Vic's Story, part 3...

As we ended Part Two, I mentioned that it wasn't long before Vic's obsession affection for women in uniform reared it's head again. When Vic left the field work behind, he returned to North Carolina and the type of work that (years later) brought us together. Vic started working as an EMT for an EMS transport service. They did everything from short across the city transports to out of state transports. That's where he met M who was destined to be wife #2. M was a California girl who somehow ended up in North Carolina working EMS. Through the hours spent working together, their relationship grew and they decided to make it official. Vic was 23 when they got married. Around the time they got married, they stopped working together. M got a job with one of the first fully paid paramedic systems in North Carolina and Vic went to work as a public safety officer in Chapel Hill. As a public safety officer, he was primarily a police officer but he was cross trained as a firefighter and did regular rotations in the fire department. For a while, everything was fine but, when you have 2 people working high stress jobs with rotating schedules, the tension in a marriage can quickly reach a flash point. When they started having problems, Vic tried to take some time off so they could work on things. But, the PD showed their typical lack of sensitivity and denied him the time off. It wasn't so very long after that M confessed to having an affair and the man she happened to be sleeping with was the fire department captain Vic was assigned to work with. Although that was the end of their relationship, that was not the end of Vic's and M's marriage. Their finances were completely intertwined and, on the limited salaries of government employees, it would take a few years to separate everything. Those few years were emotionally rough on Vic. He was burnt out, distrustful of women, and rather cynical about anything positive in life. He was drinking too much and taking unnecessary risks when he was on the streets as a cop. Luckily, he survived those stupid risks. While they were separating their finances, M continued to date/sleep with the fire department captain and Vic dated a few women. One of those women was a fellow police officer (the whole women in uniform thing) and, around the time Vic and M filed the legal separation paperwork, things seemed to be getting serious with this fellow police officer. But, that's the next part of the story...