Phoebe Judge

Kathy wanted to start a family, and Mike just worked so hard.

You know, he wanted to get up early in the morning and go to work.

He stayed at work late at night.

It became very clear that during these escapades that Brian and Denise had long conversations about their relationships, about their satisfaction about their respective marriages.

And it became very clear that they were interested in each other sexually.

Perhaps even that they had both married the wrong person and that they should have married each other.

They continued to be completely obsessed with each other and devoted to each other, but they also continued to embrace the church.

And over time, they seemed to become increasingly guilty and began to think more about how could they be together while remaining in the strictures of the Baptist church.

Divorce was something that they simply

Denise in particular was simply unable to face, unable to consider.

But both of them felt that if you had a really, really strong feeling about something, a real desire towards something, it might be that God was pointing you in that direction.

And so what Brian and Denise did was kind of try and...

wrap, stretch their religion to fit their desires by telling each other that maybe they could submit Mike to a test.

And if Mike failed the test, it was a way that God was speaking to them, telling them that he wanted them to be together.

And then if he survived, that was God saying, no, I don't want you to be together.

Denise should stay with Mike.

But if Mike drowned, that was God saying, yes, it's my will that you two should be together forever.

Duck hunting season was almost over, and so Brian persuaded Denise that it was now or never, basically, and she agreed.

She finally went along with it.

And again, with all the stigma about divorce in the Baptist church, and since Brian and Denise were unable to contemplate the fact of Denise's divorce, it seemed strange that Kathy could just get divorced pretty easily from Brian.