Thursday, June 5, 2008

Where next? part 2

This morning I asked Wife if she had ever actually seen Boyfriend 5 teleport, since she talked about it so matter-of-factly. No, she said, she's never met him in the flesh. (Mind you, if she had met him in the flesh, I would take that as evidence that he's really some anonymous blogger from around the corner, and not really an exotic terrorist from Far-Far-Away. But be that as it may.) But he says he can teleport. Moreover, he'll IM her in the morning saying he is in one place, and then a few hours later he'll IM from another place that is so far away from the first place you could never get there by plane in that amount of time.

She seems to regard this as evidence. The fact that I could claim to be writing (here and now, this very moment) in Antarctica -- and that there is no possible way for you to tell if I'm lying -- does not seem to make much of an impression on her. (Wife believes in other paranormal phenomena too, and I'm generally not inclined to argue. Most of the paranormal phenomena that she believes in are pretty small-scale and ambiguous, anyway. But I can't help feeling total incredulity at a claim of teleporting halfway around the world.)

I also asked her if she and Boyfriend 5 have been discussing what happens in case she divorces me. Oh no, not at all, she protests. Now, I know that's a lie; but I didn't want to call her on it then and there, because I think I am not quite supposed to know this, and I'd rather not start a long discussion of exactly how I know it. Suffice it to say that soon enough the whole conversation would be about how much I know and how I know it (so she can plug the leaks in her own security) -- and none of it would be about the stuff I think is really important (like whether she plans to break up our family).

Right away she followed this denial by saying that Boyfriend 5 insists she should stay with me, so that our family is not broken up. She seemed not to notice that this reassurance contradicted her first denial, because obviously Boyfriend 5 could never have said such a thing if someone hadn't raised the subject. Then later on she admitted in a kind of sideways way that yes, of course she thinks about it from time to time; not because of any single individual thing that I've done recently, but just because (as I should know) she has been chronically discontent for a long time.

It's true, she has been. But I think that is a function of her chronic depression, which can get pretty despairing even on heavy medication. I truly think she would be this discontent with anybody -- be he never so perfect -- with whom she had lived a quarter century. But I think in her mind it's all because I'm an asshole. Maybe I am, too.

So do I need to call a psychiatrist to deal with the belief in teleportation, or a lawyer to protect me (just in case) from the threat of divorce? Or do I stick my head in the sand and pretend that it will all blow over? Maybe I'll choose this last option. I mean, it's worked before ....

2 comments:

O said...

Oh boy.

Im just reading this now, months later, so I think I should email you instead....I had a friend in a similar situation, believe it or not. My advice is to 'Trust, but verify'-- protect yourself by going to a lawyer and perhaps putting a limit on the credit cards she has, and taking other financial measures to limit her ability to seize and shut you out of joint accounts, etc.

I know it sounds cold and awful, but your story is frighteningly similar to my friends, and in that case the wife, who I'd known for many many years, went so far as to file a false assault charge against her husband in an attempt to gain control of their joint property (the house and land). I was the D in that relationship--close long time friend f the wife, but got to know the husband too.

Be very careful.

Hosea Tanatu said...

O -- Thanks for the advice. I have gone back and forth on how much I need to do to protect myself from Wife, and have settled on indolence rather than activity. I'm not sure that is the right choice, but Wife herself seems so exhausted these days that I think anything she might do would at this point be all in her head. There was a time when this wasn't true and I was afraid she would do something truly nuts. But these days ... complain about me though she will ... I really don't think it is very easy for her to imagine an alternative. Maybe I am fooling myself.