"How sweet of you!"

Son 2 went to visit a friend from school this afternoon, and spent several hours there.  His friend, Chris, called him mid-morning -- I guess they had discussed it some time last week as well.  Wife told Son 2 it was fine for him to go; the time was set vaguely as "this afternoon," and so Son 2 asked me if I could drive him there about noon-ish.  Sure, no problem. 

 

Now, Wife had also said more than once that she wanted Son 2 to do most of the work in making a costume for some school production, albeit naturally under her supervision and with her guidance.  Since he needs to have the costume to wear to school Tuesday, and it is already Monday, you might therefore assume that this means Wife would be jumping up to get most of the work on the costume done in the morning (since she had just given permission for Son 2 to be gone in the afternoon); but this would be to assume a level of consistency, forethought, and industry that might be a little optimistic.  Wife sat in bed, sipping her coffee and reading the newspaper, all morning.  About 11:45 she started sorting the laundry, and Son 2 asked me if we could go over to his friend's house now.  Wife spoke up to say, "No, as soon as I get this laundry going, you and I are gonna sit down in the next room to work on your costume."

 

I intervened: "But you already told him that he could go over to Chris's house, and he's getting ready to go just now."

 

"I said in the afternoon," she objected.

 

"Yes, and that means right now."

 

Wife grumbled and looked for a clock, as I went on:  "I had noticed that you seemed to be waiting until afternoon to work on Son 2's costume, and I was just about to remark about how sweet it was of you to let him go visit his friend and finish it all yourself.  I just think that is really nice."

 

Son 1 piped up to add, "Or oblivious."

 

Of course Son 1 was completely right, and of course I didn't think that her delay was deliberate at all, much less sweet.  But I figured that if I said what I did -- and reminded her that she had already told Son 2 he could go -- then it would box her into a corner so that she would have to let him go.  And she did, and he had a wonderful time all afternoon.

 

It was only afterwards, while driving back from Chris's house, that I started to reflect on what had happened.  And I considered that maybe I perform some kind of valuable service to the boys just by being there, by being a second adult in the house even if (like today) it was nothing dramatic.  Because if I had not been there, what I can easily imagine is a scenario like this: 

 

• Wife gives Son 2 permission to go to Chris's house in the afternoon. 
• But then she wants him to do the work on the costume first, and because (in this scenario) she's the only one with car keys, he has to go along with the delay. 
• What with one thing and another (among other things, because Son 2 obviously can't sew as well as Wife can) it's maybe 3:30 before she is ready to take him over there.
• But by this time the afternoon is gone.  Chris has long since given up waiting, and decided to do something else.  By the time they could get there, it would be time to turn around and come home. 
• And Son 2 is then (in this alternate reality) bitterly disappointed. 

 

What is more, he would learn a lot from such a turn of events.  He would learn that Mom's promises can't be trusted.  He would learn that anything he wants is ipso facto less important than anything she wants.  He would learn that play and friendship are ipso facto less important than work ... even pointless, inefficient work.  And he would learn that it is the prerogative of adults to make children do their work for them, so that they (the adults) don't have to be bothered with it.  Because (next lesson) work is always painful and to be avoided.  And life is fundamentally bitter, disappointing, and treacherous.

 

Of course he wouldn't have learned all those things in so many words.  He might not even have been aware of them, certainly not as lessons learned consciously.  But is there any doubt that these are exactly the messages which would have seeped into his emotional life?  I think it is obvious that they would.  What is more, I would be willing to guarantee that something exactly like this actually happened to Wife in real life when she was a little girl living alone with her mother.  In the first place, this is just the kind of thing her mother would have done (another reason it is so easy for me to picture Wife repeating the cycle), with the one difference that there was no other adult to intervene because Wife's parents did not live together.  In the second place, it seems totally consistent with the kinds of messages that Wife herself has internalized about the world.  I don't know, maybe I'm wrong but the whole picture hit me so suddenly and so completely that I bet I'm not.

 

It seems like such a little, insignificant thing.  Probably I am just flattering myself by exaggerating my contribution out of all recognizability.  Is it even possible that consequences so large could come from actions so small?  Maybe not, but it is fascinating to think about.

 

---

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How Anchises felt

I'm not sure how successful a poem this is. Partly, I suppose, it is just an exercise in dactylic hexameter. Partly, too, I am continuing to try to work out this connection between religion and sex that is so topical when I am with D. Most recently I had an idea what I wanted to say, but couldn't get it to fit into the narrow space of a sonnet. But I realized that the example I wanted to use was Greek (no surprise there), so I looked up the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite for ideas. (You can find this on the web here or here.) And from reading that, I got the idea that I could try to draw a somewhat longer picture with a different kind of verse. The idea of using dactylic hexameter was inspired by Homer himself, of course; and because this foot is notoriously difficult to construct in English, I exempted myself from any obligation to use any other poetic devices (such as rhyme or alliteration).

The result looks almost like prose, at least to me. If you don't hear the meter in it, you won't hear anything else poetic. Still, it is after all just an exercise. Maybe I'll send it to D in a couple of days ....

This must be just how Anchises felt, waking from sleep in the darkness, his

Arm crooked around the young maiden who all through the night lay beside him. The

Evening before she had come to him, calling herself a young virgin, all

Untried in love and abducted by Hermes to Troy as a wife for him.

Her eyelids cast downward, she smiled. To his comfortable bed he directed her;

Took off her earrings, her bracelets next, loosened her girdle, let fall her gown.

There in her exquisite beauty she stood for a moment and looked at him.

Soft were her breasts, and her cheeks were flushed; dewy her thighs, and perfumed her throat.

Stricken with love he embraced the girl, kissing her lips and her shoulders.

Together they fell on the bed, and their love lit the night like a bonfire. But

In the still hours of darkness, Anchises awoke from his slumber. The

Maiden slept softly, but all around cast she a heavenly halo.

Then did Anchises know perfectly, this was no maiden, no virgin wife,

But an immortal -- a goddess! Great Aphrodite had shared his bed.

__________

When I awake in my hotel, the light in the room is from streetlamps.

Instead of the song of the nymphs I hear humming from the air conditioning.

Nestled against my chest sleeping, my sweetheart breathes softly and rests at peace.

My arm crooks around her and holds her close. My stubbly beard rubs against her hair.

Yet in my heart I am certain this woman must be more than mortal. Her

Lips get their sweetness from nectar. Ambrosia keeps her skin supple. How

Else to account for her passion? How else to explain how she loves me? What

Mortal could love so intensely? What mortal knows ardor so pure?

"I'm never getting married!"

I have lost count of how many times recently Son 1 (age 13) has said -- apparently apropos of nothing at all -- "I am never getting married!" It makes me sad. I mean, my parents fought too (sometimes, mostly during a span of a few years when they were having business troubles) and yet I always assumed that I would get married ... certainly that I wanted to. My father has suggested that maybe -- he's not sure -- taking a long look at my rather abrupt marriage could have encouraged my brother to avoid getting married. If it has the same effect on Son 1 and Son 2, that will be quite a lot of damage traced back to a single cause. But there may still be plenty of time for the boys to find themselves in a better place. I don't know, but I can hope.

I wrote all this to D last night, and I think it irritated her. Of course I should be careful talking about things like this, because quite obviously her perspective is that the sooner I am free of Wife (and the sooner she can take Wife's place at one level or another), the better. In any event, this is what she wrote back:

I can only get angry at your passive acceptance of Son 1's repeated statement that he will never get married. Of course Son 1 (and perhaps your brother) see the destructive features of your marriage and have become hesitant to marry. Looking down the road, your brother has no children, although from all reports he would make an excellent father, and if Son 1 remains single, he will probably enter a number of short-term relationships, perhaps father children, and yet spend little time with them. [I assume she is pulling this prediction out of some statistical study.] This pattern, so common in the community where I teach, is dreadful for children. Both boys and girls do worse in school, have more mental health and substance abuse problems, and the little girls become much more vulnerable to sexual assault. You have options, and you refuse to take them. You must bear some of the responsibility here. Wishful thinking will not provide a model of love and happiness within marriage; you have to create that with hard work and risk. It sounds like I'm advocating a kind of economic entrepreneurship for marriage; I don't mean to be so calculating. I realize too, that I am advocating for a divorce that might benefit me as well as the boys. I'm hardly a disinterested commentator. Yet it's hard to argue with me sociologically. The benefits of good marriages are profound, and the love and warmth witnessed by the children are blessings that echo throughout their lives and greatly benefit civil society. Love and partnership might also bless and enrich your life. Therefore, I have a difficult time when asked to respect your decision to remain indefinitely in a relationship so destructive to you and the boys. I accept it...I don't admire it.

Of course she is right about the benefits of marriage in the abstract. No question. That's part of what kept me in my own marriage for so long. (That and a certain basic lethargy.) But I do have some trouble applying her rant to my case in the sense of deriving any concrete program from it. I wrote back as follows:

Point taken, but I have to question what my alternatives are. It's not like the boys are three and five. If I filed for divorce tomorrow, Son 1 would be out of the house long before anything was settled. [He enters a boarding high school in the fall.] Son 2 might still be there long enough to witness the demolition of his entire known way of life, but not long enough to see anything rebuilt afterwards. [This assumes that he follows his brother to boarding school in two years.] Even assuming I were emotionally ready to remarry the day the decree was finalized, even assuming ... oh, a hundred other practical things all lined up just so ... [and even assuming I were prepared to marry D, which is not at all a foregone conclusion] the years for modeling loving spousal behavior are all gone. If anything better and sweeter happens in my life after this, no matter how soon I start, from the boys' perspective it will all be relegated to some vague, gauzy, And They All Lived Happily Ever After. It won't be a part of their lives, where they can learn from it by imitating it. At best it will be a case of "Gosh, I'm glad to know things worked out for Dad after all." And that skips over the colossal devastation that will be an inevitable part of the dissolution beforehand -- "inevitable" because we both know that Wife won't go quietly. She'll have no more motive to. Of course the responsibility is mine and all mine, but that's because it was my decision to marry their mother in the first place and then have children with her. Those horses are out of the barn by now. So yes, it leaves me deeply sad.

I am confident that there is a way forward, but I have not yet discovered the right one.

R.I.P. Boyfriend 4

Boyfriend 4 died this evening, Thursday, at 6:27 pm Central Daylight Time. That's from the e-mail that Estelle, his recent wife, sent out from his e-mail account. I must admit it is a little eerie getting mail that announces itself as being from Boyfriend 4 to say that he has died, but of course it makes sense that she did so. That's where he stored the mailing list of people to whom he was sending regular medical updates, and naturally that's the list of people she would want to notify. Still, it looks a little strange .... 

 

Estelle called Wednesday night to tell Wife that Boyfriend 4 was in the hospital and completely non-responsive, and to ask Wife if she knew what Boyfriend 4's wishes would be in that case. She does and did -- "No heroic measures" -- but the call left her really sad and weepy, fearing that Boyfriend 4 wouldn't regain consciousness before dying. At another point in the conversation, Estelle talked about how they had recently had to leave their home because of flooding, and were hanging out in a friend's living room; she said that Boyfriend 4 told her at that point that it was OK because wherever she and the girls were, that was "home" for him. Estelle added that she had never known Boyfriend 4 to lie to her, and so she found this very touching. Wife and I both reflected that Boyfriend 4 had lied to us any number of times, but never about that kind of thing. 

Apparently Estelle has concluded that Boyfriend 4 was the one Perfect Man for her -- far better than any of her other relationships (including the fellow who left her with two daughters). And while I smile inwardly just a tiny bit at the thought of Boyfriend 4 as the Perfect Man, I think it is immeasurably sweet that he was such a shining spot in her life, that he was able to be so fundamentally good for her. Surely that's one of the best kinds of legacy to leave behind. 

And really, you know, this isn’t a tragedy for Boyfriend 4. It's sad for us, of course, because we are his friends and we won't see him again. But for Boyfriend 4? He lived his life largely the way he wanted to live it. He had a last great adventure right at the end (marrying Estelle and moving to her state). He held his head up high through all the troubles of his last couple of years (preserving the cocky, sarcastic attitude all the while). And as for death itself, ... well, I don't think that's a tragedy for him either. I guess this is because, much as I like Homer, I think Homer got it wrong when he makes the shade of Achilles say (Odyssey, Book 11), “rather would I live on the earth as the hireling of another, with a landless master who had no livelihood, than be king of all the dead that are departed.” My own opinion, not that it counts for much, is that there are two possibilities. One is that death is like nothing more than a dreamless sleep, which is certainly nothing to fear. The other is that, as Albus Dumbledore says, “To the well prepared mind, death is but the next great adventure." Of course it is hard to argue for anything as purely speculative as this. But I guess I would say that if I were to die – and then find that I were still conscious after all! – that mere fact alone would be so remarkable to me, and so exciting, that whatever came next could not help but be an adventure, since I would be eager to find out everything I could about this new and totally-unexpected existence. Either way, I cannot see death as an enemy, nor even as the worst possible thing. And so I fundamentally cannot see the mere fact of dying as ipso facto tragic. I tried to suggest this point of view to Wife Wednesday night, but I don’t think I persuaded her. Estelle called again early Thursday morning, saying there was very little chance Boyfriend 4 would make it. I later found an e-mail from her (sent a couple hours before this phone call) in which she explained the situation:

This is Estelle for Boyfriend 4. Unfortunately the news I have is not good. Boyfriend 4 started having abdominal pain Monday night, and of course- being as stubborn as he is- he would not go to the hospital. Tuesday the pain eased slightly- then Wednesday he woke up- and said he took a morphine tablet (just ONE he kept telling me)and became quickly lethargic. I called an ambulance after arguing with him about it. He has what the surgeon called "free air" air that has gotten into the abdomen through a rupture or hole somewhere in the abdomen. He said sometimes they heal themselves- sometimes they don't. But in the condition he was in last night- surgery was not AT THIS TIME a viable option. IF his condition improves- and IF the problem does not resolve itself- then he may be able to consider the surgery. On the plus side- he held his own through the night- he is not on a respirator or ventilator. His blood pressure is low, but he IS holding his own at this moment. If any of you pray- he needs those prayers NOW.

By the time she called, she had no more confidence in his ability to hold his own. Wife was up (having slept fitfully), the boys were having breakfast, and I was shaving. Apparently Boyfriend 4 had come around to something vaguely approximating consciousness, and Estelle was holding the phone up to his ear. Wife spoke very softly into the phone, choking on noiseless sobs, telling Boyfriend 4 that she loved him and that she would meet him "on the other side." She then waved the boys up to the phone "to say goodbye." Son 1 curtly said, "Bye Cifu" and gave the phone back to her. ("Cifu" was what Son 1 often called Boyfriend 4 ... apparently it is a title one uses to address one's martial arts instructor in a dojo. Boyfriend 4 had studied martial arts for many years, and tried to teach the boys a bit during the time he stayed with us.) Son 2 tentatively whispered "I hope you get better," and scurried back to the table. Wife didn't offer the phone to me, and I didn't try to take it away from her. I have my doubts about how conscious he was likely to be, and the drama of that kind of scene would have been entirely out of keeping with the whole tenor of our friendship. Wife whispered on the phone some more, probably to Estelle rather than to Boyfriend 4, and then hung up and went back to bed. 

As I drove the boys to school, I explained some of the things that I say immediately above: that by my lights these developments aren’t bad for Boyfriend 4, but only for us. And Son 1 asked, "What really does come after death?" I explained that I don't know; Son 2 chimed in that we couldn't know because nobody had ever come back to tell us. Haven't they? I suggested that some people say they have talked to ghosts, but then other people deny that the testimony of ghosts has any validity. So in the end we don't really know. But we chatted about it all the rest of the way to school. 

Then I had no further news for the rest of the day, and I really didn't have time to check my home account again. I called Wife when Son 2 was done with his after-school commitments, to say we were on our way home and did she want me to pick up Son 1 from athletics practice while I was en route? She said yes, and added that she had gotten the news from Estelle that Boyfriend 4 had died. After I collected Son 1, as we were on our way home, I let both boys know. They were quiet and subdued, but no more than that. And then the evening was fairly normal. The banter over dinner was silly (though Wife looked dead tired and excused herself early to go lie down), Son 1 had homework to finish, Son 2 played a little outside and then came in and helped me with the Sudoku puzzle in today's paper. They had some ice cream and went to bed. And only then did I get a chance to check my home e-mail again, and found the news from Estelle:

It is with deepest grief that I tell you of the death of our beloved friend [Boyfriend 4], He passed this evening at 6:27 CT I loved him very much and he made my life a joyous experience.

Estelle

And you know, ... I can't help thinking that's just the kind of valediction anybody would want, ... the best kind there is. Of course it is sad for us to be deprived of a friend that we love; but -- given that we all have to go sometime -- isn't it a sign that you did something right in life if you were able to make someone else's life a joyous experience? Or to say it another way: death often wears the aspect of defeat; but surely, if you can make your exit like that, it is a kind of victory after all. And then, after all, it may not be the end. And we can always hope.

"Free-Range" parenting

Another topic totally unrelated to the main themes of this blog, but the world is nuts.

I was browsing for something on the Internet -- I forget what just now, but something to avoid actually working -- and ran across the following website:

Free-Range Kids

So I looked at it, thumbed through the blog a bit, and found myself wondering "Why the hell is this news? Does somebody actually have to say something as obvious as that kids need to be left alone in order to learn independence ... let alone argue the point ... let alone blog about it, for God's sake? Isn't this just proof that the world is nuts?"

But of course the world is nuts. I knew that going in ... honest, I did.

When I was a kid we lived in the suburbs of a big, metropolitan city. I would go out on my bicycle for hours, exploring the neighborhood ... and then the next neighborhood ... and then seeing what was down this street or that one. We had big, semi-wooded open spaces nearby where I would wander as well: the only rule was that my baby brother couldn't go farther than here without someone else, and we had to stay away from the river. Remember that big metropolitan town on whose outskirts we lived? If I needed to get somewhere I could take the bus wherever I had to go. The bus stop was maybe half a mile from our house, and from there I could get downtown, change to a subway, ... whatever. Mind you, I didn't need to do this much. Don't think I did it all the time. But the possibility was there.

These days my boys will ask for junk food and we don't have any in the house. "Can you go to the store and buy some?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to buy any ... besides which I'm busy right now."

[grunt]

"But that shouldn't be a problem for you," I offer. "You guys both have an allowance; you both have bicycles. You go to the store."

"By ourselves? Isn't that kind of far?"

"So go to the convenience store. It's only a mile away. And God knows they have lots of junk food there ...!"

"Naaaah, ... never mind. It's not important."

In fairness, Son 2 -- yes, the younger one -- has more of a sense of adventure. He's perfectly willing to ride his bike to the convenience store and buy goodies. Son 1 will often send him, but won't go himself. Back during the Big Cleaning Project nearly a year and a half ago, D routinely sent Son 2 out to the convenience store to get more scrub pads, more trash bags, more cleaning supplies of every description. And each time, she'd hand him money, say what she wanted, and then instruct him to get a treat for himself while he was there. Nothing simpler.

But then I look at our children's friends, and I start to think that our kids -- oversheltered and under-adventurous as they are -- may be the most independent of the lot.

The world is nuts.

That blog I mentioned above references a real horror story on the subject, which you can find here if you're into horror stories.

Violent Acres discusses the same things, with her trademark outrage and over-the-top profanity, in particular here and here. But she's right.

Sorry, this is probably boring and certainly off-topic. But it caught my eye ....

Shoulda read this before getting married, 2

Just today, I read the following in Carolyn Hax's advice column, which is syndicated in our local newspaper.

See the column "Oversensitive girlfriend rubs him the wrong way"

OK, strictly speaking this doesn't apply perfectly well ... back when Wife and I got married, I was still in love with her and there were still plenty of times that I enjoyed being with her. But still, the principle is an important one. And the clarification of what exactly constitutes compassion in a case like this would have been infinitely valuable.

Son 2 in a nutshell

Sometimes a picture -- or a sequence of them -- really is worth a thousand words. A couple of years ago I compared Son 2 to the young Anakin Skywalker. But I could just as well have compared him to Linus van Pelt, in "Peanuts." Today's strip clinches the comparison perfectly. Of all the people I know personally, only Son 2 could possibly have carried this off, and with no muss, no fuss, and no special comment that it was noteworthy.

The rest of us take turns being Lucy, I think. But Son 2 is clearly Linus.

You can find the official, copyrighted version of this strip here.

The invisible salad dressing

We had another upset over dinner last night. It was so trivial it's almost not worth talking about, and it's mostly because I was being hypersensitive and irritable. But the train of thought it has sparked interests me, just a bit ....

I was pulling dinner together, and Son 2 set the table. I asked him to put salad dressing on the table, which he did. When I called everyone to the table, Wife came in the room, looked straight at the table, and said, "I guess we need salad dressing"; then she went to the refrigerator and got a second jar of it. I got very peevish about calling her attention to the fact that there was already a jar of the very same stuff right in front of her eyes, realized that I wasn't going to simmer down right away, and removed myself from the scene.

What I tried to explain to her afterwards was that this had nothing to do with the salad dressing, and everything to do with the thousands of other times in the past that she has stared straight at something I or somebody else did for her ... and failed to see it. It's why I get so peevish about her grocery spending these days: she hasn't bought 5 lbs of broccoli lately, but while I was in International City she did buy a pound of rice when we already had 10 lbs in the normal place in the pantry; and a jar of red wine vinegar when I had bought one the weekend before I left; and so on, and on, and on. I have tried to put this in terms of wasting money, because I thought that was a language she would understand (though the dollar cost of an extra pound of rice is negligible); I have whined again and again about asking her to check the pantry before she buys something. But what it comes down to really is the anguish of being always invisible ... that nothing I do ever counts for her or registers with her, not because she is trying to be cruel but because in some way that I don't understand she genuinely can't see it.

I don't know why. But when I framed it to myself this way last night (after stewing for longer than I want to admit), I stopped being angry and just became profoundly sad.

I don't think she was trying to diss me or Son 2 over salad dressing. I think she stared straight at the bottle -- of which she had an unobstructed view smack in the center of her visual field -- and somehow truly didn't see it. I don't understand how this is possible, but -- if there were some way that it were possible -- it would actually help to explain so many other things about her catastrophic interactions with others that I think it would be a useful theory. I only wish I understood how it could be.

Is Wife autistic?

When I wrote a few days ago about Wife's inability to catch emotions from other people, Janeway asked me if she might be autistic. Interestingly enough, D had suggested something very similar when I told her about the same event. I have only a moment or two right now, but here is the relevant section from her e-mail:

"Is Wife is autistic in any way?... if she is, it might explain a good deal. Autistic Disorder is diagnosed if a patient fulfills a total of at least six criteria from three lists. (1) Impaired social interaction: Lack of peer relationships and absence of social or emotional reciprocity would seem to fit. (2) Impaired communication: language that is repetitive, stereotyped, or idiosyncratic fits some of what you and I have heard for years. (3) Activities that are repetitive, restricted, and stereotyped: Rigid performance or routines and rituals that don't appear to have a function or abnormal (in focus or intensity) preoccupation with interests that are restricted or stereotyped. Her activities with Boyfriend 5 and Friend and all of that crowd might fit this category. Autistic spectrum disorders are absolutely devastating, both to the person and to the family, and they certainly cause behavior that seems out of touch with other people's emotions.There is also a condition known as atypical autism, which is a label used for disturbances that don't meet criteria for Autistic Disorder because of too few symptoms, or atypical symptoms. It is used to diagnose adults who may have some of these symptoms, as autism is usually diagnosed as a child. I hope this helps you understand the condition better; you might want to seek further information and support if you think it might be helpful for the family to understand autism better.

"She says she doesn't enjoy Son 1's baseball games, but that's not true. Wife thinks that sports are beneath her interest as a highly intelligent person, but again, that's false on many levels. She has certainly been excited at the games I've attended, ...."

Gotta run. But it is food for thought.