The Troubled Marriage

Andy and his wife Christine are being visited by their daughter Jane and her Norwegian husband, Magnus, who is there on business. Their daughter Jane has said that she needed to come home to England with him, since she otherwise can't trust him, she had said, not to be cheating on her, although she wasn't sure. But thereby, she also arranged for him to be able to stay at her their - her parents' place.

While Jane, and their three-year-old son was out walking her parents two dogs, Magnus sits with his parents-in-law in their living room. Soon after she has left, he says to them: “I don't find there to be any reason for her to believe I'm cheating! Although she cried at the dinner table yesterday, it's not because I really have been into cheating! I really don't know how come she's into imagining it!”

“Magnus,” Jane says, “I don't quite trust you about this, ... although I always have found her to be really into imagining such things about both me and my husband. By the way, couldn't you for that sake tell us about a few things she's said about us over the years.

Her son-in-law looks thoughtful for a little while. Then he responds: “I guess I can tell you about how she could be into pretending that you two wouldn't be paying her any money for her responsibilities at home when she was a child. ...”

“Oh,” Mary said thoughtfully, “that we don't consider to be any bigger deal than that we have had it in her to pretend we were parents who didn't love her enough - which we both did!”

There was a short pause, after which Andy added: “That stuff about not paying money for what she does is very often better for a child, we think! I - and I think that goes for my wife too - had that kind of an upbringing, and I thought that it would do good for her just as it has for us!”

His wife adds: “We know that she has to learn to handle her responsibilities without payment at times in later life. ”

“Oh, my parents always paid me for doing the things I should!”

Andy then clears his throat and burst out: “Oh, really! Do all parents do that in Norway?”

Magnus chuckles a little. and then adds: “I can't tell you for a certainty. I really don't know about much more than about me and my relatives. ... and, well, yes, probably just about all relatives of mine did receive something for being helpful when they were.”

Andy thinks for a while and then says: “As a matter of fact, I seem to recall I have at least a few relatives who did it that way. But I for one don't think it be a fairly even important thing for a child to have!”

Mary seemed to agree with him.

“Well,” Magnus says at last, “I think I can say that she has been into pretending you both are pretending that she is pretending about her childhood that she was maltreated in that you had pretended that she didn't deserve any rewards for what she did!”

Andy sighs. “Well how can we be sure about all this pretension though, sonny?!”

“I can say that she's been into pretending that I too have been into pretending that she's pretending that I'm cheating.”

Mary chuckles at this. “I don't find there to be any pretension needed unless you're totally sure about yourself and that you need not be afraid of her being a cheater herself! ... I trust neither you nor my daughter about being into never cheating each other!”

“I agree!” Andy says.

Maguus sighs a bit deeply. Then he says: “No, of course! We cannot be totally sure about each other, especially since that honeymoon to that finish ski resort! I don't know how come she thought all the Finnish women would be onto me - or like trying to be my partner in bed or something! But she has somehow faked it, I feel, that they were assholes enough to really want my body, while all they actually wanted was to be polite and see to it that us tourists don't get tired of seeing their place as an OK and pleasant one.”

Both his parents-in-law then asks him about if that was only the women who tried to make him feel comfortable. He answers that he felt no need to tell them about the male kinds of attitudes around there. “But I will anyway, then, I guess. They're into being ... you could say both noisy and boisterous, I think!”

“I see,” Mary answers. “I can tell you've been saying this to our daughter as well. Right, Magnus?”

“Yeah, I have!”

“You should know,” she continues, “that she thinks those statements about males in Finland are subterfuges for pretending the females there aren't very horny!”

Magnus looks very surprised. “I didn't find them horny at all!” he burst out.

Mary sighed. “I think we should have to speak to Jane herself about this! She should be sure about that what she saw in that sauna wasn't about cheating with some foreigners' wives or something! I for one feel confident that they can have been lesbians just pretending to be into stealing her husband - for the sake of hiding their own horniness or something!”

Magnus sighed and responded: “I guess that could be so! But how am I supposed to tell her that?! I mean I as a suspected husband would be expected, I think, to be pretending that stuff to! Wouldn't I!?”

After a while he adds: “Actually, I don't know if they were into even pretending as if nothing for her! I think, now come to think of it, that they were trying to convince her into thinking that i would like her better if she was into their kinds of sex!”

Andy looks at him. “But how come were they into sex in a public place in to begin with?” Then he looks at his wife, indicating that perhaps she should be trying to answer that for him.

Magnus looks at Mary who shrugs. Then he thinks for a while and says: “I guess they must have been since my wife has been insisting! I don't know how come, really!”

While he was saying this, his wife was turning the key to her parents front door, upon which she enters and undresses her outdoor garments. One of the dogs barks a little, and then Jane enters the living room with her son.

Seating herself on the sofa she asks: “So, what have you three been up to now that I've away for a while?”

“Oh, we've been discussing, dear,” her mother answers, “how come you think he's been cheating when it only was that some women in the sauna were into having some lesbian sex and then talking about him. I mean they knew, didn't they, dear, that you were newly married to that Norwegian fellow?”

“Yeah, so what mom?!”

“Since they were four lesbians, they would be more likely to be cheating with a wife than with a husband!

“Since I know they're lesbians I wouldn't be into saying that they were into my husband were it not for his imbecile attitude towards them! It was not they more than he who got me paranoid!”

“So what?” her mother asks.

“So I don't feel he's being into a relationship in the first place. And therefore I do believe he was inclined for actually imagining being in bed with one or more of them. ... I also feel he does it again when similar circumstances come up!

“But actually,” she continues after a short pause, “I feel they didn't seem inclined to take advantage of the situation in any other sense than in order to make me jealous, actually!

“I don't feel they're actually into men, but that is in the first place. On the other hand they seemed inclined to pretend as if something about that he might get into pretending I should be more lesbian too, and that is actually what I've been about when acting jealous!”

“It isn't,” her husband responds, “about men and women that thing! It isn't I who want them to be into cheating with you in the first place, but I can't feel that you don't agree with pretending that I'm into faking that I'm too much about them for the sake of our marriage; meaning that you and I should have had a talk about it immediately, and not wait for five years before doing so!”

“We should have a talk now!” she says. “I say it's better now than never, dear!”

“It is about,” Andy breaks in, “that you and he should have a tendency to pretend as if something about how much both men and women can be seduced by the other sex when having the pretension about oneself that one is about being smart at getting the attention from that other sex! It is also about how you and I,” he looks at his wife, “have been pretending that I'm not jealous about the fagots that were there in the bar in India, when you and I worked there as missionaries!”

Mary smiled solemnly. Then she said: “Oh, I agree with that! I don't feel at all that you shouldn't be treated as the husband I would never be cheating on, except for that you have always been accusing me of doing it!”

“I don't feel, mom, that you and dad don't participate in this process of being far too clever at catching the actual homosexuals of that other gender! It isn't about him or you this thing that we've had in Finland happened to turn out to become a nuisance about him that actually grew worse from when it happened and till we nowadays now and then run into some Norwegian women or girls who are infatuated by the thought of having him in bed.”

Her husband sighs at this. “What do they seem to be into having me for, if at all?”

“I feel they're into having the guts to steal a woman's husband, that's what, dear!”

“Then how come they pretend to be caring about that you and me shall have the best of the best for our family to be happy and functional?!”

“I suppose they're into simply hiding that they want to steal that husband from the wife who is doing all the laundry, the cleaning of the house, not to mention taking care of our son!”

“What's your actual point,” her mother broke in, “in seeming jealous when you're actually a happy couple?! I mean isn't that something that could lead them to find it amusing to tease you about that jealousy of yours!”

“I guess that's true mom! But what he hasn't been admitting is that he brags about my jealousy, and that he thereby can get them interested in testing me about it!”

“Oh,so that's what!?” her mother half shudders half sighs.

“I can't say there's an imbecile in that husband of mine! It's not he who hasn't been into cheating with them! And that is at the very least in a spiritual sense! ... I mean by taunting me and leading them on! I believe they and he also have been into amusing them and thereby him on my expense!”

Her husband looks at her. “In that case how come you and I don't feel we are into a relationship that doesn't end by waving bye bye; that is, you and I have been saying it to each other for the past four years, even, that we should be saying bye-bye to one another!”

“I don't feel that either you nor they are actual about my permission for them to be flirtatious with you! I don't feel that either you nor they are actual even about my permission to be into bed with one another! I don't feel thereby that this marriage is working, nor that it can continue without me having to break it up!”

“In that case, how come you and I don't get into speaking to one or two fo these women you've been getting so upset about!? Because I don't really feel there are any such females around me!”

“It's because you and I don't have a relationship that is really working too well. And besides, our neighbour, whom you were into having me get to know, she has told me that she really had you in bed!”

“I can proclaim that even though you don't know it, I have been cheating on you just because you were into cheating on me that night at the Finnish ski resort! In a sense, I actually believe I should be testing our child, to see who his actual father is! I don't see it in you to have too few immature men around for being the bitch that actually has me care for a family that is with someone else's child in it!”

Jane begins crying at this. After a while she retorts: “I feel that I don't have anything to be cheating on! Because I don't really have a husband! All I have is an actual facade of a happy marriage!”

“Me too!” her husband retorts.

A few weeks later a fraternity test proves the father of Jane's son to be a fellow Magnus knew she had run into at their local library in Norway. He knew because librarian, who he had been screwing had told him so. After one more month, the couple were divorced, and the mentioned fellow had to begin sending alimony checks, including two large ones (one for each parent) for the four and a half years that Magnus was seen as the father.