Wife's best friend, D, visited yesterday, or one of them. She doesn't visit often because she lives a couple thousand miles away or so; but she arrived in the morning and we spent all day talking. I really like D: she is bright, cheerful, and always interesting to talk to. She and Wife used to be co-workers years ago and soon became fast friends ... although they were superficially so different that it baffled people what they could see in each other.
At a couple of points, I tried to turn the conversation to account. Once, during a discussion of Jane Austen, I mentioned that I had recently seen an article on the meaning of betrayal which had analyzed it through a careful study of Willoughby's behavior in Sense & Sensibility. D immediately took the ball and ran with it, talking about how she felt when she found herself betraying her own ideals, about how easy it is to lie to yourself about your own motives when you betray someone, and about how a lack of integrity in small things invariably presages a lack of integrity in big things. Later on, when D asked Wife something about Boyfriend 5 (whom Wife had mentioned just as someone she has been writing to across the Internet), I told D that Wife has sent him money and that this concerns me deeply. D, bless her heart, spent the next hour earnestly telling Wife why you should never advance money under those circumstances -- even to the best of friends. To illustrate her point, D told a story of one time when she had lent a large sum of money to someone she knew very well -- and had known for years longer than Wife has known Boyfriend 5 -- and of course she never saw it again. So I could hardly have hoped for better from the visit, in terms of how it reflected what was going on between Wife and me.
But the day after -- that's today -- Wife was really glum. Was it because she was brooding on any of these discussion points? Had they made even the slightest impression on her? Naaah, ... Wife was brooding because, as she saw it, D had a perfect life with perfect successes and perfect appreciation from others -- living in a perfect house with a perfect husband and holding a perfect job -- while she (Wife herself) lives in this crappy house with me for a husband and no job whatsoever. In short, Wife had envy of her friend D oozing out of her pores.
For what it is worth, I could swear I heard a different story. D was quite clear that she lives 120 miles away from her husband -- ostensibly to take this job, but they must have jobs like this closer as well. (Her kids are both in college.) The house is clean (because D is a neat-freak) but tiny. Her bosses and coworkers don't understand or appreciate her, and the best she can hope for is that they get out of her way. But the signal difference is that she enjoys it all intensely. She doesn't let it get her down. Wife lets everything get her down. That is really all the difference.
In the end, I don't know if Wife is happy D visited or not. I had a great time. I even got a big hug and a kiss out of it as D left in the evening, and what more can a guy ask for? But for Wife, I'm not so sure ....
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