Quadrangles of Love

Yesterday I went to go and see Mary for the first time since her release.

She has removed the cornrows from her hair and tied back her curls in a plait. She looks good. She says she has put on some weight but I think she looks lovely.

We sat on the sofa and chatted quietly while our son, G, played upstairs. We talked about all the things that went unsaid since she was locked up. About the immediate aftermath of her conviction and sentencing, about relationships with family and friends, about why we said things that perhaps we shouldn't have, or didn't say things that perhaps we should. We talked about the house and the furniture, about things that we need to do and to sort through. We took a couple of the dogs for a walk and we talked about N and his jealousy - he actually texted her while I was there to say he was worried! - and about her relationship with H, the woman she had a fling with in prison.

This is the oddest of love triangles - or is it a quadrangle? N is madly, deeply in love with Mary. She is loving all the attention and adoration she gets from him, but is starting to wonder if, when she says 'I love you' to him, whether she really means it or if it's just that she loves being the centre of his universe.

She still has feelings for me, although it is probably fair to say that it is not the passionate love we once shared. We have both grown older and wiser and so much water has flowed under that particular bridge. She said that, were she to leave N, she would not come straight back to me, nor to anyone else. For a while she would want, for the first time in her life, to be on her own. I think that is a sensible thing to do.

I still have feelings for her. I spent an awful lot of the time yesterday wanting to hold her and kiss her. I still find her very attractive, and the 'New Mary' is very different from the old one. She has, in her own words, grown up during the 107 days she spent behind bars. I find myself liking New Mary a lot - more than I thought I would a few months ago. I feared, you may remember, her coming out angry, bitter and twisted. She is nothing of the sort. She is calm, sane, rational and easy-going. The fact that some serious medication can take a lot of the credit for that is, however, sad. I can't help but feel very guilty about the part I have played in the cause of her pain and stress, although the guilt is obviously not all mine. There is a part of me that wants to try to make up for what I have done; to make things better in any way I can. To be a better husband and father. I wonder if I can do that? I know I would like to try.

On the other hand, I am also developing feelings for Becky. While I do not find her particularly attractive physically, in every other way, she is a wonderful person. I adore her easy-going nature, her light-hearted wit and sparkling demeanour. She seems to be simply a marvellous human being, whom I could easily spend an awful long time with. I have even thought about introducing her to my mother! She is someone I think I could come to love one day.

And then there's H. H is the woman Mary had an unexpected month-long love affair with while inside. I was amazed when Mary showed me a very personal letter that H had written her. In it, H said she missed her 'wife', that Mary was very special to her, that she would love her forever. It was an outpouring of obviously huge love and affection. Mary herself admitted to being very surprised at the depth of H's feelings for her, and also that those feelings were, at least partially, reciprocated. She is not deluding herself that it would be easy or practical to start a serious living-together relationship with a convicted drug trafficker. She is, by her own admission, 'high maintenance'. It would take someone with a decent income - probably more than mine - to make her really happy, and she rightly refuses to live off the proceeds of drug trafficking.

N, of course, still knows nothing of the depth of this relationship, and will almost certainly freak out if he knew. He would certainly not be happy to take Mary to see her lesbian lover. H knows all about N and about me, and much to my surprise, has professed a desire to meet me. I have volunteered to take Mary up to visit her, partly out of curiosity and partly because the idea of spending 8 hours with Mary, 6 of them alone in a car, to be irresistible. She and I are obviously still friends, and to a certain extent, she still trusts me.

I left her place yesterday feeling strangely subdued; sad, even. I cannot put my finger on exactly why. It may be that I was sort of hoping that she would express a desire that we try dating again, that we could kick-start our relationship back up again. That's not to say it won't happen, but it won't happen soon.

First she needs to visit H, spend some time with N, and decide how she really feels about both of them. Then, if she decides that she cannot live with N's jealousy and insecurity, she will probably leave him and live somewhere alone with our son. At that point, she and I will then be able to decide whether we want to get back together again, and how that might work. It will not be easy.

In the meantime, it still hurts when she says she loves him, and it hurts even more when I see the engagement ring on her left hand. A little premature, surely, since we have not even started divorce proceedings yet; and are not even talking about doing so.

In an interesting twist, she phoned me while I was still on the way home to warn me that N said he wanted to have some words with me and that I would shortly be receiving a call. However, no such call came and I am left wondering whether this is another of his psychological games.