Piper Rountree's Revenge
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Rountree's emotional instability became increasingly apparent in her social life soon after she graduated in 1986 and moved back to Austin with Jablin. Even though she obtained employment as an assistant district attorney for Hays County, Texas soon after graduation, she quickly tired of the position and quit after one year, Bowes reported. From then on she tried her hand at several different positions, which included that of school board association attorney, working for a private law firm and a position with the Texas Classroom Teachers Association. None of the positions lasted longer than two years because she was either fired or quit out of dissatisfaction. She then set up her own practice in 1993 but after a year she gave it up because Jablin was offered a new position with a significant salary increase in Virginia at the University of Richmond's Jepson School of Leadership.
In the meantime, Rountree and Jablin were in the process of raising their two children, a pre-school-aged daughter, Jocelyn, and a toddler son, Paxton, whom they both adored. The new job in Richmond offered a release from the financial burdens the family endured in Texas, mostly caused by Rountree's habit of overspending. In order to enhance their standard of living, the family moved to the Richmond area and Jablin began his new career as a professor of organizational communications.
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After the move, Rountree decided to put her career on hold and devote herself to her children, full time. Rountree and Jablin's third child, Callyn, followed a couple years later. Akin said that, "even though Rountree got to spend more time making a home for her children, she wasn't content."
Bowes stated that the couple's marriage became "exceedingly strained in 2000," around the time Rountree "suffered a major depression" after undergoing an ectopic pregnancy and hysterectomy. It was also at this time when Rountree started having an affair with a married ophthalmologist. Bowes reported that the "fatal attraction type relationship" with the doctor eventually led to the destruction of his marriage, exacerbated by Rountree's repeated death threats against his wife. When Jablin learned of the affair he was devastated and decided that the marriage was beyond salvage.