"Is this just a mid-life crisis?"

Thursday evening I worked late, collected Son 1 from his soccer game (they won 3-0), drove home, and we all had dinner.

After dinner, Wife and I talked a little more -- very lightly, but even talking that lightly is a big change from the silence recently. She said that the trip to see Boyfriend 3's dying father [Tartuffe] yesterday was really "intense." I asked about this, because it seemed to me that except for half an hour with Boyfriend 3 at the beginning of her visit, and twenty minutes with my parents at the end, she was alone for two hours with an unconscious, dying man. There are ways that could be intense, but I wanted to know which ones she had in mind.

Piecing it together (although this was not the order of the conversation), it seems that a lot of her reflection started with seeing Boyfriend 3, and with them sharing their regrets for their affair (as I mentioned yesterday); then after he left, it seems like she spent time pondering the turn of events which meant that that affair (and others like it) had led us to making plans to split up.

Once again she started crying, commenting that -- as I know -- she doesn't deal with change very well and our divorce will be a very big change. She also said plainly -- for the first time that I remember -- that she is really frightened by this looming change. I think this is valuable because I think it is true, and Wife says all too few true things. So part of why I have the patience for this kind of conversation, even though we don't really "accomplish" anything in them, is that I preserve a hope that even now she can find her way to seeing the truth instead of hugging so tightly to self-deception.

When she elaborated on why she was frightened, she listed two fears in the following order: that it will mean a drastically lowered standard of living, and that it will mean she will see the boys less often. Later on, as we continued to talk, she said that the single hardest thing for us to work out would be the finances because the cost of housing is high. I said that's trivial -- if we have to, we can sell the house and each of us take a one-bedroom apartment; that will be cheaper than the mortgage plus an apartment. She still demurred, so I pointed out that we could always move to cheaper towns in the area -- the kind of town Wife has always looked down her nose at. She was quiet for a long time after that.

There was more. She wondered out loud whether maybe we were both just going through "mid-life crises" and were getting bored with a marriage that was "basically good." (I don't even bother trying to reconcile remarks like that with the other vile things she has said on other occasions.) I said I don't know what a mid-life crisis is. She said it is when you have to give up your youthful dreams for your life, and you worry about becoming less attractive and having to spend the rest of your life with the same mate, so you think about changing for somebody new. I rolled my eyes and said that the last thing I need right now is another woman in my life -- which, if you interpret it in the fullest possible context, is probably even true. After all, I've already got D in my life ... why would I need "another"? (smile) I also explained that, as a youth, I had never been able to envision the future very well; so my youthful dreams for my life were pretty inchoate. And I reminded her that we have gone over some very basic reckoning. A marriage typically involves mutual fondness, common property, and sex. But our mutual fondness has been battered by years of fighting; we can't agree on how to spend money (or handle property); and our sex life (which was unsatisfying in the past) is now clearly dead. So if this is "just a mid-life crisis," then what exactly is left to rebuild on?

All she said was, "I know. I come to the same answer every time I think about it." But of course it frightens her.

Then it was time for me to chase the boys into bed, and Wife turned in. As I was trying to get him to brush his teeth, Son 1 asked us if we thought he could be a lawyer. We both said yes, if he wanted to he would be an excellent lawyer. This made him happy, and he started to talk about how much money he could make as a lawyer. I told him yes, all that is very, very possible ... but I still made him brush his teeth.

Good night, all.