"It is possible that you will leave me"

In my last post, I mentioned that D had been feeling insecure about the bond between us. The next day, I found out what else was going on for her.

Dearest Hosea,
Today [my husband] and I agreed that our marriage had ended.
Please -- do not be afraid -- please. With every bit of integrity I possess, I will not make demands or ask for anything at all. Perhaps compassion, but nothing more. My changed status does not threaten your marriage or any other aspect of your life. I know your fears in this department after a long letter written many months ago, but I cannot reasonably hide my separation from [my husband], and you will pick up my unspoken grief even if I tried. Please trust me. I am ever so aware of my failures and faults today, but I will not harm you. My love for you makes it impossible not to ponder my emotions and actions with redoubled vigilance.
I love you, but I realize, ever so much more clearly than even this morning, that it is quite possible, even probable, that you will leave me. It's odd to say that gravity seems like a weak force right now; you meant the reference humorously, with love and confidence in tomorrow as well as today. It is hard to believe you will still be so loving this evening. But I can hope.
I have told my sister and [our grown daughter]. [Our grown daughter] said what I needed to hear -- that she loved me unconditionally despite her sorrow for us both -- and [my sister] offered help and support she wants to provide and doesn't actually know how to give an older sister who has always been her support. [My husband] says he told [our younger daughter, in college] "the unvarnished truth" in January. If he did, she has not discussed the possibility, now confirmed, of divorce with me. I know [our son, also in college] realizes something is amiss, but we have not talked either. Right now, I'm grateful for their silence; it won't last forever.
I ask that you not tell [Wife].
I will understand if you do not want to contact me for a while.
My love for you is unchanged; you have all my love.
D

You probably remember the last time this topic came up, I panicked and wrote D an e-mail that hurt her terribly. Well, I never claimed any great brilliance in the romantic arena, but I do hope I can learn from my mistakes. This time I replied as follows:

Dearest D,
I have told you that I love you, and I do. I have told you that my love is not a will o' the wisp, and does not change with the breeze ... and it isn't and doesn't. I love you now just as much as I did 12 hours ago.
I am sad for you both. I never knew [your husband] as well as I knew you -- even twelve months ago that was true -- but I think I know him well enough to be sad on his account. And on yours, of course, all the more so. But I will not panic or take fright. Part of my fear last time this topic came up was that I kept asking myself if I was somehow "to blame" for ... well, something, I don't know what. I know you better now, and as a result I know better now. And so I will not panic.
I know there is a lot I don't understand, but I also know there is no need for me to understand everything right away ... if ever. Maybe someday I will understand more than I do today -- some time in the future, I mean. Or maybe I won't. Either way it is not a question for today, and either way I am content to let it work out as it does.
But in spite of my sorrow and limited comprehension, you still have my love. Absolutely and, yes, unconditionally. Moreover, for whatever it is worth, you have my prayers that both of you are guided into a safe harbor from this point out on the high seas. And that, when each of you comes to shore, it is the right harbor and the right shore.
You have my love, secure in your keeping.
Hosea

When she answered that, she was already on her way to re-establishing the gracious and loving perspective that so perfectly characterizes her:

I am quite sad, and I have to mourn the demise of my hopes and the promises made thirty years ago. I realized yesterday that the issues between us had actually been decided months, if not years ago; now it's a matter of accepting the answers on both sides and respecting the conclusion. I won't say I understand why certain decisions have been made, but I do know that they were made without malice or the desire to hurt the other, and perhaps they were inevitable, given the persons involved. I know undoing the bonds, both emotional and financial, will be the work of many months. I'd like to do all of this with kindness and grace. All the good that has been part of our lives because we were married deserves no less.

I can't say I understand. I can't really say I approve. But I can say I will offer her whatever support is in my power.

It's still sad.

Wife's acedia, D's insecurities

This past weekend was a busy one. There was a lot I wanted to do that I never touched. Yet somehow there was a lot going on anyway.

Saturday, maybe about noon, I had a long conversation with Wife. I hope it may have been some help in the long run, although it had elements which could have derailed it at any moment into one of our boilerplate fights. It started when I asked her whether she was trying to make a point about her independence from the rest of us by still not having put away (as of Saturday morning) any of the laundry she had done the Wednesday before. She replied with excuses and justifications and counter-attacks (because she thought I was attacking her), but this time I really tried to hang in there. I pointed out that the justifications were red herrings, the excuses made no sense, and the counter-attack wasn't needed because I hadn't been attacking in the first place ... I really was trying to understand what mental space she had slid into.

Next, Wife talked a lot about what she sees as the drudgery of repetition and all her bad associations with housework. (I have mentioned that she grew up quite poor; and for some years she helped her mother clean house for snotty little old ladies.) To the latter, I acknowledged 100% that the circumstances under which she had made those associations were rotten; but I said it's not the housework's fault. The thing to be angry at is the circumstance, or the snotty little old ladies, or whatever ... but not the housework itself, which was innocent in all this. To the former, about the drudgery of repetition, I answered "Souls innocent and quiet take / That for an hermitage." And then I started talking about what I have been reading in Kathleen Norris, all about acedia and how the Noonday Demon makes monks hate repetitive tasks (which is to say, all of monastic life), but how he can be exorcised by plowing into those tasks with a will. I talked some more about how acedia seems to be depression plus some mental or spiritual component -- and added that if a purely medical (or pharmacological) approach was going to work for Wife it would have worked by now, so it is conclusively proven that what ails her is not purely a pharmacological problem but must have some non-physical components as well -- and then I read her the first two chapters aloud. I wasn't sure how she would take it ... her flirtation with Christianity is long since past, and her assessment of it has gotten cruder and blacker over the years ... but what she said was remarkable. It must have been every other page -- no less often than that, maybe more often -- that she said, "Yup, I know that," or "That's how it is for me too," or at one point, "That's my whole life."

As we talked some more after that, she essayed some of her usual moves about "You don't like me and therefore you should just leave me," and I told her that it was impossible for me to leave her, and besides that it was unnecessary. Yes, I dislike this and that thing that she does; but the reason I tell her about them, or tax her with them, is that I believe she is capable of being better than that and I want to call the slip-ups to her attention. What is more, I told her that I think she can be way happier than she is today -- although not overnight, to be sure -- and that addressing the very same behaviors is likely to help that part too.

I wrote all this to D, and then added:

Sweetheart, I worry a little bit about discussing Wife in this way with you, because I worry it will awaken your insecurity. Please understand and remember that none of this has anything to do with you. I want Wife to learn to be happier for her own sake; I want her to learn to be more pleasant and grateful to the people around her for both her sake and theirs ... ours. It is only kind and decent to want these things. What happens afterwards, specifically on the marital side of things ... that's another question, and I can't foretell the future. But I do know that my love for you is not dependent on some kind of corresponding distaste for Wife ; that this is not a zero-sum game. I have confidence, therefore, that we can make it work out somehow.

D replied in the wee hours of the next morning, as follows:

Your conversation with Wife sounded wonderful, and meaningful for you both. Of course her problem with depression and acedia has a spiritual dimension. That doesn't mean that her mental disability isn't frightening and very difficult for her and the family. As an article I sent you makes clear, serious depression and madness is impossibly difficult to treat and to endure.... Wife's depression takes a different form, but the distortions and sadness are very real and troubling. I hope your encouraging affirmation and continual presence and support can cause her to work towards happier daily routines and the possibility of genuine fulfillment. Your idealism and love shine forth; she is very fortunate to have your support and wisdom....

You ask if your focus on Wife makes me feel insecure, and the honest answer is yes. That doesn't mean you should stop talking about your relationship or your lovingkindness (hesed) towards her. I am well aware of your devotion and love for her, and I'm clear about my own position. My "demons" have nothing to do with depression or acedia, but rather a lingering sense of unworthiness on the deepest level. But those are my issues; you cannot shield me from having to face them by refusing to talk about Wife. My demons of insecurity cause me to embrace a level of work so extreme and unrealistic as to risk damaging my integrity and my students' well-being. My doubts and sadness also stem from the practical problem of living alone and missing the company of my friends and family. And most important, creating a person worthy of love and capable of the deepest love is challenging and very much my task.

You somehow want to separate out the marital section of your relationship with Wife from the rest, but of course, that won't work at all. Sex, while it has its own intensity and dynamic, is never far from any genuine conversation and meaningful experience. You are quite right to insist that your relationship with Wife does not invalidate what we share, and to insist on a "zero-sum game" is to mis-understand the very nature of love itself. You will either love me for myself and for what we are together, or you will not. Your relationship with your wife, or your children, or anyone else does not enter into the equation.

That doesn't mean that the relationship is simply one additional intimate union; in fact, it is quite different. I was freshly reminded of that when you told Wife it was impossible to leave her. It is not impossible to leave me. There is no hold outside the love we share, and I can foresee circumstances where love itself would set the other free. Furthermore, we live on borrowed time, and there is no promise outside the love we share today, your presence now. To be a "girlfriend" or mistress, is to understand this without flinching or whining.... There's freedom, but also the possibility of failure and loss. But when I think of our warmth together, the way we read each other in the smallest details and the possibility, always, of splitting a thought and smiling...I would not have it different.

My reply to this letter was maybe a bit too brief. Among other things, I said, ...

You are absolutely right to see that I love you entirely for who you are and for what we have together, not because external commitments make it convenient. That sounds like a limitation, but the other way to look at it is to see how madly I do in fact love you, and to realize that you owe it all to yourself alone, not to some kind of external arrangements or social convention. Then you go on to say that it is possible for us to leave each other because "there is no hold outside the love we share." Well, strictly speaking I suppose this is true, but I have to add a comment: it may be possible that we leave each other at some point, but for me at least it is barely imaginable; from where I sit it feels like "there is no hold outside the love we share" is a bit like saying "there's really nothing at all holding you down from floating off the Earth into interstellar space except for gravity." (smile) And you know, I don't feel insecure about the risk that tomorrow gravity is going to be all gone ....

One day I will learn better than to make jokes like that. Not that gravity shut off yesterday -- no, nothing of the kind. But when I wrote what I wrote, I had no idea what things were already going through D's head ....

"Acedia and me"

Meanwhile, I have started to read Kathleen Norris’s Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life. She discusses a lot of themes, all orbiting around acedia, which is an ailment (or a vice) that can be variously associated with depression, boredom, torpor, and sloth. What I find interesting, besides the many personal stories she tells, is that she treats acedia neither purely as a mental disease (to be addressed with anti-depressant medication) nor purely as a vice (to be addressed with either prayer or clean living), but as a devastating spiritual condition that contains elements of both. She seems to say that depression may be a disease over which we don’t have a lot of conscious control, but acedia differs from it in having a conscious element that can make the suffering better or worse, and for which we can be held accountable. If we can train ourselves to react to this-and-that kind of thought by deliberately choosing to think thus-and-so instead, we can keep the depression from getting worse, and from settling in for the long term. We can (at least sometimes) dissuade it from growing into acedia.

This is a book from which I think both Wife and I should be able to benefit. D said she found it boring. (There is a big irony there!). But then, as she was quick to add, part of her reaction may be just that her vices don’t tend in that direction. Not that she has no vices! Just that they tend not to be depressive in nature.

Backstory on Boyfriend 4

Recently, Mags left a comment on this post reflecting a confusion that other people probably share. She wrote: "Okay, the thing that strikes me most is how helpful Boyfriend 4 is and how comfortable you and the boys are with him. I'm trying to wrap my head around that and... just can't. Crazy."

Yes, it would be, ... except there is a backstory that makes it a little less crazy. And up till now I have been too lazy to bother telling it, but I suppose I have to.

You will have noticed that we keep in social contact with Boyfriend 4, far more than with any of Wife's other amours. I have talked about e-mailing with him here and here. I've discussed the progress of his cancer diagnosis and treatment, at least in abbreviated form. And I've mentioned here and here that he used to be around the house quite a bit.

In fact, I knew Boyfriend 4 way back in high school; I met him years before I ever met Wife, and he was one of several friends I invited to the wedding. Over the ensuing years we kind of lost touch, although every so often I would get an e-mail out of the blue.

Years went by. Then he came through town for some reason ... I forget the occasion. We visited and had a grand time and he was on his way again. A few months later he happened to be coming back through town, only this time I was gone for a week on a business trip.

So he stopped in anyway to visit with Wife and the boys. Apparently when he first rang the doorbell, Son 1 answered it (this was 4 or 5 years ago), and Boyfriend 4's first words were, "My God he looks like Hosea!" (It's true. Total strangers walk up to me in supermarkets to say this.) Anyway, Wife was having trouble coping with the household since I was gone, and Boyfriend 4's schedule was flexible; so he offered to stick around for a couple of days to make dinner, help the boys with their homework, and be there to see me when I got back. There was a sofa in the living room he could sleep on ... so why not?

This was the plan. But it went a little bit awry one afternoon. The story as I heard it since is that the boys were outside playing, and Boyfriend 4 decided to get a shower. After his shower and shave, he got dressed in a sweatshirt and loose sweatpants, splashed Old Spice liberally over his face, and left the bathroom.

Wife met him in the hallway and said, "You smell like Old Spice."

"Ummm, yeah. I just got a shave and a shower and I always splash it on afterwards."

"I really love the smell of Old Spice."

"OK, I'm glad."

"No, you don't understand. I really, really love the smell of Old Spice." By this point, Wife is pointedly sniffing all around his face, his chin, his ears.

"Ummm, W? Not the ears. You need to stop that."

This warning just piqued Wife's contrary side. "What's wrong with your ears? They smell wonderful."

"W? You really need to leave my ears alone."

Wife is now no longer just sniffing his ears, but nibbling them gently as well. "But I can't help myself. They smell so good."

"W, I'm not kidding! You need to leave my ears alone. It's no joke -- I'm getting aroused." And indeed his loose sweatpants were already visibly bulging out in front of him.

Wife looked around quickly and said, "The boys are outside playing. Come with me." She pulled him quickly into our bedroom, then closed and locked the door. Then she pulled his sweatpants over the now-serious bulge, took his cock in her mouth, and sucked him till he came.

They had no time for anything more that afternoon. By evening, Boyfriend 4 was drunk (Wife didn't yet realize how much trouble he has with alcohol) -- drunk enough that even though he tried valiantly to fuck Wife properly and pay her with an orgasm of her own, he failed. So the next day he tried again, a bit more seriously. And by the time I got home from that business trip, the two of them were fucking regularly as a romantic couple.

I could tell. Hell, I could tell from the e-mails Wife sent me before I ever got home. But by this time I was tired from the travel and tired from a particularly trying two years with Wife (this was a new job after an 18-month spell of unemployment, a time which had challenged our marriage worse than all her infidelities wrapped up together), and tired from all the drama of Boyfriends 2 and 3. So I just asked them to tell me up front and not lie about it. I was too tired to fight or argue or complain -- just tell me the truth.

Wife wanted to; but it took her two weeks to persuade Boyfriend 4. And when he finally agreed and fessed up, all I said was, "Fine. I already knew. Thanks for telling me." As I say, I was really too bone-weary ... or maybe that was depression ... to fight about it.

That is how he became a boyfriend. The second part of the story started a couple months later.

You remember I said his schedule was flexible? Turns out he, too, was unemployed; and by the time his Unemployment Insurance ran out, he still didn't have another job. He didn't have much in the way of resources, either. And Wife was finding it really, really tough to run the household now that I was working again and couldn't stay home to do things for her. So we agreed to a plan: we would give Boyfriend 4 a place to sleep, a roof over his head, and food in the pantry; in return he would cook and clean, drive Wife to all her doctor's appointments, and help the boys with their homework.

This arrangement lasted two years. During that time he also got a part-time job; we had to deal with his alcoholism as an ongoing problem; and Wife began to distance herself from him sexually. In other words, a lot happened. But in spite of the drama around his alcohol (and in spite of the romantic drama that sputtered on between him and Wife) Boyfriend 4 did provide a measure of stability to the household that Wife would never have been able to provide on her own. The boys got to know and love him, athough they often sparred with him as an older brother rather than as a "third parent." And it took some adjustment when he finally left.

I suppose Wife would have been more depressed (and it would therefore have taken more adjustment) if she hadn't soon after met Boyfriend 5 on line ....

Fourth date

I have mentioned in the last few posts that I had another business trip last week – different town, this time – and somehow D contrived to get away from work. By staying over the weekend, we got four nights together.

I don’t know that there were any grand themes dominating this visit, apart from a sheer delight in being with each other. Lots of little drama, though. It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to ignore my own depression, or just to pass it off as no big deal. One evening we were sitting in a restaurant and D made an idle comment about the dinner I had just ordered; somehow her comment struck me wrong and for several minutes I couldn’t answer her back or even look at her. Don’t ask me to explain this, because it makes no sense at all; and once I was past it, the moment looked silly to me. But in that moment, it seemed like even opening my mouth to speak was just the biggest job in the world.

The next afternoon I mentioned that I expected to be grumpy the following week, because I always feel rotten after a trip like this (what with jet lag, etc.). In fact, that is part of why I have long told Wife I hate to travel.

D said simply, “Isn’t it interesting that when depression becomes part of the scene, the first thing to go is truthfulness?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well Hosea, it is obvious to me that you love to travel. You like the excitement of visiting new places, the puzzle of figuring out how to get around, the challenge of making yourself understood in a foreign language ... all of that. And yet you tell Wife that you hate to travel, just because you find yourself afflicted by depression from time to time during and after a trip.”

I explained that wasn’t the only reason. A second is that Wife so obviously envies my work sending me to one place and another. I don’t appreciate the envy, so I play up the unappealing parts of the trip. A third is that while I do enjoy exploring new places, I am often too shy to go very far without company – so that travelling alone is a lot less fun than travelling with someone. Still, I think she may be on to something.

For her part, I don’t think D suffers from depression as such; but she is afflicted by a profound sense of unworthiness, and this contributes to a certain underlying insecurity about our affair. Late one evening, as we were about to turn in, I made some random comment about a trivial characteristic that she and Wife share in common, and she got very quiet. I couldn’t get her to say anything more to me as we fell asleep; and by the next morning she was upset because she felt that I had been distant during the night. We bickered some before going down to breakfast, and she soon admitted that she felt very threatened by the comparison with Wife, while conceding that I hadn’t actually said anything wrong. In other words, her insecurity was all her baggage and not anything I had inflicted on her.

Sometimes it seems like all I write about – when I write about my times with D – are the moments of emotional drama or arguments. Partly that is because I think those make the most interesting stories: I dare say nobody wants to read a detailed description of how long we spend staring into each other’s eyes, or saying inane things that all more or less mean “I love you,” or even comparing notes on child-rearing or books we have enjoyed. And I don’t really think I could do a good job writing juicy accounts of our fucking: I mean, it is exuberant and ecstatic – not to mention far more frequent than I would ever have expected based on my years of experience with Wife – but I have never quite mastered the knack of writing about it in an exciting way. That leaves the arguments.

The arguments are important for two other reasons, as well. One is that they happen at all – while we were chatting at the airport before flying back home, we agreed that all relationships involve (at least potentially) some kind of conflict, so it is in some ways a good sign that we are willing to express any disagreements rather than hiding them. For all the secrecy that we have to adopt by virtue of conducting an affair, we try hard to be open to each other. And that is a good thing. Moreover, we have both discovered that by airing our disagreements instead of smothering them, we get over them quickly because we’d rather get back to kissing. So far, every argument has been resolved inside of 24 hours, if we’ve been together in person. This too is a good thing, and it is a pattern that gives me a lot of hope for the future.

Since we had the whole weekend, we truly had a lot of time and there are plenty of other images that stick with me too. We went to the zoo. I dragged D over to the big cats; she insisted on seeing the bears and the insects – she especially loves spiders. We went out for an evening of Bach choral music – three solid hours and not a dull moment. And then there was the evening that we went for a walk through the empty streets after dinner, in the cold night air of mid-March ... and we started kissing as I backed her against a wall ... and even though I kept my hands scrupulously outside her jacket, I would swear she came right there, on the spot, out in the cold wind. Certainly she was aroused – she was flustered and embarrassed about wanting to get back to the hotel right now. But I have to admit I was trying for more than mere arousal, and from the intensity of her sighing I think I might have gotten it. Have I mentioned how fantastically responsive D is?

Finally it was time to go home. D’s flight, in particular, arrived very late and night, and then she had a long drive home from the airport. But she dropped me a note the next day that she had gotten home safely:

“Home safely, by the grace of God. I got lost, ran off the road half a dozen times and was simply uncoordinated and exhausted. Wow. Not like me at all.... I did sleep [on the plane], but somehow it's not the same as regular sleep, or I'm just trying to explain why I reacted so uncharacteristically to my late night demands. At any rate, I'm home, unpacked, drinking coffee and trying to think about how to get through a day without any sleep or lesson plans....

I probably won't call Wife, simply because I'm tired enough to slip up and refer to our time together, or know something I shouldn't....

But with you, I'll write, knowing you will forgive my lapses in grammar and logic, and only remember the laughter, walking, kisses and hugs, your reading to me...one thousand and one nights in the space of four real time evenings. I won't pretend that it doesn't feel as though a part of me is gone; the bright and beautiful part. But if I close my eyes and place my head in my hands, you are there, and I can see you, hear your thoughts. Mine are all loving, full of gratitude for the time together, but more for knowing you, for catching a glimpse, once again, of someone so remarkable that all my love and devotion can only be yours for a lifetime.”

Wife’s birthday

The day I left on my most recent business trip was also Wife’s birthday. Since I wasn’t going to be able to spend the whole day at home, I took the day before off of work to spend with her and asked her to come up with a list of things she’d like to do. After a few days of thinking, she decided she would like to spend the morning at a local art museum, then go out for lunch and catch a matinee in the afternoon. In the event, it didn’t quite work out that way.

I had contacted Boyfriend 4 and asked him if he would be willing to stay with the family while I was gone, to give Wife a hand and help out with the boys. He arrived about 7:00 in the morning and took the boys to school.

Meanwhile, Wife got up late, ate no breakfast, and spent 90 minutes on-line (which gave me a chance to pay some bills). When we finally got to the Museum, we had been there less than an hour when she started to feel weak. She went to a bathroom and gagged for a while, then asked to go home. (To be more precise, she started by mentioning as a neutral piece of data that her anti-nausea medicines were at home. I suggested that maybe starting the day with no breakfast was the real culprit, and that she should consider just getting a piece of bread or something similarly low-impact to eat. She replied with an anguished, "I'm BEGGING you to allow me to go home!!" ... and of course there was no arguing at that point.)

So we went home. Wife took a bunch of medications and went to bed. I was left wondering if she had somehow sabotaged herself, or if I was over-reading things. The boys were still at school. I chatted with Boyfriend 4 and puttered.

Some time later, Wife got up and said she would still like to go to a movie. We found a local theater showing "Slumdog Millionaire" and decamped. Boyfriend 4 picked up the boys from school.

After the movie, we went out for sushi for dinner; Boyfriend 4 fixed meatloaf and mashed potatoes for the boys. Then Wife and I came back home. It was maybe about 8:00. Wife got ready for bed and turned in.

Anyway, the second half of the day -- movie and dinner -- was OK, at least from the perspective of Wife and me. It's a good movie, and dinner was nice ... although to be fair we didn't talk much. Nor was I very hungry, come to that -- I wanted the hot tea more than anything else. But it was still OK.

I can’t help wonder, though, whether at some level Wife couldn’t take the stress of doing something new and different (like going to the Museum) and therefore sabotaged it so that the day devolved into something familiar (dinner and a movie). Is this over-reading things?

“Good wife”, “good girlfriend”

Last week, I was out of town on business. The week before that, I had a few things to get ready before the trip. Meanwhile, Wife spent several days telling me she was going to iron a week’s worth of shirts for me. She also told D all about these plans as well, and two days before I left D wrote to me as follows:

“It's odd; Wife spoke again of her responsibility to iron your shirts as a ‘good’ wife. It came to me that there simply are no ‘good’ girlfriends. I am myself, and it either is enough or not. That's a very lovely freedom. I would far rather have the reality of our love than the form; and a certain disregard for convention seems healthy. Of course I don't mind ironing your shirts, but I would rather the job be part of being together with joy, not some calculation designed to impress you. Who knows; maybe you will iron mine one day!”

I replied, ...

“I had never thought about the question whether there is such a thing as a ‘good girlfriend’ (taking the word in its adult, not adolescent, sense) but you make a good point. Honestly, I wish my relationship with Wife could have been characterized from the beginning as ‘being together with joy, not some calculation designed to impress.’ I remember that every so often when we were first married, Wife would tell me how disappointed in her I must be (trying, as usual, to manage my own feelings as well as hers) because she ‘hadn't been much of a wife to me lately.’ I had to ask her what on earth she meant by that bizarre-sounding phrase; it turned out that this phrase was a synonym for ‘We haven't been having a lot of sex lately.’ I can't tell you how hurt and offended I was by those words, encapsulating as they did the assumptions (1) that the solitary defining feature of a wife is that she puts out, (2) that any shortfall in how much sex we were having must by definition be her responsibility, (3) that I would measure how satisfied or disappointed I was in the marriage solely by counting scores on a tally sheet without regard to any other factors, (4) that ... I can hardly go on. It made me almost speechless. Then when I would object to Wife that she owed it to herself not to say or think things so demeaning, she could not understand: this was simply the way things were. When I got more frustrated and raised my voice, she concluded that not only must I be -- by her definition and by her count -- disappointed with her as an inadequate wife, but I was angry and yelling at her too. From here I think the line to ‘You have no respect for me and you are always yelling at me’ is more or less a straight one, ... albeit quite long.”

D’s next e-mail expanded on the thought.

“I understand and sympathize with your hurt and dismay regarding Wife's evaluation of what a ‘good wife’ does, but I'm not surprised. Wife has never felt intellectually equal to you, and she has made almost no effort to learn anything about what you find fascinating; even reading a science-fiction novel [‘Speaker for the Dead’] is asking too much. She has extremely low self-esteem, and while you are shy, I don't believe you suffer from the same sense of inadequacy that she feels almost every day. Wife has made little effort to overcome and work through the resentment and pain her childhood hurts have left, and so...she sees herself in very narrow terms as a wife. I think most people would be surprised to realize how small a role sexuality plays in many long term relationships such as ours. I'm not denying that I know more of romance and Wife more of practicalities (that schedule again) but there is more wholeness to our relationship than that dichotomy suggests. Girlfriends are not glamorous creatures who never have to clean house or do dishes; I am unapologetically domestic. I just don't think it's the biggest thing in life. By definition, I have to develop my own life and career, and it's my mind and spirit you treasure, not being a Don Juan or an adolescent. Monotony and indifference can destroy a marriage from the inside; a relationship like ours simply dissolves under their weight. So no, there is no ‘good girlfriend’ for you. There is just a woman, a whole person with brain and hands. If I'm to be loved by you, I'd better learn something, risk more than I think I can, care something, become something.”

I can always count on D to take any simple thought like this to the next level.

Boyfriend 5 and his friends: power, violence, and implausibility

Recently, Boyfriend 5 told Wife that his terrorist group was responsible for a particularly gruesome murder in the Old Country. Apparently his description fairly glowed with self-righteous enthusiasm over the act. Wife never told me about this, but she discussed it with D in one of their phone calls. Unsurprisingly she was very conflicted: she still believes she deeply loves Boyfriend 5, but he has been out of touch a lot lately and she was having trouble wrapping her mind and heart around this new development.

This isn’t the first troubling development in Wife’s rather bizarre on-line relationship with Boyfriend 5. I have mentioned that he claims to be a vampire; I have mentioned the demon that he invoked to help with the office work. On the other hand, I don’t think I ever mentioned that Boyfriend 5’s sense of sexuality is heavily invested with dominance and submission; and he has talked about it to Wife at great length ... to the point that she has had to think very hard how she will integrate into his life whenever they actually meet. This too is a topic she has spent a lot of time and energy wrapping her mind and heart around.

But how plausible is this? As I discussed this with D, I began to think about it farther. On the one hand, the celebration of political violence is exactly of a piece with the celebration of violent and power-centered sexuality. On the other hand, I mean "of a piece" in a very specific sense, ... because what I find most plausible is that these are the fantasies of somebody who really doesn't get out much.

My thinking is that most people who have some kind of frequent, active, and satisfying interaction with others on the social level are not going to harbor fantasies of political terrorism (though I know there are always stories of successful professionals joining Al-Qaeda, for instance). And most people who have some kind of frequent, active, and satisfying sex life are not going to harbor deep and thorough-going master-slave fantasies. (Of course I am aware from reading here and there in the blogosphere that plenty of people have a taste for erotic games that is wider than anything I have felt impelled to try, but none of them writes about anything even remotely like the Boyfriend 5 slavery dynamic.)

What is more, I am inclined to suspect that somebody who does have this kind of a craving for domination over others, and who (moreover) can satisfy that craving in one sphere of life, is fairly likely to get it out of their system and not need it in a second sphere as well. More exactly, I would bet that the frequency of dominance-based sexuality among political terrorists is no higher than the frequency among the population at large. Maybe it's even less -- I can imagine that an obsession with a certain kind of sex life would be considered a distraction from The Cause. If there is anything to this last speculation, then we are left with two hypotheses regarding Boyfriend 5. Either (1) he is a real person who somehow -- by the most amazing coincidence -- represents that tiny percent of a tiny percent of the population who are both violent terrorists and BDSM-devotees; or else (2) he is a fictional character imagined by somebody who is truly isolated and alone, who has trouble dealing with other people or the outside world, who feels every bit as frightened and trapped as Wife (maybe even more so), ... and who compensates for this terrible state by imaging a life of unbridled power over others: over their lives, as a gun-wielding political terrorist, and over their beds, as a Master of Slaves. On a purely statistical basis, I find (2) a whole lot more likely.

What is more, (2) has a second advantage as an explanation. You all know that I have scratched my head at some length over the question, "Why? If this is a fraud, what on earth is the motivation behind it?" Explanation (2) has the advantage of proposing just such an explanation ... maybe Boyfriend 5 spends all day talking to Wife because he needs an escape as badly as she does. Maybe he has concocted this elaborate fantasy life to compensate for an overwhelming sense of weakness and isolation in real life ... but even fantasy is not so liberating as the voice of a real live human being to talk to ... someone who will care for him and validate him and not push or question him. Maybe he needs her as much as she needs him, and for similar reasons. The relationship would not (in that case) be healthy for either one; "healthy" would mean building up the mental or spiritual strength to face reality without having to run and hide. But it might be explicable, at any rate.

On lying, part 4 continued

I neglected to add that everything which needs to be said about this situation with our company president was said 500 years ago, by Niccolo Machiavelli, in chapter 23 of his most famous work, The Prince: "How Flatterers Should Be Avoided". I only wish I could believe that our top management was Machiavellian, at any rate in the truest sense of the word.

On lying, part 4

The topic of truthfulness-vs-lying is just endlessly fascinating, or at any rate there are many different sides to it. Already, just a day after publishing "On lying, part 3" I have gotten some very interesting feedback in the comments. And here is yet another view on the subject. I can't claim that I have synthesized all these perspectives, or that I really understand the issue. But somehow I think that all of them have a bearing.

These thoughts are based on something that happened at work -- not in my personal life, for a change -- along about the middle of March, just before (and overlapping) the business travel that ended up allowing D and me to have a Fourth Date. I wrote the whole thing to D at the time as an e-mail, but I won't present it that way here because the interchange between us on the subject was inconsequential. What was interesting and significant was the story itself. Here is how it went: ...

The president of the company is coming out to our office from the Home Office just about the time I'm going to the Home Office. He has lots of things to squeeze into a couple of days, as usual. But I have gotten a hint from one of my Home Office colleagues that an issue which might be on his agenda is, .... Well, let me back up. We report various metrics once a month which are supposed to give an idea of how well we are doing our jobs, and how well the business is faring. For a variety of reasons, some of these metrics aren't very informative when applied to the work we in particular do in our office: they will fluctuate wildly in and out of acceptable values without those changes meaning anything very significant about how things are going for us. Now, one of these metrics was red (as opposed to "green") pretty consistently last year, and our president wanted some action. That's how he understands the job of top management, apparently: look at everybody's metrics, and then demand an action plan to correct the problem if one of those metrics turns red. So he did. And the guy in charge of the relevant department told him, "Oh that's no problem. Our corrective action is XYZ. And in fact we have already implemented it." I should add that XYZ was a preposterous suggestion; if somebody had told me that he was going to solve a problem by doing this, I would have rolled my eyes and said, "Right, tell me another." It was the kind of action about which you could tell -- just by looking at it -- (a) that nobody would ever follow through on doing it, and (b) that it wouldn't help anything if they did. But this statement had the desired effect of making our president go away and stop interfering. After all, the responsible guy had given him an action plan, so he knew the problem was being handled. His work was therefore done. That's decisive management for you.

A year goes by. During that time this metric bounces around with apparently no connection to the reality of what we are doing, because it is (for our line of work) almost meaningless. The manager in question takes another job in the company, and is replaced. And suddenly an issue comes up -- this is about 2 weeks ago now -- where we are getting yelled at because something isn't in place. When we object that it looks like it's not possible to set it up the way we have been asked to, the answer is "Why are you only discovering this today? If you really had been doing XYZ, like we were told you were, you would have discovered this problem a year ago. Have you guys been lying to senior management?"

Maybe this isn't on his mind, but -- knowing him -- I wouldn't be surprised if it is. So how are we going to answer it? Or rather, ... since I'll be in the Home Office, ... how are my colleagues going to answer it? There are several possible answers. One is to say, "That guy told you what? He never told us we were supposed to be doing that ... all he ever mentioned was this other thing." That's not very kind, because this guy is still with the company only in another role. Or else we can say, ... well, what, really? I think the best option may be to change the subject by slyly pointing out that as of last month our metric is suddenly about as green as it has ever been. Yay for us! (It's still meaningless, but never mind that.)

The truth, though, is a little more complicated. It is not that we simply lied to this man. It is rather that this manager reported an idea he had had as if it were already actualized, without any concern for whether it could become real or not and without any concern for whether it could achieve the goal or not; then the rest of us failed to contradict him out of a mixture of motives -- partly because we wanted to keep a unified front with him (since after all he ran interference for us an awful lot, and often prevented senior management from bringing productive work to a halt); partly because it wasn't our place to speak out; partly because nobody wanted to raise a subject with our top management if we didn't have to (because such conversations always and only turned out badly); partly for other reasons as well, I suppose. Behind all this was the tacit agreement that the reason we were all willing to treat the company's president with such manipulative disrespect was that what he was asking us for was stupid: the metrics don't apply to us in any useful way, and therefore overreacting to a red metric (or demanding a corrective action) is simply proof that you don't know what you are talking about. What is more, anybody who would have accepted XYZ as a proposal can't be too clever in the first place. And finally, nobody was willing simply to tell this man the truth about these things because he has a history of punishing people who make him feel or look a fool.

I haven't come to any profound conclusions, but it has been on my mind.

Fighting over sleep

Back in the beginning of March, Wife and I had another one of those pointless arguments from the past that goes nowhere but has a life of its own. I have already referenced it briefly here, but I can give a little more information about it. (Fortunately I have already done most of the writing, so this will be largely an exercise in cut-and-paste.)

The issue -- ostensibly -- was about falling asleep. But we never really even got that far. What happened is that I came back into the bedroom late at night, Wife sat up to say something to me, and I got irrational and started shouting. Huh? How does that make any sense? The back story is that for years Wife has told me she can't fall asleep if I am already snoring away, so I have nearly always tried to stay up late until she is sound asleep first. Having her sit up and speak told me, in effect, that I was going to have to stay up even later, and by that time I was already quite tired. What's more, I had a sudden vivid memory of all the times we had fought over sleep in the past, and I suddenly felt like another such fight was bearing down on me like a train, ... and that there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. So in a certain measure of despair and panic I started shouting, etc., etc.

That's the short version. Of course the conversation between me and D was somewhat more colorful than that.

It started when D phoned Wife and heard all about what an irrational beast I had been the night before. Naturally she asked me right away: ...

Goodness! Did you really tell Wife to sleep in the car if she didn't want to turn off the lights, and punctuate your frustration by saying "fuck you" twice? Hmmm. Please do not curse at me. I would be stunned. I have slept in a car...most recently, on my way to see you in December, but it would be odd to be exiled to the parking lot. Sound like the unpleasantness surrounding lunch trailed you home...

To which I replied ...

Oh dear, it didn't have anything to do with the lights. But I have gotten hypersensitive to issues of falling asleep around Wife (I truly mean sleep here, not sex) because they are so often contentious. So when she started to talk to me as I was preparing to go to sleep, ... when I thought she was long since unconscious (so that I could climb into bed safely without being berated for keeping her up), ... I kind of lost it. Not proud, and no excuses. All I can say is that our sleeping arrangements have been difficult for a very long time. It was literally years after Son 1 was born before I moved off the sofa and back into the bedroom.

We discussed the event at greater length on the phone once or twice, after which I wrote her in elaboration ...

When I talk about the train bearing down on me, what I mean is that there are certain set-piece arguments that we have that always start in a certain way and always take a certain form. And sometimes it feels like, once triggered, they unroll automatically of their own accord, with exactly the same words being said on either side and with nothing that either of us can do to stop them. Of course it can't be literally true, but it feels that way -- and when I feel entrapped by one of those, I panic. That's what I feel over the issue of sleep ... that we are about to enter a script that was written twenty-five years ago, that everything to be said by either of us has been ordained in advance, and that there is no way to stop it. And so I become quite irrational. I know that it is possible to sleep in different rooms without destroying one's marriage or sex life: I did exactly that, for years. In the last stages of pregnancy with Son 1, Wife got to a point where sleep was quite difficult and I moved out onto the couch. What with one thing and another, I stayed there for years. When the boys were both small but walking, they both knew that Daddy slept in the living room and they could always find me there. And at the time I didn't even resent it, or not much. One exception -- at a certain point Wife decided that the old sofa was too broken down and ugly, so she planned to get rid of it (without replacing it). I was a little alarmed that this would mean I had no place to sleep, so that night I came back to sleep in the bed. The next day at work I got a long, long, whiny e-mail about how cruel it was of me to have slept in the bed because she got barely a wink of sleep all night; and all the while I was thinking, "But you are the one who wants to GET RID OF the sofa where I sleep now ... where exactly did you THINK I was going to sleep??? Or did you not even consider the issue because it was out-of-sight, out-of-mind?" OK, this blew over after a while. And when I moved back into the bedroom, it was at Wife's instigation ... her meds had changed, and she thought she could sleep through my snoring now. [As a point of reference, D insists that I don't snore at all.]

But in effect what this means is that for a decade at least, where I slept was not at all up to me; I was moved back and forth between the living room and the bedroom to suit Wife's fancy. And I think what has happened now is that -- belatedly -- I have come to find this galling. I also feel a lot less chivalric towards Wife than I used to. And so where once my attitude was, "For goodness sakes, if you are having trouble sleeping then of course I will move -- it is my job as a husband to absorb inconveniences so that you don't have to," [Yes, I really did say and believe EXACTLY that!] I find myself now feeling instead, "Look this is a fictitious problem (because my girlfriend says I don't snore, but never mind that part); if you can't sleep then EITHER you need to be willing to wait five minutes until I enter a different phase of sleep OR ELSE it is something related to your conditions or medical cocktail that is totally independent of me. Either way, I no longer have the patience to turn backflips over the issue. If you want a 50/50 solution, then don't propose that we alternate nights on the sofa -- offer instead that you will spend 5 years on the sofa first and THEN we can alternate nights." I know as I write this that it sounds like I am being petty and vindictive; but I have just lost patience over the topic.

As usual, D was able to wrap up the discussion by bringing a wider focus: ...

It was very helpful, if rather depressing, to hear more about the sleeping situation in your marriage. I understand the sense of being in the same place, again and again, without making any headway. I tend to react by becoming very silent and depressed rather than profane and loud, but that's just style, not substance. What I've learned over the years with my husband, always the hard way, is there is no changing a person. Even when people vote to hold on to their resentments and irrationalities, to being self-righteous rather than happy, I know now to accept it. The only -- and even that's a difficult job -- person I can change is myself. That's why I don't argue with my husband any more...I know he's already made his decision, and all I can do is accept his choice to live with me as a companion rather than a spouse. I have fought and lost. Looking back, the outcome seems obvious to me. That doesn't make it any less sad, but it also doesn't destroy everything we have shared for thirty years. There's a process here of slow forgiveness -- of myself as well as him, and perhaps I need the forgiveness more. Of course, my situation is fundamentally different from yours because my husband is an admirable and mature human being who has never been unkind or failed to support me. I respect him greatly. I just don't have a marriage or a love relationship with him. I don't ask to sleep with him because we aren't "man and wife" in anything but name, and to pretend otherwise is false. I sleep with the man I have sexual relations with, however infrequent given our circumstances. If what you said about sexuality months ago is true [it was a short summary of my 3-part essay starting here], and it seems right to me, I am living with as much integrity as I can find in a situation more like a mine field than a railroad track. I can't imagine driving you to the same level of despair; our relationship is founded on a very different set of premises and behaviors. Time will tell.

Drink, drinking and drunkenness

When Lent began, D (a Catholic) told me she was giving up alcohol until Easter. At the time, I decided that if she was going to give up alcohol for forty days, so would I (although it was some weeks before I told her about this decision). I'm not a Catholic, but I figured it couldn't hurt.

Now, we did share a bottle of wine over dinner one night during our Fourth Date last week, but she insisted that it was St. Joseph's Day and therefore all right. As I say, I have no doctrinal attachment to hair-splitting on this issue, so I let her worry about that side of it and didn't argue.

I thought her remarks after the first few days were important in explaining why she chose to give it up:

It's been interesting living without alcohol the last few days. I won't say it's been easy. I actually think there is a path of moderation to be found, but not living alone. It's far too easy to convince yourself that you need a friend and since no-one is around, drinking a glass...or three...of wine seems like a substitute. I've given up almost all serious reading and intellectual engagement outside of what I need to do for my classes and some sort of literacy in theology and politics. I guess the warning that I received was the my feelings of self-pity and blame after three drinks...falsehood and lies to myself seemed true. Time to stop; Lent just offers me a convenient reason. And face it, many times we drink simply to be social. Why not give it up for similar reasons?

Thought you'd enjoy this brief review of Greek drinking. [link]

I wasn't sure I had anything to add to her personal remarks about drinking, but I did do some thinking about the article she referenced. The next day, I replied to her as follows:

An interesting article, but it falters (in my view) by adopting an overly rationalistic view of Greek life; this is a common error, but I think that it (in turn) is a consequence of the accident that we have preserved the writings of Plato and Aristotle almost intact, while there are whole epic cycles which have been irretrievably lost to say nothing of a good 90% of the literary output of EACH of Aeschylus and Sophocles. And there are authors about whom we know only the names, to say nothing of authors whose names we don't know ... to say (in turn) nothing of those aspects of life which were never written down in a largely non-literate society. So most of what we have to describe daily life is Plato (and Xenophon); but I think that there is good reason to suppose that Plato was deliberately changing what he would have seen in the hopes of promoting a better example. For instance, the only detailed account we have of any symposium [drinking party] is Plato's Symposium. But it seems at least possible to me -- and actually rather likely -- that Plato was not describing a typical symposium (which may well have been more drunken and debauched) but rather what he hoped a symposium could become at its best. It is worth noting that in the Laws (also by Plato), Megillus the Spartan and Cleinias the Cretan give the Athenian Stranger no peace over the subject of drinking ... because it is "well known" that the Athenians are all debauched drunkards, and all of Greece has heard disreputable stories about these symposia that rich men hold, where they sink deep into their cups while being entertained with beautiful, scantily-clad serving wenches and female musicians playing flute music. (The flute was well known to inspire passion and madness, as opposed to something more staid and settling like the lyre.) The Athenian Stranger replies that things are indeed pretty bad the way they are handled today, but his companions shouldn't rule out a useful role for symposia if only they were managed better. He then describes a proposal for how an idealized symposium COULD BE managed, if only anybody could be found to take on the job; and what he describes looks a lot like the party in Plato's Symposium.

In general, I have long thought that the true incarnation of the Greek spirit comes a lot closer to Alexis Zorba than to Socrates son of Sophroniscus. Indeed, I think that much of the fascination with Socrates over the centuries has been precisely that he is such an anomaly ... and that the path he marks out is a particularly hard one for a healthy Greek to walk. Maybe harder than it is for us duller, stodgier, less-imaginative people .... (smile) Naturally in saying this I do not forget that -- if you follow my own roots back far enough -- you can probably find men who swilled mead drunkenly from goblets fashioned out of the skulls of their enemies. But be that as it may .... And even Socrates acknowledged the guidance of a divine sign that came to him from time to time.

The Bacchae is a hair-raising play, but also a haunting one. E. R. Dodds introduces a discussion of it in one of his essays by starting with a review of the last three years of Euripides's life: in this year he wrote xxx and yyy (I don't remember); in the next year he wrote nothing at all. "And then, in the very last year of his life, he wrote a play that held the Athenian stage for four hundred years" -- The Bacchae. But to see in it a story about intemperance and alcohol abuse is as flat-footed and pedestrian an interpretation as to see in Hippolytus nothing more than a story about lust. -- or, to use an example I've used earlier -- to see in "Dangerous Liaisons" or "Othello" nothing more than stories about adultery or jealousy. There is something terrifying, awe-inspiring, overwhelming, and totally out of all proportion about all these stories -- something that makes it appropriate to see them as stories about the Gods and Their vengeance, because no story about the Gods can ever be balanced or orderly or temperate or just. The Gods -- and in this reckoning I most certainly include the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Lord of Hosts -- are far too wild for that, totally wild, wild beyond all reckoning. We love Them because life is so flat and colorless without Them; but that doesn't mean They might not toss us about the way a hurricane can toss rowboats against sheer rock faces and never notice the difference.

And I think it is indisputable that -- in this sense of the word "divine" (there are others, of course) -- there is something inescapably divine about both alcohol and sex. Both of them are often (a little condescendingly) called "physical pleasures" by people who should know better. But the truth is that alcohol and sex both provide access to profoundly spiritual pleasures -- and this is why they are so overpowering, so compelling ... and so destructive when misused. I read the comment once -- I forget where -- "I will believe sex is a physical pleasure when I see a gourmand sighing wistfully over a fillet mignon, or falling into a jealous rage over a strawberry shortcake." Obviously that will never happen, which proves (as if proof were needed for something so obvious) that sex has an inescapable spiritual component. That is also why meaningless, totally uncommitted sex -- or sex for money, for example -- is so vile: because it is sex with half its nature amputated off. Like those half-children in "The Golden Compass." (I've read the book but not seen the movie; so I don't know if the movie did them justice.)

What is more, alcohol has something of the same divine nature that sex has. Its spiritual side may not be quite as overpowering as is true for sex, but it is still real. And I bet that there ARE those who would feel wistful or jealous over alcohol, under the right circumstances. So this is a "physical pleasure" with at least a non-trivial spiritual component as well; and therefore it is not out of line to see it as something at least partly graced by divinity; and therefore to treat it in terms of trim syllogisms about self-control, the way the Neoplatonists trivialized the Gods into cosmological checker pieces to be pushed around a conceptual board this way and that -- or the way someone like Immanuel Kant treated every single aspect of human life, come to that -- is to miss the wild, howling, madness of the reality, the ecstasy of the dancers with Dionysus and the terror ("pan-ic") spread by Great Pan as he hunts through the forest in the dark of night.

I suspect that all of this falls into the category of material that the author really didn't feel he could explain to his students. It may not make sense till you have lived it. But the upshot is that you shouldn't feel shocked that your wine forces itself into your glass once, twice, three times. Yes, you can make a conscious decision to back away. But that's different from thinking it should be easy.

On lying, part 3

Back around the end of January, D and I were discussing when we might see each other again. (This was after our Second Date, and before the Third Date had even been contemplated.) I knew I would have an upcoming trip in March – the one which ended up being our Fourth Date [no, I haven’t posted on it yet] – but the details hadn’t been worked out yet and I was trying to figure out if there were some way to squeeze in a side trip to see D. In the course of the discussion, she and I had the following exchange on truthfulness and lying. I include it because I think it adds an interesting layer to my previous meditations on the subject (in particular, here and here).

In a couple of earlier e-mails, D had gotten pretty impatient with me for not proposing some kind of plans sooner, and she had started to question whether I really wanted to see her all that much. For my part, I was just having trouble thinking of a plausible excuse. With that in mind, I wrote her:

In the discussion about our getting together, all I have said is that I have a hard time lying (although I am not worried about how I will react if Wife asks me [whether I am having an affair]....). If this were easy for me, I think you would have reason to wonder if I am who I say I am. If this were easy for me, you would be more likely to believe Wife's crazy stories about me, because you would think, "Well, he SAYS that story is not true, but I know he can lie very convincingly." As it is, you know that I am in general pretty bad at making up stories out of the whole cloth (especially with all the substantiating details), so when I give you my side of some harebrained tall tale that Wife has just told you, it is easy for you to decide which is true. For the most part, I think this is a good thing. The only downside is that it makes it inconvenient to make plans when I can't say openly “I want to go see D for a week.”

To this, D replied as follows:

Hosea, you can and you do lie. We all do. You are not comfortable with this idea because it doesn't fit the (flattering) picture you want to maintain about yourself, but we all engage in various degrees of deceit. I'm not cynical; rather, I'm intensely curious and interested in why we lie and what purpose lying holds for us. You are perfectly willing to lie when it serves the family well, for example, when you "listened" to Wife and Boyfriend 5's IM conversations to learn about their relationship. You go out of your way to keep your income from her, and you have made no effort to bring her fully into the financial workings of the family because you feel it's better if she remains in the dark. All of these decisions can be argued with, but that they demand a level of subterfuge is undeniable.

When you have a problem lying is when anything comes up that might mean a certain freedom and happiness for yourself. That's not a noble desire to avoid lying, that's a denial of your right to be happy, even for a day. Duty is a high priority, pleasure is not. I question that calculus on several grounds. First, I don't think it works, not forever. Our relationship is inconceivable if you did not, on some level, understand that living without love was sad and undesirable...and not necessary (I can be arrogant at times, but I have no illusions about myself as unique in recognizing you have just about every quality any woman would want; if I was not in the picture, someone else would be there soon). Second, just exactly what do you think you are teaching the boys about love and marriage? Do you really think they haven't figured out that you and Wife have long ago abandoned any genuine love for one another? Her brutal and appalling comments about you in front of the children to me are evidence hard to argue. They need to see real love, and they need to know that men and women can love, passionately and completely. To pretend anything else is also a lie, and nearly unforgivable. [These last two sentences actually puzzled me, because I’m not sure what she is talking about or how she thinks the boys are going to “see” this “real love.” What, between me and D? That’s really not the plan.]

If you told Wife you wanted to stay overnight in [Big City] to view a museum exhibit, or to listen to a lecture, or [see the famous sights there], she could have nothing to say after years of sacrifice and self denial on your part for her. That you agonize over this possibility has nothing to do with lying and everything to do with the value you place on yourself. If she guesses that you will not be alone...she says she doesn't care. Wife has been with several men, in your home, with no regard for your feelings. If she imagines that you might be enjoying yourself with someone else, she has only herself to blame.

One extra day after a week or more of being gone will make no difference in her condition. If you need to arrange transportation for the boys, then you need to do that, whether or not you see me. Again, this isn't about Wife’s frail health, which must be managed, or about your reluctance to lie. It's about your despair over whether you can claim any happiness for yourself apart from fatherhood. The answer is yes. Whether you see that opportunity, or chose to exercise it, is very much your decision. But let's be clear on the decision that must be made, and it's not one about lies.

Lazy and unmotivated

It's been two weeks since I posted last.

OK, I guess that isn't really news. It's amazing how much you can figure out with no tool besides a calendar. What is less clear to me is why I haven't posted.

I don't have time. Right, except it's not like I had any more time, really, back when I was posting every other day. I don't have any news. Patently untrue, although I suppose there haven't been any actual crises lately ... and that is a good thing. I can't think of something to say. Plenty of people who know me would happily swear that if I can't think of anything to say, then it must be the first time in something like forty years. I'd like to pretend this is a base calumny on their part, but I'd be outvoted in a heartbeat. I use up whatever writing time I have sending e-mails to D instead of sending posts to blogspot. OK, this may actually be plausible. (And I can try to mitigate the situation by copying posts out of my Sent Mail folder.)

What is more, I have just been feeling tired and depressed and lazy and unmotivated. Last week I told D I had been thinking of shutting down or going on permanent hiatus, just because ... well, I couldn't really articulate why. Just because. Ever a sweetheart, D suggested that I sleep on this before doing something drastic, and of course I haven’t done it. But that’s not to say the temptation hasn’t dangled itself in front of my mind, even if it makes no sense.

In the meantime, let me try in the next couple of days to bring you up to date on the news. I don't promise any great literary efforts here. It won't be writing, just typing. But let me see what I can do.

Counseling 22

We were in Counselor's office today, and Wife wanted to revisit a fight we'd had last week as evidence that I care nothing about her. (It was nearly midnight when we fought, and I make no claims I was being rational. It didn't show up either of us at our best, honestly.)

Anyway, after we had discussed it for a long time -- and I'm skipping the details because you can't be interested in them -- Counselor came up with a very pithy summary.

"You know," he told Wife, "whenever you and Hosea get into this kind of cycle, it always seems to come back to the same place for both of you: You feel disrespected, and Hosea feels misunderstood. And that seems to be the central drama for each of you."

He spent a little more time with it, trying among other things to tell Wife that from where he sits, it looks to him like I care about her very much. (Which means, although he is supposed to be an impartial third party, that he was actually telling Wife she misunderstands me ... at least some of the time.) But I think the important part was the summary. I like it and will have to pay attention to it, the next time one of these boilerplate arguments springs itself on us ....

These posts are getting shorter and shorter. Either I'm losing steam, or I'm really busy. Well, I know I'm busy. Not sure about the "losing steam" part, though.

Does conversation matter?

Marriage as a long conversation.— When entering a marriage, one should ask the question: do you think you will be able to have good conversations with this woman right into old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory, but most of the time in interaction is spent in conversation.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche, Human All-Too-Human, aph. 406

And actually, we used to talk a lot. For many years, this quote gave me hope that things would turn out fine even if they were bumpy along the way. Too bad we don't have anything to talk about any more ....

Counseling 21

Counselor: So what do you two talk about?

Hosea: Well, actually it has been tough finding topics that we still have in common that we can discuss.

Counselor: Do you ever talk about what went on at work?

Hosea: No, usually not.

Counselor: Why not?

Hosea: [thinks to self] I never remember what went on at work because I spend all day thinking about my girlfriend, when I'm not e-mailing her or making plans to see her. [actually says out loud] mumble, mumble, mumble ....

The rest of the session was spent talking about ways that Wife could find things to do in her life that she actually enjoys.

Lunch with a forty-something octogenarian Wife

You may remember that a couple of meetings ago, Counselor suggested Wife and I do something to get time together, and I suggested lunch. So we met for lunch today.

OMG what a lunch!

I had picked out a Vietnamese restaurant downtown -- not too big, not too crowded. I'd only ever been there once before, with a friend from work. Got a table, ordered some lemonade and an appetizer, and waited for Wife.

She was about 10-15 minutes late, which was no big deal and which I kind of expected. No sooner did she get to the table, though, than she launched into a sharp speech that Son 2 had called her from school with an asthma attack so she had had to go there with his inhaler before coming downtown. "See, here's his inhaler in my purse. And if you don't believe me you can ask Son 2!"

Good heavens, where did that come from? If it's true, of course I'm concerned for him; although I'm also a little puzzled because such a thing hasn't happened in ... well I can't even remember how long. I can't remember if it has happened before. Can he sometimes still suffer from asthma? Sure. But to call from school over it? Pretty close to unprecedented. So as I say, if it is true then that is definitely cause for worry; if it is false, I assume the point is just to establish that she has a good reason for being late, which hadn't worried me in the first place.

We ate the appetizer (shrimp, but she guessed it as chicken ... must be the sauce) and looked at the menu. What did I recommend? I explained I'd only been here once before but at that time I had had one of the soups and enjoyed it. So she ordered a soup and I ordered a curry.

It was kind of hard finding something to talk about, since I had ruled out the schedule, the kids, and medicine. She explained that Boyfriend 4 was looking forward to visiting while I was gone on my upcoming business trip. [Have I explained this part yet?] I explained that I was planning all the people I need to meet with while I'm gone. She told me Friend is getting whiny and demanding, and summarized some long, pointless soap opera involving him. She told me about her latest conversation with D, and how hard D is working these days. I asked her how far she had ever gotten in Speaker for the Dead, and she said she'd gotten about 70 pages in and then lost the book. But if I could find it for her, she'd be glad to have some more fiction to read. And after a while our food arrived.

Then she started complaining about the food. It was too bland. It had no flavor. It was boring. She tried one of the pepper sauces, to see if that would liven it up ... but no go, that was just pure hotness, still no flavor. Finally she decided she was just going to eat the shrimp out of it, leaving the broth and the noodles. (My lunch was lovely.)

We ate (well, at least I ate) and talked (sort of). When I was done, she offered me the rest of hers, adding "I didn't think it was possible to prepare shrimp in a way that made it tasteless, but they sure managed here." I tasted a couple of bites of her soup, surprised because mine (the last time) had been so good. It was very simple, but tasty; the flavor of the shrimp had combined with the flavor of the light beef broth -- and I think one or two herbs -- to create a subtle and interesting combination. I liked it. I'd already eaten my lunch so I wasn't going to eat all of hers, however, and presently the waitress came by to ask, "Would you like me to pack up your soup to take home?"

"No, don't. I didn't like it here, so I sure don't want to have to take it home."

I almost fell through the floor. The waitress calmly cleared up. When she had left, I asked Wife rather pointedly, "Why did you say that to her? What did she do to you, for you to say something as hurtful as that? All she's doing is waiting tables, trying to make an honest dollar ... and you have to slap her in the face? When she's not even the cook? I mean, that would be like my saying I don't want to eat lunch with you because you have no manners."

"You could say that."

"But I don't!"

Then before she could start in defending herself, I asked, "Do things taste the same as they used to?"

"I think so."

"Well, think now. I usually make the same five things for dinner, week in and week out. So if you say that spaghetti tastes the same as always, maybe you are just dining on the memory of what it used to taste like. But that soup you hated had the kind of flavor which, twenty years ago, you would have loved. So I wonder if something is changing in your taste buds or your sense of smell to make things taste different than they used to?"

We talked about this for a while, and Wife speculated that if such a thing were happening, it might explain why she never wants to eat any more ... because nothing entices her. Fine, maybe there is a connection, and maybe that's something for her doctors to work on. In the meantime, we have another problem. I recommended having lunch together from time to time as a way to find what we still have in common. But if that's not going to work (and there is no way I'll go out with her for lunch after this!) then what can we do instead? What would she enjoy?

There followed a long silence, or talk that meant the same thing as a long silence, and the upshot is that there isn't anything she enjoys. She goes through the motions every day -- "I do whatever is assigned to me" -- but there is nothing that she actually enjoys doing. Nor can she think of anything she would enjoy.

"So you might as well just lock me up and put me away." (At first I thought she was thinking of the Amontillado, which I found horribly gruesome; but in retrospect I guess it was a reference to Mrs. Bertha Rochester.)

"Now you know I'm not going to do that. Besides, our house doesn't have the space."

"Oh we wouldn't need to use our house. Just tell my psychiatrist that I'm a danger to myself and others, and I'm sure he'd be happy to put me away for good. Of course, then our insurance would get billed for it all, and you know how mixed up that would get. Plus when we ran out of insurance coverage we'd have to pay the rest of the charges out of pocket, which would ruin us financially as long as you were still married to me. So I guess you'd have to divorce me, and then you could have me locked away and not have to pay the bills."

I tried to climb down off this scaffolding with her, and get back to the question whether she could think of anything -- anything at all -- that she would enjoy. At first she had all kinds of excuses for saying No: she can't do this because of that, over and over. But I said forget the excuses for a minute. Regardless of whether it is possible for you to do something, do you even enjoy doing it? When she still couldn't think of anything, I finally said, "OK listen. You say you do whatever is assigned to you. Fine, this is an assignment. I am assigning you the task to think of activities you would enjoy, if only they were possible. I don't mean something big like 'teaching,' but little concrete components like 'learning new things,' or 'explaining stuff to other people,' or whatever. Make a big list and report back one week from today. Once you've got a list, then we can figure out which parts we can make possible. But first we need the list."

We'll see how far we get.

The crack in the glass

Earlier today, D and I were bickering about something unimportant, and she drew a distinction between "sin" and "guilt". I asked what she meant, and she just replied airily that if I didn't know the difference then I must be very lucky.

I was slightly annoyed at being answered (or non-answered) so cavalierly, so I wrote back, "I tried typing 'What is the difference between sin and guilt?' into Ask.com but none of the links looked very useful. Sometime when you have the leisure you can enlighten me. (smile)" Memo: that was probably the wrong thing to say.

D's reply, several hours later, was slow and quiet and thoughtful. And it gave me a lot to wonder about. She wrote as follows:

I am made very quiet and still by your flippant handling of the difference between sin and guilt. Teary, in a way that other matters [the stuff we were bickering over] cannot begin to reach. This isn't a matter of enlightenment. Rather of experience, of knowing the price we pay for sin. A story? Maybe that will make it clear. Imagine a woman caught in an affair, someone like myself, whose husband is kind and loves her, and yet the person she's involved with is so much more exciting and stimulating. They meet after work, they go on brief holidays, they have a wonderful time. She considers leaving her husband, but there are two small children and she hesitates. She agonizes over the relationship, and finally decides to end it. The man she was seeing becomes a friend and nothing more, and her marriage, paradoxically is better than ever. Her husband never finds out and she is able to rejoin the family. The sin is over.

Yet she is unable to go on some days. The guilt she feels after betraying her most cherished ideals leaves her no peace, no consolation to be found. She is made miserable by guilt, guilt that remains hidden from the rest of the world, but the guilt that makes her feel like her entire life has been a lie. She realizes that the crack in the glass will not cause the vessel to shatter, but it can never be what it once was, as she can never be what she once was. The changes are real and she does not know how to live with them.

I think the crux of sin is right here. It's the damage within that threatens to disfigure us, and the ultimate challenge, it seems to me, is to understand this is precisely where God meets you. To hold on and agonize over the past is completely destructive and a denial of God's power to forgive and His ability to restore a person. It's not that we forget the sin; we don't. But we accept the changes and become someone different because of them. We find compassion, we stop judging so harshly, we do something extraordinary to make up for the sin we committed. We adopt children, we start foundations, we follow Jesus, understanding at last what he offers.

You might want to look at this distinction more carefully. You might not find it online, but you don't have to go far.

All my love,
D.