On the emotional side, Wife kept coming back to saying, "I thought you would always be there for me. I thought you would never leave me for the rest of my life." At these times she would start to cry.
All I could say to that was, "How strong did you think I am? You spent so many years pushing against me, kicking at me, tugging away from me ... did you think I could continue to carry you forever and not drop you? Did you think I could carry that burden forever and not break under it? I guess in a way that is flattering, but I'm not Superman ...."
On the practical side, we came to no agreements but at least put a couple of topics on the table. None of these issues can be resolved at a single blow, however. My general approach to complex, high-conflict issues is to stake out a general position on things like custody or the house, ... then let her rail against it for a while, ... circle around, ... remind her that if we can't come to an agreement we'll have to go to court at which point neither of us gets what we want, ... and then drop it. Hours or days later we can pick it up again and there is a chance she will have shifted herself to a slightly more reasonable starting point. During the discussion Saturday, for instance, it looked like there was a chance that I might be able to get more time with the boys if I agree to look after some of her stuff. Is the stuff mostly worthless junk? Of course. But if I can get a better custody agreement that way, it might be worth it.
It is also very important to her that we not sell the house right now, so that the boys can still live in it. Her first position on this was one I didn't much care for -- viz., that she should stay in the house with them while I pay for it. Sorry, but no; I told her that I would rather go to court than accept that solution ... and I have been assured by several people that going to court means the court will order us to sell the house and split the proceeds. (In this market, that may be pocket change.) She wailed about this for a while -- how heartless I am, that I want to deprive the boys of their home! No, I said, there are several options that allow them to stay there: you could scrape together the cash to buy me out (and then work out a way to make the mortgage), or I could stay in the house with them. The only one I have ruled out is paying you to stay there. Well, after several hours she circled back to this topic with the thought that she might be willing to accept my staying in the house with the boys if she could still retain 50% title, so that in the future we could sell it at a profit. I said let's talk some more later.
Another example of "circling around": she started by asking for the kids Wednesday evening to Thursday morning and then all weekend (Friday night to Sunday night). Since then, D has assured me that is a pretty normal division of time; but on the spot I responded by offering her Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday. That went nowhere, and we bickered for a while. It would sound like there is not a lot of way forward there. But she is also really afraid of living in the kinds of neighborhoods she'll be able to afford -- her assumption is that she'll only be able to afford poor neighborhoods with lots of gang activity. (Wife also suffers from strong racial prejudices that she staunchly denies ... but that all her friends see and just shrug their shoulders at. Anyway, these prejudices affect her view of where it would be acceptable to live.) So after we wrangled for a bit I dropped the issue and we talked about something else. And a couple of hours later, she came back to say that if I could look after some of her stuff, she might be able to look for an apartment in a small town about 20 minutes away, a town which is cheaper and -- for the money -- nicer. This small town is close enough that we could still keep actively in touch; but it is far enough that she really couldn't ask to have the boys for a week night on a regular basis, because it would be inconvenient to get them back to school the next morning. Which means that in a roundabout way she has dropped the demand for Wednesday without actually having to concede anything explicitly.
We further agreed that any arrangements will have to be somewhat flexible: so that I can take the boys if she is sick, or she can take them if I have a business trip, or neither of us insists on "our"time if there is something special happening over a weekend somewhere. After all, more and more the boys will want to spend time apart from us both.
__________
The conversation resolved nothing, but I was fairly pleased by it. At least it opened up some topics so that we could explore them a little farther. But when I described it to D on the phone that afternoon, she got very quiet and withdrawn, the way she usually does before some kind of meltdown. I asked her what was wrong -- and had to push considerably -- and finally she said that if I kept the house and kept Wife's stuff, then I could never afford to visit her. Well that's silly, and I tried to persuade her that we were talking about apples and oranges here and that I was trying to make concessions in areas I didn't care much about in order to sweeten the deal in areas where I did. But when we ended the conversation, D was still quiet.
The next morning I got a follow-on e-mail from D which expanded on her fears. It ran in part:
As I see it, you will not be free to build a relationship with me, or with any woman in the years ahead. You will be trapped by a mountain of things you neither want or use, but they are yours to care for and store anyway. You will spend more for your storage locker than you will on travel during the year, and that doesn't even begin to deal with the house and garage. You will have a large mortgage, alimony payments, credit card debt from her past purchases and likely, at least one tuition bill. There seems to be no 'starting over', no freedom gained at all. Of course, I realize that you feel sorry for her and your compassionate nature recognizes her sadness, but I wonder how guilty you ought to feel; you will be left with staggering debt and you will be the primary caregiver for your children. You certainly did not sign up for this deal; you hoped and worked for a relationship that offered some genuine love and support. Instead, Wife violated every precept of decency and now wants to take away any opportunity you have to build a new life. I am deeply apprehensive. You reassure me that you will be able to afford to see me, but I'm not convinced; you haven't done the financial calculations and my head for figures (simple calculation is the only math I do) tells me you are being optimistic at best. More seriously, there is no way to adjust our relationship, and you never mention moving beyond brief visits in cities far away. Perhaps this is because you have never been very good at planning for the future, but without growth and challenge, the relationship between us will remain on the edge of your life. I'm not sure how satisfactory that will be for either of us. It certainly doesn't build community or family, and that's always been central for me. For example, say you had the opportunity to join me in [another state]. Let's assume we were both able to find work and the boys were able to go to a good school and receive an excellent education. Under the arrangement you have now, there is no way any such arrangement could work. It's not a matter of custody; the boys could fly and see Wife on a very regular basis. But you would have custody of her property, and it's like Jacob Marley's chains, forged over a life of greed and extravagance. You will remain in the city where you are now, caring for them even if the boys attend boarding school and are far away. I'm not convinced this is viable, at least not if your happiness matters.
.... In short, what do you get out of this arrangement besides more responsibility and the pleasure of the boy's company? The last is a vital and all-important consideration, but I might want more. I know I want more. I'd like the opportunity to spend some genuine time with you, living a regular life and sharing meals and daily activities with you. I want a regular and exuberant sex life. I'd like the boys to see a loving relationship, and I'd like them to realize that change is inevitable and often a good thing. That doesn't mean I want to live with you permanently, or anything of the sort. But I'm worth more than a week's vacation here or there. Any woman you cultivated would want more of your time and energy. You are loving, kind, humorous and great company. You might open the possibility of that being returned in your future life.
Wow. Well, there are several possible answers to this, some of them kinder than others. Among them: I'm not suggesting any of this out of any feeling of guilt; nobody has any numbers in the first place, so it is specious to talk about even "simple calculations"; nobody ever said any of this was cast in stone; and I'm not planning to marry D. Fortunately she ended her letter by explaining very clearly that this was her own, personal, emotional response to what I had said, and that it was absolutely not any kind of request for me to change course by an inch. But my pushing her about why she had become so quiet had forced her to unpack her own feelings, and here they were.
We talked some more over the weekend (mostly by e-mail, actually), and D calmed down. I thanked her for letting me see it from her perspective, and I reminded her that nothing has been agreed and nothing is cast in stone. And she relaxed some. There is still a long ways to go, however.
__________
There is more ... the follow-on to this conversation has been trailing through the week ... but I think it belongs in another post.
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