Hold On a Second, Would You? My Other Life is On The Line
I admire these fellows who have a secret double life as spies, superheros, hit men, crime avengers, or, in the case of this one fellow that made the papers, who have an entirely separate existence – we’ll call it Life #2 – with spouse, children, home, and job, that nobody in their first life – we’ll call it Life #1 – knows a thing about.
This is to take commitment to the married life a step further than most people can even imagine, and shows verve and a willingness to think outside the box.
In the high stakes game of marriage this fellow has doubled down.
I say ‘admire,’ this feeling I have for this individual, but it’s more of a baffled wonderment, which is exactly what you would expect from those of us who have a non-trivial amount of trouble navigating a single, non-secret life.
And I suppose too it takes a certain kind of partner, in both Life #1 and Life #2, to make these marriages work.
To the usual qualities we look for in a significant other – grace, smarts, practicality, something of what you might call the old team spirit – you would add one very important item in an addendum to the marriage documents: absentmindedness.
A negative, or at best neutral, quality under ordinary circumstances, a hearty forgetfulness is near-mandatory for the spouse of the Secret Second Lifer.
We can picture this man returning to Life #1 with a half-gallon of milk under his arm after an absence of some length of time.
“I’m home!” he hollers upstairs as he closes the front door behind him.
“Is that you?”
“It’s me. Got the milk.”
“Say,” she calls downstairs, “you think that took you long enough? What’s today?”
“Tuesday,” the man replies.
“Which month?”
“April.”
“Seems to me that I asked you to pick that up on a Thursday in March. That’s the last I saw of you till now.”
“Doesn’t seem possible,” says the man, scratching his head.
“I’m almost sure of it.”
“March, you say? Well, traffic was a little bad.”
“For weeks?”
“And I had to scrape my windshield. That always takes a while.”
“Still, seems like a long time.”
“And the first store was sold out, so I had to go to the one all the way downtown.”
“Hmm.”
“And then I had to go back again since the date on the first carton I bought had already expired. I wasn’t going to bring spoiled milk home to the people I love, that’s for sure.”
“Well, you’re back now, so that’s something. Go ahead and put it in the refrigerator. Now…there was something else.” She muses. “Dang, what was it? Oh, I know… we’re out of eggs too.”
“Gotta have eggs. I’ll go get a dozen. Be right back,” says this helpful individual she is married to on his way out the door, his car keys back out of his front pocket and into his hand once again.
It may well be the Fourth of July before he is seen again around these parts.
It cuts both ways, this absentmindedness.
Let’s give this fellow I’ve been reading about the benefit of the doubt.
There he is, on the verge of Secret Life #2, he’s gone down on his knee, has popped open the jewelry box, and is just about to spring the question...when he is troubled by a nagging sense of doubt that he can’t put his finger on.
What is it? What is it?
He’s got the ring. He’s memorized the words of his proposal. He’s run through his list of possible best men. What could it be?
Well, you can’t quite hold that down-on-one-knee pose forever without seeing it through, that’s for sure, so in a flash the question is out and is answered with delirious joy… right about the time that it occurs to him, “oh, that’s right, dang it, I’m already married!”
It’s too late now though, as the spouse-to-be is already talking about the colors for the wedding, which of her friends will be the matron of honor, and shall it be an open or cash bar for the reception?
If he has a glimmer of uneasiness over the situation as it is now unfolding, you’d also expect him, by way of the laid-back nonchalance that got him into this fix in the first place, to have the kind of easygoing approach to life that says, ‘well, things will probably work out. They usually do.’
It calls for the right person on the other side of the marriage, or marriages, that’s for sure.
That’s why such an emphasis is placed on the pre-marriage counseling stage these days, when the prospective partners undergo rigorous personality tests to assure compatibility. The test questions might go as follows over on the Life #1 side:
1. Answer yes or no: I find nothing unusual in my spouse disappearing for hours, days, weeks, and sometimes months at a time.
2. Answer yes or no: I have a strong preference for time to myself. You might say that I profoundly enjoy solitude for great honking long stretches of time.
3. Answer yes or no: My friends would say that I generally don’t need to know every little thing about every little situation.
4 Answer yes or no: If you walked into a crowded party with your husband and he was greeted by someone who handed him the rent bill, the electric bill, the gas bill, the dentist’s bill, the orthodontist’s bill, and the bill for the children’s education, would you be alarmed or would you think it was the kind of simple mix-up that busy people make all the time these days?
Once you tease these characteristics out in this scientific manner, then both parties will know if they’ve made a good match.
The real danger here is that the whole thing gets out of hand.
Sure, lots of people have a secret double life with an entirely different family, but what about a secret triple life, or quadruple?
We don’t seem to be a people that can leave well enough alone when it comes to a social trend, and you can see one fellow in the locker room confiding to the guy next to him in the sauna that he has three separate secret lives and is working on a fourth, and then this second fellow, still smarting from the drubbing he took on the handball court, says that he has a bit lost track of how many secret lives he has going, but he’s near certain it’s above a dozen by now.
This introduces the spirit of competition, which is hardly ever a good thing in these matters.
It’s a tribute to the glories of marriage as much as anything, but once you get into the habit, what’s to keep a person from just going and going?
‘Marriage? A blessed state indeed. Let me have more of it!’ our fellow is apt to say.
Sometimes people just have warm personalities. They come from a long line of warm people.
When the urge comes upon a man while paying for his gas at the Quick-Trip to first observe, then fall for, then experience undying love for, the new gal behind the counter, it’s only natural that he wants to express that love in the fullest way possible.
Down on his knee again (and it must be said that it’s no wonder you hear of so many knee replacement surgeries these days, what with all this down-on-one-kneeing business going on), and accepted with a squeal of delight again, It’s a mere matter of finding a justice of the peace out at pump #8, grabbing a witness or two from the donut counter, and having a simple but elegant ceremony out in back where the truck delivers the Tastee-Freez fixings, with the truck driver and the other counter people humming “Here Comes the Bride” in tasteful three-part harmony in the background.
Our fellow tells everyone that he meets that he will never know such happiness again.
Well, for now anyways.
