Foreword
Marriage is inevitably a partnership where the husband and wife divide their responsibilities and also share them. Each couple must decide for themselves which responsibilities they will share and which one or the other will handle exclusively. And that's usually where the trouble begins. As long as there is love and sexual compatability in the marriage, the problems of sharing and dividing can usually be worked out with minimal friction, involving cooperation rather than competition.
However, only too often, the ideal honeymoon - with both love and sexual compatability - evolves into a marriage which is far from ideal - where, perhaps, one partner refuses to accept or share the responsibilities. Even then, the marriage may "work" - but when one partner or both no longer loves the other or gains sexual satisfaction with the other, then there is little hope. Nonetheless, separation and divorce are traumatic steps which are usually resorted to only when all else fails.
This is the situation which Laura Haynes faces in the latest novel by Jon Reskind, A Motel Manager's Wife. Her marriage to Bob Haynes has slowly but steadily deteriorated over the past seven years until there seems to be no hope for it. But, despite his flaws, she still feels a spark of love for him. She tolerates his excessive gambling - even though it leads to a second mortgage on their shabby motel. She even accept his carousing till all hours and his neglect of her sexual needs, and, finally, she allows him to push her into a lesbian affair with an unknown waitress. Little by little, Laura Haynes allows herself to be degraded by her husband, letting him drag her down to his irresponsible level. Always, she holds the vain hope that Bob will pull out of it and "things will work out."
But her husband's debts eventually lead to the loss of their motel and its takeover by "the syndicate" which makes it into a roadhouse-bordello, retaining Bob and Laura as managers. At last, all hope gone, Laura acts to end her tribulations: she calls the police and gives them all the necessary information to put the motel (and the syndicate) out of business. However, to her dismay, this final desperate act merely embroils her all the more deeply in her trap.
Certainly, the reader will agree, Laura Haynes has done everything a wife could to hold her marriage together, to win back her husband, and to solve her probleMs. Mr. Reskind has admirably worked out the solution to her quandary in the end, and we, The Publishers, are sure that the mature adult reader will find A Motel Manager's Wife a welcome addition to his library of contemporary mores.