Second date 1, Arrival

What a day.

Aristotle says somewhere that a play should observe certain "unities"; among these is "unity of action," which means that a murder mystery or spy drama shouldn't also be a romantic comedy. Let me say here and now that there is no way any thorough account of today could observe unity of action. In one way or another, the last 18 hours have touched on most of the themes of this blog.

Let me try to tackle this chronologically. If the story is incoherent, tell me so in the comments and I can try to clear it up. [Note added as I finish this post, six days later: There is no way I can fit the whole first day into one post. I'll do well to bring the story up through breakfast on the first day. The rest will have to go into subsequent posts.]

First, I have to remind you of the background. D made an arrangement with Wife that she would come visit us for a few days between Christmas and New Year's, to help Wife clean the house. This sounds absurd until you consider a couple of things. Foremost is that Wife gets depressed by the clutter and filth in the house -- it makes her feel completely helpless -- and yet she does nothing about it. There are probably lots of reasons for this: among them that she feels like she should be above housework, and that the powerlessness sparked by the clutter and filth makes her unable to face tackling it. Second, D is a remarkable cleaner. She is fast, thorough, industrious, efficient, and organized -- and while she doesn't make a big deal about cleaning (she would rather discuss theology or art or her work or even perfume), nonetheless you can eat off her floors. I still think that there is something mildly insane about a professional woman crossing several time zones on her own money to clean somebody else's house -- and I have said so several times (to disguise D's hidden motive in coming to see us, not to mention my own eagerness to see her) -- but the fact remains that Wife doesn't see it as insane and she welcomes the help. What is more, D is genuinely concerned about Wife's psychological state, so it is slightly less crazy for her to make this trip in this case, than it would be for anybody else in any other case. (D's "hidden motive," of course, is to see me. There may be some people who are built for a celibate life, but D is not one of them.)

So that was the concept. And the plan was that D would arrive early yesterday morning (Sunday, December 28). But no such luck. Her flight -- the first of three that she had to take to get here -- was cancelled because of weather. So she tried rapidly to rebook, or to fly standby. I should point out that this says something about D right away: many people would have decided to give up at this point. True, the tickets were non-refundable. But non-refundable tickets can nonetheless be rescheduled for any time in the next year. So when D called with the news about her flight, I expected her to say that she was going to reschedule for another time. When she explained what her new plans were -- to fly standby to a major city a good six hours from here, and then to rent a car and drive -- I was a little astonished. But I asked her to call my cell phone when she got in to the airport, and again when she got into town.

[Six days have elapsed since I wrote the previous five paragraphs -- six very full, very intense days. I am picking up the story again, but may have to stretch my memory a bit to catch it all. Please bear with me.]

I was expecting her to call about midnight, but she called some forty minutes earlier than that. She had arrived at the big city safe and sound, and was now in a rented car on her way in our direction. Apparently her trip had been harrowing: at one point every possible flight that could have taken her this way had been cancelled or was full, and she was left standing in the middle of the airport with nowhere to go. D does not really believe in special providence, and she takes a dim view of praying to make things go your way; but she said she was left with nothing else besides prayer, so that's what she found herself doing. And sooner or later, she did indeed get a flight -- earlier than the one she had expected -- and so now she was securely ahead of schedule. She figured she'd get to her motel in about five hours and would call again then ... maybe I could drive over at that time and bring her some breakfast.

So I went to sleep ... lightly and fitfully ... for about four hours, no more than that. Got up, got myself some coffee, pulled some food together, and waited. As I was puttering in the kitchen, Wife came out for a drink of water. There was nothing exactly wrong with D asking me to bring her some food, so I explained it as innocuously as possible what I was doing, and that I was waiting for D to call. If Wife had been more awake, she would naturally have wondered why D didn't drive through a McDonald's or something, but as it was she just mumbled and went back to bed.

Finally I broke down and called her -- because I wondered if I had time to catch another 40 winks. No, she was about half an hour out -- she had, in fact, driven through a McDonalds -- and would let me know when she arrived. Only half an hour, I asked? That sounded like she was making awfully good time. Admittedly it was the middle of the night, but whenever I have made that trip it has been more like six hours anyway, not the five she had been planning on. Where exactly was she right now?

This was apparently the wrong thing to ask. In the first place, she didn't quite know; but in the second place, she had been marking her time by watching the mileage posts by the side of the freeway, so she was quite sure of her projection and felt rather patronized that I was trying to second-guess her arrival rather than trusting her ability to figure it out on her own like a grown-up. It didn't help that the cell phone reception kept cutting in and out, and at one point I could have sworn she hung up on me.

Twenty minutes later -- she was making good time! -- she called from the motel. I couldn't make out what she was saying very clearly, but she still seemed to be out of sorts. I picked up the food and drove over there. And honestly, all the while I was wondering how I had gotten myself into this situation. I already had enough troubles with one touchy, over-sensitive woman in my life -- why on earth would I ever willingly have two? What next, what next, what next ...?

I found her standing in the parking lot, waiting for me and looking at me strangely. Apparently there was something wrong at the motel desk, so she couldn't check in yet; this meant she got to stand out in the cold waiting, instead. But the curious look was because she wondered what was going on with me. (Funny, I had the same question about her.) Why would I assume she was incompetent to find her way here, when she has travelled all across the globe? Why was I angry with her? Why did I hang up on her?

The last question was easy: I didn't. Must have been the lousy cell phone reception. As for angry ... hell, I don't know. Maybe because I was tired? Or because I was frustrated that when I tried to express care and concern, it got slapped away as mere patronizing and allegation of incompetence? Why did she have to be so damned sensitive on this point that she couldn't accept care and concern at face value?

We talked for a few minutes, out there in the cold. Did I still want to see her there? Yes, of course. Was she sorry she came? (This had been a big fear of mine all along, and it wasn't really dispelled until her last day here.) No, no, of course she was going to stick to her promise. Could we be OK, and not start off the visit hurt at each other? Sure, fine. We kissed lightly and she went back to the motel office.

Finally they let her check in. She spent a long time signing forms and fussing with papers, before she got her key. Once she had the key, we walked to her door and went in. The door clicked behind us, she set down her bags, and we kissed again.

And then suddenly the kiss was all there was. Somehow our clothes slipped off and tossed themselves pell-mell across the room. Somehow we fell onto the bed, still kissing, gasping, holding each other desperately, frantically. Oh my God, Hosea, I've needed you so badly; D, my sweetheart, you're beautiful and I love you. I lost all sense of time. The rest of the world might as well have disappeared. There was nothing else in the Universe but the bed and us. Welcome.

After a while the fever cooled, and we could think clearly again. We tried to wash off the more obvious smells (though I didn't want to look like I had taken a shower over at her place!). We found our clothes and pulled them on. We looked at the clock -- it had been somewhere between an hour and two, and the sun was up. Since D still had to return her rental car, we drove over to the agency so she could do just that. Then, grinning and happy and chatting, we drove to our house. The boys were awake, Wife was just getting up, and it was time to begin the project.

The story of this week will be continued in several future posts. The housecleaning project was in many ways truly the Project From Hell. And on a personal level ... well, the week was pretty eventful that way too.

Christmas Eve

It's an hour till midnight. The last present is wrapped, the stockings are full, and the house is quiet. "The children are nestled all snug in their beds," and Wife is sound asleep as well in ours. On the other computer, the screen is showing a real-time-updated screen entitled "NORAD Tracks Santa": the conceit is that NORAD uses their sophisticated tracking equipment once a year to follow Santa Claus in his trek around the world -- starting in Siberia or the South Pacific (on the International Date Line) and heading ever west with the advancing midnight. It's really cute.

The quiet is nice. And all in all, this season hasn't been as crazy as many. For years I have had a very difficult relationship with Christmas. I love the music and the cooking. I enjoy seeing people that I don't often see the rest of the year -- frequently my aunt and uncle, plus whichever of my cousins is in town at the time. And I can get embarrassingly sentimental over the stories, whether Dickens' "Christmas Carol" or Cule's "Man at the Gate of the World" or ... well, you get the idea. But I have always hated the frenzy. And I noticed even as a kid -- when by rights I should still have been in my greedy "gimme" stage -- that the presents I got for Christmas were often not things I really wanted or would really enjoy, but seemed to have been picked up on the fly by someone filling out a checklist who thought, "Hosea likes books, so I'll get him a book. About something. I suppose it doesn't much matter what. Or maybe I'll get him another sweater -- Hosea always looks good in sweaters and you can never have too many." Over time I accumulated a large personal library (for a kid) and a lot of sweaters.

And so, over time and at all too young an age, I got thoroughly sick of the whole gift-giving potlatch. As I looked around me, it seemed like most of the members of my family were in the same boat I was in: they kept giving each other (and therefore receiving) gifts that nobody truly wanted and nobody could truly use; and all the while, even as they oohed and aahed and grinned and thanked each other, they were also drowning under clutter and mathom. And everybody spent handsomely for the privilege.

For years I told myself that when I finally moved out of the house, I was going to be done with it all. It didn't quite work out that way, because when I finally moved out it was because I had married Wife. And Wife's feelings about Christmas were very different. Maybe it was because she grew up poor, I don't know. Or maybe there was some other reason. But Wife really believed that the only decent way to celebrate Christmas was to go all out on presents. I tried to explain why this approach had come to nauseate me, and she told me I was a Scrooge and a curmudgeon. I tried to tell her that measuring how much you love a person by how much money you spend on him or her at Christmas is childish; but then our fourth or fifth Christmas together I bought her little things while she bought be something very expensive (a sweater, in fact!!) ... and I almost thought she was going to divorce me on the spot. So much wailing, so many tears ... and over what? Over Christmas presents? Over something that I had told her over and over could never engage my affections? I checked out. I never wore the sweater -- not once -- because the memory of what receiving it had cost me was too painful. And I stopped expressing opinions over Christmas. I let Wife run our Christmases any way she wanted. I went along for the ride like a bump on a log, got her very predictable (boring) gifts over and over, and cringed inside when I gathered up all the bills in January.

And then this year I had an opportunity to try for something better. For one reason and another, we have had some very high bills this year. Don't feel sorry for us -- they were all for things we chose deliberately, with our eyes open, knowing they would be expensive. But figuring out how to pay for them took a little juggling. And after playing with the numbers a bit (this was last spring), I told Wife that we could make big strides towards closing the gap if we eliminated the spending from the previous year in two categories: Vacation and Christmas. And Wife agreed that this trade-off was the right one to make, so we did it.

Now, I had meant my remarks as an arithmetical exercise: if you add up this column of numbers and subtract those ones over there, you get the following answer. And maybe there are lots of other ways to get the same answer. So I had never contemplated that we would spend literally nothing on Christmas this year. But Wife (as you may have noticed before now) has something of an all-or-nothing mentality; so she fixed it in her head that, We aren't having Christmas this year because Hosea says we can't afford it. I hate to think how many of her friends she told that we were teetering on the brink of dire poverty, or whatever. I do know that at one point D e-mailed me after one of her phone calls with Wife, saying that it would be awfully dreary having absolutely no presents on Christmas Day, and would I mind if she helped out? I reassured her that the story she had heard was a bit exaggerated ....

But I have to admit I did not go to strenuous efforts to correct Wife's misapprehensions, because I figured that these very misapprehensions were likely to prevent her from going shopping. And for the most part they did. I did, however, work to advertise this change as a positive step, not an austerity measure. By great good luck, D forwarded me a link to this article here; I printed it and brought it home for everyone, adding in the process "This is exactly what I have been trying to say about Christmas for thirty years!" (I explained only that "someone" had e-mailed me the link; D has encouraged me to mention as little communication between us as humanly possible.)

The change in focus wasn't an instant sale, but it went over fairly easily all things considered. The boys understood it and reacted pretty adaptably. Wife was the biggest hold-out, although she phrased all her objections in terms of the boys. (Ironically, her very resistance may have made them climb aboard the bandwagon faster, because they are at an age where they can hardly resist any chance to tweak Mommy.) When we talked privately, Wife reminded me of one Christmas a few years back when Son 2 looked at the merely medium-sized stack under the tree and said "I guess we weren't very good last year." I replied that Son 2 was older now, and if he hadn't grown up past that stage yet then it was high time. She also fretted -- you're sitting down now, right? -- that if we explained the financial reasons why we chose to cut back, then Son 2 would still expect to see presents under the tree brought by Santa Claus and we couldn't disappoint him for fear of damaging his belief in the jolly old elf. Excuse me, ... Santa Claus?? Son 2 is 10 years old by now. Did she really think he still believed in a literal Santa Claus? Well yes, apparently that worried her. (I didn't get a chance to discuss this with Son 2 until this evening, when I finally mentioned casually that Wife had been concerned. Son 2 brushed it away: he said some years ago he had woken up in the night and peered out of his bedroom to see us wrapping the presents that were allegedly from Santa Claus, so he had known better ever since then. I haven't had a chance to explain this to Wife yet.)

In the end, I think she bought a couple of knick-knacks for the boys, and my parents have bought some more. I bought a very few things for everybody, although I kept it a surprise for tomorrow morning. And I went out earlier this afternoon to get candy and little stuff for the stockings. Meanwhile, Wife has been saying all year that she wants to spend this Christmas at our house (rather than driving to see my parents) cooking the foods that were always traditional when she was a girl, and I have encouraged her therefore to spend the last few days baking cookies with the boys, making fudge with the boys, ... doing things instead of buying things. It meets our practical needs, and it is simply more fun. After the last week, it is hard for me to understand why anybody would want to celebrate the other way.

Before dinner tonight, the boys spent a lot of time hovering over the NORAD Santa Watch, laughing at the "Santa-cam videos" showing him flying over the Great Wall of China or the Eiffel Tower, Rudolph's nose blinking bright red in the front of the team. After dinner I pried them off the computer and chased them into the living room, so we could sit around the tree while I read Dickens to them aloud, choking up in all the predictable spots. Then everyone toddled off to bed, I tied up the last few loose ends that were waiting until they all fell asleep, and here we are.

Normally by this time in the holiday season, I am bitter, grouchy, depressed, and exhausted. Tonight I'm not. I hope the others feel this way, and I hope we can do this again next year.

I have no idea how my friends in the blogosphere celebrate the winter holidays -- or even which ones they celebrate, there being several to choose from. But I hope you have a wonderful time ... that you face the holidays refreshed and joyful, not anxious and stressed. Let this year's holidays be a time for all of us that it is worth getting sentimental over.

Or, as I was reading to the boys earlier this evening, ... "God bless us, every one."

Stupid question I should know better than to ask

I know that I shouldn't have to ask this question. I'm sure that if somebody else asked it, I'd have the answer right away. But since it is me and not somebody else, my vision is no longer 20/20 ... and I can't be quite sure what I am seeing through the blur. Besides, after enough eggnog I no longer care how dumb the question sounds.

Finally -- after holding out for a couple of months -- D has asked to read my blog. She was very oblique in the way she phrased the request, but it was nonetheless clear: "I know that I am hesitant to violate anyone's privacy, and I probably am over-sensitive to those concerns, but that doesn't mean that I would not like to know you as well as possible, which means that I would like to read your blog. That said, if you never feel comfortable allowing me to do so, I will accept that too, and understand and support your decision."

So do I give her the URL?

Reasons against:
- Everyone knows you never mix your on-line life with your real life.
- Some day we may not be in the same romantic mist as today, and it might not be good for her to read what I write then.
- Truthfully, even now I have had periods of doubt about this affair; and if I weren't quite so pressed for time lately, I would have written about them by now. My goal is to tell the truth here, whatever else. Do I want her to read about that, if and when I get around to writing it?

Reasons for:
- She did ask awfully sweetly.
- For the moment I am in a mode of telling her anything she asks.
- It would save me a lot of time if I could write to her and you at the same time ... if (for example) I could answer her questions by posting to you. It would also mean my volume of posting would climb back up again, from the valley into which it has tumbled.

If I look at the whole question soberly (damn that eggnog!) I realize that the Reasons Against are way stronger than the Reasons For, at least in the abstract. But I'll ask anyway. Does anybody have anything more detailed to tell me, by way of advice here? Has anybody done exactly this? And if so, how did it turn out?

Is the question really as stupid as I think it is?

Inquiring minds want to know ....
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"Disjointed and fragmentary musings ..."

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I had tried to ask D why she asked her husband for a divorce ... and that the conversation had proven a profoundly unsatisfying failure for both of us. The truth is that it was a complete catastrophe. I have outlined my first couple of attempts in this post here.

So I let the topic sit for a while. Then finally, earlier this week, with infinite pains, I sculpted an e-mail trying to re-open the question without inviting fire and brimstone down on my head. I threw away most of my smaller, subsidiary questions, and stuck with just two. Although I worded them a little more gingerly, they amounted to the following:

1. What do you actually hope to gain from divorcing your husband that you can't already get without divorcing him?
2. You have said that your asking your husband for a divorce was not about me ... or at least, that it was not because you wanted to marry me. OK, then why now? Besides your affair with me ... what else has changed in your life that makes you take this move now when you never took it before?

What I got back was an answer -- at any rate, in a manner of speaking. But it was nowhere near as concrete as the questions I had asked. It also confirmed my private suspicions that (1) she had no concrete benefit in mind when she asked for a divorce; and (2) it really did have a lot to do with me after all. Here is the core of what she wrote:

I cannot help but think that your ... question is really more than just about my possible divorce. It is also about you, and about us. In short, why after twenty-five years of faithfulness to Wife, have you chosen to have an affair with me? What has changed for you? To paraphase you, how, in heavens name, did we get here? I find myself asking the same questions, of course, because my relationship with you cannot help but impact my marriage. I'm not sure how to analyze this for myself, and I don't claim that any of the following is more than my disjointed and fragmentary musings. Begin with certain characteristics. Honesty. You had that, and a certain steadfast courage in dealing with the various aspects of your personal and professional life. And intelligence. The mind that comprehended and discussed all the intricacies of Greek philosophy was not, could not, simply be that of a student. The loving spirit which could care for Wife, seeing clearly all her weakness, had nothing immature about it, or the wit that drew his children to him in love and admiration. And, to quote Cavafy..." I have gazed so much on beauty/that my eyes overflow with it/ The body's curves...". Somehow, deep within, my heart paused, everything seemed changed. As I wrote in October, I felt that my nerves were exposed, leaving me over-sensitized and defenseless. The inadequacies of my marriage, indeed, so much of my life, were evident. You certainly are not responsible for my decision to ask my husband for a divorce, and it is not a new thought. But have I stood in a different place recently, sometimes watching, sometimes unthinking?...yes. Do I hear music differently? Yes. Too late, too late. Things are different now....

As I once remarked, somewhat desperately, we shall manage very well as long as we are sensible. With time and distance between us, I may choose to live with my husband and have a life as good as most people could wish for. Leaving alone whether that decision is fair to him, or has anything to do with marriage as it is meant to be understood and lived, are questions better left for another day. I have already said too much.

Wow.

My thoroughly mundane reply was that I realized I still had to think through and write my own account of what has changed for me ... and so maybe what she is saying is that her answer will be contained in a conversation and not a monologue. Meanwhile ... she stands watching and unthinking? She hears music differently? I think this is not just your garden-variety affair for her ....

Wow.

Grumpy and out of sorts

I have been grumpy to everybody lately, which means it is just as well I haven't felt the slightest motivation to keep up with blogging or I'd inflict it on the rest of you, too. And that would hardly be fair. But I have been totally out of touch with the blogosphere since my last post over a week ago: not posting, of course, but not even reading either. Just grumpy.

What's been going on? Oh, let's see ....

• Wife and I had another session with Counselor last week. We seemed to spend the whole hour fighting about buying a new computer. (I know, I know ... we find the damndest things to fight about when we are in Counselor's office.)


• Over the weekend, we went out and bought a new computer.


• My company is looking seriously at layoffs, just in time for Christmas. Gotta love the timing. (No, I don't think I am on the list. I could joke that nobody else wants my job, but when the rest of the post is this grumpy it would sound like I was whining, not just poking fun at myself.)


• I have a co-worker who was just diagnosed with a carcinoma and consequent reduced liver function. Merry Christmas.


• D has asked me to send her the phone numbers of cheap motels in our area. This whole plan for her to visit still seems surreal to me ... I have trouble imagining that it will really happen.


• Wife wants Boyfriend 5 to teleport her to the Old Country so she can deliver Christmas presents to the extended family. Did I just say something struck me as surreal?

Anyway, a minute ago I was saying something about being grumpy and out of sorts. I forget what, exactly ....

Like a lump of clay

I've been carrying on a number of different conversational threads with D, lately.

One has been about her asking her husband for a divorce; this thread has mostly been an unsatisfying failure for both of us, and I won't try to post about it until I can see it in some kind of clarity.

A second has been about when we can see each other again. Now it just so happens that a couple days ago I was asked when I would be available for a business trip abroad next spring; and the week which would be most convenient for Wife turns out to be the only time that D can get away from work for an entire week without being conspicuous. There are a lot of other people's schedules to coordinate as well, so nothing is certain ... but it was a pleasant coincidence.

That's not till spring, however -- months away. So apparently, while D was on the phone with Wife today, she suggested -- with a breathtaking audacity that I cannot help but admire -- that she fly out to visit us some time between Christmas and New Year's, in order to help Wife with all of the household projects that hang around unfinished and make Wife feel so powerless all the time. Wife told her, "Oh, Hosea would never put up with that. He's so controlling that he'd insist on micromanaging every little thing you did. Besides, he hates having anybody stay over at our house." D tells me it's a good thing Wife couldn't see her face. But she replied, "Well surely if I'm helping clean the house, Hosea couldn't mind too much. And as for staying over, I'll have to stay at a motel anyway, because ... well, because I'm allergic to your cats. I can be there for a few hours at a time, but you know I could never sleep there."

Now all I have to do is to be so irrationally controlling that I won't let her borrow our car for the week -- and D tells me if I ever saw her drive, I might say that anyway -- because then I would simply have to drive her back to her motel in the evening, once the day's work is done, Wife has fallen asleep, and the boys are on their ways to bed.

Unbelievable.

But in and around these more mundane topics, D has been trying to explore Wife's odd passivity, her unwillingness to take responsibility for changing the things in her surroundings that she doesn't like. And in an e-mail today she captured it remarkably well:

"I want Wife to feel less helpless and make you less wrong about these projects. There's a certain passivity that she seems to revel in; she's honest about wanting to be the submissive with Boyfriend 5, and it clearly goes beyond sexual submissiveness. I'm a bit puzzled because you have so admired her strength, but sometimes I think that true strong willed people can put the past in perspective and work hard at forgiveness. Still hurt and angry at her father for not taking her to Disneyland when she was nine? There's a deep sadness that story evokes in me that goes far beyond his action and my compassion goes to the young girl, now middle aged woman who feels that the fantasy of a "magic kingdom" was forever denied her. Shadows...of a world, far away, always green, where idealism and family devotion fight injustice."

In response, I wrote:

"I am intrigued by what you say about Wife's passivity. Of course you are right, just as you are right that it is linked somehow to her inability to give up the past. In this respect, it is as if she sits like a lump of clay, and whatever hits the clay leaves a mark on it. But think about it -- once a rock has made a deep mark in a lump of clay, you can never get it out again ... not without reshaping the whole ball of clay. That's one thing that I have always found deeply frustrating ... that when I do something inadvertently to hurt Wife, there is absolutely no way to undo it. Five years later, in the midst of a fight about something else, I will be reminded of the time when .... And I know this the second after I've done whatever thoughtless deed it was and seen the hurt register on her face. It's terrible -- it makes me feel helpless and trapped, like a character in some Greek tragedy who has just set in motion (by chance) the blind fate that will now unwind relentlessly until it undoes him. In past years, this accounted for a lot of my shouting ... because it was the cry of a trapped animal who just now realizes he is trapped. (Then of course Wife would follow up the original hurt with, "Besides, you're always shouting at me." Sigh.)

"Wow. Where did that come from? Sorry, I was trying to go down a different path. What I think is so interesting is that I have known this all along, ... and yet if you had asked me to describe Wife in words, I would never have included "passivity" as part of the picture. And I wonder why not? Because I didn't want it to be true? Because I had persuaded myself that it wasn't part of the "real Wife"? I think it must be something like that, because I am pretty sure that I have felt for years, somewhere under the surface, "Can you stop playing this passivity game and get back to being YOU? Get back to being the woman I married?" And yet, I think now that if I were to ponder long enough I would be able to find the same passivity even back then in the woman I married."

Is there ever a point where we stop learning new things about the people who have been central to our lives for over half our lives? And how is it possible that I always knew something like this and yet never knew that I knew it? There is something very mysterious about knowing other people ....

Or maybe it's just me. Or her. I bet not, though.
.

A tale of two Thanksgivings

Two households, two different time zones, two very different holidays ....

We drove down to visit my parents yesterday for Thanksgiving. We had thought about staying home, but Wife was not feeling up to all the cooking so we drove the two hours instead. And all in all, the day went unexpectedly well. My brother and his girlfriend were there, my folks prepared twice as much food as we could possibly have eaten, and everything went pretty well. Wife and my father even managed to discuss politics civilly, intelligently, and without screaming at each other. (After 25 years you would think that this would no longer be noteworthy, because they would have learned to skate around each other. But trust me, it's noteworthy.) We spent the night, were well-fed again this morning at breakfast, and finally hit the road for home. No dramatic news, but a pleasant (and filling!) visit all around. Just what Thanksgiving ought to be.
____________________

Meanwhile, in another place far far away, D asked her husband for a divorce.

Early Thursday morning, she sent me an e-mail which said, in part:

I asked [my husband] for a divorce. I set a period of six months to reflect and consider the options, but I don't have any real doubt that my decision at the end of the waiting period will be the same as it is today. I simply said that I found it impossible to live without sex and that I saw no possibility of that changing in our relationship. Then I basically let him hammer me as a person and accepted his critique. It's not easy to accept that I have deeply hurt and rejected someone who has always been a good husband, excellent father and fine human being because he was unwilling to conform to my views on sexuality and human attractiveness. It is not, I am painfully aware, anything you have ever done to Wife, who clearly gained as much weight as [my husband]-if not a great deal more-and yet you loved her and made love to her. I cannot do likewise. And believe me, Hosea, if I could have willed it different, I would have done so. [My husband] finds my views controlling (It's your way or the highway, I was angrily told), shallow, stubborn, bitterly unkind, and deeply wounding. He is furious with me, and I have to own all the anger because on the deepest level, to refuse to love someone for who they are is a very great sin. I simply don't know how to change, and to fake something I cannot feel seems to betray sexuality on every level.

[My husband] rightly said that at one point he lost 90 pounds and it made no difference in our sex life. He is right on both accounts; my only answer is that he was still furious with me, and gained all the weight back very quickly. Even if we had wanted to work on the relationship-a partnership that had been gone for ten years and needed some long term repair- we never had the time. Second, it became extremely clear that he lost the weight only to prove me wrong.... God, Hosea...how bad do I come across here? Terrible, I know. All I can say-and it's not a defense-is that the physical matters to me. I love your mind and your amazing ability with words and abstract concepts, but when I make love to you, it's your body I embrace, your scent and sweat that cause me to swoon, your mouth that pleasures mine...all the attributes of a beautifully built man that Cavafy celebrates so well. I simply don't know what else to say.

This news upset me a lot. OK, partly I admit I get really irrational on the subject of divorce. It is a lot easier for me to cope with adultery than with divorce. I try to keep my opinions under control on this site because I know that a lot of people in the blogosphere have very different lives and experiences from me ... but you have probably already picked up on my general attitude. (After all, if divorce weren't a really big deal to me, what are the odds that I would still be with Wife?)

I also can't escape the feeling that D made this move with me in mind. If not ... well, what else has changed in her life in the last several years? Her husband has been fat and out of shape for years now; she has been unable to feel any attraction for him throughout all that time. And yet, through all those years she never asked him for a divorce. Now she does ... although she admits that the cost to her will be very high, because she claims to be a devout Catholic and divorce will mean that she is permanently denied the Eucharist. What has changed? What is the relevant variable in the equation? I see only one thing ... and that is her affair with me. So notwithstanding any protestations from her to the contrary, I can't help wondering if this move was sparked at some level by our meeting in a hotel room a week and a half ago for two nights of rapturous fucking.

Anyway, I panicked. Thursday morning, just before we all left for my parents' house, I sent her an e-mail asking basically, "What? Are you sure? And by the way, are you doing this on my account, because you think I'm going to leave Wife right away, or she's going to die or something?" Then we left, and I was out of touch for ... well, maybe about 30 hours more or less.

I came back to no fewer than three long e-mails, overflowing with anger and hurt and umbrage. Hadn't she already said that she knew I would never leave Wife? (Umm, yeah, she has said that ... but why else would she seek a divorce exactly now?) How could I possibly think that she saw marriage purely one-dimensionally? (I dunno ... isn't that more or less what she herself said above?) And what the hell do I know about Catholicism anyway, to allow me to question her commitment to it? (Not enough, I admit ... but the things she herself has told me make the stakes sound pretty high and is she sure this is really what she wants to do?)

What is it with me and emotionally high-maintenance women, anyway? Have I asked this before?

I don't know where this conversation is going to end up. As soon as we got back and I read her three, I wrote her an e-mail apologizing for hurting her; she replied that of course she loves me and forgives me so never mind about all that; and about an hour ago I finished one more e-mail to her explaining that I still don't understand her motivations. I have no idea what she is going to say or where this is going.

Never a dull moment, huh? Happy Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ..., 2

Normally I wouldn't write a whole new post just to reply to comments. I may have an inflated sense of the value of my own writing, but not quite that inflated. On the other hand, I started to reply to a small number of comments on yesterday's post and found myself writing quite a lot. So I figured maybe I should put my reply into a regular post after all, if only because the margins are wider and it will fit better .... :-)

So here goes.

First, as a general remark, I have to say Thank you again, all of you -- as always -- for your support. I've been discussing the issues with D too, and haven't come to a lot of solidity yet. (One of these days I'm going to break down and give D the URL to this blog, just to get out of so much double-typing. You have no idea how close I have come more than once.)

Kyra wrote in part: "Well of course I should have anticipated this. But I was so wrapped up in anticipation over your visit with D ... that I didn't think about it....

But obviously that is trivial compared to the other events. How disturbing it must be for you to learn such things. Would you normally be doing some of those things? I ask because what I find most disturbing is whether she shut down more than normal and if so, why? Your last sentences are haunting. I hope that is not the reason why. I wonder actually if she might have shut down because of your absence. Given how important you said it was to Wife that she be independent perhaps that is as haunting as your last sentences.

So what will you do now with this information? Will you stop her from driving? And is her condition terminal in that way?

Double hugs for you, K.

PS and yes, of course I want to hear how things are with D now."

Kyra -- First of all, thank you for the compliment. Since you too write a blog with a clear narrative line (the whole divorce saga, at present), I am especially flattered to hear that my story is so compelling. (I mean, it is pretty compelling to me, but then I live it.)

Yes, normally I would be doing almost all those other tasks: taking the boys to their evening commitments, making dinner ... these days pretty much anything that has to happen after 6pm is mine. I have mentioned that Wife's health and energy levels are deteriorating visibly, and some time soon I should post a few more details to explain this.

At the same time, it is also undeniable that Wife is more likely to break down when I leave. For years I had noticed that she got sick reliably within 24 hours of my plane leaving the ground. The first few years I had to travel for work, she would call me a day into my trip telling me she was sick and I had to come back. (Once she called me because the cat had gotten out and she needed my help retrieving her ... at a distance of how many miles?) I finally pointed out this pattern to her, and she got really offended, as if I were claiming that her illnesses hadn't been real but were only ploys to manipulate me. Well, that idea had crossed my mind (in truth) but I had already rejected it because it didn't fit the data ... by which I mean that I could usually see she was still sick when I got home. So what I told her in reply was that no, my point had been about the stress it caused her for me to leave. Because we all know that stress makes one more likely to get sick, especially if one is already in fragile health. The irony is that I make Wife so crazy in so many ways ... but I don't think she has any clue what she would ever do without me. I have said this before, I think, but without giving all of the reasons why.

What will I do now? I honestly don't know. I think it would be very hard for me to stop her from driving; on the other hand, D has said unequivocally that I have to make arrangements before my next trip for someone else to drive the boys as much as possible, so that they are not in her car when she is behind the wheel. If I set this up (somehow!) as a convenience to her, she will probably accept it.

Terminal? In the long run, yes. (See my reply to L., below.) In the short run, typically not. Meanwhile thanks for the hugs. And you want me to run straight back to the story of D? You're a born romantic, aren't you?

Coquette wrote in part: "Sounds like some fairly serious depression. Is your wife on meds for that? If so, does she also see a psychologist? Have you had her back to the doctor in any case to check?

The depression could certainly be the result of Boyfriend 5's cancellation..."

Wife is under the care of a rheumatologist, a neurologist, an internist, and a psychiatrist. She is indeed on a cocktail of psychiatric medications, along with a bunch of others, to address her severe, "treatment-resistant" cyclic depression. And her rheumatologist recently ran a bunch of bloodwork to try to understand why she has been so sick lately. He has encouraged her to seek out an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist as well, but she has not been able to summon up the motivation to make the phone calls. Nor has she had the motivation to follow up on her bloodwork.

Her depression could certainly be influenced by Boyfriend 5's no-show. But I wouldn't quite say "caused". Certainly she suffered with it decades before Boyfriend 5 came on the scene. Plus she is in touch with him daily by IM. But yes, no doubt it is a contributing factor.

Veni wrote in part: "I believe ... that your wife has had a difficult time getting her medication properly? Is she actually taking it?" Wife has indeed had a difficult time getting some of her medications (not all), but she takes her anti-depressant cocktail religiously. That having been said, her psychiatrist is currently adjusting the mix for her. November was probably not the right month in which to make this experiment, since it is one her her two nadirs during the year. But he is new for her (her old psychiatrist recently retired) and is kind of feeling his way. Also, he's meeting with her once a week with the idea of heading off any downward spirals. Still, I am not completely sure that she is exerting the effort to comunicate clearly with him.

And finally, L., wrote in part: "So, Hosea, what's wrong with her? Is it depression or something physical?"

Wife's two primary diagnoses are: depression (on the mental plane) and lupus or SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus). There are a number of secondary diagnoses that go along with these or contribute to them, such as ADD or (according to her newest psychiatrist) a mild case of OCD exacerbating the depression; along with fibromyalgia and some other auto-immune diseases in the wake of the lupus.

The lupus is terminal but not yet. By this I mean that there is no known cure (yet) so someday it will do her in. However, most lupus patients die ultimately from the toxic effects of their medication. This process takes decades, and lupus has been known to get a lot easier in some women after menopause. (Nobody knows why.) So there is a possibility that she could get enough better to go off of much of her medication, some time before the mdication kills her. Or maybe not. Again, nobody knows for sure. Wife's rheumatologist is confident that one day a cure will be discovered, but he is not certain that Wife will live to see it.

Based on the experiences of a lot of other people she has talked to, Wife has tended to assume that the lupus would give her another decade or so. But nothing about it is certain. The boys have grown up for as long as they can remember knowing that Mommy is sick and that one day she'll die ... just not right away. I'm not sure how they have internalized this.

It's late and I can't keep my eyes open. I'll come back to polish this later.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

While I was away on my business trip, what was going on at home?

The developments about which I was eagerest to learn were all about Boyfriend 5. But after all that thought and preparation, this was a pure anticlimax. The day he was supposed to arrive, he IM'ed Wife to tell her something terrible had happened (his father was attacked by political enemies and lay broken in the hospital) ... and while of course he was willing to come anyway, because he had said that he would, nonetheless he felt torn in two because he couldn't stop thinking about his poor suffering father by whose side he felt he ought to stay. I must admit he showed (as he does too often) a true mastery at plucking Wife's heartstrings like a banjo; and of course she said no, no, you have to stay there. We'll find another time.

I'm really not very surprised. While I had to plan as if he were going to show up, my cynical side never really expected him to. I had been half thinking all along that he would announce a crisis at the last minute, and -- sure enough! -- he did exactly that. At some level, I have to wonder what Wife thought of his story. I mean, if he were travelling by conventional means and were coming all the way from the Old Country, he would already have been en route by the time this calamity transpired, which means he probably would have gone ahead and shown up anyway. On the other hand if the family can really teleport -- and he claims that his father is a far more powerful magician than he is, so presumably he can teleport better -- then how could enemies ever attack him in the first place? Why couldn't he just vanish and reappear somewhere else? But of course I no longer expect Wife to dissect these stories analytically.

Oh, I almost forgot -- in other news, Boyfriend 5 says he is a vampire. Wife does not appear to have laughed in his virtual face. (Hey, don't look at me. I don't write this stuff; I just report it.)

Far more important in the long run, I think, is the state of Wife's health.

Wife has been really tired for the last several months -- most of the year, in fact. She isn't eating, or not much. She sleeps a lot. When she gets tired, she simply shuts down. She has been going to bed between 7:00 and 8:00 in the evening. So it was no surprise to me when she e-mailed me that the boys were not getting driven to any of their evening commitments -- she had tried to arrange help, had not succeeded, and couldn't do it herself. OK, well none of that will make the sky fall in.

But Tuesday she had a regularly-scheduled parent-teacher conference with Son 2's teacher. In the past, her conferences with this woman have always been very ... well, let's call them "engaged." By this I mean that Wife is usually fighting with the teacher, demanding special assignments for our boys (each of them in turn) so that they are more challenged than they will ever be with normal homework. Wife used to teach, after all, and she has strong opinions and high ambitions for our children. But the teacher actually telephoned me in a far city, the next evening, to say she was worried about Wife -- apparently because they didn't fight during this week's conference. The way she put it was that Wife was usually ... "advocating" for the kids very strenuously; and this time she was calm, almost bored. "Yeah, well Son 2 doesn't seem to want to challenge himself much. Oh, is that what you are going to assign him? That's nice, ... whatever ...." The change was dramatic enough that she wondered if there were a problem with Wife's medications, or indeed if it was safe for Wife to drive.

The answer to that last questions appear to be "Maybe not." When I got home on Thursday, Wife was lying apparently asleep on her bed (although she responded a little to my coming in); Son 2 was sitting next to her reading. Son 1 was still at school.

I asked Son 2 about the week. Oh, it was fine. Here's the mail; there's the stack of bills that Mom saved for you.

Were you and Son 1 a big help for Mom? Yes, Dad -- well, basically she would go to bed as soon as she got home from picking Son 1 up at school. Then we would get dinner for ourselves and do our homework and stuff.

Mom really fell asleep that early? Yeah -- actually one afternoon it was pretty scary because we had to keep talking to her the whole way back from getting Son 1 at school, so she wouldn't fall asleep while she was driving. But we got home fine, so it was OK. I'm glad you're back, Daddy.

Stories like this are a little scary. And it doesn't help when I talk to Wife, as I did this morning, and she says she finds she can no longer care enough to fix herself food, or to fight with our son's teacher, or to do any of a hundred things she used to do.

I cannot help but be reminded of a story that Bertrand Russell used to tell:

"My grandmother was a woman of caustic and biting wit. When she was eighty-three, she became kind and gentle. I had never found her so reasonable. She noticed the change in herself, and, reading the handwriting on the wall, she said to me, "Bertie, I'll soon be dead." And she soon was."

First date

I am away from home on business. Never mind exactly where, just suffice it to say that Wife and the kids are in a different time zone. This morning, as I left my hotel room for work, D left the same room to travel 700 miles back to her home and her job, from which she had taken a couple of "personal days". This evening, after spending a scant 10 hours apart, she called me on the telephone and we talked for two hours, making me wonder whether we had not perhaps been magically transformed back into high school students when I wasn't looking.

How on earth did we get here?

All month, it seems, I have been promising a post analyzing my current situation with D, unpacking my motivations, trying to understand what is going on. That post is not this one. I still mean to write it -- heck, D wants to read it too, or at any rate she wants answers to the same questions. But tonight I am going to write narrative, while it is still fresh in my mind. As too often in real life, analysis and understanding will have to wait till later ....

Ever since the end of last month, I have known that I had a date with D for the first couple nights of this week. In the ensuing weeks we worked out the logistics, although obstacles seemed to manifest out of thin air. It didn't help that D was still talking on the phone with Wife every afternoon, and Wife would liven up her litany of complaints about her life with aimless comments to the effect that I drink too much (not true) and snore like a freight train (no idea if this is true or not). This led D to e-mail me in a hurry asking how much alcohol she should expect me to drink each night (answer: none -- I really had an entirely different vice on my mind!) and when I was planning to tell her about the snoring because she is such a light sleeper. It is almost as if Wife suspected D's interest, and was trying to scare her off. (Maybe that's even true.) In any event, we finally sorted through all the arrangements, and I got on the plane Sunday morning for the city where I am now.

By remarkable good luck, D flies on the same carrier as I do, and lands at the same terminal; this means that she doesn't have to cross the security check and is sitting at my gate waiting for me when I get off the plane. She looks up and sees me, smiles, puts down her book, stands up ... and the next thing I remember is that we are kissing. Really kissing. The most we had ever exchanged before was a friendly hug and a light peck on the cheek, ... but this is Very Serious Kissing. When we break for air (and to go get my luggage), D is breathing hard and looks like a drowning woman who has just been pulled ashore. So we collect my suitcase, hail the airport shuttle, and rent a car; and we punctuate each stop along the way with ... another kiss.

Arrive at hotel. Check in. Find room. Once in the room, I call home as always: "Hi sweetheart, just letting you know I got here safely. Hope you're all doing fine. Did Son 1 win his game? Oh, that's too bad. Is he doing his homework now? I see. Well, it was a long flight, so I'm going to unpack and maybe find some dinner. I love you too; give my love to the boys. Bye." Click.

And now, where where we? Oh right, ... kissing.

D and I are standing, embracing, kissing. She runs her fingers through my hair; I caress her back through her sweater. When she starts to unbutton my shirt, I move my hands around to do likewise ... and she giggles nervously. "Oh well, I guess you have to see me," she says. For all the desperate "hunger" she has articulated so eloquently in her e-mails, D is embarrassed at the prospect of my seeing her undressed. Now, at one level I understand this: D is in her mid-fifties; she has the better part of a decade on me in age. But it's not so easy to fuck with your clothes on. So she finally, a little ruefully, parts with her sweater, her shirt, her very plain and functional bra, her pants .... And my God, if ever there were a woman with nothing to be embarrassed about! D is beautiful. Her skin is soft and smooth and delicate. Her breasts are perfectly shaped -- you would never know they fed two children, except perhaps by how delectable her nipples look. The hair on her head is mostly grey by now; but her pubic hair is thick and rich and there is not a grey hair in sight. I am in awe.

There is no way I can keep this a straight, chronological narrative, because from here the exact sequence gets all confused. We never get dinner that night. We never even order room service. From the time we undress until we finally turn out the light is easily four hours, maybe closer to five. But a couple of details stand out.

At one point D cradles me in her arms, and she says "I am learning so much about you that I never knew."

"Like what?"

"I'm learning that you are desperately shy. Hosea, I've known you for almost twenty years, and I never knew that before! But I can feel it all through your body, as I run my hands over you."

Well, of course she is right. It's hard to see it, because I do my best not to act shy -- ironically, it's generally the people who "know me best" who have the hardest time seeing this. But I talk about it a little bit in this post, and I discuss it with Jane in the comments afterwards. And there is no mask you can wear when you are naked in bed with somebody.

Actually, I suppose it was pretty easy for her to tell. D is as sexy as any woman I can imagine; to hold her and caress her is sheer glory. But something -- and I agree with her diagnosis of shyness -- crippled me in the most embarrassing possible way for a guy in bed. [Three cheers for the anonymity of blogs!] If D herself had not been so loving, I would have been truly humiliated. But she said she knew it was shyness and nothing else -- that she could feel it through my skin, and that it was obvious from how I held her.

One positive consequence of this unexpected disability is that it gave me a lot of time to focus all over D's body -- to kiss, to lick, to suckle, to stroke, to caress, to rub. And she enjoyed every bit of the attention -- ecstatically, abundantly, and over and over and over again! After years of Wife's depressingly permanent anorgasmia, I found D's endless enthusiasm to be a deep joy and profoundly gratifying.

Besides, the "crippling effect" did not last forever. Way, way, way too long by my lights ... but not forever.

What more can I say? We finally turn out the lights -- way too late, considering I have to work in the morning. We sleep. D says I don't snore (at least, not that night). Monday morning I get ready for work, while D gazes at me adoringly. And Monday evening, when I get back to the hotel, it is more or less the same again. Dazzling. Exciting. And hours long.

OK, Monday evening we actually do interrupt to get a shower and order room service. And we punctuate the sex with conversation. We even talk about Wife, although D is feeling increasingly conflicted about her dual relationship as my lover and Wife's confidante. But the gist of the evening is the same, and we still turn out the lights far too late.

And Tuesday morning -- with sore regrets for the unimaginative limitations imposed by the real world -- we go our separate ways. I spend the day missing her, only paying half attention at work. And in the evening, just before our two-hour phone call, I get an e-mail from her.

When I had first landed at the airport, I gave D a book of poems by Constantine Cavafy, a poet whose work I love, and of whom she had never heard. In her e-mail to me, she wrote:

I spent the flight reading Cavafy...truly lovely poetry and remarkably easy to read. Looking out the window, all I could see was your face and eyes...my sense of wonder and delight is much better expressed by this Cavafy poem:

...I saw a beautiful body
that Eros must have fashioned with his boundless skill,
designing with delight the symmetrical limbs,
moulding the tall, sculpted frame,
tenderly drawing the face,
and bestowing, with a touch of his hand,
a feeling on the brow, in the eyes and on the lips.
.

Wife's brave decision ...?

So, ... after all the discussion in this counseling session, ... after the further analysis in this phone call, ... what did Wife finally decide to do about my request for a copy of the hotel receipt?

What else? She came as close as she could to pleasing everybody, by agreeing to pay for the room herself. That was the one escape clause which Boyfriend 5 had given her; plus, this way she could give me what I asked for and the worst case is I would complain about the cost. Since she believes that I always complain about the cost of everything (especially in cases where I keep my mouth scrupulously shut), this prospect doesn't seem so bad to her. So everybody gets more or less what they asked for, she doesn't have to feel "caught in the middle," and she doesn't have to make any really hard choices.

I thought there was a chance that she might really engage with the question of personal responsibility. I thought there was a possibility that she might really raise her sights above victimhood, that she might see herself making responsible choices in difficult situations while flanked with the risk of loss on both sides, that seeing this would lift her self-image to the point that she no longer felt trapped and victimized by life.

Why do I ever get my hopes up any more?

.

"Like iron filings to a magnet"

A couple hours after this counseling session, I telephoned D and we talked for an hour. Since she hadn't spoken to Wife that day, she asked me how the session went and I summarized it for her.

Of course she agreed right away that this was progress, and that it is high time somebody kicked Wife in the ass about accepting some responsibility for the situations she creates around herself. D is every bit as sick as I am of Wife's perpetual victimhood and cowardice. And I expressed the fond hope that exercising her ability to make choices in conditions of high responsibility could help strengthen Wife's backbone in other parts of her life.

D demurred for a bit, and finally urged a qualification. Yes, the act of choosing responsibly might itself be strengthening, insofar as it means Wife would have to stop seeing herself as a victim. But, she added, to leave it at that would be to fail to understand that either way Wife risks losing a whole lot ... and that this loss could actually be emotionally weakening. Of course D conceded that what Wife would lose by choosing against me is a lot of real, tangible stuff. But she reminded me that the power of fantasy is so strong for Wife that losing Boyfriend 5 could be just as hard for her. Still, she soberly agreed that it would be good for Wife to have to make a choice in full awareness of the consequences, and that this could be an opportunity to help make things better between Wife and me.

But at that point D got very quiet, very serious, almost solemn. Why? Well, of course as Wife's friend she wants whatever is to Wife's long-term benefit. And as she loves me, so she wants me to get what I want too, and it is clear that in a perfect world I would like things to improve between Wife and me.

But Hosea, if Wife chooses to come back to you and the two of you decide to make it work, ... then where does that leave us?

Ooops. Probably should have seen that one coming. But I didn't. Does anybody know if they give out prizes for cluelessness?

I wasn't sure what to say to this. I was tempted to ask, Why does it have to leave us anywhere? God knows it wouldn't be the first time in history that a married man found himself fucking both his wife and his mistress. And the whole character of our affair -- the emotional and intellectual timbre -- is sure to be completely different from the character of my marriage with Wife. Besides which, D herself is still married. And when I asked her once what her plans for that marriage were, I got back a long paragraph of ruminations that ended in saying she didn't know. So how much difference does it make whether our marriages are functional or not?

On the other hand, D admits that she is a lot more possessive than Wife; while she grudgingly concedes that Wife has the prior claim on my time and attention -- or rather, let's cut the crap, the prior claim on my bed -- she's not happy about it and she wouldn't tolerate her husband having a mistress that she knew about. So I think that in some ways, D may be rationalizing this whole engagement on the grounds that she's currently not fucking her husband (because he has a bunch of health problems, and has let himself get dreadfully out of shape, and physical attractiveness matters a lot to D), and I'm not fucking Wife. If either of those changed, she might start having more troubles with it.

On the third hand, D has also admitted that there really is no rationalizing or justifying this affair, outside the affair itself. There is no line of argument that makes it "right". So in that case, I have to wonder why it makes any difference what either of us is doing with our respective spouse? But I guess this will be an ongoing topic.

Anyway, back to the question: where does that leave us?

I still didn't know what to say, so D started picking her way through the topic. Back when we first began talking about sex and infidelity, I had summarized for her some of the thoughts that I have spelled out at greater length in some of the posts on this blog. I had also pointed out the experience of some of the other infidelity bloggers in our community, that their affairs ultimately spiralled completely out of their control and put them at risk for significant heartbreak or desolation one way or another. At the time, she had more or less dismissed the suggestion that the risk was that great, writing, "All creative activity imposes limits; it doesn't have to be a tragic situation filled with tears and heartbreak.... We are, for better or worse, adults." But Thursday, on the phone, she admitted that she was starting to question her earlier sang-froid. Looking at her own feelings -- jealousy, possessiveness, insecurity -- when she contemplated the prospect that things might improve between Wife and me, she agreed that yes indeed there is the possibility of significant catastrophe down this road. The tears and heartbreak might prove to be real after all.

But we are going into it with our eyes open. We both realize that this kind of emotional disaster is a possible -- perhaps even likely -- outcome; but we hope that there will be enough intrinsic value in the affair itself to be worth it. D chuckled a little bit and remarked that in some ways this was really stupid -- why on earth would we sign up voluntarily for something that we knew could turn out so badly? But then she answered her own question:

"You know, Hosea -- it doesn't matter. You could show me all the reasons in the world to stay away, and I couldn't do it. Right now I am attracted to you like iron filings to a magnet. Whatever happens to me after that, I'll just have to deal with it."

And to that, I think, there is no answer. Besides, it is intoxicating to hear.
.

Counseling 15

In the last episode of our soggy melodrama, Wife had agreed not to bring Boyfriend 5 to the house, but to go rent a hotel room for them to meet in some time next week. A couple of days later, I made the obvious follow-on remark to Wife that of course it is very easy to say she's going to meet him in a hotel and then bring him to the house anyway -- after all, I'll be out of town -- so could I please have a photocopy of the receipt? Surely it would have been obvious to anybody I was going to ask for this. It was obvious to all of you, wasn't it?

But it seemed to take Wife by surprise. She said she'd have to ask Boyfriend 5. Then she never got back to me.

So when we met Thursday in Counselor's office, I asked about it. Is this OK? Can I get the photocopy?

Apparently the answer was No. Or, well, mostly No. When Wife asked Boyfriend 5, so she says, he got very angry and insulted. I was trying to control him. I was trying to force him to do one little nit-picking thing after another. If he was going to pay for the room, then I shouldn't have the slightest say in anything. He should be free to come and go as he likes. What's the problem, don't I trust him? [insert smirk here] I should be willing to take his word on things without having to check. And so on, and on, and on .... He conceded grudgingly that if Wife paid the hotel bill, then he would have no say in the matter; but he still didn't like it. (I should note that Boyfriend 5 always gets really mad when he wants to scare Wife away from probing in a certain direction; in retrospect, this last-minute concession of his makes me think the real issue is that he fears my getting his credit card information. Or maybe he just wanted to make her pick up the tab while still looking gallant?)

When Wife finished relaying this second-hand tirade, I commented simply that no, of course I don't trust him. She knows that already. And when it comes to this kind of thing, I don't trust her either. Again, this is hardly news. So without a receipt, I have to assume that they went around behind my back. Without a receipt, I have to assume that they came to the house after agreeing not to. Without a receipt, I have to assume that it is no longer possible for me to make agreements with Wife about anything, because if she pretends to agree to something it is only for the purpose of duping or exploiting me. I didn't quite want to threaten her with something irreversible, but I wanted to make it clear that this is not a minor issue to me.

Wife, for her part, responded in an absolutely classic fashion: she's just a victim caught in the middle between the two of us, trying to placate us both; the problem is that neither of us will accommodate the other; whatever happens, one of us will walk away unhappy ....

And at this moment both Counselor and I seized on the last point and said, Exactly!

From there, Counselor and I more or less tag-teamed Wife. I no longer remember who said what. But both of us insisted that Wife is the one in a position of power here, because one way or another she is going to make a decision on the question of the receipt. That decision will mean either that she takes a stand with Boyfriend 5 to face me down ("Hosea, you're not getting a receipt!"), or that she takes a stand with me to face him down ("Boyfriend 5, either you agree that Hosea gets the receipt or don't come."). But one way or another, she is going to tell one of us, "I'm choosing for the other guy and you don't get what you want."

Will one of us walk away unhappy? You bet. While the choice is hers, and while it is free in the sense that it is uncoerced, it is not free in the sense of being without cost. Choosing either direction will have consequences, probably serious consequences. So she has to shoulder the responsibility for those consequences. She can't find a way to make everybody happy, so she has to choose whom she is going to make unhappy. She might feel sorry in the abstract, but she will choose to do it anyway because that choice is less bad than the alternative. And she has to realize that this is a position of power -- indeed, she holds the most power in this whole enterprise. The mask of helplessness that she has hidden behind for years now just doesn't fit any more. She can no longer afford the cowardice that has made her wear it for so long.

"But either way I choose, I'm probably going to end up losing one relationship or the other."

And Counselor said, "Maybe what you are seeing is that if you are true to yourself, you can't keep both relationships anyway."

Wife walked out of his office at the end of the hour looking a very somber and unhappy woman. And all I could think was "Hallelujah!"
.

Was this just a backrub? part 2

At the same time that I posted yesterday's story and question below, I sent it to D in an e-mail. The substance of her answer agreed with all the responses I got here, but the tone was far more urgent. She wrote as follows:

Hosea, any court I've worked for would consider the behavior you describe as totally inappropriate -- wildly so -- and any lawyer with training in sexual matters would consider the request part of an attempt to groom the child for further sexualized behavior. That may ultimately be with the groomer, or with other partners the groomer arranges for the child. Hosea, you MUST intervene here and insist that all touching behaviors without clothes on (and I'd suggest that neither child or adult should appear without clothes in front of the other after eight or nine) -- particularly by the adult, but also for the child -- be avoided. Boundaries! It's not a matter of being a sexual prude -- I'm not -- but there is a world of research that suggests that family dynamics involving sexuality are highly charged in our society. Ask yourself -- if Son 2 talked about his behavior with his mother with friends or teachers (the teachers would be required by law to contact the authories. Absolutely. I would if a child told me what you described. I'd be fired in a heartbeat if this came out in court and it was clear I had not notified the authorities.), would he be ridiculed or feel embarrassed when he found that his friends had no such experiences? If the answer is yes -- and it is -- then it's inappropriate, and any court would consider it damaging to the child and want it to stop. Lotion? Come on, Hosea. I use it every day and have never asked a child to apply it. This isn't something done for her because she's ill, it's for low level sexual gratification, those "little grey areas" you once humorously mentioned, but there is nothing remotely funny about this behavior. By allowing it to be continue you can be held for 'neglect', for failing to stop something you knew was happening and should have known was harmful for the child. She could be charged with 'abuse' , the most serious charge, and risk losing her child. Scary? Yes. Professionally accurate? Yes again. Do something -- today -- and make it stick.

I think we have lots to discuss. Thank you for asking for my view. I realize I sound harsh, but if you could see my face and feel my hands touching yours with compassion, you'd realize that I saw a whole lot in the five years I was a GAL [Guardian ad litem], and nothing you describe is new to me. That said, I also know the consequences, and how difficult it is for the child to deal with the shame and confusion such blurred boundaries present. I have every reason to believe you will protect your children -- just do it.

Wow.

None of the comments I got yesterday were quite as intense, but everybody expressed discomfort with the story. This reassured me, because I felt discomfort too. That's why I asked the question. And here's what I did:

My very first reaction was not to know quite what to do, so I tried calling D -- even though it was an unexpected time, and a great essay on how not to get busted says never to call at unexpected times. But my call rolled directly into D’s voice mail, from which I deduced either that she was on the phone or that she had shut your phone off. However, I took seriously her injunction that this could not wait, and so I decided to wing it.

My next step was to take Son 2 for a walk. He asked "Am I in trouble?" and I assured him that he absolutely was not. But I asked him about lotioning Wife's front, and had he done this before? He said quite clearly that he had done it only once before last night (for a total of twice ever). The first time, it was at Wife's instigation or suggestion. The second time (that would have to mean last night) it was his idea, "Because I know that area builds up a lot of dead, dry skin, and lotion is the best way to get rid of dead skin." But why did I ask? I have to admit I stammered a bit while trying to figure out the right way to put it; but finally I just pointed out that a woman's breasts are part of the private areas of her body, and ....

Well, I got no farther than that and Son 2 shot ahead of me down the sidewalk. He was plainly either embarrassed or ashamed. When I caught up with him, he said "So I am in trouble!" And I had to take some time to explain to him that no, he wasn't in trouble. Yes, it was inappropriate for him to be lotioning Wife's breasts; yes, if he mentioned that to one of his friends or teachers, they would probably get upset. But no, that didn't mean that he was at fault! How could he be, if no-one had ever taught him that it was inappropriate? Could he explain the Pythagorean Theorem if nobody ever taught it to him? I just wanted to explain this to him now, so that he would understand and there wouldn't be an issue later. We ended up talking far longer about why I wasn't mad at him, than about why he shouldn't lotion Wife's breasts. But in the end, I think he understood both points.

Next, I went to talk to Wife. She was lying down, back in the bedroom. "So, did you and Son 2 have a nice walk?"

"Yes, we did. I was talking to Son 2 about lotioning your front last night."

Click. I could almost see and hear her defenses falling into place.

"So you told him all about why he's not supposed to do that?"

"No, I really didn't have to explain that at all. When I pointed out that breasts are a private part of the body, he understood immediately and was very embarrassed. Or ashamed. Most of what I had to explain to him was that it wasn't his fault."

Wife said very little to that, and indeed said almost nothing throughout the "discussion". I used the example of a daughter, and pointed out that if, hypothetically, we had a ten year old daughter who had been lotioning me when I was stark naked, all it would have taken is one phone call by Wife to make sure I never saw my children again. Of course Wife told me that her intentions had not been sexual. Rather than contradicting her (which would mean either telling her she was lying, or telling her she didn't understand her own motives -- and I didn't look forward to either of those discussions), I added simply that the intentions of a man being lotioned by his daughter might not start off sexual either ... but then suddenly instead of being 10 she's 14, and things spiral out of control. Wouldn't she be alarmed if I allowed a daughter to lotion me while I was naked?

She said that she didn't know ... that it was hard to put herself in that situation.

Privately I think that means just that she didn't want to accept the obvious implications, but I didn't say that. What I said was, "Are you sure? Don't you think you would actually say 'Hey, stop! I've been a victim of sexual abuse, so I know that it starts slow and subtle! I know that it starts with things that look like they might be innocent! But I also know that's not where it ends, and I'm not going to let my daughter suffer the same way I suffered!' Wouldn't you say that instead?"

She was resolutely silent to that question.

Since Wife was clearly not going to engage in the conversation, I just wrapped it up by repeating the basic idea why this behavior looks so inappropriate, and by reminding her that I had already explained it to Son 2. I hope this is enough. Knowing how embarrassed Son 2 gets at the slightest mention of romance or sex, I think it may be.

You know, I'm sure that in Wife's conscious mind, there was no sexual intention. But I think her conscious mind is not the whole story. For years, Wife has been very jealous of her relationship with Son 2; for years she has cultivated it, and I have always had a general unease that she has trouble knowing where to put the boundaries. (I mean, I think that boundaries have often been a problem for Wife in general; but I think the problem is more pronounced in her relationship with Son 2 than in almost any other.) Partly, this may be a result of her own sexual abuse when she was a girl ... what I have read suggests to me that those who were abused are often foggier on what is an appropriate boundary than those who were not. But I think another part of it is just that Wife is so desperately hungry for love (of all forms), but she can't bring herself to ask for (e.g.) physical love from me. So I think she is trying to fill that hunger with her children, who still love her unconditionally and from whom she is still willing to accept love. It's not a pretty situation, but I think that may be part of it.

Was this just a backrub?

I want your opinion on something that happened this evening. I can't decide quite what to think, other than that it looked very odd.

The boys were getting ready for bed; Son 2 had already taken his shower, Son 1 was in the shower. Son 2 offered to rub lotion on Wife's back, which he does often. She generally reciprocates by giving him a backrub afterwards. I was in the next room on the computer. When I came into the bedroom for something, Son 2 [age 10] was rubbing lotion between Wife's breasts; she had rolled over on her back stark naked for him to lotion her front. Later, after the boys went to bed, I asked her if she thought there was anything unusual about that. She said no she didn't, and in fact she has let him lotion her like that a few times before, but she was also too groggy to be able to discuss it at all clearly. So after trying to carry on a conversation for a few minutes, I gave up and let her sleep.

Anyway, I'm trying to decide. Is this something bland and boring and not even worth noticing? Is it offbeat but no more than that? Or do I have reason to be disturbed? I am reasonably sure that if I polled the PTA, it would not show up as a majority practice -- but after all, what does that prove? Nothing, I realize. So I am not quite sure what to think, and an opinion would be welcome. Even if it is a stupid question, by all means feel free to tell me so ....

Sixfold trivia

I have been tagged by Gotta Change It over at Chicken Scratch for a meme. Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on his/her website
__________

Six unimportant things about me? Let's see if I can narrow it down to only six ....

1. My grandfather worked on the Manhattan Project. (No, you've never heard of him. Trust me.)

2. My family moved once a year from the time I was born until I was 7. We're talking big moves, too: across the country, to another country, that kind of thing. The first neighborhood that I remember well enough to be nostalgic about it is a good three thousand miles from where I live today.

3. When I was 9, I had a supporting role in a made-for-TV movie. We're only talking about a one-hour after-school special -- something with a totally impossible plot -- but I got out of school for a couple of weeks while it was being filmed, and it was a lot of fun. (No, you haven't seen it. That was a long time ago, and it has since plunged into a well-deserved obscurity.) A couple of years later, I made a TV ad for Mazda, as they were introducing the "rotary engine." (Again, you haven't seen it. Heck, I never saw it.)

4. When I was applying to colleges, I was accepted by Harvard but turned them down in favor of a tiny institution that nobody else at my high school had ever heard of.

5. The first girl that ever got naked for me was my next-door neighbor when we were both 4. The next one was a girlfriend my senior year of college. (I was pretty shy.) The third one was Wife (although it happened a year before we actually got married).

6. Speaking of shy .... I am always very quiet and mousy in a new or unusual situation. (This baffles people who know me well, who can never get me to shut up.) In particular, I always start new jobs as The Quiet Guy ... you know, the one who tries his best to disappear against the wallpaper? Despite this, it always happens -- at every job I have ever held -- that one day I am introduced to somebody who says, "Oh, so you're Hosea. I've heard so much about you." (A variant experience is that I walk down the hall and someone I have never seen before in my life waves and shouts "Hi there, Hosea!" on his way past.)


Now I have to tag six other people who haven't already done this meme:

L, over at Melted Candy
Coquette, over at Meeting Madison
Infidel, over at Infidel at the Gates
Apollo, over at Apollo's Fire
KJ, over at Space Between
Titus the Lazy Philosopher, over at Philosophy of Infidelity