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.