Really curious why your attitude towards your friends changed the way it did. I dont think you've covered it other than mentioning your **** up with a friends' partner.

i dunno bro this last part of the story has got to be where you messed up. ignoring the warning signs in the beginning is pretty standard i guess but to go back asking for more when you know what kinda person she really is is just plain stupid. i approve of the 3 sum, but don't approve of the getting back together for an open relationship. it doesn't seem like you are built for that or you wouldn't have broken up with her in the first place.

i dunno bro this last post where u give him obv advice about something 5 years previous rather than sitting back and enjoying the read is where u messed up

i dunno bro but the part where you start running your fat mouth to someone who isnt talking to you is where you messed up. always enjoying the read and if it was so obv he probably wouldn't have done it in the first place. please stop reading this thread and noose yourself in your garage, the world will be better off without you.

i dunno bros i think we need much more data on the 3 sum before we can judge any of these matters

Good point, I've skimmed past that. Most of my close friends (Jim in particular but there were others I'd known since school) were now in long term relationships and had grown out of the routine of getting drunk most nights. The regulars in the pub were a few years younger than me and we had very little in common, I didn't naturally fit in so I over-compensated by getting wasted and playing up to my wild image. Most of them thought I was a bit of a dickhead.

Spot on, this was a key mistake I'd later look back on. My best explanation as to how it happened is I was desperate to avoid spending three months (including Christmas) with my parents and though I wasn't "in love" with Joanne in anything like the conventional sense, I loved being with her and I didn't want to be alone. But yeah, big mistake. Huge.

LO,

What was your single life before you got married to Anna? Did you get as much action back then as well?

I met Anna when I was in my early twenties and had just left university. I'd never struggled to pull girls and had always been a bit of a tom cat, but she was way out of my league and at the time I was happy to drop the single lifestyle and throw everything into settling down with her.

I'm guessing your point is, was I now trying to make up for the young free and single years I'd missed out on by marrying young? The answer's definitely yes, though at the same time I was constantly aware that I'd thrown away a stable family life and I didn't want to be alone. I'm sure these two contradictory issues were what made Joanne seem so ideal for me, as she offered stability and recklessness in equal measures.

This and also based on your first story, I was under the impression that the thought of cheating never even crossed your mind before Claire.

That's correct.

We began seeing each other again and it was as though nothing had ever happened. Things progressed quickly and before long I moved back in. Joanne and I got on brilliantly, the kids loved me and my daughter was thrilled to come and stay with us whenever possible. We bought a Christmas tree, decorated the house together and bought presents for the kids. It was an exciting time, we'd worked things out and were looking forward to a great Christmas together before a fresh start with new rules in the new year. After the despair of moving back into my parents' house, suddenly everything was rosy again. I even treated my poker forum buddies to another private tournament with lots of freebies. I'd had a good year at work and was due a decent bonus, the annual conference was in Birmingham the week before Christmas and I drove there in my car. Roughly halfway between Liverpool and Birmingham I drove into the back of a truck, my car spun off the motorway and I was knocked unconscious.

I woke up three days later, though I'd apparently drifted in an out of consciousness since the accident and my condition was only briefly considered critical. It was Anna and our daughter who happened to be there when I actually became aware, and I was quickly overwhelmed by the devotion they'd shown. Joanne had also spent many long hours at my bedside, and I'd been visited by my parents, my brother and Jim. There was an array of cards from people I worked with, friends of friends, distant relatives etc. and it was quite humbling to see how many people cared. My beautiful daughter had made a series of cards and drawings for me, most of which adorned the walls around my bed. I cried as Anna explained to me that they had all thought at one point that I might die, and had agreed not to allow our daughter to understand the gravity of the situation unless it actually happened.

I had broken bones in both legs, hideous bruising across my chest and stitches in the top of my head. I later learnt that the crash ought to have been fatal, I'd been ridiculously fortunate to spin right across three lanes without colliding with any other vehicles. After spending a day reassuring every memeber of my family that I was ok and apologising for what I'd put them through, I lay awake all night considering how lucky I was to be alive and how close I'd come to never seeing any of them again. I didn't have access to music but I couldn't get Radiohead's Airbag out of my head, it summed up the horror of suddenly discovering the arbitrary nature of how death and survival can be determined, and the joy of being granted another chance at the precious gift of life. I did what I assume most people who suffer near-death experiences would do: I vowed to make the most of the time I had and to appreciate the moments I spent with the people I loved. I started by masturbating enthusiastically to a picture of Fearne Cotton.

I spent Christmas and New Year in hospital. Anna brought my daughter to see me every day, and she and Joanne worked together to ensure I was able to surprise my daughter with some presents on Christmas Day. I spent a few hours a day with a rehabilitation consultant, whose job was to prepare me for the months ahead in a wheelchair. It was reassuring to hear him offer solutions to all the potential problems I could imagine, but I was under no illusions and knew I would find it amazingly difficult. Joanne had been great, and insisted that she couldn't wait to have me home, but I couldn't help wondering how committed she'd actually be to running around after me and helping me about once the novelty wore off. I remembered our agreement to conduct an open relationship, and my heart sank. I was sure she'd insist that it could all wait till I was back on my feet, and she'd assure me she wasn't interested in anyone else as she'd almost lost me and was just glad to have me alive. I knew she'd say all that, and she'd mean it. But I had no faith whatsoever in her sticking to it.

I was discharged in January, and settled in at home with Joanne and the children. Both my legs were in plaster, my left leg only had a slight fracture but would be unable to support my more seriously broken right leg so I was limited to moving round the house in a wheelchair. It was frustrating being unable to leave the house without considerable hassle, and it was infuriating having to set up a bed in the front room and piss into a container. But Joanne was great, she managed to balance the line between helping me where necessary and allowing me the dignity of doing some things for myself. Our sex life now involved very little movement from me, but she seemed fine with that and joked that she could help herself to me whenever she wanted and I couldn't stop her. I was eligible for three months of full sickness pay and there was a good chance I'd at least be moving on crutches by then, so I was encouraged to take it easy and make the most of my recuperation time.

I quickly got back into online poker. I'd posted a bit on the forum during my stay in hospital, my brother had told people about my accident and I'd been blown away by the messages of support from people I'd never met. I now felt utterly involved in the online poker community, and though I'd previously been uncomfortable with the fact that I was more popular on the internet than in real life, it was now a great help to me as I'd be essentially housebound for weeks and would at least have people to interact with.

lol'd at fearne cotton. keep it coming.

MOAR

lolll

Here is a link to all the good wishs from the ftp forum. Hope LO feels it adds to the story.

https://pokerforums.fulltiltpoker.co...play43836.html

hey xyberman, long time. Hope you didn't have too much tied up in FTP





It was almost as though my laptop was now physically attached to my body. I spent at least eight hours a day online, either while the kids were at school and Joanne was pottering round the house or when she was out at work in the evenings. My contact with the outside world was limited to occasional visits from my daughter, parents and brother and I embraced the sense of community that I got from posting on the forum and grinding tournaments. With every deep run came a swarm of supporters rushing to the rail, I felt like a superstar and milked the attention.

I chatted regularly on MSN and AIM, Joanne became curious and asked how I knew all these people. I explained that they were all poker enthusiasts from the forum I posted on, and she was amused when I told her that two of my regular buddies were actually 15yo boys from America. She asked why I was using my brother's identity, I explained that we both had poker accounts in each other's name and I couldn't risk getting banned from the site. I didn't tell her that my brother was quite uncomfortable with the idea of me posting under his name, or that he'd been upset when I was lying unconscious in a hospital bed and he'd realised that he had to refer to me as Steve when informing my forum friends of my accident. He'd told me all this when he visited me, and initially asked me to either come clean or find another poker site. It was only when he discovered how much my online identity meant to me that he'd agreed to back off. But like I said, I didn't tell Joanne any of this so she was satisfied that I'd just found myself a harmless hobby with which to occupy myself. I enjoyed talking strategy in the MTT forum, and had great fun posting amusing pics in the lounge and chatting on instant messenger. Joanne was happy to leave me to it while she got on with looking after the kids and the house, and whenever we had an evening together I'd log off and we'd share a bottle of wine and a movie until she decided to help herself to the contents of my jogging bottoms. We eventually had the exact conversation I'd anticipated, and she assured me she'd put any thoughts of open relationships and casual sex to one side until I was fully recovered and able to participate. Despite the fact that everything was going so well and despite the fact that she clearly believed all this herself, I was still sceptical.

As the weeks went by, Joanne began to take an interest in my constant poker activity. She sat and watched me play, I did my best to explain how the game worked and she seemed to genuinely care enough to listen and ask more questions. I let her play a few micro SNGs herself, advising her on what buttons to press and explaining the reasoning. She enjoyed it, and I was delighted to see her making such an effort to get involved in something I was so obviously enjoying. I encouraged her to play more, and as she became familiar with the basics I happily let her take over from me in my games for half an hour or so at a time.

One weekend I entered the Sunday Brawl and we agreed to swap control of the game at each break. Joanne was excited to see the amount of money on offer to the winner, this was the first time she realised how much cash could be made at this game. She watched me fold pretty much every hand for the first hour, then settled in and played confidently, ordering me to shut up whenever I attempted to tell her what to do. I complained that she was pressing the call button too often, she countered that I folded too much (it was true then and it's still true now), I laughed and left her to it.

Midway through the second hour, while Joanne was still in charge, one of my forum friends appeared on the rail to wish me luck. I didn't generally play any higher than $55 and this was a $256 buyin, so I ought to have expected someone to notice. Joanne immediately began chatting with him, announcing to the table that she was playing on my account because she was better than me, and adding that I had a small penis. I found this simultaneously embarrassing and hilarious, and we playfully wrestled for control of the laptop while my buddy seized the opportunity to ask Joanne if she was as hot as the ex-wife I'd once shown him pics of. I persuaded her to slow down with the banter and she eventually relented, but my friend stayed on the rail to wish us luck. At the end of Joanne's allocated hour, our stack had actually grown slightly. She was quite proud of herself and had thoroughly enjoyed it. I busted before were were into the money and Joanne was disappointed but happy to claim the bragging rights. We both laughed when later that evening I pointed out that my 15yo forum buddy had started a thread demanding that I post swimsuit pics of my girlfriend.

Despite being temporarily crippled and cut off from the outside world, I was perfectly happy. Any concerns that Joanne might get bored were brushed away by the enthusiasm with which she got involved in playing poker with me. I was still grateful to be alive, and humbled by the devotion that had been shown towards me by the people who mattered. I had been granted a new start and I even had a new life online to fall back on if the real one fell apart again. Who needed the outside world?

I can't believe you'd show pics to your 15 year old American forum friend and not us

<3

this tbfh!

Amazing!

For some reason this is how I imagine Joanne:

lol nullspace, that's actually not a bad likeness

I had a monkey account on FTP with the username suicideblonde1. I'd opened it under a false name a few weeks after my accident with the intention of bettering another forum regular who'd once managed to get to 1000 posts posing as a female. I'd been useless at it though, and was rumbled within a few hours of my first post so the account had been forgotten about until now. But now it was ideal for Joanne to use, I could send her $100 and she could play some micros and get used to the idea of managing her own bankroll. So that's what we did. She played a few $3 90-man SNGs and quickly got bored of not winning any money, but at least she'd tried to show an interest.

My left leg was out of plaster by April, and I was able to move on to crutches a few weeks later and return to work. I'd been on statutory sick pay for a month, which was the equivalent of about one day's pay per week, so I was keen to get back on full pay as soon as possible and my employers were anxious to make me earn my money. I was a recruitment consultant and my job description covered everything from making sales calls to potential client companies, through managing the accounts and requirements of established clients, to desperately calling all the available workers on the system and persuading them to work when one of our clients was short staffed. My broken leg meant I was unable to do the fun parts of the job like entertaining clients at sporting events and driving round the country on enhanced mileage expenses, and was limited to sitting at my desk grinding out volume in sales calls. I couldn't even pull my usual time bandit tricks like wandering round the office, offering to walk to the sandwich shop and stepping outside for a cigarette, so the days were really long. Joanne didn't drive, so I had to rely on a lift in to work from another guy in the office, but he finished later than me so I had to hang around for an extra hour at the end of my day. I was regularly exhausted when I returned home and I'd often go straight to bed for a lie down. This in turn led to Joanne and me spending even less time together, as she herself would set off for work a few hours after I got home.

I'd expected it, but it didn't make it any less depressing. Joanne sat me down one night, got me a beer out of the fridge and told me her friend Sarah (with whom we'd had the threesome on my birthday six months ago) was keen to come round and give me some special attention. I knew immediately what this meant: Joanne was eager to sleep with someone else but wanted my blessing and had persuaded her slutty friend to sort me out first. I pointed out the fact that I still had a broken leg, and asked her who she had lined up for herself. Her attempt to look confused and offended was utterly unconvincing, and she soon conceded that her friend Joe from work had made it clear that he'd like to move things up a notch from their regular, innocent flirting. I told Joanne in no uncertain terms that although I'd agreed in principle to the open relationship idea, I wasn't ready to start it right now and I felt let down by her desire to jump into bed with someone else after everything that had happened. She argued that she'd been amazingly patient and had suppressed her urges for half a year while I recovered, and she'd been honest enough to come out and tell me what she wanted to do before doing it. She could easily have screwed Joe a dozen times and not said a word to me about it, but she loved me and she thought I understood her.

I realised I was being made to feel guilty for refusing to allow the woman I lived with to have sex with another man, and I became indignant and refused to back down. I told her I wasn't breaking any promises, I'd only ever agreed to consider this idea and since then I'd almost died so the circumstances had changed. I said I was still open to the idea of an open relationship, I just wasn't ready yet and she needed to know that anything she did with this guy would be a breach of trust. Like a rebellious teenager who'd been warned off by her parents, Joanne reluctantly agreed and promised to remain faithful to me. But the seed had been sown and it was only a matter of time.

**



I was a straight-A student at school even though I hung round with the "wrong crowd", and had always been proud of my ability to remain popular with the cool kids despite actually reading books for fun, some of which didn't even have pictures in them. One drawback to being educated was my tendency to over-analyse everyday situations, and right now I was doing it on steroids. Joanne had attempted and failed to persuade me that we should start seeing other people, and I couldn't stop myself from anticipating what was going to happen next. After all, I'd correctly predicted so many of the conversations we'd have before they'd happened. I'd also been proven right about her previous cheating with Mike, so I was clearly capable of getting inside the head of this erratic woman. It seemed obvious now that she'd inevitably sleep with Joe, in fact it was possible that she already had. I couldn't imagine her maintaining any level of restraint or respect for long, she was an impulsive sex maniac who was used to getting her own way. Now that the seeds of doubt had been planted, it would be impossible for me to trust her. In a particularly ludicrous example of my tendency to over-think, I found myself considering Shakespeare's Othello and the "green eyed monster" of jealousy that would destroy everything and could never be escaped.
Not poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep which thou owedst yesterday.
Once you are consumed by jealousy, you will never sleep soundly again.

I'd never had an emo stage as a teenager, but now my isolation from the outside world, coupled with my conviction that Joanne would inevitably betray me, encouraged me to torment myself with images of what she was up to every time she left the house. I'd previously ignored my suspicions but had later been proven right, so I was now convinced that everything Joanne did had a sinister ulterior motive. If she left for work early, she was having a drink with Joe before starting her shift. If she was home late, she'd been back to his place. Whenever she received a text message, it was from him. When we had sex, she was thinking of him. I became aggressive and moody, I'd take any trivial argument as a sign that Joanne no longer wanted to be with me and my attitude towards her went from affection and respect to cold disdain. Joanne asked me what was wrong but I'd refuse to talk about it and we'd often sit in silence.

Even my virtual life became affected by my paranoia. Though I did my best to maintain my image as a happy-go-lucky poker enthusiast, my short temper betrayed me and I began to lash out on the forum whenever some unsuspecting noob wore my patience thin by making an obviously stupid post. Some of the older members seemed shocked by my occasional outbursts, but the younger ones found my vitriol hilarious and encouraged me to rage harder.

My days at work were long and monotonous, I was still unable to drive so I was stuck behind a desk making endless phone calls. I was constantly distracted by the thought of what Joanne was doing while I was out of the way, so I'd often text her and become even more suspicious if she didn't reply instantly. Sometimes I'd even call the land line in an attempt to prove to myself that she was either not at home or too busy screwing Joe to come to the phone. I was frustrated by the fact that I couldn't leave the office and casually drive past our house to see whose car was up the drive, so I decided to enlist the help of my nosey neighbour Bill. Bill didn't miss a trick, he was like a human surveillance camera, he'd be able to confirm my suspicions or put my mind at ease. All I had to do was figure out a way to extract the information from him without revealing that I was suspicious of Joanne, and without her finding out.

Bill was a keen gardener, and our lawn was overdue a good mowing. This presented the perfect opportunity, so one Saturday afternoon while Joanne was out shopping with the kids I knocked next door and asked if I could borrow Bill's lawnmower. As he led me to his garage I explained that Joanne had lent our mower to a friend from work, the big black guy who worked on the doors, presumably Bill had seen him at our house recently? To my surprise (and relief), Bill shook his head. Nope, never seen anyone fitting that description. I shrugged and allowed myself a brief smile. Brief because Bill continued:
"That middle-aged bloke in the Audi's round almost every day though, you sure she hasn't lent it to him?"
And boom went the dynamite. In that moment I was sure that Bill had seen my reaction and was aware that my girlfriend "letting another man use her lawnmower" was a powerful euphemism.

wow, quoting the bard, classy.

Enjoying the build up, less suspense with this story though as it's pretty clear where it's heading.

I am an aficionado of words well-written. The entertainment value of your story is superseded only by your word-smithing talent. Kudos.

Also, jealousy is an emotion that all men should strive to banish from their lives. That's not easy to do; but, it can be accomplished when one realizes that no amount of jealousy will ultimately change someone's behavior. It'll only make them more careful in doing what they were going to do anyway.

Why this thread hasn't 5 stars yet?