On lying, part 8. Wife's handgun, redux

A few weeks ago, when Boyfriend 4 died, Wife was talking on the phone with Estelle, his widow. This phone call was the very day he died -- he was (so to speak) not yet cold -- and Wife asked Estelle about her handgun. (I don't remember if I told you that when I took Wife's handgun away for safekeeping, B4 and I agreed to tell her that he had it.) That she should choose such a time to press such a point is ghastly by itself, of course. But what made it worse for Estelle is that she knew she didn't have it. She wrote to me as follows:

I know that you and B4 had spoken of concern for your wife and having a handgun in the home where your boys are. And I understand that concern, having daughters of my own.

B4 told me of you removing the gun from the home and giving it to another friend- and saying it was with him. He understands the reasons behind that - and I know he would have kept the gun for her if only he had been able to get it and hold it.

She asked me about her .38 last night- I tapdanced around the subject, telling her that I had not sorted through his guns yet(true)and that as soon as I located it and his father and I finished discussing things that if it WAS in his things I would contact her about it.

You and I know that B4 did not have this firearm. It is my suggestion that you go to her and tell her that he did not have it when he died. As to returning it to her- that is going to be up to you and at your discretion.

B4 told me how troubled he was over this deception. He fretted over being asked for the gun someday and having to decide whether or not to tell her the truth. He loved your wife VERY much- and your boys- and you. To have to fib to someone he loved so much- even for their own good- bothered him.
Please- in memory of your good friend- tell your wife that he did not have the gun in his possession and I do not have it in mine.

I wish you all no ill and all the best-

Estelle

So, a couple of days later, I did just that. I told that it has been here at the house all along, squirrelled away in the garage somewhere (which it isn't, but good luck proving THAT wrong!).

The conversation did not go very well. She was angry that B4 had lied to her; I have to admit that I was fairly callous about this, and just said, "Fine. Call him up to yell at him about it." She repeated many of her usual remarks about how it's her property and she doesn't plan to shoot me with it, etc etc etc. No surprise there, as she always says the same thing. Then she said something else, however: that up until "about a year ago," she accepted implicitly that anything I told her was the truth, and that this had allowed me to get really self-righteous about condeming all the lies she has told to me; but now she has "realized that's not at all true." And she more or less asked me what I had to say for myself about that.

I replied by telling her that she was absolutizing: that there is a lot of ground between "Everything Hosea says is true" and "Everything Hosea says is false." And I pointed out that I have never been a Kantian in ethics. Kant famously said once that the moral obligation to tell the truth was so absolute that if a crazy man comes to your door looking to murder Mr. Smith, and you know where Mr. Smith is, you are not morally permitted to lie to the crazy man about his location. (Somehow I don't think Kant can have possibly understood what he was saying when he said this; and in any event, after some of the catastrophes of the twentieth century that example looks very different.) As I say, I denied to her that I was ever that kind of a Kantian in ethics. I contrasted Plato's more nuanced approach in Book 1 of the Republic, where someone argues that justice means giving people what you owe them, and Socrates poses this example: Suppose a friend of yours deposits his weapons with you to keep for him; and then one day he goes crazy, and (while crazy) he asks for them back. Does anyone believe that justice requires you give them back to him while he is out of his mind? Because that is surely "paying back what you owe." But everyone clearly agrees that the answer is No, you don't give them back while he is out of his mind, so justice must be something else. By the same token, I said, I have to exercise prudence in what I say when I think there is some kind of clear and present danger. Wife scoffed at the suggestion that she could ever pose a clear and present danger to anybody, and I just said that we see it differently.

Of course, there is more to the story. In fact, the risk of danger to life and limb is not the only reason for me to mislead her these days. There is also my relationship with D, not to put too fine a point on it. Wife recently characterized that relationship with remarkable acuity. She started by repeating her theory that maybe this is all a mid-life crisis, but then focussed in to suggest that all along I hadn't been getting what I wanted out of the marriage, and that I had resigned myself to not getting it; but then along came D and I realized it is possible for me to get all those things after all, and so I became angry at having wasted so many years. On the other hand, I'm not sure if she realizes yet that we meet each other throughout the year, and that it is a physical relationship as well as an emotional one. And of course I am in no hurry to tell her.

I discussed this all far better (at a theoretical level) in my last installment ["On lying, part 7"]. But I thought the update about this latest conversation might be relevant too.

A call from the psychiatrist

Not long after the last conversation I reported [see "Do you like being blackmailed?"], Wife took her evening pills and fell into bed. And a few minutes after that, the phone rang. I picked it up out in the kitchen at the same time that she picked it up in the bedroom. I said, "Hello?" She said, "Uh-h-h-h-o-o-o?" The voice on the other end of the line asked for her fairly brusquely. I said, "She's pretty tired right now." She said, "-a-a-a-at's me-e-e-e." I didn't hang up until the voice identified himself as her psychiatrist, and pretty peremptorily asked me to get off the line. So I got.

But from there I walked into the bedroom, to see how this conversation was going. Not well. Wife was lying face down on the bed, with the phone leaning against one ear, grunting "Uh-huh" at rare intervals. Her psychiatrist seemed to be trying to talk to her, but no such luck. [Readers will remember that this is exactly how she gets every night once she takes her sleeping medication. See, e.g., "Calling the paramedics."] Finally I picked up the phone and introduced myself to her psychiatrist. I had been able to overhear that he was trying -- with some considerable degree of concern -- to figure out what was going on with her and why she was so incoherent. What pills had she taken? I explained that I hadn't watched her take them, but that she is like this every night at about this time. He clarified -- more than once -- that he was worried lest she had taken a deliberate overdose of something (presumably he meant one of her narcotics). I answered, again, that I couldn't swear in a court of law to exactly what she had taken this night in particular, but in general she is very much a creature of habit when it comes to her pills and her incoherence tonight is absolutely consistent with the way she is every other night.

He said a couple of other things, all of which were innocuous enough by themselves but interesting in combination. First, he made it very clear that patient privacy laws forbid him to discuss her case with anybody else, so of course he couldn't say anything to me. But then he added that there is no law preventing him from listening [to me, that is], and sometimes that might be useful since all he ever hears is "one side of the story." He repeated that his concern tonight was to make sure she hadn't taken a deliberate overdose of anything; and while that would obviously have been anybody's concern once he heard how slurred her speech was, he never once said, "Also I need to reschedule our appointment next week so please have her call me tomorrow." The unstated implication, I think, has to be that the reason he dialed the phone tonight in the first place was out of a fear that she might be deliberately overdosing. And that, in turn, makes me guess (without his having said so) that she has said something to worry him.

In the end, he asked me to keep an eye on her tonight, just to make sure that she continues to look routine. (She has and does.) I gave him my cell phone number, in case I could be of any further help. He fumbled a little awkwardly at the offer, since of course he can't call me up to say, "Wife tells me that XYZ, and what is your side of the story?" But he took the number down. And then immediately he gave me his cell phone number too. Now, it might have been just a polite gesture, of course. But I wonder.

I'm not completely sure about all of what this conversation meant, but somehow I think it was important.

Do you like being blackmailed?

Another silly argument that started at the dinner table .... Honestly, if we all just gave up eating, we'd probably argue less. (joke)

Dinner is winding down. Son 1 starts making belching noises, on purpose. Wife scolds him to stop but he takes no notice. Not to be outdone, Son 2 lets out a long, noisy fart, making it obvious that he could have held it in had he wanted to. I send him away from the table for a few minutes, and when he comes back he is sulky. So sulky, in fact, that he decides he no longer wants the third helpings of dinner he had been asking for previously, but wants to get down from the table to finish his homework. (Damned good thing, too, because as it is the homework took him till quite late. And why did you wait this long to wrap up the assignment? Don't ask questions like that, Hosea ....)

Once he leaves the table, Wife picks up her usual refrain: "I don't want the boys to have to leave the table hungry."

Oh for heaven's sake. How many times have we gone over this? I steer her into the back room and then ask her point-blank, "Do you like being blackmailed?"

Wife: No, ... why?

Hosea: Because you are inviting it. Every time you refuse to send one of the boys away from the table for inappropriate behavior, all because you are so afraid that he might be a little hungry, you are pasting a sign on your back that says "Blackmail me!" And you are announcing to them that you won't and can't enforce any discipline whatever, because you won't and can't impose any consequences, because all they have to do is claim to be hungry and you cave in. And that means that you have given up being the adult.

Wife: Well I don't want them to be malnourished.

Hosea: Right, but they're not. Look at them -- they are the picture of health! Over the long haul of a week at a time, they aren't going to miss the food they need. And if they eat a little less this meal and a little more next meal, it's no big deal. They are fine. [And I ask readers to remember that Son 2, whose sulk started all this, had already had an entree, two vegetables, and second helpings on the entree. Honestly, malnutrition was not a risk for him tonight.]

Wife: But I don't want them to be hungry.

Hosea: Right, but as a result the boys know perfectly well that you will never enforce any rules at the table, and so they ignore you. You scolded Son 1 for deliberately belching -- did he stop?

Wife: No, he did it again.

Hosea: Right. He knows he doesn't have to mind you, because you won't enforce rules at the table. All they have to do is say "I'm hungry" and they can wrap you around their little fingers. But that means you have surrendered. You have given up being the adult. You have given up being in charge. And that means that when I am not around -- say, when I am travelling for work -- they are in charge. In practical terms, it means Son 1 is in charge, because he is the older. And he is eager for that. Look at him -- he wants to be in charge. And you don't. So you have given up being the adult. Is that what you want?

Wife: N-n-no-o-o-o ....

Hosea: But it is what you've got, by your lack of enforcement of any standards. I mean, which do you want more? Do you want to guarantee that they never experience even the slightest bit of hunger? Or do you want to be the adult? Because you can't do both. You have to choose.

Wife: Of course if you put it that way, then I want to be the adult.

Hosea: Fine, but that's not free. Then you have to stop obsessing over the risk that one of them might be the slightest bit hungry when he leaves the table.

Wife: But I don't want them to be hungry.

Hosea: You can't have it both ways. Choose.

Wife: Well right now I'm tired, so I choose to go to bed.

Hosea: Fine, you can go to bed. Just understand that this isn't one of those choices you can put off till later. One way or another, you will choose -- you do choose. If you don't make a point of choosing to be the parent, with all that entails, then you are inescapably choosing to let them be the parents when I'm not home ... or at least to let Son 1 be the parent. It is very much an Existentialist situation. You can't put it off to another day.

Haven't I said all this before? Probably. I forget what I have said to her, and what I have ranted inside the confines of my own skull. But she was pretty tired, and I bet she didn't understand it. She probably wouldn't have understood it even if wide awake. I don't know why not.

Don't try this at home

OK, this is just silly. But apparently police have just arrested and charged a woman in Batavia, New York, with adultery. She is -- are you sitting down? -- only the thirteenth person ever charged with adultery as a criminal offense (a misdemeanor) in the history of New York State.

That's quite a record for the state, honestly. Only twelve others? And of those, only five have been convicted.

I guess having sex on a park bench in broad daylight in the middle of the afternoon might be a bit of a giveaway? Just a thought.

You can read the story here. I don't make this stuff up, you know .... I'm not nearly that inventive.

John and Iris 2, sex and lies and "violence of mind"

A while ago, I wrote about seeing the movie Iris about Iris Murdoch: mainly about her descent into Alzheimer's disease, but with extensive flashbacks to her earlier life. So on a whim yesterday, I looked up her Wikipedia article. In it, I found a link to a review of A. N. Wilson's memoir of her, published some seven years ago. (You can find it here or here.)

Of course the article is in the first instance about A. N. Wilson's book. But I think what it says about Iris in the process is fascinating -- particularly how the multiple sides of her personality all genuinely fit together. So on the one hand, this reviewer genuinely credits Iris with the luminous intelligence, the humor, the wisdom, and the lack of ego that were so widely remarked on by everybody; but then at the same time she apparently exhibited, equally certainly, a voracious promiscuity, "violence of mind", patterns of betrayal, "shameless and habitual social lying", and a "weakness for cruelty."

It is a complicated picture, and I wish I understood it better. Sometimes when I read about Iris, I am powerfully reminded of the "high-maintenance women" I have found my life orbiting around. In Wife, I can see the patterns of betrayal and the habitual lying; in D, the overpowering sexuality and -- again -- at least a real gift for falsehood. I'm not sure what "violence of mind" means, and I'm not sure if either of them has a "weakness for cruelty." I do know that Wife has confessed dark and cruel fantasies to me (just once), and she has certainly been willing to play along with the S&M fantasies of Boyfriend 5 and Friend and the gang. D has alluded to dark corners in her own soul, but I haven't had time to see them yet.

I know that years ago -- back when I still loved Wife a lot more than I do now -- I had already come to grips with the idea that the things I admired about her were connected at a deep level with these profoundly unsavory facts. If anything, I speculated that the two sides might be inseparable; that the lies and betrayal and infidelities might be somehow simply the flip side of the energy that allowed her to hit the peaks she sometimes hit. [See, e.g., "Eight things I love about Wife."] The other image I toyed with was that of beautiful flowers fertilized with shit. Either way, I had long since some to accept that it was possible for these two sides to coexist, even if I didn't understand it clearly.

This line of thought with respect to Wife, in turn, goes a long way to explain why I am not shocked by D's phenomenal sexuality. I almost think she expected me to be a little shocked, at first, because it is so overwhelming; and I think she is still a little taken aback when I remind her as a matter of course that this is simply who she is at the deepest level ... and so she might as well embrace it as a Calling of some kind, because it's not like she'll ever be able to set it down and walk away. But of course I had long before accepted that the inner truth of even the most admirable person won't come close to resembling the Disney cartoon that we all try to show in public. So it has never been any big deal.

I still don't understand it very well.

Ancestor worship

It's Saturday, but I had to go into work for a few hours anyway.

When I got home, Wife was on the phone with her friend Leia. Leia has been in town for a few days now, and they have spent a couple of days together. Apparently they spent some time apartment hunting for Wife, because that's what they were discussing on the phone. The thing is, Leia wants to sell some income property she owns in the next state over, and is looking for other property to reinvest the money. Since her mother lives in the same town we do and is getting up in years, Leia has considered buying an apartment for her mother, too. So anyway, since she was already looking at property, she seems to have taken Wife along.

I heard Wife (for her part) making some comments to the effect that it would be out of the question for her to share an apartment with a roommate; after all, she has done that before (three times, she said) and it "never works out." She also commented that naturally she would have to be able to pay for storage for all of her stuff as well, in order to avoid having to get rid of it. And the upshot appears to have been that (within the parameters she is willing to consider) she can't find anything she can afford. I know you are shocked. But when I stepped into the room after she was off the phone, she was weeping silently over this turn of fate.

I pointed out that naturally it must be possible to live in our town somehow on a limited income, because there are actually poor people in town. They live somewhere. But she repeated her saga of woe that nothing was to be found anywhere in a one hour radius in every direction.

Nothing?

Anywhere?

An hour?

Gosh, did they really travel that far afield?

And she reminded me of all the treasures she has to be able to house. I suggested to her that she has always said she kept those things because they are valuable; and in that case, she could sell them -- realize the value -- and have more money to play with. But no, of course that wouldn't fly: after all, she wanted them in order to hand them down to the next generation. And remind me: the next generation wants to have them ... why again? I urged that the physical things we hand down are always tossed out callously by that same esteemed "next generation" when they break or become unfashionable ... and that the only real, lasting heirlooms we can pass down are memories. She said, "Well that's the sort of thing D would do, ...!" (And she managed to squeeze a remarkable amount of venom into the name "D" as she said it. I smiled to myself.) But no, you see she wants to pass down things that belonged to members of her family, for no better reason than that they belonged to members of her family. It doesn't matter whether she herself even knew the previous owners, and in some cases she is talking about possessions of a grandmother who dies before she was born. But somehow there is a mystical bond that requires that the object be cherished into eternity. It's ancestor-worship, I think ... or it would be (would have to be) if she thought it out into a consistent system.

Completely meshugge.

Reasons not to marry D

OK, this isn't the kind of topic that is going to be practical any time soon. Obviously I am still married to Wife, and at this point I expect to remain so for some time: probably a couple of years, at any rate. On the other hand, I still assume that we will separate or divorce somewhere down the road, and I know D is going to want to get closer to me when that happens. She would be very likely to jump at the prospect of becoming Mrs. Hosea ... or of my becoming Mr. D.

But it's not going to happen. I decided that a while ago. I love D, I enjoy being around D (most of the time), we have lots to talk about, and the fucking is heavenly. But if I'm ever single again and legally available to marry somebody, I won't be marrying D.

Since I have decided that so summarily, you could argue that I don't need to list reasons. If I don't want to, I don't want to -- and it doesn't need to get any more sophisticated than that. But I know myself; I know that I can make decisions (in advance) that sound reasonable, and then in the heat of things I can't for the life of me remember why I ever thought that! So I reverse myself. And maybe when I look at it cooly afterwards I decide that I was right to reverse myself, or maybe I slap my forehead and think, "What have I done?" So for my own benefit, I think it would help me to write down some of my thoughts now, while I am at leisure.

A brief note on the text. I am writing this at work, and for some reason (Thank you, IT!) I can no longer reach my blog from my work computer. So when I want to refer back to something that I described in an earlier post, I won't be able to find the URL to embed a link. I'll try to put some kind of pointer in square brackets [like this] instead. Maybe some day I'll go back and add in the links from home.

So why wouldn't I want to marry her? The most basic reason is that I find myself looking quizzically at something she does, and then making excuses to myself for it ... and I remember doing exactly the same thing with Wife before marrying her. And seeing this in myself -- this willingness to paper over something that strikes me oddly or wrong -- this disturbs me. After my experience with Wife, I have to consider it a warning sign.

What does she do that strikes me oddly or wrong?

D is emotionally high-strung. This is hardly news, as all my earlier remarks about "high-maintenance women" can attest. And I have to admit that there is something I do not understand in this picture that I find very attractive in spite of myself. [See, e.g., "You always love the one you hurt."] But it is also crazy-making. Yesterday, or was it two days ago, I got an e-mail about the craziness at her work. OK, there's a lot of it. I replied about some topics and not about others, because they were things I had nothing to say about. Today I get a reply from her blasting me for "not caring about" the topics I didn't discuss, for "not understanding her sadness and tears." Well yeah, that's right. I don't understand them. And I don't understand why failing to mention something is a sign that I "don't care" about it. Of course I'm sad that she has a bladder infection, but I'm thousands of miles away: I'm going to do what about it, exactly? Tell her to go to the doctor, maybe? She's a grown-up, she can figure that out without my patronizing her over it. Actually I am starting to wonder if these tantrums are seasonal, because she went through the exact same thing just about a year ago. Back then I thought it was because she thought she was being fired [see "D is losing her job"]; but now I wonder if that was just a trigger.

Memo to D: If you get an e-mail from me that has literally nothing in it but apologies, I'm playing a role and you can't believe it. Don't pat yourself on the back that you've finally "been heard." Understand instead that I am putting you on, because I have found that the best way to calm down hysterical women is just to stand there and apologize over and over, no matter what it is about. Understand that you are being had.

D awfullizes. She and I will talk quite calmly about how there are practical reasons that it makes sense for me to delay a divorce about two years. Then, two weeks later, she wails over the "fact" that I will "never" leave Wife "no matter what." Oh for pity's sake, has it been two years yet? No? Then save it -- honestly, just save it. Wait till some more time has passed and then try to evaluate if things have changed or not. But don't assume today that you can see the future better than I can.

D is sexually jealous to a high degree, which is a little funny if you think about the fact that she is also an adulteress. Some time last year, Wife started sleeping on the sofa regularly; a few months ago, she moved back into the bedroom. When D found out, she hit the roof. Umm, excuse me? What's this about? It's not like we're fucking; she just needs more support for her back than the sofa can give her. And what if we were fucking, come to that? There's no way it will ever happen, not with what Wife has become these days ... but if it did, so what? We're still married, after all. I may not feel like fucking Wife, and fucking D is a great delight -- truly out of this world. But where exactly does my mistress get off telling me what I can do with my wife, ... or even being hurt by her (incorrect) guesses of what that might be? If D took it into her head to fuck her husband once in a while, I'd just figure that them's the breaks.

D is a phenomenally gifted liar -- truly world-class. So far, she has used her lies to my benefit, because she has used them to get time away from work to come see me. But I would have to be blind and stupid not to recognize that if she lies to someone else, then one day she'll lie to me too. Right now, I deal with this possibility ... probability ... certainty ... by not putting myself into a position where it matters. I take what I can get while it is in front of me, and I live in such a way that it doesn't matter to me what she does when I am not there. But marriage inevitably changes all that, and I'm not comfortable with the level of implied risk.

D told me a story once, that when she was a girl she let herself into somebody else's house while they weren't there and took a piece of jewelry. I got no indication that this story horrified her now in retrospect. I don't suppose that she still steals, although when she was visiting us for one of the Great Clean-Ups (I think it was Second date, maybe Sixth) she helped herself to a number of photographs of me from our photo albums in storage. Admittedly the albums were in storage. And admittedly she told me about it right away. But I would be lying if I said that this didn't make me even the slightest bit uneasy.

Enough for now. I'm not trying to run her down. I still love her madly, in spite of all this. I just want to remind myself that there are, indeed, reasons behind my decision not to marry her, if and when I am ever again free to marry anybody. And if I put these things in writing, I am less likely to forget about them later. That's all ... this is no more than a memo to myself, really.

"How about if Mom joins Dad on his trip?"

So there we are, sitting around the table eating dinner, and the boys start asking about our plans for the beginning of summer break. Ummm, ... well, Dad has to go to Faraway City for about 10 days on business, but there's not a lot else planned right then.

I should explain – what will be no surprise to regular readers – that D and I have plans for her to spend nearly the entire trip with me in Faraway City. In fact, when I first told her I had to travel there at all, she started planning her flight. When I finally told her the dates and she realized I would be there for a week and a half, she gasped at how wonderful it would be to spend so much time together.

Trying to be practical, I ventured, "Well, I don't know what else you have on your calen---"

"I'll clear it!" she interrupted immediately.

But we finalized all these arrangements a couple weeks ago, and I was talking about dinner tonight. Anyway the boys explained that it's been a long time (on their clock) since they saw my parents, and they'd like a chance to go see them.

First Son 1 proposed a plan: we all drive down to my parents' house as soon as school is over. Then I leave for Faraway City as planned, but the rest of them stay there till I get back. But he interrupted himself with the realization that my flight is out of the town where we live now, and not my parents' town (which is a good long drive away).

Still, the two boys talked up the idea for a couple of minutes. One of them (I forget which, because they bounce off each other so fast) posed the rhetorical question whether it was really safe to put Wife and my father together in the same house for so long, since their fights (over politics, religion, manners, morals, ... you name it) are pretty much legendary in the family. Wife tried to object that she and my father get along a lot better than they used to, at the same time that the other boy said, "It will give them time to settle their differences." (At that, Wife chuckled and said, "We've had 26 years in which to settle them so far ....")

But then Son 2 proposed his alternate plan. He said, grinning, "Look, what we want is to be spoiled rotten by Grandma and Grandpa, so it's actually better if you two aren't along. HOW ABOUT IF MOM JOINS DAD IN FARAWAY CITY FOR HIS 10-DAY TRIP; THEN SHE CAN GO PLAY TOURIST WHILE HE'S IN THE OFFICE AND YOU BOTH CAN GO SEE MOVIES OR SOMETHING IN THE EVENING, AND WE GET TO BE SPOILED BY OUR GRANDPARENTS?"

Wife said, "I'm not sure Dad would want me along ...." I just threw my head back and laughed, although I refused point-blank to explain why I was laughing. I did allege that I'd be spending a lot of time in the office, and (err, ahem, hrum) I'm not sure what there is for tourists to see in Faraway City.

The conversation moved on somewhere else from there, and I'm sure nobody took it seriously as a suggestion. I'm sure Wife won't try to follow up on it. But it sure did take me aback! How about if Mom joins Dad in Faraway City ...? Gosh, that would be dramatic! Maybe not ....