Americans Talk About Love

I had a horrible life at home. Didn’t get along with my mother at all. She didn’t trust me. I couldn’t do anything. I’m sure that had I had a more stable life at home that I would have probably gone on to college and gotten married later on, when maybe I was a little more mature, a little smarter. Brian and I had dated and broken up and gotten back together, and blah blah blah. I told him Gary had proposed, and he asked me to marry him. But I knew he wasn’t ready, and he was doing it so I wouldn’t marry Gary. So I ended up marrying Gary when I was 18. 

I saw Brian once within the first couple years of marriage. We went and got together for a cup of coffee or something. And then, you know, life went on. I didn’t invite him to my wedding because it ended kind of badly when I said I wouldn’t marry him. He got married three years later. I ended up going to his wedding. And I don’t remember anything about it, but I could tell you exactly what he looked like that day. He looked beautiful. 

When they say, “If anyone knows any reason why you shouldn’t get married,” I wanted to stand up and say, “Me! Me! I’ll divorce Gary! I made a mistake.” But I didn’t, of course. I danced with Brian. Do you know the dollar dance? You pay a dollar to dance with the groom, and boys pay a dollar to dance with the bride. And you just dance for a minute. And I don’t know. Heartbreaking. And after that we didn’t have contact for 15 years. 

I was married 29 years. I cheated throughout the marriage. Fairly often. I felt like something must be wrong with me because Gary’s a good man. He’s a great provider, great father, loves me to death, treated me like a queen. And it wasn’t for sex. We had really great sex. But. Um … wasn’t happy, you know. Wasn’t fulfilled. I think I just wasn’t in love. I don’t think that I was ever really in love. 

I mean, I would rather be with my friends anytime than be with my husband. The few times that he would go out with me it was like, it kinda put a real damper on things. You know? Like, if he wasn’t my husband I wouldn’t have hung out with him. I didn’t like him. He just wasn’t my type of person. It’s not like it was a horrible marriage. We made money, we spent money, we built a house, we had nice furniture, we bought a boat, spent a lot of time on that. I think I just knew in my heart Brian was the one I should be with. 

After 15 years of not seeing each other, Brian stopped into where I worked, ’cause I’ve worked at the same place for like 20 years — a bank. I was a banker, which really didn’t fit with the way I felt, either. We went out for coffee. I still felt exactly the same way. But I didn’t say anything, of course. We kissed goodbye — like, a friend’s kiss. 

Probably for the first five years of my marriage, I hadn’t thought about him that often, but after that, I started to think about him all the time. Like at least once a week. I would wonder how he is, I miss him, what if … blah blah blah. Couple of times I’d get drunk and I’d call. I’d get his wife or a kid would answer — he had three kids — and I would say, “Oops, wrong number!” I did the drunk dial maybe three times.

The last 10 years of my marriage, I really started to think about him a lot. Like all the time. To the point I was really quite sick of it. I didn’t want to be thinking about him. I was holding myself back from calling. I would dream about him sometimes too. He was just in my head all the time. You know, still life was going along. I had my son when I was 28. 

But I had a late adolescence. Jeez, it’s embarrassing to say, but in my 30s, into my early 40s, I was going out to clubs and partying and just doing things I really shouldn’t have been doing. I used to live in an area of Massachusetts that was only like 45 minutes from Boston and 20 minutes from Providence so I was always going out without my husband and getting into trouble, doing drugs, coke and ecstasy, which is kind of embarrassing, but there just was a lot of that going on. I have a lot of gay friends, and Gary thought that going to gay clubs was a safe thing. If you’ve been, you know it’s really not. It’s always straight guys or bi guys at these clubs and it’s, you know, it is a pretty drugged-up atmosphere. 

And Gary was pretty cool for a husband in that he would let me — and I hate to use that word “let” me — but he wouldn’t give me a hard time about going away for the weekend to see my friends. Or even when I started going to these clubs all the time he would even help me pick out my dresses. He didn’t know about the drug stuff — well, the sex stuff obviously — but I kept the drug stuff away from him. And sometimes it blew me away that he didn’t know because I would come home so fucked up. But either he chose not to see it or I was a really good actress. And I’m not. 

It got to the point where I was doing too many drugs, and I told Gary. I really kind of cleaned up. I had been seeing a therapist to talk about this. She thought I was crazy. Of course. When you’re talking about your problems, what therapist is gonna say, “Oh, gee, you should put your 30-year marriage on the cutting board and call this guy that you haven’t seen in forever and” — you know? The therapist tried to discourage me. “It’s all in your head. He’s not thinking of you.” That kind of stuff. 

So somewhere around that I went on to Classmates.com. Not looking for him because I knew he would never be on there. He didn’t go to any of the reunions and that kind of stuff — which I did. I just went to see who was on. And there’s Brian. His bio, the only thing it said was “divorced,” and it had a smiley face. 

Well, my heart stopped — I thought, “Oh my God he did that for me. He’s trying to get a hold of me. Oh my God Oh my God.” But my mind said, “Oh, for godsakes, Louise. If he was trying to get a hold of you he would pick up the goddamn phone.” You know. Not knowing that he actually was trying to contact me, had been searching on the Internet trying to find my e-mail. I mean my name was in the phone book. The same phone book his mother had. But he didn’t wanna call. His mother had told him, “You should call Louise! You should call Louise!” But he didn’t want to disrupt things. 

I didn’t know what to do. I was scared. And, um, so thinking about him, thinking about him, thinking about him. It kinda came to a head one day. This is like a year later. I could not stand it anymore. I was freaking sick of thinking of him. So I called. And he answered the phone. That was July 19 of 2003. I just poured out my soul. I said, “This is Louise and I think you’re the love of my life. I can’t stop thinking about you. I know you probably think I’m out of my mind but I just have to say because I can’t take thinking about you anymore.” And I kind of blabbered on and on like that for a little while. We talked for like an hour and a half. And we exchanged e-mail addresses and I was in heaven. 

I remember now: It was a beautiful day. Sunny and hot. I was down at the beach. I was sitting in the sand, and as we talked on the phone, I kept digging and digging and digging a hole. By the time we were done talking I was in this freaking crater. And after we talked I got up and I ran five miles like it was a block. That was my most I ever ran. I stopped and it was like I could turn around and do it again. You know. Just a feeling of floating. Just not being real. 

We started e-mailing back and forth, and then he pulled back and said, “You should try to work things out with Gary,” and nah nah nah nah and we didn’t e-mail for like two weeks and then we started again. It was about a month before we talked again on the phone. 

There was some sexual flirtation. And just like a lot of remembering the way we felt about each other way back when and he admitting that he did think about me while he’d been married but he just — he’s very conservative as far as like he would never have cheated on his wife even if a woman had thrown herself naked in front of him. He just — that’s not the way he is.

So that went on for about a month. I pretty much lived on my boat in the summer but my husband lived in the house because of his work. He was in business for himself so he needed to be around the phone and the fax and the computer and all that. And I wasn’t working at this time. I had quit working in ’98. Brian worked nights so he would get home at like 1:30 in the morning and we’d talk for hours. 

And then on Sept. 6 of ’03, we decided to meet. Physically meet. I was waiting for him down at a beach that we used to go to as kids. It has an old building on it, like a fort. When we were kids we used to climb up inside. So I was waiting for him and um — there’s like a causeway between the mainland and the beach. And I was standing there and he stopped the car, all these cars are behind him, and he jumped out of the car and grabbed me and gave me a big hug. He lifted me right off the ground. And then he parked the car and we walked around holding hands and lying on the blanket on the beach and kissing. We kissed and that type of thing but we didn’t have sex. I went back to my life and he went back to stay at his mother’s and I saw him again the next day. And then after the next day, we had seen each other that whole weekend, and I went home and I told Gary. I said, “I saw Brian. We’ve been communicating and I think I want to try things with him, and I’m leaving.” 

That didn’t go over too well. He was very upset. He kind of screamed with like, a shocked scream, not a loud, yelling scream. He went to the living room and started crying. It was horrible. Oh, I felt terrible. I felt guilty. But I couldn’t — I just couldn’t not do it. On one side there was this great excitement and this great happiness and fulfillment, and on the other side was guilt and dread. I was so excited about the fact that Brian had felt the same way that I was always hoping he felt that that basically took everything over. That overshadowed anything else. 

I left that night. I went to live on my boat for a couple weeks, and it started to get cold so I moved in with my friend in Warwick, R.I. And then I officially moved in with Brian in the middle of November of ’03. And now we live in the middle of the woods in New Hampshire. 

I would certainly hate for anyone reading these stories to think that it was an easy thing to do. That it was easy, that it was pleasant. Or that it’s something that you should think about doing ’cause you’re unhappy. Because I wish I had gone about it a different way. The grown-up thing would have been to leave Gary and then start a relationship with Brian. That would have been the nice, clean grown-up way to do things. But I don’t know if things can ever really be clean and nice and tidy with those kind of things. 

Especially when we first got divorced. Lot of guilt. There were many days when I didn’t like what I was doing. I felt icky about it. When I first got divorced I was very — you know. “Are you sure you love me?” you know. “You’re not just with me because I left Gary, are you?” That kind of thing. You go through that horrible period of first feeling so guilty about what you’ve done to someone who really did love you. But I just — I had to. I mean I just had to. Like, I only have one time. You know? I only get one time around. 

I almost went back with Gary a couple times. The guilt really overcame me. I think twice, maybe, six or eight months apart. Gary and I tried a reconciliation, like, going out to dinner. And I would realize I was nuts and come flying back up here, you know. I think it hurt Brian. But he’d been through a divorce, too. I think he understood a lot of the feelings that you have. 

We went through a period of adjustment, because I’m the one with the money. Not that I have a ton left after the divorce! We had a very fair divorce because I was guilty as all hell. But Brian’s a janitor, which like, you know, gave my ex lots of giggles and laughs, “Oh, you left me for a janitor.” Which was very uncool. 

He hasn’t done a lot. Didn’t go beyond high school. He’s always been strapped for cash. He and his wife both worked. They always worked. Didn’t make a lot of money. You know. Brian often worked two and three jobs at a time. They had three kids. I think it was hard for him just because, you know — a man thing. And for me it was maybe a little difficult because I’m one of those people that needs the security of having some money. 

I’ve been with Brian now for five years. He asked me to marry him in February in 2005 on Antigua. We had gone for dinner on the beach in one of the restaurants at the resort and we were walking along the beach and he grabbed me and said that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and that I was the love of his life. And I married him. 

I’m as happy as I can be. I’m very happy. Very relaxed in my life now. I can’t even imagine cheating on him. Brian has told me that if I tried any of that shit with him [laughs] when we had been married that he would have kicked my ass out the door. You know. And I wonder if I would have gone through that if I had been with someone who I liked. In the beginning, I would say I wish we had been together these past 30 years. And he would say, “No, you know I think it happens for a reason.” You know. I wouldn’t have my son. And I love my son. 

I think I wanted to be with someone that I wanted to be with every minute. And that’s how it is. I want to be with him all the time. I still go out, but yeah, no, I don’t go down to Massachusetts very often anymore. I’m going down next weekend for a party, but it’ll be low key. I might smoke a little pot. And even if I did do a little coke or something, it wouldn’t be like, “Oh now I’m gonna go out and get in trouble,” you know what I mean? Like, I’m looking forward to going to Massachusetts next weekend, because I haven’t seen my friends in a long time. But I won’t want to do it again two weeks later. 

Brian isn’t into going out. It’s not his thing. He hates to get dressed up to go out to eat or anything. I mean, getting dressed up for him is a clean pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt. But that’s just the way he is, and it’s OK. That stuff just doesn’t matter. Because I just love him for the way he is. He’s silly. He’s like a little kid. His sense of humor. The way he sees the world. He sees all the good. Very optimistic. Hardly ever down in the dumps. Although just after summer ends he has a bit of a period. But he’s fun. Very laid back. Very affectionate. Although my ex was very affectionate too. Which I need. I need a lot of reassurance all the time. 

How do you describe the person that you have found — he’s my best friend. Which was a new concept for me. Not just loving the person you’re with but liking them. You know, you’ve probably heard people say, “You should be friends first.” It’s so true. He’s the love of my life. It doesn’t depend on whether he has been nice to me that day or did he buy me some nice Lindt chocolate or jewelry. Or did we have good sex last night. It’s because — just because I want to be with him. I’m like a little puppy. I just want to be with him all the time.

Dina: This was still in Germany, in my apartment. I say, “Oh, he’s a good-looking man.” He was 13 years younger.

Gerd: Thirteen years younger.

Dina: I was 44, and he was 31.

Gerd: It’s still the same, you know. [Laughs] She’s still 13 years older than I am.

Dina: [Laughs] He was seven years married and had a daughter of 4 years. And we come together, we talking and talking and talking. We were together the whole night.

Gerd: May I interrupt? The only reason why I stayed at her house was because she had a hidden bottle of Bacardi in the couch. I was ready to leave after 10 minutes, but then she opened up the couch, and I decided to stay.

Dina: Yes, it’s true. Then later on, maybe 11 p.m., my husband comes back. He comes in the door, and he saw Gerd and he say, “Ach! Good! I’m happy you are here! So. We can talk together.” We were sitting the whole night.

I didn’t know before. I didn’t know anything. Gerd’s wife was working in the same company where my husband was an agent. This was an insurance company. And I was 21 years by this company.

So this was very sad for me. Very sad. I was so sick and so terrible, I couldn’t sleep in the night anymore. It was a very hard year. Every day was a new story from him.

Gerd: They told us they are so much in love with each other that they rather would die before they would come back to us.

During that time, we help each other out. I took Dina for dancing, dinner, movie theater. She help me with my little daughter, and so on. And it worked out so perfectly good that we started thinking we would be better off without them two.

Dina and I were so close already. We were not in love. We were just close.

And we invited them two later on to come and talk to us, and we told them, “Hey, no, we finally agree with you two. You can stay together. We both get divorced, we make you no problems at all.” Because we have companionship, we found out we’re getting along very good, you know. And they hated that. My former wife started crying, wanted to come back to me. It was only for a couple months with them.

Dina: When they find out we want to stay together, they want to come back again. Then we say, no way anymore!

Gerd: I told them, “We can do what you do. Don’t worry, we are adults, too! We are able to love.”

Dina: My husband say, “I don’t want a divorce. I only want to go to her three times in a week.” You know what I say? “You have to look for a stupider thing than me.” And I go to the divorce lawyer right away.

Gerd: Many, many times we talk about that, and we still are thankful that destiny turned that way for us.

Dina: We are married for 28 years, but together 35. But my husband and his wife, they never together. They started a little together, but the love was gone.

Gerd: Let’s say, even they plundered our banking accounts and they were empty, their love also was empty.

Dina: They had nothing, we had everything. He had a house, and I an apartment.

Gerd: At that time, in Germany, we had a law of guilty or not guilty. And when you cheat on your spouse, you get absolutely nothing. You have to pay for the lawyers, you have to pay the court, you have to pay for everything, and you leave the house empty-handed. That’s why we are good off, you know? We ended up with two complete houses!

Dina: At the end of December ’73, we both divorced. We were already a little bit together at this time. And we find out we have a lot of things what we like together…

Gerd: Bacardi…

Dina: And we like to travel.

Gerd: I needed somebody to take care of my little daughter, you know, because my wife left me with the little girl at home. Dina felt a little guilty, because it was her husband who took my wife away. So she was so kind to come to my house and help me out with the cooking and the laundry. And after a while my little daughter started calling her Mommy. Because I had to go to work, we spent the weekends together. And we became closer and closer. And the day came when we said, “Why don’t we just try to stay together for good?” And now I see it worked out perfectly.

Dina: My first husband, he did nothing. You know, he don’t want to go on vacation or something. And we — when we were together, we were every weekend away. We saw all in Europe.

Then we were in America, and we liked it so much. We like Florida. And then we had the idea we come here to buy a house. He always liked marriage. But after what I had before, I don’t like this so much. But when we bought this house, then I say, you know what? It’s better that we marry.

So, this was August, ’80.

Gerd: That was actually the official time we got engaged. It was one o’clock a.m. But where can you get engagement rings at one o’clock in the morning? We opened the refrigerator and pulled out two cans of beer. We pulled off the rings and exchanged it.

Dina: Yes, it’s true.

Gerd: We still have them. It’s our official engagement rings.

Dina: So we married and we bought this house, and we were real both very happy.

Gerd: Love that grows out of something like what we have is stable and deeper than first love at first sight. Some pretty face might turn out to be garbage. Sometimes when we watch TV, beautiful girls on “Judge Judy,” then they open their mouth, well, that’s it. There is more than just a nice face and making love.

Why we are getting along so good is we … I don’t know how to express it in English, but maybe you get the idea … I’m not living my life, I living her life. I try to do everything as good as possible to make her happy. If she tells me I need two pounds of potatoes, we go together and buy those two pounds of potatoes.

Dina: It’s not a lie. We make everything together. He never, ever walk any place without me. Only to work.

Gerd: After all those years, we can honestly say we never fought. We just don’t do that. There’s no reason. We are both engaged in this marriage to make each other as comfortable as possible. And bad words, they don’t work. Of course, we have different opinions once in a while.

Dina: But we say, never go in the bed before everything is clear. You know, talk. When you have a problem, talk.

Gerd: Of course we have days when we aren’t agreeing about things, but before we start fighting, we shut up.

What was our nicest day we ever had together?

Dina: Nicest day? Oh, we had a lot of nice ones. I can’t say.

Gerd: Maybe it was when you told me oysters would help my sex life?

Dina: Oh, shhhh…

Gerd: I can honestly say it’s a lie, because the other day I ate a dozen oysters, and only nine worked. [Laughs]

Dina: You know, we are so much on vacation together. We go 11 times on a cruise. We were four times in Las Vegas, not gambling, but only look around in the nice casino. Oh I love this, it’s so beautiful. Sometimes we went in a new casino, I say, “I want to know the architect who did this.” It was so beautiful. We never gambled. We only walk around and enjoy life.

Gerd: Another big moment where we really appreciated to be together was — I know it sounds like a cliché — when we were for the very first time at the Grand Canyon. We start asking, “Who is the architect on that?” [Laughs] And we said, it couldn’t be an American because if it had been American, it never would be finished! We hadn’t to say anything, you know. Just arriving there, looking down in the big hole. I lay my arm around Dina’s shoulder and looking at each other, and we both started crying. To be there together and see that. It was one of the moments where we really, really appreciated to be there together, because you cannot tell anybody how that feels.

Dina: That’s little things and big things. You must be thankful to have each other.

Gerd: The love that was with my first wife was a very young love. It was more passionate. The second love, what we have now, was, let’s say, born more out of common sense. We love each other more than we used to love our first partner. But it’s in a different way. Dina: When you’re young, it’s a different story. It’s only, “I love you, oh yeah, yeah.”

Gerd: I’m coming home every night, not going to any bars, make no problems — this is a love sign. In my younger years, I liked to drink a lot. And if I didn’t have her to hold on, maybe I had forgotten to control myself. She was a big help without ever saying anything.

Dina: And smoking, too. He was so smoking, and I had a problem with bronchitis. He stopped maybe 15 years ago, and who knows, if he not stopped, he not alive anymore.

Gerd: I remember maybe 20 years ago, when we still had sex. [Laughs] We just were engaged in that action and she said, “Do you love me? Do you love me?” And I said, “What do you think I’m doing here?”

I’m trying to be funny for the reason. We do this all the time. Our life is that way. We spend nights next to each other, laughing our ass off. Sometimes we sing opera during the night.

Dina: We went to Spain and we rent a house. It had only one bedroom you know, but it’s a nice house, we both singing opera all night. We can do that, you know. We can do that, and we like it. Then we laughing and happy.

Gerd: This is also something that keeps us together, you know, the jokes and laughing all the time. I really have problems to take life seriously. Believe it or not, I’m happy when it’s raining. Because if I’m not happy, it’s still raining. My whole life is like that, you know? I lost a leg to diabetes, and I’m happy. I never get cold feet anymore. I only need one shoe when I go shopping.

Dina: The last three years was hard time for me. When Gerd had lost … and then the other leg started … Then he had bypass, then kidney. He had a lot of problem and I’m only by myself with everything. Was not always easy.

Gerd: This is also big, big, big thing in our marriage, that she takes care of my handicap, without any question whatever. It is just there, every day and every day and every day. If I try to go to the refrigerator with my crutches to pick up a Coke, she’s right behind me, “Sit down! I do that. I have two legs, you only have one, I do that!” And this is much more worth than say every five minutes, “I love you,” which is mostly just said to say something.

And it’s also 100 percent sign that she loves me because I might meet 250 people and I tell them all the same joke and she’s still laughing. She doesn’t have to yell at me, “I love you. I’ll kick your ass, you don’t believe it!”

Dina: So we are both a little older and smarter. Much, much happier than before. This was a very different life, and a much, much better life.

Gerd: We thank her ex-husband every day. Actually, every year on the divorce date, we send him a thank-you note.

And on the first day, I go to the library for my books, I hear a noise, and I look down and there’s an umbrella. I pick up the umbrella, and I see the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my entire life. And I said, “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I want to take you out.” She said, “No, no it’s impossible.” So she went her way, and I went my way.

The next day, I’m going to class, and I pass an open classroom and there’s that vision of loveliness that I had seen the night before. So I waited. She comes out of class, and I said, “Look, it’s impossible that I could know you were in this classroom. It’s fate. God had decided that we have to …” and I persuaded her to come with me to Chock Full o’ Nuts and I bought her a 25-cent cheese sandwich with cream cheese and walnut bread, and I bought her a Coke. I spent like 35 cents on her. [Laughs.] Money was no object!

She was 27, I was 19. She was half-Filipino and half-American, and she was the most stunning woman you ever saw in your life.

She said, “I can’t go out with you.” I said, “Why not?” She said, “I’m married.” She was married to a professor. I said, “I don’t care if you’re married.” And we started an affair that went on for the entire year. I lost my virginity. Out went the Jewish religion, out went God. Everything went down the drain, because now all I cared about was sex with this girl. It was so great that I was annoyed that for 19 years, I hadn’t had sex. I’ve been trying to make up for it ever since.

We had the most wonderful year. I remember everything about it. I remember every moment. This was 1951 to ’52. We’d walk around. She’d buy socks for her husband to show why she was late. We’d go out, to a movie occasionally. I can tell you the movies we saw. The best one was “Viva Zapata,” with Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn.

My birthday, May 27, she meets me, she said, “Aubrey, it’s over.” I said, “What do you mean, it’s over?” She said, “He’s gotten a job with the secretary of the Navy, and we’re leaving for Washington.” I was brokenhearted. The love of my life. Anyway, I was drafted in the Army in 1953, and guess where I’m stationed? Fort Virginia, outside of Washington.

We met in Washington that night. We went to see “Julius Caesar” with Marlon Brando and James Mason and Deborah Kerr, and we started our love affair again. I got sent to Germany during the Korean War, and every day I wrote to her, and every day she wrote to me. And when I got back, I went to Washington, she meets me in a restaurant, and I said, “I want you to leave your husband and we’re going to live together, and we’re going to be happy for the rest of our lives.” She said, “I can’t do it.” I said, “What do you mean you can’t do it?” She said, “I’m pregnant.” She never thought she could get pregnant. She had an upturned womb or something.

So I get a grant to go to Mexico City. I wanted to be a professor of Latin American history. I walk into my class on the Mexican Revolution. And this cute little brunette says, “Hey you, you’re not a Mexican, are you?” I said, “No.” She said, “Come to my house tonight. We’re having a Mexican fiesta. You’ll learn all about Mexican customs.” I go to this beautiful house. I hear music — singing, dancing.

She was gorgeous. She was 5-foot-2, long hair, brunette, glassy eyes, cute little body, slender. She was an authority on Mexican history — oh, brilliant woman! The first day, I was in love with her.

It was different in those days. In 1956, we didn’t have the sexual revolution that we have today. Every time I went out with her, I had to have a chaperone. All the good girls were chaperoned. But what we did was, we told her mother her classes were every afternoon at the Filosofia y Letras. What the mother didn’t know was that two days, we didn’t have classes, and we’d go to the movies. We fooled around a lot, but no sex, because she was a virgin. And, of course, I was in love with sex, and we hadn’t had sex. So at the end of the year, in December of ’56, I married Maria Elena, and we were married for 39 years.

She got pregnant immediately, and nine months after we got married, there we were, father and mother. I was 25, she was 22. That was a little scary. We had no money — just a few dollars. I got a job as a Spanish teacher in the NYC school system. My wife became a teacher as well. After 10 years, I became an assistant principal. Twenty years after that, I retired at 55, and I get a pension every month. It was wonderful, because you work six hours and 30 minutes, 180 days a year, and you’ve got all the time in the world at night.

So I would go out every night, every single night, 365 nights a year. She couldn’t do that, because she was still a teacher. She had to prepare her classes. So I had to take other people out, and of course, some of the people were very good-looking women. And so, if they liked me and I liked them, since I’d already committed adultery at the age of 19, and I wasn’t religious anymore, if you have a chance to sleep with a beautiful woman, it’s very hard to say no.

I kept winning grants, and so forth. I went to NYU on a National Defense grant, and so she went to Mexico for the summer. So we were separated and I had an affair with one of the girls in my group from Connecticut. Because — look, my wife went to Mexico, and she went on grants, and she’d be gone in Mexico for four or five months. I wasn’t going to stay a virgin for four or five months.

I didn’t think it was harming. Every woman I had an affair with, I told her I was never going to leave my wife. If they liked my company, they liked going to the theater, they liked going to the opera, fine, come out with me. Otherwise, I didn’t care, because I had my wife at home.

She knew that I loved her and I would never abandon her, and I would never divorce her. She knew that as a fact, because that’s the way I am. And she was more important than any other woman in my heart. The other women were kind of cute and nice to have sex with, but they weren’t important. I never let myself fall in love with them or have a passion for them. I had passion for my wife.

My wife was brilliant. Her brain never stopped working. That’s why I loved her. We’d go to see a Broadway show and she would notice things that were on that stage that would escape me. Oh, she was brilliant. We were perfect together. We loved theater, opera, the ballet, cabaret. She never stopped studying. We’d go to the theater, on a trip, and she’d have a book in her hand. All the time. We had 2,000 books all over the apartment. In the kitchen, there was no food — just books.

My wife was not that domesticated. She said, “Aubrey when we get married, I can only be good in one room in the house. Forget the kitchen.” We had sex right up to the day she died.

She was so full of life, everyone thought that our son and her were brother and sister. She was leading the conga line when she retired from the school system at the last party. She was beautiful. She was good company. I just wanted to be next to her all the time.

I know she never committed adultery, because it was against — she was a straight-laced person. Her pride would’ve been hurt if she had sex with another person. And she had her opportunities. Men were coming on to her all the time. Everybody wanted to have sex with my wife. All her life, everybody loved her. Everybody was charmed by her. She was so sweet and loving and danced. She did all the Mexican folk dances. They’d make her dance at every party we went to. Oh, they loved her.

And then, one night, we went to the opening of Tito Puente’s restaurant on City Island. It was an all-star gathering — Rita Moreno, Celia Cruz, Simon and Garfunkel — she’d started writing for Spanish newspapers, and in the nightlife she got to meet all these people. Rita Moreno became one of our closest friends, and she always says she was with us on Maria Elena’s last night.

So we get home and she goes to the bathroom and vomits blood. I called 911, and they come and take her to the emergency room. They pull the curtain. She’s still lucid, and she vomited again and went into a coma, and they put her on life support and everything else, and 40 hours later she was gone. Never said another word.

What had happened was a vein burst in her esophagus, and it was all based on having a damaged liver. When she was 15 she was given a blood transfusion in Mexico, and she developed hepatitis. For 45 years, that virus was working on her liver. When she died, the specialist said, “Your wife had a great desire to live.” He was amazed that she had lived to be 60 with that virus. She retired June 28. She died July 27. She didn’t even get to enjoy her retirement.

I was devastated. I couldn’t believe it, because I lived always on the assumption that I would go first. My father died when he was 47. I figured when I died, Maria Elena would be a merry widow — not too merry, but … We were invested, we had tons of money, because I’d started working as a photographer and a writer with the New York Post in 1985, even while I was still working at my day job. I’ve photographed Britney Spears before she was Britney Spears. Bimbos like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. I was already taking photographs and making a fortune. For example, I get a call from the National Enquirer, they say, “Aubrey, we want a photo of Marla Maples …” I made $10,000 for a photograph I didn’t know I’d taken. You take a photograph that nobody else has — it’s worth a fortune. Anyway, I was shocked. It was I the merry widow, instead of her.

I’ve dated 300 women since my wife died. Some of them I date for one night and I don’t want to see them again. Others I want to see. I love women. I love every type of woman. They have to have a brain. I’ve dated many very famous women. I was dating Grace Hightower — Robert DeNiro’s ex-wife … I like slender girls. I don’t like buxom women, fat women, big busts, I mean, I was friends with Anna Nicole Smith and when she hugged me, my head disappeared in her breasts. I don’t like that.

I have no wisdom to offer about relationships. I’m just very realistic. I think I’ve got both feet on the ground. I think I’ve got common sense. It’s not wisdom. I’m a practical person.

I live for the day. The past is over and I can’t change it. Live for the moment. I mean, I was sorry to see her go. I grieved. I went through all her things — all the photographs and all the times we had together. You do that. There’s a period of grief. But immediately, within a few days, I went out, took photographs and everything. I was out every night and that helped me get through it. I had something to live for. I didn’t say, “Oh, she’s dead. I’m going to kill myself and join her.” That’s nonsense.

About life and death, I’m very dispassionate. In 1939/1940, when I was 8 years old, living in Manchester, we were bombed every night. In one night, eight bombs fell on my street. My father died when I was 13. It was a big shock to my family, because it changed everything — my whole life. So I can look at it dispassionately, because this is how I’ve looked at everything — dispassionately.

I don’t want to marry anybody again. I’ve done it, and it’s enough. I don’t believe in marriage.

We just discovered the leading cause of divorce: Marriage! Here’s a guy who was married for 39 years — happily — we were young and stupid, but it turned out that it worked out well. I married a sweet, wonderful, bright, intelligent, beautiful, looked after — always dressed perfectly — always look like a million dollars, always want to jump on and have sex with. She was a wonderful, marvelous woman. But I don’t believe in marriage. I think it’s a horrible institution — and who wants to live in an institution?

People marry for many reasons. Many people marry, and I truly believe it, because they fear being alone. Most husbands hate their wives, and most wives hate their husbands. Or, worse than hating, which shows a little passion, they’re indifferent. Many don’t have sex. If you go to a restaurant, there are couples that never say a word to each other. The whole time. It’s amazing. Whereas, at the other table there are two girls talking the whole time — because they’re not married! But the married couple has said everything they had to say to each other. It’s disgusting.

I’m dating a woman now, she’s Chinese, she’s 36, and she’s a doctor. She’s the first woman I’ve let stay overnight for a long time. She loves to read. I read a biography every night, and she reads the papers. We put out the lights, screw, then we hug each other, go to sleep. In the morning we screw again before she goes jogging. It’s wonderful! I love her body. I got to hold on to her little tits. It’s great for my arthritis. And there’s no odor to her whatsoever. She had never had many love affairs. Not one man has ever gave her oral sex. Not one man. Well, I give her oral sex every night. She can’t wait to get to bed.

She studied ballet in China, so she does rhythmic exercises. It’s like living with a model, a dancer. She takes off all her clothes when we stay at home and go to bed, and to just have that body next to me, I can’t resist. I screw her every night. It’s better than jogging in the park, it’s better than seeing a Broadway show, it’s better than photographing a celebrity.

All my friends have taken Viagra. Don’t be stupid. You don’t need Viagra. Nobody needs Viagra. The dysfunction in sex is you don’t like the woman you’re with. You’re sleeping with a 55 year-old woman who’s fat, who’s repulsive, who doesn’t turn you on, and you have to have sex with her because she’s your wife. She demands it. So you do it reluctantly. That’s not love. That’s not pleasant.

What makes a woman special is that you just want to be with them 24 hours a day. You never get bored with them, and you’d rather be with that woman than any other woman in the world. When I want to be with her constantly, I enjoy her company, she stirs me up passionately so I want to have sex with her all the time — then I know this is the woman for me! Whereas if I’m with a woman that is angry or annoying or does things that turn me off, or says things that irritate me — what’s the point of making a life insufferable? I want to live the best possible life possible, and if a woman contributes to my happiness, then I want to be with her. If a woman does not contribute to my happiness, I don’t want her.

We kinda hung out. I think all the youth groups went out to pizza, and then every once in a while, we’d talk ’cause our families knew each other. And then time just passed. I was going to college, and about four years later, I got a graduation announcement in the mail from her. I guess she hadn’t forgotten. And I thought, “Wow. She’s grown up.” [laughs]

She had blond curls. Kind of sandy blond, green eyes, perfect teeth, which I love, and a smile that blows you away. For me, she was beautiful inside and out. Really, really kind heart. There was just a gentleness to her. When I saw her picture — something just clicked. I felt a connection. And I was like, “Man, I’d love to just see how she’s doing.”

We went out on a date. We went to Mann’s Chinese and saw a movie and we went to Maselli’s, one of the oldest Italian restaurants in Hollywood. It was an awesome night. I remember putting our hands in the middle of the stars’ handprints in the cement outside the theater, and she picked up her hand from one of them and our hands just kind of came together.

We kinda knew that night, like, this was planned out, this was supposed to happen. Like, divine intervention. I believe that. I believe God wanted us to be together. I was dating somebody else, but I knew after our first date that it was over with the other person.

So. Then things just kind of accelerated ’cause our families knew each other, and we had some history. We got married 10 months later.

There were some tough things at the beginning. Her mom gave me a couple of challenges. One was that I needed to go find a good job. If I was gonna be in the ministry, I needed to have a good job, which I didn’t have yet. So I went out and got a youth pastor job. And when it came down close to the wedding, she didn’t want to let go of Sam. Sam was 18, so I kind of get it. But she basically talked Sam out of getting married, and sent announcements out to everybody to call the wedding off. This was about a month before the wedding. And I’m just like, “You gotta be kidding.” So me and her mom had a couple good conversations. [Laughs]

Sam called me like nothing had even happened, “Hi, Craig, how are you?” And I’m like, “Well, I’m just a little devastated.” She started crying, and I told her, “Sam, you know, if I’m the right one and if you love me and you wanna get married, you know what to do.” She wanted me to come up and get her in Visalia, and I said, “No. If you want to get married, you need to get your stuff together and come down. If this is what we’re supposed to do, let’s do it. But I’m not gonna come get you and make you get married.” I didn’t know what was gonna happen. But about seven hours later a car drove up.

We went ahead with the wedding at my dad’s church. Her mom didn’t come, a lot of her family didn’t come. And that was devastating for all of us. But after a couple of years, we patched it up. But interesting enough — it made it so much deeper as far as our love for each other. Even though I had great support from my family, it was her and I for a couple years. I think couples go into marriage with a false sense of what it’s really like, and they don’t realize that it’s a commitment. You have to stand by somebody. I think it made us say, “You know what? No matter what we face in life, we’re going to do it together and we’re going to stick together.”

We’ve been married 19 years. I mean, we were really blessed. We had Corey and Courtney — Corey’s 17 and Courtney’s 14. Corey and Courtney are just awesome and great grades, great hearts. Just awesome.

It’s kind of a funny story. When Corey was 12 or 13, we thought that was gonna be it. We felt like, “Hey, this is all you can want right here as far as kids were concerned.” They were getting older, and we were looking forward to doing more things as a couple, having date nights. We were doing OK financially by that time, but in the ministry it’s not like you’re making a ton of money, so we were excited that we were gonna be able buy some things, go traveling more together and different things like that.

I went to go get a vasectomy on a Thursday. And then Sam called crying on the phone on Saturday and said she was pregnant. And our whole world just changed in that moment. Everything that we thought life was gonna be about completely shifted.

In the beginning, Connor responded just like any other baby. I could talk to him and he would respond. He had eye contact. He had everything. He was as normal as any of our other kids. And we’re not blaming this, but obviously, you know, there’s a big debate about it; shortly after he got his vaccination shot, about two months later, he got an ear infection, and it just started changing where he wouldn’t look at you. He hardly made any eye contact. When you said something to him he wouldn’t respond. He would begin to go sit by himself. Kind of became distant in ways. He started rocking. And what was really hard for us was: How does a baby go for a year and half from being totally responsive and then all of a sudden it just shifts?

You know how a lot of kids can walk up to you and say hello. Tell you what they want, tell you what they need. It took my son ’til he was at least 3 and a half to give you an idea of what he wanted or needed. When he got hurt, we weren’t sure because he would give no reaction. He would have to really bang his head hard if he fell or something like that. [Editor's Note: No scientific study has ever shown a conclusive link between vaccinations and autism.]

From the beginning, Sam was right there, maternal. That just seemed like that’s how moms are built. She was just gonna hold him. The mother usually, automatically connects, and her life becomes that child. And Sam was the same way, connecting with parents through the Internet, and trying everything from diets to you name it.

But dads connect emotionally. So I would say, “I love you Connor,” and he would just look at me, or he would look away. I come from a family that hugs a lot and very expressive in how we feel. It was probably the most devastating thing that’s ever happened to me. And dads, what they want is what guys try to do in general — they want to give the answer, solve the problem and stuff like that. And when they can’t necessarily solve the problem, and the mom is so engrossed in finding that cure, they pull back. A separation begins to happen and arguments begin to take place. And unfortunately, it’s affecting families in such a huge way.

I’d been a youth pastor in L.A. for many years, and planted a church in Seattle, and became executive pastor at a church in L.A., and then I worked with a guy named Tony creating youth curriculum videos and music. He’s produced some huge million-sellers on the Christian market. And about four years ago, I got the call from Lakewood Church here in Houston — it’s the largest church in America. Joel Osteen is the pastor. He’s the most watched pastor in the world — about 9 million people watch him every week. So they were building this huge children’s building and they needed a pastor to come in and help design that and build that and so we came here.

And it was valuable for me to be here at the church, to be around somebody like Joel that really lifts people up and brought hope. Joel has key phrases he uses, he’d say things like, “You’re a victor, not a victim.” And what he’s saying is, “You know what, you’ve gotta believe that you can overcome this. Don’t be a victim. Don’t look at issues that way. Keep moving forward.”

And that was right around the time we got the diagnosis. I remember the day that it happened. Connor had been tested and everything. I remember I was driving home from work and my wife called me and said, “I just got back the diagnosis and they said Connor has autism. He’s in the middle of the spectrum.” You never know until you get the diagnosis. It’s like until you hear the diagnosis you’re still not sure. And there’s this kind of finality with that when you hear it. And I started getting all these thoughts like, “Your kid is not going to be like the other kids. He’s going to always have problems. He’s not going to be accepted.”

And I remember just going, “No! I’m not gonna entertain these thoughts.” I remember hitting the gas, driving home, going in the driveway, and I ran up the stairs and I pick up my son upstairs in his home and I just held him. I looked down and I said, “Connor, you’re a victor, not a victim.” I said, “You can do all things through Christ’s strength.” I just started speaking words of hope into his life. I wasn’t going to let my circumstances destroy the tremendous love that God gave me.

After we got the diagnosis, I was determined never to walk backwards and experience death in this relationship. I was determined to always bring hope, always move forward. So, what we did, if we had an argument or frustration, stuff like that, we never let it go on. And that might have started from the very beginning, when we first got married. We never let the sun go down without saying, “I’m sorry.” The Bible talks about that. Even though we might get into an argument or get frustrated, or I’d feel a disconnect, I would always turn back around and say, “You know what, we’re going to work through this.” Because if I kept on pulling backward, then I knew there was gonna be death — not physical death but death in the relationship.

What people do when they get in hard situations — they get fearful. And that’s death, because that stops whatever is trying to connect or come forward. Pulling back makes me feel desperate. Like there’s no hope — until you engage again and walk in that situation again and work through it. And it’s the reason why marriages fail — because one person gave up or stopped feeling hope. Only takes one, you know, in that situation. And this is the quintessential thing — it really comes down to how you’re gonna respond. Are you gonna let fear and insecurity and anger and all those things pull you back, or are you going to choose to move forward?

Obviously I have a great faith in God. Because it always seems like God gives you enough so you can keep going. There’s one thing that he gave me from the very beginning. A lot of autistic kids don’t respond. To anything. Now I could ask Connor, you know, questions, I could ask him for a hug, and he wouldn’t do it. But then I learned that if I asked him, “Connor, give daddy a kiss,” he would turn and give me a kiss. No matter what, Connor would turn to me and give me a kiss. And it’s almost like I felt like that — God — knew what I needed, you know. [Cries.] It’s still hard for me, right now.

It’s kind of turned around for me and Sam, where what was originally pretty devastating has also been the greatest gift, because man, our love is so much deeper than I ever could imagine. I thought I loved pretty well [laughs]. But with Connor — you celebrate every little moment. Every little time he kisses me or every little time I get a hug, you know — we do this kiss with Connor. It’s called the Connor sandwich and Sam kisses him on one side of the cheek and I kiss him on the other side. And when we do the Connor sandwich, man, that’s just showing him we’re right there — we’re gonna get through this together, and you’re gonna live a good life. It’s incredible.

And since then, when I got the diagnosis, there are times, obviously, just like anybody else where I go, “Man, this is really hard.” But it’s less than before. Where I might dwell on it longer before I, don’t dwell on it as hard. I go, “No. You know what? We’re gonna work through this.”

All my kids have different challenges in their lives. Corey’s going to have a different challenge, Courtney is going to have a different challenge. And Connor will have a different — that’s just life. That’s just kids. And if I had a choice with Connor having autism or being strung out on drugs, let’s say — I mean — is that any harder? Would I want that to happen to one of my children? Absolutely not. So I don’t have to face those obstacles that other parents have to face, and they don’t have to face some of the obstacles that I have to face. I just need to thank God for the blessing I have with him.

It seems like God’s always testing you, just refining you. And that’s been the greatest thing for me and Sam, is that we’re such better parents today. We love so much deeper than we ever did. We celebrate every little thing because God’s proven faithful and we realize how blessed we are right now. Connor’s made me a better person, and I think God allows you to go through those things so you’ll love deeper. And care stronger. And learn to hope for more.

After we got Connor into a specialized school and saw what they were doing, we looked at different churches, to see what they were doing, and they’re basically just baby-sitting these kids, letting them watch a video, different things like that. And I said, “Man. Why couldn’t we do that in the church?” So Sam started a support group centered on special needs and autism. And she’s reaching out with Texas Children’s Hospital, and we’re reaching out to families all over. And we’ve also launched a prayer chain where any time any child comes in or any time there’s a need we’ll let one person know, let another person know, let another person know and before you know, you could have 100 people praying for that child.

It started out with us wanting to help out our son. And then you realize how desperate the other parents are that you come in contact with. You come together and you see: This isn’t just about our family. And you realize, “Man, I’m here for a bigger purpose. Connor’s here for a bigger purpose. It’s not just for us, it’s to impact others.” And now it’s gonna impact hundreds if not thousands of lives.

I mean, we’re still going through it. But now that we know that every little thing we celebrate is another victory for us, it helps build our faith. For instance, in the support group that Sam launched, a young boy, 14 years old, tried to commit suicide because he just couldn’t understand why he was so different than the other kids with his autism. And here Sam is reaching out to this mom trying to comfort her and build her back up and just speak words of life into her.

I have the greatest wife in the world. I mean, I just don’t know of anybody who loves me any more, that loves my children any more, that is so giving and caring, and, you know, not a lot of guys can say that for 19 years of marriage [laughs]. I love her more every day and sometimes I don’t even realize how much I love her until we go through some of these struggles. It just — it’s so deep.