Love Never Dies. Chapter three. Tale of one friend's marriage. Autumn.

Autumn had worked as a government contractor for the same firm for roughly a decade. She had been able to work from home for most of this time, making it very plausible to maintain the position some 40 plus miles away in one of the nation's heaviest traffic regions and to give birth and raise her 2 begin raising her 2 boys. However, Autumn never really wanted to move this far away from her office. She didn't want to move far away from being "inside the beltway," not because of political ambitions, but just it was what she had grown to be comfortable with in the region and felt it best for her and her family overall. It was Dave that decided to move them further out. Ironically, Dave was also born and raised inside the beltway and his large family is mostly still there with whom he maintains regular contact.

Autumn reluctantly moved after the birth of their first son for Dave. Autumn secured her work from home assignment mostly for Dave. Autumn sat without any advancement and a fair bit of boredom in her own career for years, albeit she was a significant contributor to the family, because of her situation. She had 2 boys, and now that they were getting a little older, she asked her company about other opportunities. They offered her one. But, she would have to commute. She presented the prospect to Dave with great enthusiasm. He was less than enthusiastic. It didn't matter there was more money, something they could definitely use. It more importantly, didn't matter that it might bring some sense of accomplishment, direction, joy to Autumn. It was going to put a greater burden on Dave. He masked this more with how the children might be deprived. But, if that were the concern, then perhaps the plan should have been for Autumn to have been a stay at home Mom and not work at all?At what age is that relevant any longer (this one could be it's own blog)?

I was surprised Autumn ever had children. I remember her frequently proclaiming "ain't no puppies coming out of that snatch" when we were in high school and even college. She had dreams of being a therapist, traveling the world, a great number of things, but they were not about white picket fences, baking cookies and going to kids sports games. Dave probably baked all the cookies (asshole that he is, he can cook) and they don't have a white fence and it would be falling down if they did, but she had her share of games. Autumn definitely loves her children but having them was another thing that definitively imposed on her by Dave.

Autumn called me a day or two following her discourse with Dave and was livid. Whatever love and esteem she had for him seemed to die in a moment. I wasn't there for the conversation or fight, but it crossed a line with Autumn that was irreparable. But it was clear to me something dramatically had changed. She went from believing, defending, to outright discontent that quickly led to hatred towards her husband. She recently said to me, it wasn't just that day, but suddenly she played in her head everything that had been so wrong for so long.

I don't recall exactly how soon thereafter, but she moved out, nearby, sharing custody with Dave and putting the children in a better public school as her new place was in a better district. It didn't help her commute. For the longest time, Autumn would contemplate such things as "If only Dave would be willing to move back (near her office, where they started) maybe we could get back together." I scoffed at the idea or otherwise it would have already happened, or at the least, been considered.

At some point, Dave suggested that there parting was my doing. It was quite the compliment that he thought I had such power. It is also quite the insult to his wife to think she could be so easily persuaded. Then again, he had done such a great job for so long.

Roughly a year later, Autumn decides she cannot handle the commuting any longer and moves closer to her job. Her hope was that the kids would join her and be able to attend one of the best school systems in the state. But Dave would not even consider it. Autumn was able to keep the kids, at least through middle school, in the same school they were in when she moved out of the district, so their lives were less disrupted. It meant, however, the kids they were in school with were not the kids in their neighborhood or nearby after school. To this point, however, her boys seemed to be doing fairly well with the changes.

Autumn now became weekend Mom. This quickly became a nightmare, at least from everything I heard, from a far. Dave made sure to be as uncooperative as possible in delivering or picking up the children. The boys were getting to an age where hanging with Mom on the weekend at an apartment isn't cool. They wanted to be with their friends. Her plan got her closer to work but achieved little else. Plus, the added costs which were far higher  being alone in a much more expensive area than the shared place she had near Dave, were taking a financial toll on her. Then the world, well, at least a tree, literally came crashing down and brought it all to an end. A severe thunderstorm caused a tree to fall through the roof and land smack into the middle of the living room of her apartment destroying most everything she owned. Thankfully, she wasn't on her couch at the time.

Dave and Autumn took nearly a decade to finally be divorced, so I will continue in the chapters to follow to tell the story, but am certain I won't have all in the time line correctly. It's the point of the story that I am trying to convey, not a documentary after all.