Friends with Benefits:

No, Not THAT Kind

Richele Shepard sitting on the front steps of the house she and Jeff Smith share in the SOFO (South Fountain) District of Springfield, Ohio.

Richele Shepard, 49, has been many things in her life: landlady, entrepreneur, restoration expert, educator, therapist. And once upon a time—a spouse sitter. When she first told me she’d taken on the unofficial role of looking after a man while his wife was busy pursuing her dreams of higher education, I laughed. I mean, Richele Shepard and Jeff Smith have been happily married for twenty-three years. In the historic South Fountain neighborhood of Springfield, Ohio, where they live, they’re the go-to couple for remodeling questions, the well-established DIYers who’ve witnessed the community’s transformation from a crime and crack ’hood to a close-knit, diverse enclave. And their very good friends, Steve and Anne Chirico, who lived a few blocks from them on South Fountain Avenue, were also happily married. No trouble in that department.

But. Anne was overwhelmed, in a jam, needing time to follow her own dreams.

WANTED: Spouse sitter. Independent, discreet, happily married person with unlimited patience and impeccable boundaries needed to keep spouse entertained and feeling like the center of the universe. Brownie points if you’re a night owl and like to dance. Must be a really good listener. You know who you are.

“The spouse sitter thing all happened by accident,” explained Anne, 54. “What I was looking for was someone who could keep Steve occupied. I wanted him to be happy, have fun, and forget his wife was neglecting him.”

Richele corroborated Anne’s story. “There was no tension in the marriage, no jealousy, but she was like, ‘Please, please take him. Take him! Take him anywhere!’ I’d say, ‘Well, what do you want us to do with him?’ And she’d say, ‘I don’t care! I’ve got this big test coming up. It’s the weekend and he’s bored and lonely and wants attention.’”

Anne and Steve got married right out of high school, and had their two children young. When they became empty nesters, she decided it was her turn. She enrolled in a challenging program through Sinclair Community College in Dayton to become a dental hygienist. The two-year program ended up taking much longer than Anne anticipated because she had to take pre-requisites.

“Let’s add that it had been twenty-three years since high school so I spent a year catching up on my classes, and a year on the waiting list,” Anne said. Once she was admitted into the program, she had to study hard. Every night. There were anatomy and physiology classes, exams, papers to write. And in her mid-forties, she wasn’t some kid who could pull all-nighters. Steve was supportive.

“But,” she added, “he can be needy.”

Steve, 55, is the vice president of Willis Lease Finance Corporation, a company that leases jet engines to commercial airlines worldwide. Five months out of the year, he’s out of the country, traveling.  

Going back to school threw a new wrinkle into their lives. If Anne wasn’t in classes, then she was studying, and if she wasn’t studying, then she and Steve were renovating their large, 98-year-old Craftsman style house, which had once been a Masonic Lodge. It was a huge undertaking.

Steve and Anne Chirico with friends on South Fountain Avenue, in Springfield. Anne needed a “spouse sitter” to keep Steve occupied while she went back to school.

“Between the home renovations, which we did mostly ourselves, Anne’s school, and my travel, time together was a precious commodity,” Steve said.

Anne understood. But she also was adamant she wanted a career of her own. “At first Steve would lament that I wasn’t spending any time with him. I started pushing him to Richele’s house for the get-togethers I couldn’t attend, other times Lisa (a mutual friend) would offer him dinner. There were group-walking trips downtown for beer and wings with the neighborhood, or when he was really driving me nuts for attention, I’d say, ‘Go to Richele’s, she has beer.’”

Richele and Jeff were willing to do their part. “She wanted this degree so bad she could taste it,” Richele said. “They had gotten pregnant really young in their lives, she felt like she’d raised her kids and she wanted to do this for herself. Which was great. And by god, she was going to do it. She worked and worked and worked.”

Richele, 49, is the executive director of Wellspring, which offers professional counseling and support to families in Clark County. Jeff, 49, is a grant writer for Project Woman, a non-profit organization aimed at protecting and empowering those affected by domestic violence. Before Anne went back to school, they all hung out together. Jeff and Steve liked to tinker on cars together.

“They’re project guys,” said Richele. “They were always helping each other out if a car needed to be pushed. Steve is Mr. Grease. He can fix anything. On one hand, Steve was out with all these women (other “spouse sitters” in the ‘hood), dancing on the floor, and on the other, he and Jeff would be tearing into a carburetor.” (Richele and Jeff have a 1930 Model A Ford.) The couples got together with others on the street for monthly dessert nights and other social events.

But suddenly Anne wasn’t available. She was busy. Steve didn’t know what to do with himself.

“Anne was like, ‘What are you guys doing? Can I send Steve down?’” Richele recalled. “I’d be like, sure, you can send Steve down. Steve called me one day and said, ‘I’m getting kicked out. What are you making for dinner?’ I said, ‘Black bean soup and cornbread.’ He said, ‘That sounds good to me.’ Then he’d call again and say, ‘When is dinner?’”

Richele Shepard and Jeff Smith moved into their house, built in 1871, in 1999.

Although Richele is joking when she calls herself a spouse sitter, she believes couples should have their own hobbies and separate interests, no matter how close they are.

“I think there are a lot of women out there who want a spouse sitter but they’re not willing to own up to it,” she said. “I’m a therapist, after all, I hear what other people are thinking. I think it goes both ways. I think husbands sometimes want their wives to go out without them. I don’t think there’s anything unhealthy about that.

“Marriages would be stronger if people were just honest, and could say, you know, not tonight,” she continued. “It’s an awful lot to put on one other person to fulfill all your needs. That’s unrealistic. Dial down those expectations because those expectations are what get you into trouble.”

Although Steve spent time with both Jeff and Richele, it was Richele he really opened up to because they had both experienced family losses. Richele’s dad, Richard, a Korean War veteran, died in 2011. Steve and Anne’s daughter, Madeline, died in 2007 at the age of 17.

“People would say stupid things to me when I was grieving,” Richele recalled. “They’d say, well, it’s been two years, why don’t you just get over it? I’d say, Well, it doesn’t work that way.”

Steve agreed that grief was the catalyst for their deep friendship.

“We both seemed to know how to listen and offer support to each other,” he said.

Anne said she never worried about growing apart from Steve, even though he had a spouse sitter. The friendship with Jeff and Richele was a mutual give and take relationship. Through thick and thin, she and Steve have always been a team, she said.

“Our daughter’s death was the ultimate test. After thirty-six years together the trust has never wavered.”

The Chiricos sold their house on South Fountain several years ago, and moved to Peachtree City, Georgia, a place Richele describes as having “ninety-nine miles of golf cart paths.” Steve still works for Willis Lease as vice president of engine technical support, and Anne works full-time as a dental hygienist. Jeff and Richele see Steve and Anne at least twice a year. But it’s not the same as having them down the street.

To really know someone intimately takes time. It takes going through shared experiences together, revealing personal struggles, looking past obvious differences, and becoming tolerant of viewpoints that don’t align with your own.

When I asked Richele what she’d learned about herself through her five-plus years of spouse sitting, she was silent for long moment. Then she said, “I learned the importance of finding the right people to let into your life, as opposed to just having a friend to have a friend. To be close, you have to be vulnerable, you have to trust that person with your inner thoughts and know they’re not going to use those (thoughts) against you.”

Steve had a similar reaction. “Anne is the first and only person that I have ever been truly 100 percent vulnerable with, but through Richele’s compassion for others, I did learn how to become more vulnerable with someone other than Anne, which meant that I also learned that I can have trust in the right person.”

Richele describes Steve as “the energizer bunny.” With his boundless energy, his need for company, he could be exhausting, no? Did she ever feel like telling Steve, uh, not tonight?

“No! Never! We just had such a good time together.”

For his part, Steve said he never worried about imposing on Richele and Jeff’s hospitality—although perhaps he should have.

“Looking back, I can see where I may have been a pest at times,” he said. “There were times when Anne had to remind me that it was time to leave, it was getting late, or that perhaps another evening out wasn’t appropriate. But for the most part, Richele and Jeff were always accommodating, and if they were busy, there were alternate spouse sitters in the neighborhood.”

Will she ever be a spouse sitter again? Richele slowly shakes her head and smiles.

“It was a one-time special. There will never be another Steve.”