Proving my love?

The conversations with D have been deteriorating. A few hours after she sent me the one I quoted in my earlier post -- before I had had a chance to reply -- she sent a follow-on note that was still light and elegant:

Dearest Hosea,

Home--at last, and I'll say a rueful good night to you. I have had time, through all my classes, to think about not seeing you for many weeks or months and it is hard to be very cheerful. Part of me just wants to step back and leave you alone for a while; I know I can't change a great deal, because the hold-up isn't really on my end. But that seems dreary and ever so undesirable, so I only very reluctantly consider that possibility. I thought you might call...no, you didn't. And you haven't and won't for a while. And I'm not 'allowed' to call you. I can get pretty depressed about this situation without trying very hard.

So what's really going on in my head? I guess there are two worries that need to be put on the table. One is my concern that for a myriad of reasons, you prefer to live with Wife and can see no clear way to another sort of life or love apart from her for a long time. This whole issue is truly complex; she is ill, needs your help. Wife is the children's mother and you want to preserve the family unit. You dislike change and the prospect of upheaval, both emotional and physical. I'm not the person you hoped for and it's easier to stay with Wife than to have to tell me the truth. And on, and so forth...lots of insecurity, doubts, and all kinds of unattractive demons at play.

The second concern is financial. I have been told for years by Wife that you are cheap, and that you refuse to spend money on much outside the children's needs. Occasionally, I've run into that reluctance. To see me without your work paying for much of our expenses changes the equation. There are dozens of reasons why seeing me is financially imprudent and unwise. I understand that and yet...those reasons cannot help but make me feel insecure. You did not want to discuss money matters and I agreed because I had little choice, but they won't go away. So now what?

I miss you. I could talk about my classes, my colleagues, my students. I could discuss your gnostic beliefs and ask whether you really want to embrace that philosophical option even though you deny doing so. I could ask you about the election results or follow your work schedule. But instead I listen to Mozart's Requiem again and again; I take it out of my little home stereo and play it on the way to school, unable to let go of its affirmation of life. I pray that my desire for you will be granted and you will not walk away. I can always hope....

I do love you, passionately, and always, in all that I do and all that I am.

D

It sounds lovely. And yet, ... is it just me? Somehow when I read this it all looks like window-dressing designed to soften and prettify a core message which reads, As long as we haven't scheduled another visit sometime soon, I have to believe that "you prefer to live with Wife" and it's not worth it to you to see me unless it's free -- i.e., "without your work paying for much of our expenses." In other words, you don't love me. Because if you really loved me, you'd already have made arrangements to see me again by by now. So there!

I don't know, probably I'm over-reading here. But I can't get over the feeling that this sounds like some teenaged boy back in the Fifties telling his girlfriend, "Betty, you say you love me, but you've got to prove it!" When what he means is he wants her to put out. (Obviously the last thing I need to fear from D is a reluctance to put out, but it's an analogy.)

Anyway, the result is that I am feeling a little ... I don't know, ... irritable. Do I want to see her? Of course. Am I perishing from her absence like I would from an absence of oxygen ... seemingly like she is perishing from mine? No, not really. I'm fine with spending my own money to go see her, although at this point I'll be damned if I'm going to let her buy her own ticket; if we are going to meet in some third location, I'll buy both of them or we won't go. And that means I have to be a little cautious where I pick, because the cost of two tickets can add up. And I also resent the emotional manipulation: obviously you must love Wife more than you love me, or you'd have already made plans; obviously you're a cheapskate because you haven't already bought your tickets. No other explanation is possible.

Of course, in a conversation like this, explanation is useless. I've already talked through all these issues with her; that she has circled back to the same tired old insecurities means that she doesn't believe me. All that talk is just talk. OK, that's a fair opinion to hold. But if that's her opinion, the only way I'll ever change her mind is by deeds. So I may as well just shut the fuck up until I either (a) figure out a good place/time for us to meet and buy both our tickets, or else (b) tell her it ain't gonna happen any time soon and have done.

I didn't quite put it that way, but this is how I wrote back:

Dearest D,

Freedom? Wow. I certainly hadn't thought about any of this with respect to that kind of context. That is a pretty monumental re-framing of the discussion. I may have to think about that for a bit. [Of course I was thinking about some of the thoughts I had here.]

You don't say it in so many words, but when I read your letter this morning I was sure I felt a subtext which ran more or less, "Don't bother writing back until you have booked a ticket or have clearly decided to tell me No." I hope that's not what you have in mind, because I haven't bought a ticket yet. I explained to Wife over dinner tonight that I have been thinking about taking a vacation somewhere, like she just did by going to visit her sister ... somewhere that could be just a vacation without my having to go to the office while I was there. She asked, "Where?" and I told her quite honestly that I hadn't figured that out yet. She suggested Greece.

[There followed two paragraphs about work that I’ll skip.]

In other news, Son 2 has set himself to learning Tom Lehrer's song, "The Elements." That would make him only the second person I know personally -- besides myself, I mean -- who has memorized the whole thing. At present he is somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 the way there, but he has only been working on it a couple of days.

Meanwhile I should go back to consulting a map. I hope you didn't stop reading at the point where I said I hadn't bought a ticket yet. Of course I will let you know right away when I do.


You have all my love, reading or not, now and ever,
Hosea

As you know by now, that's really terse by my standards, and she replied in kind. Attentive readers will also notice that her salutation changes from "Dearest" to "Dear": she does that whenever she is pissed at me.

Dear Hosea,

I didn't mean to imply that you should stop writing until you bought a ticket, but I do think the end of your business trips (at least for the foreseeable future) means you will have to decide whether it is worth seeing me when you have to spend the time and money to do so. I have no idea what your decision will be.

Songs about the elements? Okay....not sure how to respond. I should go and write vocabulary quizzes.

Take care, be well.

All my love, or friendship, or whatever seems possible. There's a great deal of both, and the cost should be supportable for both of us.
D

And so we stagger and sputter our way down to tonight.

Dear D,

The more I think about it, the more I think I really can't write anything serious or substantive (or call) until the travel question is definitively settled one way or another. Here's how I see it: this question -- for all the reasons that you have so gently and sensitively spelled out -- is really the foremost one that we have to discuss right now. I think it will get in the way of trying to talk about anything else. What's more, it's not really something that can be answered in words, can it? I mean, the whole question is whether all these words that I have lavished on you over the years really count for anything; so the only possible way to back them up is with deeds, not just more words.

So I have to beg you to excuse the absence of a longer letter, just for the moment. I'm confident that soon our correspondence will resume its normal volume and frequency.

I really would like to know the dates of your Christmas break, however. I'm trying to compare a couple of ideas.
All my love, Hosea

And finally, ...

Dearest Hosea,

Thank you for writing. I'm not happy about not hearing from you; I sometimes think that we often mis-cue on these issues; I don't always understand your family responsibilities and commitments, and you don't always understand how alone I am. It's not easy. I realize you don't mean to punish me, but it feels like that. Or just more silence and loneliness. That said, I'm not depressed and I've been quite productive.

My vacation begins on the xx of December, ends on xx of January, although I can easily make that the next day by missing the faculty meeting.

Please tell me what you are thinking, and reconsider establishing phone communication.

All my love, ever and always,
D

Some glimmer in that last one -- we're back to "Dearest," for starters. But it's hard for me to put aside being grumpy. That reference to my "family responsibilities" grates. She is always invoking my "family responsibilities" to explain things that are totally unrelated to them. In this case those "responsibilities" have nothing to do with why I am not writing. I'm not writing because I feel cornered, because I am torn between my longing for a grand geste that will make her put aside these nagging insecurities once for all, and my resentment at feeling shoved into such a position in the first place.

Probably I really am being pusillanimous and cheap and frightened of change. But I know she's got one thing wrong, at least. That part about how kind and caring I am towards Wife, ... that at least I can disprove. I'm far more callous than that these days.

Good to know, huh?