar

It is an old-fashioned kind of bar. Good wood, deep seats, leather, smoke, good scotch, and lots of Sinatra. Not the kind of place I would have chosen for a night out with the girls. Before I met him, it would not have occurred to me to come to a place like this. Margueritas and Nirvana were more my style. This has been going on so long there had still been a Nirvana when it started.

I learned to appreciate this place he chose for our meetings. The grain of the wood, sinking into the booths, the aromas of leather and smoke, and dancing to slow, old songs. In the early years I'd be thrilled when he would lean in and quietly sing along with “Me and Mrs. Jones”, singing only for me. We never believed we were fooling anyone. Everyone in the place knew why we were there and what it meant when we went upstairs in the middle of the afternoon. Why else would that bar with a jukebox full of cheating songs be in a hotel? And we weren't the only regulars.

The other couples never lasted. A few, very few, decided to try to build a life together and left the Cheater's Bar behind, a secret they'd try to hide from their families as they spent the rest of their lives with cover stories of just how and when they met. Some stories were so flimsy no one would ever believe them, other stories so good the tellers had missed their calling. The Witness Protection Program could have used their skills.

Most couples did not end happily. There had been some spectacular breakups, many in the bar. There would be tears and recriminations, a few came to blows, one ended when the girlfriend invited the wife to join them for drinks one afternoon. I guess she wanted to be remembered.

We all became friends, or maybe uneasy allies would be a better description. There aren't many people you can talk to about your married lover. You can't tell your regular girlfriends about the afternoons you spend away from your husband and children. So we girls in the bar would talk to one another.

After awhile I could see the breakups coming. There are phrases that are the red flags of an affair breakdown. “If he loved me he would want to be with me all the time.”, “If he loved me it would bother him that I'm going home to my husband.” Sentences that begin with 'If he loved me' must make cheating men shudder.

At the very end many of them would proclaim all married men cheaters and liars who were using us for their own selfish reasons and didn't care about us at all. Like union leaders spoiling for a strike they'd try to take the rest of us with them on their way out the door and when we didn't go the friendship would end because they had recovered their self respect and morality and were going and sinning no more.

A year was the average stay at the Cheater's Bar, some more, some less. Sexual attraction is supposed to wane after two years. Scientists say so. So why am I still here after twelve years? Why do I want him more now that I did the first two years? Especially when he wants me less.
Lately I find myself waiting for him. No woman should wait for a man in a place like this. It gives her too much time to think thoughts that begin 'If he loved me...'

I guess the reason I've stayed long enough to see not only my children but the bartender's children grow up is because I could never bring myself to say “I wasted X years of my life on that man! (another red flag phrase) I can't see it as a waste. I've loved having him in my life. He still makes me laugh. He still makes me think. If I died today the only thing I would regret is not having had enough time with him.

It's the continued life standing by a bar waiting for a man who may or may not come that is the problem.

Which is why I set down my drink, palm the room card, and go upstairs alone.