True Story

There once was a man who was married to a woman for many years. They shared many, many memories and built up a rich history together. Then one day she left him. The man was heartbroken. Worse yet, she left him for another member of his family.

It turned out that the man was well connected and other important members of the community vowed to find him a new wife, exactly like his old wife. It took a few years but low and behold, one day the community succeeded in finding him a new wife. He was overjoyed.

But then the man began to behave rather strangely. First, he insisted that everyone call his new wife by his old wife's name. Next, he dressed his new wife in his old wife's clothes. Then, he started to pretend that all of the things that he had done over the years with his first wife were actually done with his new wife. This included claiming that the children that were raised with his first wife were now actually raised by his new wife, almost as if there had never been a first wife and this new wife had been his wife all along.

As for his friends and the community that he lived in, they went right along with the ruse, as did his family. Even his first wife, who as previously mentioned, had left him for another member of his family, pretended that the children that they had raised together actually belonged to the man's new wife. She did this even when the families got together twice each year. Once at her new home and once in her old home.

After a decade or so of this behavior, everyone seemed to forget that the man had ever been married to another, and people no longer noticed anything unusual at all about the situation.

The man's name was Cleveland and his wife was affectionately referred to as the Browns.