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  Confession of an Abandoned Wife

  MICHAL HARTSTEIN

  Copyright © 2015 Michal Hartstein

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN - 10: 1515231895

  ISBN-13: 978-1515231899

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated, with love, to my husband.

  CONTENTS

  My Love Search

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  My Love Affiar

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  My Love Test

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank Mr. L.L. Fine, Mrs. Julie Phelps and Mrs. Kristie Stramaski‏ for the great help they provided.

  PART 1

  My Love Search

  CHAPTER 1

  I'm a woman who is an adulteress.

  I have no problem writing or saying it now, mainly because I feel very much at peace with myself.

  The truth is that, if you ask me, I am not the one who cheated. My husband is the one who cheated, even though he never slept, or even flirted, with another woman.

  I am not trying to apologize for my actions or justify myself. That's how I feel. For years, I allowed my husband to take me and my two daughters for granted. His work at a high-tech company madehim a ‘high-tech slave’ and me a kind of ‘high-tech widow.’ I have a husband, but he is never around.

  Nobody feels sorry for me, even though I live and raise two daughters alone, because I have a husband who earns a lot of money in the high-tech industry. I live in the wealthy, middle class city of Givataim in a beautiful apartment in a prestigious area. I drive a new car and travel abroad almost every year. When I go to the mall, I buy what I want and almost never look at the price tag.

  Allegedly, I live the good life.

  But only allegedly. I was ready, once, to live a life less comfortable (not by much) and enjoy a more harmonious relationship. I'm sure I'm not alone. On every visit to the mall, I meet other ‘high-tech widows.’ Some work, like me, and some choose to stay at home, but all of them run in circles around the kids all day long. I recognize them quite easily: they are groomed, dressed in name brand clothes and spend about seventy percent of their leisure time at the mall because, there, you can shop, feed the children and, most importantly, meet other high-tech widows and make friends with others who share the same troubles you do. A high-tech widow's main hobby is, after shopping, gossiping, for there’s nothing as enjoyable as gloating.

  I think that the basis for this constant hunger for gossip stems from the fact that we all know we basically live one big lie. We are all bitter, we all present a false impression of a perfect and happy family and we are all, without exception, miserable. We all want to slaughter our spouses when they return home, night after night, after the kids are asleep and often after we are asleep as well. On weekends, when our partners join the show, we hang gracefully on their arms and pretend to show the world our happy relationship and perfect family. No one sees the screams, fights and tears until something blows up, and then the gossip begins.

  My story is certainly a hot potato.

  CHAPTER 2

  I met my husband during my military service.

  For many people in Israel, this sounds like a regular story, and the truth is that my story is not really unusual; but what is unusual about this case, for me, is that I did military service. In Israel, all boys and girls join the army at the age of eighteen, except for those who receive an exemption for medical reasons, girls who declare themselves religious and, in most cases, do civil national service, and religious boys who study in religious institutions.

  I was a Bnei Akiva, a religious Zionist youth movement, apprentice and most of my girlfriends did not serve in the army. Actually, I was not just an apprentice; I was also a counselor. Throughout my senior year in high school, I spent most of my evenings cutting, pasting, coloring and preparing activities for young apprentices… and was very much in love with Dror, the handsome, blue-eyed coordinator of our branch, who, incidentally, is today married to one of my ex-apprentices. They live in some godforsaken settlement, and I think they have about twenty children. Who would believe that an enthusiastic counselor who wore a long skirt, styled her hair in black, wavy braids and whose eyes always shone with idealism (and especially adoration for Dror) would, less than twenty years later, be eating stir fried shrimp, which is not allowed for observant Jews, and be sneaking off for a lover’s tryst?

  Ohhh... Once upon a time…

  I graduated with honors from high school. I guess everyone says they were different, but, really, I was not an average student.

  I invested quite a bit in school, but I knew how to manage my time, and besides going to school and my Bnei Akiva activities, I also played tennis. Martina Navratilova I was not, but I gave it four hours a week. Compared to my religious high school friends who were not athletic, I was supremely fit. My gym teacher kept encouraging me and very quietly, and without the management’s knowledge of course, convinced me to apply to be a military sports instructor. In fact, even without the gym teacher’s encouragement, I knew I would join the army. I really wanted to be ‘in uniform.’ I was accepted on the sports instructors’ course, and just a month before the beginning of the course, I sprained my ankle during a tennis match. My induction was postponed by two months, but even after healing, I did not become a sports instructor. I went to basic training and was selected to be an adjutant officer.

  Funny to think how something that happens to you can affect your life in a way that you never thought: When I found out I wouldn’t be a sports instructor after all, I thought it was the end of the world. If I’d served as a sports instructor and not an adjutant officer, I would have never met Itay.

  When I met Itay, I was a twenty-year-old virgin. While I served in the army, although I wore pants (religious girls usually only wore skirts), the spartan education I received my entire life was still impressed upon me. I was taught that a self-respecting girl should keep herself for her wedding day. Actually, I didn’t have too many opportunities to lose my virginity. I was twenty, and besides going out with a French tourist on vacation in Tiberias, I hadn’t been out with any men. My relationship with the Frenchman lasted no more than three dates. He returned to Paris and our relationship ended.

  I wasn’t too worried. Some girls in my class had become engaged, but I was waiting for ‘big love.’ I didn’t want to get married. I wanted to be in love. My mother, however, was very, very anxious. She was afraid that I’d become an old maid. In my parents' circles, the only thing separating me from the title ‘old maid’ was another two years as a single woman.

  I met Itay at the end of September 1994. It was just after the holidays, after three weeks during which my mother never stopped claiming that if I didn’t take fate into my own hands, I’d end
up like her cousin, Adina, who was single and fifty years old.

  I’d started to believe that there really was something wrong with me, and then I noticed Itay’s wry smile. Itay was a platoon commander on reserve duty with one of the companies that I was responsible for as an adjutant officer. In fact, this was not the first time we had met. The first time was about a month earlier, when he’d arrived for his first reserve duty employment. His company had been recruited just for the holidays so that regular soldiers could go on leave. The first time I had seen him, he seemed no different to me from the hundreds of other reservists that I had met during my military service. It was not love at first sight. The second time we met, when he was released, I was quite depressed and there was something in his crooked smile that captured my heart. I was a bit busy that day. Many soldiers had been released and, apart from a few exchanges spent flirting here and there, Itay and I didn’t say anything to each other.

  He called me a few days later. The first moment I heard his voice, my heart missed a beat. I hoped he was looking for me, but it soon became clear that it was an active reserve approval he wished to discuss. This time, I had a lot more time to spare and our conversation went on and on until, finally, he deigned to ask me if I wanted to continue the conversation over coffee. I later asked him if he had called because he wanted to make a move on me or if he really had a problem with the certificate, and he claimed that the truth was that he really had a problem with his active reserve request.

  During our first year together, Itay managed to complete his matriculation and do SATs, and I was discharged from the army. Throughout this period, there was a lot of kissing, hugging and touching, but my hymen remained intact. I lived the fantasy of marrying as a virgin. After a year, I gave up. Itay didn't even have to try. I wanted to go all the way. At this point, it was clear to both of us that we’d eventually get married, so I didn’t feel like a French whore. All girls make out with their fiancé.

  I remember… his parents' house one Friday night, his parents were away for the weekend. It was important to me to lie on a towel so that the jet of blood I expected to emerge from me did not dirty the sheets. Itay, who was quite excited by the idea that he was finally going to have full intercourse with me, tried to move during our lovemaking. "Itay, you’re moving too much," I scolded him. "I have to stay on the towel." I was less scared that God would punish me for the loss of my virginity than I was of staining Zehava’s, my future mother-in-law’s, sheets.

  Ultimately, not so much as one drop of blood emerged from me. Itay laughed at me and said that I was a prudish virgin, but he knew that there were women like me, who didn’t bleed their first time.

  The first and subsequent times were not particularly successful, but after I calmed down and we got used to one another, we courted each other every moment we were allowed.

  Itay was not a virgin when he met me. He was not religious and did not come from a religious home. However, he did not exactly indulge in sex often until I came into his life. He’d had a girlfriend for six months during his military service and a one night stand with another woman.

  Despite his sexual experience being not much greater than mine, he often told me that, unlike him, I didn’t know if I was better or worse off, as I had no source of comparison.

  For years I had no need for comparison. I made do with what fate had given me.

  CHAPTER 3

  I found The Marker Café by chance. Like many others, I was hooked. At first, I believed it was a social and business networking website, but soon discovered that it was also a dating site.

  Up until then, I’d never even thought of cheating on my husband; I simply didn’t have the time. Between work, running a household and raising two little girls, I didn't have any time to party.

  Immediately after registering with The Marker Café, I received a personal message: ‘Ronen’ wanted to be my friend... I was shocked at how quickly social relationships crystallize at the site. Immediately, I confirmed his request and checked out his personal profile. I found out he was thirty, divorced and had no children.

  His profile picture was very outdated. In it, he had long hair and a tanned, athletic look. A few minutes later, I received another personal message from Ronen:

  "Hi, Sharon, very nice to meet you. I'm Ronen."

  "Nice to meet you too."

  "Do you have messenger? "

  "No, I don't," I replied. I didn’t quite understand why messenger was needed if we were writing to each other already.

  "Too bad," he wrote, adding, "Want to communicate in a more convenient way?"

  "How?" I asked innocently.

  "By phone or email."

  At this point, all my suspicions were confirmed. I immediately made it clear that I was married and had no interest in talking on the phone.

  Ronen vanished.

  Despite the dubious opening I had with The Marker Café, I believed, at first, that it was a one-off case. For two or three weeks I was busy in discussions, writing posts and comments on ‘business’ and ‘social’ matters. I ignored the fact that most friendship offers sent to me were from men. To balance things out, I ‘made friends’ with all sorts of interesting women I met and knew.

  About three weeks after I started in The Marker Café, I posted a few pictures of my five and three-year-old daughters. Like any proud mother, I was sure that the images of my two princesses would get stars in seconds. Of course, it did not happen, but I was curious to see which pictures were the most viewed. I discovered, to my amazement, that the most popular images were of women presenting their bodies to the public. I'm not talking about nude pictures. The photos were of ordinary girls wearing very revealing outfits, and they posted them without blurring their faces.

  I was shocked. The Marker Café had struck me, until that moment, as being a social and business networking website. These images had a long trail of comments beneath them, some favorable and some vile. After reading some of these responses, I realized what I know now: The Marker Café is primarily a site for people wanting some action, and that many of those people were not really single.

  One Saturday morning, Itay and the girls went to the beach with some of Itay’s friends, whom I could not stand. I had about three hours to burn at the computer. While I sat at my computer, feeling shocked over the latest amateur porn images inundating The Marker Café, a chat window jumped up on my screen. A man named Uri wanted to chat with me.

  "Hey," he wrote.

  "Hey," I replied.

  "The pictures on your profile are current photos?" He was direct.

  "The pictures were taken two months ago," I replied.

  "Beautiful."

  "Since then I’ve gained fifteen pounds."

  "You're kidding," he replied.

  "Yes…" I replied, and added: "Why is it important for you to know if the pictures are current?"

  "So I'll know who I'm talking to."

  "I understand."

  "Can I ask a direct question?" He said.

  "Sure."

  "Have you ever met up with someone from the site?"

  Whoa!

  "No, I have not. Have you?"

  "Yes."

  "A lot of times?"

  "Not too many."

  "How many?"

  "Three."

  "How long have you been registered here?"

  "Six months."

  "Can I ask a question?"

  "Sure," he replied.

  "Do you think this site is for business networking or a site for people looking for some action?"

  "Don't know."

  "But you wrote that you’ve met up with three women."

  "Yes."

  "So what do you think?"

  "I don't know. I don't really use the site for business purposes."

  "So what are you doing?"

  "I'm from the public sector."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I belong to the security forces."

  "Sounds interesting."

&
nbsp; "Very interesting."

  "I understand that you can’t expand on that subject."

  "True."

  "So you log on in order to find women you can meet?" I was trying to be direct.

  "Not just that."

  "What else?"

  "There are also interesting posts."

  I checked his page and discovered that, apart from posting a few pictures of himself, he’d never written a word.

  "I saw your page," I told him.

  "Well... what do you say?"

  "You haven’t written even one post."

  "I like to read."

  "Did you read my posts?" I asked.

  "Not yet, maybe later. How about my pictures? "

  "They’re up-to-date?" I restored his profile and browsed his photos, which revealed a balding man with a solid body smiling against the backdrop of Israel.

  "Pretty up-to-date," he said.

  "How old are you?"

  "Forty-eight."

  "You don’t look bad at all," I lied.

  "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  "Tell me..."

  "What?"

  "Is there a place we can meet?"

  I was a bit shocked. Why meet? We’d barely had a five-minute chat.

  "What for?"

  "To get to know each other."

  "But we can get to know each other by chatting online."

  "It's not the same."

  "I'm not sure my husband would like it."

  "You tell your husband everything?"

  "No, but I guess he’d want to know if I met guys through online chats."

  "I'm not sure he'd want to know."

  "Does your wife know you meet up with women from online chats?"

  "Are you crazy?"

  "I don’t know. I'm not well versed in the field."

  "My wife is busy all day with her soap operas."

  "Interesting life."

  "Not particularly." He didn’t seem to get my cynicism.