So. Mary went to Seoul, South Korea in fall 1995. I began to miss her almost two days after she left. The plan had been that she would add value to her resume by teaching overseas. We also thought that we could dig ourselves out of a pretty heavy consumer debt as Mary sent money home.

At the same time, there were problems with the marriage. We were not communicating. I was avoiding conjugal relations as much as possible. The marriage had barely survived a series of traumatic events, beginning with the death of Mary's mother in the fall of '91, and culminating with the OKC April 19th bombing.

She left. That first year, she was fairly faithful about sending money home to help pay the debt off. Her contract was not renewed in '96, so naturally she just had to "prove" herself at a different S. Korean school. From all reports, it was an academic sweat shop. Somehow, in spite of an inherant willfullness, Mary survived that experience and eventually found a position at the Hongkuk Univ. of Foreign Studies, where she still teaches English as a Second Language.

It took me a while to accept that Mary was not coming home. It was not until the fall of 1999 that a series of events made it plain.

At the time, we were living in a rental house. The City of Norman was going to widen the road by our house, which would decrease our yard space - and there was a possibility part of the house would have to be torn down. Initially, there was talk of federal assistance to buy a house. Owning our own house had been one of Mary's dreams, so naturally I thought Mary would want to be part of this. But she was unwilling to commit to a date that she would come home to stay.

At the same time, I met Sharon. Sharon & I went to a three-day concert together in Sept 99, and naturally Mary was suspicious once she heard about it. But even this did not convince her that she needed to come home. By Nov, I was having an affair with Sharon. Not something I'm proud of, but I also sometimes wonder how I managed to last so long without regular female companionship.

By Jan 2000, it finally became clear to me that Mary was not ever coming home. So I filed for divorce. Sharon then convinced me to move to OKC, because that's where I was working. Shortly after I moved, Sharon dumped me. So I'd had two major life-changing events in a relatively short time. No wonder, then, that I became suicidally depressed.

To be continued ....