Weres finding mates in this age range often come across humans in the throes of a midlife crisis. It is best to study these people from a distance and make sure that the relationship is worth the suffering.

Waves endlessly crashing into the shore used to be the epitome of an existential crisis. The endless roll of a sea that you could not tame. I could sense myself standing on the shore as I walk into the waves drowning myself in order to forget the ennui of today...

But that's a life of a man who can afford to go to the beach and stare at it endlessly.

In reality, those relentless lonely waves now come from my YouTube account via my Roku. Some 10 hours of my life on loop, in a just post twilight sea as dark as my thoughts.

I had a Mojito in hand--I hated them, but the wife rarely remembered to grab mixes I liked and damn it, I was going to have a mixed drink at my fake beach, as I try to ignore how we had drifted apart, yet again.

That's just it. We've been here before. We connect on this deeper level and then think that we're ready to have a new baby, and bam, there goes the connection to endless nights of a child that won't sleep while the older ones jocky for their new positions in the madhouse. You do eventually get the hooligans to sleep and can have a bit of peace, artificial peace. This? It was like Covid killed your love of the beach--all sight and sound, no touch or taste. But it was peace, nonetheless.

I had to try to remember that this was just a phase. Our 4th child will eventually integrate, the spouse and I will get our groove back...and we'll be stupid enough to do this all over again because there is a light at the end of the tunnel--and you've been to it.

Somehow I fell asleep in my chair. The mule fell from my hand, still half full of its putrid swill.

~~~

I took a vacation day for myself, without telling my wife because I wasn't coping well. And this made me a bad husband because she doesn't get a break from the kids unless I or my in-laws take over for her, and the first few months, that's not really possible.

But I set out to do what I had to do: I've made all my biggest life-altering decisions over a pool table. It kept my hands busy while my mind was elsewhere.

Luckily, the local bowling alley had one and opened early in the morning on Fridays--not really for business' sake, but because the owner needed his own escape time. He didn't talk much during those hours, which allowed me to focus on smacking balls around a table.

I thought and thought and thought...and I couldn't find a conclusion.

"Hey bud, we've bought out the next few rounds, so could you tell us how long we have to wait until you're done?"

A hand was placed on my shoulder--it tingled. It made me feel...violated. I had kids at home, a wife I loved, and this hand out of nowhere woke something in me I hadn't felt since my early teens. I turned around to snarl at her to get her freaking hands off me, and this was even worse.

I lost sight of time, reason, sanity. I don't remember saying a word to her or anything more spoken to me as I followed her to the bathroom like I was drunk in a club and began banging her like I was free to have casual sex.

Yeah, it was a haze of euphoria. But I wasn't an unthinking creature, consumed by coupling. I resented being manipulated like this, and I didn't know who or what was doing that manipulation. This wasn't me. Never in a million years was this me. We'd been through hell and back and never once cheated...and here I was with a new son at home, and this was definitely cheating.

I roared out in anguish, still balls deep in this woman. I remember reaching out and wrapping my hands around her neck, squeezing the hell out of her throat. I growled out, "I do no want you," as we both found our release.

I pulled out of the biggest mistake of my life so fast that there was a popping noise, like a winecork.

I walked out of there doing the walk of shame. I drove home doing the drive of shame. I sat on my bed at home, crying, doing the tears of shame.

That's what my beautiful wife walked in on--a blubbering mess of a husband, lipstick stains on his collar, fresh hickies on his neck, and the stench of sex on his body. There was no hiding what happened, and I was still reeling in shock so badly that I couldn't hide.

I wish I could say that the confrontation went smoothly.

It didn't.

She had given the kids to her parents and was coming home to set up some us time before I got off from work.

Instead we were both pretty close to ending the marriage right then and there. It took months of marriage counseling before we could even hug each other without our kids forcing us to--9 months until we were in a place to trust each other with our bodies--for her I freaking cheated, pretty straightforward why it was hard for her.

For me? I didn't feel like I was in control. I didn't know what I would do if I went back to the love of my life and then experienced that very same alien sensation with her.

Forgiveness is hard. I don't ever think I will fully forgive myself. But you do move past the spot of pain and build new memories when all else fails.

~~~

We had about a week of being whole before a balloon service delivered a "congratulations on the new baby" from a pregnant gorilla in a tutu--along with an envelope. We were confused, as our last child was a little over a year old, now.

It made diabolical sense once I opened the letter.

Mr. & Mrs. Graham,

Congratulations are in order, as you have a 5th child to add to your collection. Unfortunately, this one comes with the baggage of baby mama and her boyfriend. If you would like to iron out custody, meet us at Brooke's Pub&Grill this Sunday.

Thankfully the in-laws could take the kids.

Neither of us wanted to go. I was already upset that this was the only child whose birth I missed because I couldn't wait until I got home to plant a new one in her. For her, the damned infidelity just wouldn't die and stay buried.

When we got there, they were the only couple in the restaurant. So we went to sit down with them...that is, I moved forward, and my wife froze like a deer in the headlights.

My heart sank, thinking the sight of the woman hurt her. I looked back at her, and saw the same dazed look I saw in the mirror as I fucked that woman while resting her on the bathroom counter...and it was aimed at the man, who was hungrily watching her face.

I almost walked us out then and there--but we were here about my kid. We sat down in the booth, my arm around my wife as she buried her face in my shoulder.

"May I talk to my mate?" The male said this softly.

My wife refused to even look at him, so I answered for her. "No."

"So, you get to have your mate while I can't even speak to mine. How is this fair?"

"Look, Mister, I came here because none of this shit is fair. I was at the lowest point in my life, and I made a mistake. I don't want my wife to live with the same guilt that eats me every day. Especially not over whatever weird mojo you people put out."

The waitress interrupted everyone long enough to get an order from us, but the tension was palpable.

I can remember every single word spoke at this meeting, but I cannot put it back in its rightful order, save the first skirmish above.

They laid out everything for us: weres, mates, crossmarking, more communal living, subjects that were readily accepted because it was easier to believe these two turned into giant dogs than it was to believe that I was in control of myself, that fateful day.

So, a hotel room for mating everyone to each other--took hours because they needed us to grow teeth and we weren't like them. Felt like I was being fluffed for a porno. Rather painful experience, really. And all it did was show us that we couldn't go back to normal. Nobody asked for this life. These strangers-turned-family certainly didn't. I get the feeling we hurt them more than we hurt each other.

They bought the house next door to us and we made a professional panic room that was actually a tunnel between the two houses.

And that's how I went from being overwhelmed by having 4 kids to having 14 of them, some not even mine, but belonging to my loves.

But our kids spent a lot of years confused about who was whose children. I wish I could spare them that by having a conventional relationship. That and spare them from the same tidal forces that their parents went through, but if we had mates, then likely all of them will have their own crosses to bear, too.

~~~

From Thylacine Pack in Austrailia. No ranks mentioned, and the Alpha is a recluse, never seen outside his pack.