What should a guy wear to bed?

Oh, I almost forgot. D wanted me to ask all of you a question, as an opinion poll.

Thursday night, when I was so depressed, I was also cold; so I put on a white T-shirt when I climbed into bed. In and around the rest of our discussion Friday morning, D carped about the T-shirt.

"What?" I asked. "I was cold."

"So we'll put another blanket on the bed, but come to bed naked."

"Does it matter that much?"

"Absolutely! Ask your friends who read your blog whether a man should wear a cotton T-shirt to bed or be stark naked. They'll all tell you he should be naked ...."

You realize, of course, that it wasn't a serious disagreement -- we had serious things to discuss that morning, and that wasn't one of them. But hey, she asked me to ask you (smiling as she did so), so I'm passing the question along ....

Seventeenth date 5, Fun and games

I spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the office, so we didn’t have a lot of time for play. Still, we did manage to have fun. Wednesday night we had dinner at a wine bar, where we managed to put away four carafes of very excellent wine in addition to a little bit of careful and elegant food. The final tab was in excess of $150 – so much that there’s no way I can expense all of it, and I had to ask the waiter to split the check in several parts. What’s more, D found she could hardly walk under her own power back to the car, and then from the parking lot into the hotel. She told me later that she didn’t think she had ever drunk so much. From her stories of dinners with Rog, I think that can’t be exactly true; but it is very likely that on those other nights she ate a lot more food, to buffer the wine better. Still, it was a lovely meal.

Thursday night we went out to a play, a delightful new comedy recently off-Broadway. We both enjoyed it immensely. Of course, that was the night that I later fell into my deep depression, but we both now think that was probably the result (at least partly) of our stopping in afterwards at a very noisy bar for some after-show drinks. I don’t do well with noise.

Friday, as I mentioned, we stayed in bed and talked. I called down to the front desk to get us some more time before we had to check out, and then we ordered breakfast. After breakfast, we fucked like demons. In the middle of all this the front desk called back asking when exactly we were planning to check out – great timing, guys! I had enough breath to answer and therefore did. (D was gasping enough she couldn’t possibly have answered the phone.) Anyway, we wrapped up a while later, got a shower, and finally checked out of the hotel with about five minutes to spare before our absolute deadline.

From there we went to have lunch – a very pleasant meal whose conversation I have already described. And then it was time to drive back to the airport. Only … well gosh, we were a little ahead of schedule as far as our flights were concerned. So somewhere along the way we stopped at a very pleasant-looking lake, got out, and walked around. There was a path leading right up to the water’s edge; and while the road was nearby (and a McDonald’s parking lot was just over yonder), we couldn’t see a soul. The sun was dappled on the water, the air was warm, the breeze was soft. We sat down near the bank, and began to kiss. And kiss. And kiss! In the end we didn’t have a lot of time, and we were very exposed, so D just loosened her bra and I played with her nipples for a while. (She is frequently orgasmic when her nipples are stimulated, and on this occasion she sighed most satisfactorily.) As we climbed back into the car, she said a little wistfully that she was trying to figure out a discreet way to slide down her pants … then finally concluded that sliding down her pants would be indiscreet however she did it. Still, it was a delightful way to wind up the week.

And then we got to the airport, and flew to our respective homes.

Seventeenth date 4, Fidelity and infidelity

We talked about sex and fidelity. D has a very close friendship with one of her colleagues, Rog, a young and handsome man who is new to the school this year. She describes their friendship as a kind of mentorship, but it means that the two of them often dine together and sit up long into the night over bottles of wine talking. Naturally I have sometimes wondered if that’s all they were doing. And sometimes I have told myself that it is best to assume they might be fucking too, so that I won’t be taken by surprise if it ever turns out to be true. But other people have noticed that this friendship seems really deep, and really intense. D’s next-door neighbor, who is in his eighties and dearly wants her in his bed, is outrageously jealous of Rog. Then there is another woman on the faculty who is clearly in love with Rog, and she has stopped speaking to D. When D tells Rog that maybe they should withdraw just a bit, Rog says the idea that anyone could misunderstand their friendship as sexual is absurd. But D can tell that when Rog socializes with other faculty members (and especially the woman who is in love with him), he seriously downplays the time he spends with D or the depth of their long talks.

So what is the reality? Are D and Rog really lovers? Alas, no. D also told me, rather wistfully, about jokes Rog has made about some of the other faculty members, indicating that he thinks the idea of sex among old people is just disgusting. How old is “old”? Well, Rog is the same age as D’s son, the younger of her two children. D is, quite literally, old enough to be his mother. To be sure, she keeps herself in remarkably good shape. She is exquisitely beautiful for a woman in her late fifties. And as you all know she is a remarkable sexual dynamo. But still … she could be his mother. Old enough? Yeah, ‘fraid so.

Well what about this question of fidelity? D was reading a long essay by Wendell Berry that discussed sexual fidelity in the context of the story of Odysseus’s return home to Penelope. What kind of fidelity did each of them show? Penelope rejected the advances of all the suitors; so far as we are told, she lived a sexless life in the twenty years between her husband’s departure for Troy and his return. Odysseus couldn’t quite say the same thing. The nymph Calypso held him trapped on her island for seven years; and while he spent every day weeping and longing for home, he spent his nights – Homer is quite clear about this – in Calypso’s bed. And yet, in the end he rejects her offer of immortality and eternal bliss, choosing instead of return to his own little island, his hearth and home, and mortality. And in this he shows a kind of fidelity to Penelope, regardless whom he was fucking in the meantime.

I’m not sure I followed what D said about the Wendell Berry essay, but I picked up this theme of fidelity to hearth and home. I pointed out to D that her affair with me does not fundamentally betray her home or her husband … he no longer wants sex with her anyway, and she would never wish him harm. What she has with him and what she has with me do not conflict in any meaningful way. By contrast, my Wife’s infidelities were more destructive; in the case of every single lover she planned, at one point or other, to leave me and run away with him (or her). Every single lover was an excuse to attack me, to denigrate me, to vilify me, to make plans (to my detriment) behind my back. And in the end, I suppose you could say that my affair with D has similarly betrayed Wife, insofar as she has given me the ability to imagine a life beyond my marriage, and the desire to get free of it. (All I can say in my own defense was that by the time I fell together with D, the marriage had suffered enough damage to be terminal.)

So I told D that I thought this concept of fidelity to the relationship was critical. A new love who makes you abandon the old love (or war against him) – as Aegisthus conspired with Clytemnestra to butcher Agamemnon – is a betrayal. That is infidelity. But a new love who inspires no such abandonment – Calypso with Odysseus, as over against Penelope – is no betrayal, and no breach of the fundamental fidelity to your common love for each other.

Why raise the subject at all? Neither of us has a new love on the horizon. Heaven knows D won’t be getting lewd suggestions from Rog any time soon … or any time ever. Well, I told her, we can never predict the future. Sometimes surprising things happen. And if she ever finds a beautiful opportunity drop into her lap (so to speak), vows of fidelity to me would leave her only two choices: pass it up, or lie to me about it afterwards. I told her that both of those choices seem bad to me, and I want her to be free to accept such a delight without having to lie to me.

You know, she reminded me, I am in my fifties. That kind of offer isn’t likely to come along very often at this point.

I know, I told her. But let’s not rule out the possibility of a happy miracle. And so I want you to know where I stand, and that I want love and joy for you … just in case.

D smiled, and thanked me. We embraced. And then, after a pause, she said “Likewise.”

It’s a change from the intense jealousy on which she earlier prided herself, and I think it is for the good.

Seventeenth date 3, Depression, dignity, arrogance

D and I talked about my depression. I hit a really bad spell Thursday night, and Friday morning we stayed in the hotel talking instead of my going into the office. D repeated what she has said before (here and here) – that my depressive spells leave her feeling totally helpless, and therefore both frightened and angry. She repeated that I look different when I sink into them – that I hold myself differently, that I smell different, that my eyes change color. Honestly for a minute I thought she was going to compare me to Bruce Banner. (Turns out she didn’t know who Bruce Banner is.) And she asked why I don’t take more aggressive steps to manage my depression. Ummm, … I dunno, maybe because this looks normal to me? Maybe because honestly it used to be so much worse, back before I went on antidepressant medication, so it never really occurred to me that it could be still better? D had very stern words for the idea that this is “normal”, and she insisted that my depressive spells will affect any intimate relationship I ever try to have, be it with her or anyone. She also suggested that there was something wrong with the fact that I have never ever – not once – mentioned my depression to my family. What’s that about?

I couldn’t answer, but I thought about another connection. D and I have disagreed before about the concept of human dignity. As a committed Catholic, she feels that individual dignity and worth are non-negotiable facts about everyone alive. For myself (as I mention here), I tend to think of dignity more as a false front, a pompous face that we put on artificially to look impressive to others. I certainly don’t think that I have any kind of innate worth that entitles me to anything special in this world. I figure that everything good in my life is a gift, probably an unearned gift. What is more, it is hard for me to think there is anything wrong or pathological with seeing the world this way. Isn’t this attitude the surest protection against my becoming an arrogant prick? Arrogance would be such an easy trap to fall into, because all my life I have been on the receiving end of praise: from my teachers in school, for being bright and getting good grades; from my classmates, for being a nice guy; from my employers, for being diligent and serious and a team-player … whatever that is. Wouldn’t it be the most natural thing in the world for me to be insufferably egotistical about all this? But I try to avoid that – really, I do – and I think a key part of what allows me to be decent (when I can) is that I really don’t think any of this matters. Sure, it’s nice; it can even be convenient. But it doesn’t make me one whit a better person, it doesn’t entitle me to anything, and honestly the praise becomes so monotonous that I can’t hear it any more. It is far, far easier for me to see my faults than my virtues.

Over lunch, D suddenly turned to me and asked, “When you write about me on your blog, do you describe me as harshly as you describe yourself?” Of course, for the most part I assume that she has no idea what I say about myself here, but that she makes plausible guesses based on how I talk about myself when I am with her. And I had to assure her that no, I would never do such a thing. You, my readers, know it is true that I have some reservations about D that would give me pause at the idea (for example) of marrying her. But overall? Overall I think she is pretty wonderful. I hope that comes through in everything I write. I certainly hope I don’t describe her the same way I describe myself. Heavens, when I am writing here I figure that there will always be an unconscious pressure to flatter myself, to describe things from a partial point of view, to make myself look better than I really am. In an effort to achieve balance, to come closer to the truth, I compensate by trying consciously to paint myself in the least flattering way that is consistent with whatever story I am telling. I doubt I have much luck in doing this, and I think (or at any rate I tell myself) that at best I am balancing out subconscious self-flattery. But the short answer is No, I don’t write about her as harshly as I do myself. I hope.

And I wonder something else. I’ve explained that I don’t believe I have any innate dignity, any innate claim on the good things in life … that I don’t really deserve anything. Is that part of why I was willing to marry Wife? Of course it wasn’t the whole story … I know there was a lot more to it than that. But could that have been part of it? Could that have been part of the reason, over all these long years, that I have never left her? Because I honestly didn’t think I deserved any better? Maybe so. It is a sobering idea.

Seventeenth date 2, "Does Brother believe those stories?"

D asked me why Brother seemed so tepid in his reaction to the news when I told him about her, seeing that her own family has been nothing but supportive. I didn’t know how to answer the question, because it hadn’t really occurred to me before; I guess I chalked up any awkwardness in our conversation to the fact that I usually haven’t discussed personal things with him in the past. Then she asked if there is any chance that he believes the stories Wife has told about me over the years: the total fabrications about my alleged drunkenness, cruelty, rape, abuse, whoring around, … about my beating her and the children, for example, or any of the other things she has said over and over about me, that have no substance to them whatever. (See, e.g., here or here, just for example.) The possibility shocked me. I had never considered it, and yet there’s no way I can rule it out. For years whenever we have all gotten together as a family I have absented myself from whatever room Wife was in, pretty much sticking with the boys wherever they wanted to go play. I have no idea what she might have said. I do know, now that I think about it, that she has tried to make friends with Brother over the years. I guess I just never thought it would be possible for her to succeed. I always assumed that my family would have my back 100%, without any effort on my part to maintain the relationship. To imagine that anything else is even possible is frankly a little scary. One other thing I know is that for years my father accused Wife of trying to get Brother into bed. I took her word for it that this was preposterous, and fought with my dad about it more than once. But this weekend D told me that Wife had confided in her years before she had in fact done exactly that. (Remember that for years, D was Wife’s best and closest friend.) Now D added that Wife said she had failed … but she had tried. Strictly speaking I cannot rule out the possibility that D made this up for some unclear reason, but I find it kind of plausible. And again, I find the situation scary.

Of course if Brother has been believing Wife all these years, … what can I do? Say, “No it’s all just the opposite?” Not bloody likely. Who wants to listen to fifth graders saying “’Tis!” “’Tain’t!” “’Tis!” “’Tain’t!” “’Tis!” “’Tain’t!” back and forth? Nor would I want to sit Brother down and give him a crash course in just how miserable things have been with Wife: nobody likes to listen to whining. Does that mean I have to write off the possibility of him ever knowing or believing the truth? I don’t know the answer, but that would be very sad. And I suppose I would have only myself to blame, for not having been more forthcoming over the last twenty-five years.

Seventeenth date 1, The home front

I met D in Faraway City for a week, or almost: we flew out on Monday and left Friday. I didn’t think I could keep wrapping around the weekends: not only is it increasingly hard to explain, but it means leaving Son 2 alone with Wife that much longer each time. And I just don’t trust her judgement, about anything.

A case in point: Thursday we got a call from Hogwarts that Son 1 was sick, and they were sending him home for a couple of days. He should rest and maybe see his doctor. Wife heard this and planned to drive the two hours to get him … right away. Of course this was also going to mean pulling Son 2 out of school for the rest of the day so he could go with her, and probably the next day as she drove back. Plus her driving is pretty impaired these days, what with all the medications she takes (including ever-larger quantities of medical marijuana). I got on the phone, determined from the Hogwarts health center that it wasn’t really a crisis, and then called my parents who live right around the corner from the school. Sure, they’d be happy to collect him and drive him to our place. So Wife doesn’t have to drive anywhere. Problem solved. But I was a little rattled that she honestly thought she could undertake this trip, and that she was going to forge ahead without exploring any other alternatives first.

Meanwhile, my next couple of posts give a few highlights from my visit with D: …

Drama from Hosea, letter from Wife

Nobody ever said I was easy to live with. But we had a spot of drama last night, and this afternoon while I was at work Wife wrote me the most eloquent e-mail. I have no idea yet what I'm going to say back to her. But you've all heard me gripe and whine about her for years on end, so I thought it was only fair to let her speak for herself this once.

The background: I blew up at something trivial and said some things that were badly chosen ... false and hurtful. Wife asked me for an apology while I was still seething, and I was very grudging about it. She talked to Son 2 about it, and he consoled her. "No, Mom, of course it feels rotten to have to ask for an apology. Of course he should have just offered it. No, I know that what he said to you doesn't count as an apology. Of course." I came out into the dining room and tried to tell Son 2 that he shouldn't assume he knows what is going on with us. I wanted to say, "Your mother may treat you as her confidant, but I don't -- so you will never hear my complaints about her. Doesn't mean I don't have them. But it does mean that you are getting a one-sided picture of what a beast I am." But I couldn't spit the words out. They would have been self-contradictory, after all ... a complaint precisely when I said that I won't complain about her to him. And it wasn't just that. Somehow I really could not make myself say the words.

Anyway, I felt awkward and humiliated all evening. I made dinner but had trouble engaging in conversation. After dinner, once Son 2 had gone to bed, I apologized for my outburst far more deeply; I had cooled down by then and felt really terrible. Not long thereafter I was piddling around in the kitchen after I thought Wife too had gone to bed, but then Wife came out to get a glass of water and I was startled. ("Jumped out of my skin" is probably more accurate ... I do that when my mind is wandering elsewhere.) Wife was concerned that she had scared me and asked if I was OK, but all I wanted her to do was to go back to bed and leave me alone. This on top of the shame and humiliation I already felt was just not making me very good company. It also meant I really didn't feel like sleeping in our bed, though somewhere about 3:00 in the morning I crawled in just for comfort. But my mind really wanted to be elsewhere.

Anyway, this afternoon at work I got the following e-mail from Wife:

Hosea,

I've been thinking all day about what happened last night and I want to make sure I understand and that we're ok.

The whole mess that started it is over. Forgiven, forgotten. It's not that.

I certainly didn't mean to startle you as I so obviously did. I don't know what I should have done differently. Your reaction was so volatile that I could tell I had REALLY upset you, and that wasn't my intention at all. You really wouldn't talk to me after; all I could get out of you was that it was ok, but since you were huddled in a fetal ball in a dark room facing away from me at the time, I have a hard time believing that it was ok. But I didn't know what to do besides go back to bed. In the past, I've tried to comfort you in situations where I could tell you were upset, and you seemed to just want me to go away; I never was much of a source of comfort, I guess. FWIW, I've tried. I hope going away was the right thing to do last night. Please forgive me for startling you. It wasn't intentional.

I couldn't help but notice that after that, you didn't come to bed with me. I woke up at 1:30 to pee and you still weren't in bed. I went looking for you; sometimes you work REALLY late in the study. But you weren't there. I finally heard you snoring in the living room. I went out there and couldn't see where you were, but I could hear you. I didn't know if you had just fallen asleep on the sofa where you sat down to rest until I had gone to sleep, or if you were intentionally sleeping away from me because you were still that angry with me. Again, I thought of approaching you to try to get you to come to bed, and decided against it. I figured that if you wanted to come to bed, you would, and if you didn't want to, you'd just be angry that I woke you up. So I went back to bed. But I hate to think you were avoiding me that thoroughly. No, I'm not trying to second-guess what you were thinking when you stayed out there, but I'd really like to know, and if I caused it, I'd like to know what I could've done differently to prevent it.

Then, early this morning, I woke up to go to the bathroom. When I came back to bed you were in our bed still asleep, facing the window. I snuggled over closer to you, put one hand on your hip and my head against your back. I wanted to tell you everything was ok by my lights and how much I love you. I wanted to comfort you, and I wanted you to do something like pat my hand to say that you were there with me and still loved me, too. But you pushed my hand away and pulled your body closer to the edge of the bed, away from me. So I moved myself back to "my space" in the bed and let you sleep comfortably away from me. You've reacted to me that way before when I was just trying to be affectionate, but a couple of times you've let me cuddle a bit. I was just trying to show you affection, hoping I could settle emotionally something I really couldn't settle by discussion earlier. But I was wrong. That made me very sad. I felt very rejected. Maybe you were just asleep, and as youi've told me before, you can't be held responsible for what you do in your sleep. I'll buy that. Or maybe you were conscious of what you were doing and were trying to make a point. Again, I don't know and I can't second-guess you.

But for the record, I thought we had been making good progress together, then last night really shook me. I've been working with Counselor. I've been role-playing with him, trying to get my discussions right and learn how to keep things from escalating. And obviously, I haven't got it yet. I'll keep working on it, but Hosea, if we're going to continue to share even just a house, much less a family, I need your help, too. You've been so nice to me lately, even for the last six months, that I've enjoyed home and family life a lot. I don't want to end that. Yet apparently I did a lot more wrong last night than forget to ask you before I had Son 2 re-feed the cats and talk to him about the issue of apologizing. I thought we had it settled and over by dinner, even if we were both still a bit edgy. Dinner was normal.

But even this morning wasn't. Usually these days you at least say goodbye to me and tell me to have a nice day; a few times you've even kissed me goodbye. This morning you didn't say a thing -- just left. I was awake, and I think you knew it. Anyway, you know that I'm generally up by that time and you could've talked to me. I felt bad again when you left without saying anything because it seemed like you must still be mad at me.

At this point, I don't know how you feel about me or what you want of me. I want you to know that I love you very much, and I'm trying very hard to make this a comfortable, safe place for all of us to live; even if I'm failing too much of the time, I'm doing my best. When that isn't good enough, I get very depressed again because things seem hopeless, and then it's easier for me to revert to old habits.

I thought it would be better to write this to you than to try to talk to you. We have so little "us" time. Things get too dramatic just when we need to be feeding everybody if I need to talk to you about something as soon as you get home. But I've been totally miserable today, and I'm at a loss as to what to do. If you don't respond to this, all I can do is talk to Counselor tomorrow and get his take on it, which, as you can point out, will be based on MY narrative and won't include your side of the story. I can't help that. That's where it would be very helpful if you were still in the sessions with me, but I can't make you come and you've been very clear that you're unwilling to, that you won't work on making us a couple anymore.

You said you wanted me to change, Hosea. I'm trying, and to some extent at least, I'm succeeding in doing that. At least that's what Counselor says. You said two years ago that whether you stayed in the session or not depended on whether I wanted to change. Well, I've made the decision to do that. Will that ever be good enough? Will you ever acknowledge that not ALL our problems are the result of my bad qualities that need to be changed? That I'm not all bad? Or am I wasting my time and making you miserable?

I love you. I hope/wish yesterday/this morning could be put behind us.

Wife.