Unwittingly stumble on to yet another affair – Preface

Around the end of October 2022, Britta was trying to text some photos from Mama’s phone to her phone, and was having issues and asked for help (Andrea was there, too). It turns out Andrea had 2 contacts on her phone for Britta (and Niki); one with an Austrian number (that no longer works), one with the US number. Britta was texting to Austria and of course wasn’t receiving the texts.

While I was figuring this out, I glanced quickly (shame on me, I suppose, IF AND ONLY IF reading your wife’s texts is considered invasion of privacy) at the text thread to Jack Lyons (Men Wielding Fire, the catering business Andrea has worked a lot for in 2022). Andrea and Jack had spent a lot of time together in the Fall (waterskiing and catering, as far as I knew; I was never invited to go along waterskiing), and I was simply…curious.

As an aside and a reminder, Andrea can’t be trusted at all. So had I wanted to inquire about Jack, it was literally impossible to trust anything Andrea would have to say.

It turns out that a month earlier Jack had gone on a hike with Andrea and Jill Whisler up Shirley Canyon; at the time Andrea only mentioned that she had hiked with Jill. This immediately brought back memories of her affair with Mike Shipman in 2002-2004 (when Andrea would sometimes tell me [honestly] what she was doing, but leave out the detail of who she would be with). Also interesting in her text string with Jack was her reference to time recently spent with the Silvern’s (Anne and Mark, who is a lawyer) and mentioning birth certificates and…that getting a divorce wouldn’t be a problem!

[The birth certificates is an earlier story. Andrea emailed me in September, asking for official notarized copies of the girls birth certificates and an official notarized copy of our marriage license. She said Rups needed these to open up some investment accounts for the girls. The request didn’t make sense to me – why all that was needed to open investment accounts, even though (I think) Rups has already opened accounts for the girls in years past. But I ordered the forms, and when I received them I (truly) thought I’d do Andrea a favor and mail them immediately to Rups. As I don’t trust Rup’s investment approach – I *think* he is way too conservative – I followed up with an email to Rup’s, saying the forms were in the mail and providing a summary of my investment approach specific to money that the girls have. About 1-2 weeks later Andrea (who had spoken with her Dad, obviously) asked if I had emailed or mailed the forms. I reminded her they needed to be official and notarized, so I had mailed physical copies. Andrea, impatient and frustrated, said that the forms need to be in German and seemed to insinuate that my mailing them was not appreciated. I suggested that there was no way I was aware of to get (in the US) a US Birth Certificate translated into German and still official and notarized. She said she would worry about it. Strange enough, when I told my tennis buddy Rick about it he seemed to think that Andrea had other reasons to want the certificates.]

My mind was spinning on this late October night; I had fixed Britta’s issue, while opening a can of worms. My reaction was curious to me, too. I don’t love Andrea so I wasn’t emotionally effected like I was in 2002 with her affair with Mike Shipman, which emotionally destroyed me; yet it really bothered me – in principle – what was going on behind my back. Especially since I had recently read an article in The Atlantic about a couple that took 13 months to…get a divorce! They were respectful and honest and earnest and wanted to do right by their kids. And here was Andrea – as usual – sneaking around behind my back. Plus, I couldn’t help but wonder…why was Jack a confidant? Was there something more there?

For a few days I was really sad about the prospect of how a divorce would affect the girls and limit my time with them; but the more I pondered it, the less anxious I became. I began to really contemplate if the girls would be better off with divorce than living in a somewhat (I’m not sure to what degree) toxic environment with Andrea and I. I imagined my being able to start a life anew, even at this age, and it felt…liberating.

But I wanted to know more, and the only way to do this was to read Andrea’s texts to Jack….

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