Dear D,
I thought I might see a note from you this morning, but in retrospect I should have realized that was unlikely: you have so much to do in such a short time that every minute must already be allocated. On this side, of course, we spent the weekend packing Son 1 down to Hogwarts and moving him into his dorm. In the end we got him there just fine, with only a couple oddments inadvertently left back home. When we left yesterday he was largely moved in, and was readjusting to the rhythms of school. So that’s good.
I am less sure what to say about the last week, and about our phone call on Saturday. Certainly one thing you said is very true, namely, that it will take us a while to re-establish some kind of normality. (I can’t use that word without feeling the urge to echo Warren Harding and say “normalcy”.) But I would go one step farther and say that it is not clear to me what that normality will look like, when (or if) we get there.
I’m sad that you had a bad week, but not until Friday did you ever tell me you were having one. Perhaps I could have read between the lines of what you did say, and intuited it. But I won’t do that. Nor will I be your bulwark against the storms of the world. We have been friends and lovers; and of course it is the part of friends to talk to each other. When something troubling happens, of course friends can chip in with thoughts or opinions: “Gosh, have you considered this?” “Maybe what’s going on is that.” But to step beyond that point is to step beyond mere friendship into “love honor and cherish as long as you both shall live.” You already know that’s not a destination I have in mind.
Maybe we are just done. All human arrangements are mortal, so maybe our romance has just reached the end of its natural lifespan. I have wondered about that for a while; but I have held back saying anything because I know I am impulsive by nature, I know I am emotionally volatile, and so I never trust my own feelings. Whatever I’m feeling today, maybe I’ll feel the opposite tomorrow. It can be paralyzing, and so sometimes it takes me a very long time to decide what I “really” feel about something. And after all, there are still things between us that are very good. The sex, for instance, is consistently fantastic, and gets ever better. So it is a complicated picture.
But I do know that I’m not going back to a regimen of writing once every 24 hours. It will be a while before I call again. I don’t know what to say about the longer term, because of all the self-distrust that I just sketched out. I just don’t know.
Some time ago, on a happier day, you wrote me something to the effect that I was the reason you got out of bed in the morning. I wrote back to say “Oh surely not,” and you reminded me (quite rightly) not to tell you how you feel. I realize now that I misspoke myself during that conversation. Of course it would be foolish for me to tell you how you feel. But what I really meant was, “Please don’t let that be true.” I don’t want to be that important to anyone, or at any rate not to any adult. That’s not depression speaking, or self-abnegation, or any weird sense of failure or unworthiness. It is just a realization that if I should ever be that important to someone, it will end up landing us right here, where we are today. And that’s a troubling prospect.
Take care. Be well,
Hosea
Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
“You hurt me very badly ….”
Last week was a very bad week for D. She is starting a new job (having moved to a new city), and apparently she got off to a very rocky start, making a number of bad mistakes. I’m still not sure of all the details. But when we talked today (over the weekend after it was all over) she described last week as “Easily my worst week in the last five years.”
I was travelling, to one of the suburbs outside of Faraway City. (Same airport, but I ended up at a different office.) So for a couple of days I didn’t have to deal with Wife or the boys, and my evenings were fairly unstructured.
D wanted me to call, to help her through this week, and I didn’t do it. In retrospect she didn’t make it very clear to me that she was having a bad week, though I did hear some bitterness from her on the order of “Don’t feel you have to call or anything, I’ll just sit here alone in the dark.” But for all I could tell that was just because she was generically lonely. She gets lonely easily, and that in turn makes her needy and clingy. She didn’t drop any hints that there was more going on than that.
But when we talked today, I got an earful.
It’s going to take some time to re-establish our relationship after this…. I really needed you and you just weren’t there for me…. You really hurt me very deeply by not calling ….
Of course I apologized for hurting her, saying that was no part of my intention. And then I sat and listened to her tell me about how difficult her week had been and how awful it was of me that I wasn’t there, … for the better part of an hour, until I was fifteen minutes late picking up Son 2 from his morning athletic class. (And if I hadn’t cut her off I’d probably still be on the phone now.) Towards the end she turned philosophical, musing that all of us make terrible mistakes and the only thing that makes any love relationship possible is forgiveness: God’s forgiveness of us, and our forgiveness of each other. And I didn’t really say a lot from my side.
But I was thinking, and my thoughts weren’t terribly pretty. In the first place, I was chewing over her remark that I hurt her deeply. I suppose I did, but I can’t completely get rid of the idea that hurting somebody is rather more active than that, that it involves doing something and not just failing to do something. OK, that’s picking at nits, I realize. When somebody has a right to expect that you will take a hand and you don’t, that’s almost as bad as doing something overt. But all that does is raise a second point: should she reasonably expect that I am there to weather the storm with her? We are not married, after all; and I have told her clearly (if not bluntly) that we never will be. Does our relationship – whatever you call it instead – carry this level of obligation with it?
And then the third thought is maybe the most important: what do I want? What do I want from the relationship? Do I want it to be one where we help each other through these kinds of storms? Or am I looking for something shallower than that? What would it look like if our parts were reversed? If I were the one having the crappy week, would I want her to support me, to help me through it?
Finally a question I can answer: No, I would not. I don’t know what that would look like. If I’m having a crappy week, the last thing I want to do is tell people about it, because then I have to manage their reactions as well as the original problem. It’s just that much more to carry.
Or am I lying to myself about that? After all, D and I started getting closer to each other when I wrote her about my troubles with Wife, because I couldn’t carry that burden by myself any more. (That’s the same reason I started this blog, and began inflicting all my whiny problems on you, my long-suffering readers.) Since that time I have had to carry a lot of D’s emotional reaction to my situation, besides carrying my situation itself. But I did open the door specifically because I needed help.
So maybe now I owe her that same help in return. It sounds fair and logical when I think of it that way. Only just at the moment I can’t feel it that way. Just at the moment, all I can feel is, What do I need this for? This I need like a hole in the head. Enough already!
Of course, at the same time that I’m grousing, Enough already, another part of my head is telling me to slow down. What am I saying -- that I want to break up with her? If that’s what I’m saying, do I really mean it? Have I really thought this through? Or am I just reacting with my own emotional storm? It’s been three years (just about) that she and I have been together; for the last year at least, I have started having moments where I imagine us breaking up. The only times I imagine it are those times when I am frustrated enough with her anyway that the thought is always a vast relief. I wind up thinking, “One down and one to go,” as if my goal were to get rid of all the women in my life. But I don’t trust myself. (Besides, that's crazy, isn't it?)
So let me ask you. You’ve known me for the same three years, most of you; or, if not, all that time is still sitting in the back years waiting to be read. You’ve seen plenty of my faults over those years. Am I just being a selfish prick? Is it just that I want all the benefits (the sex, and any support she has to give me) without giving back to her in exchange? Or is this nuts, and time to call it off?
I’m sure I haven’t given you enough information to make a fair or reasonable choice; and I am sure that I have prejudiced everything I’ve said to make myself sound more honorable and long-suffering than I really am. So if you correct for what I have written by assuming that I am acting worse than I describe and D is acting better, … what’s the verdict? Does it sound like this relationship is still worth it and I’m just overwrought? Or not?
Let me know what it sounds like to you ….
I was travelling, to one of the suburbs outside of Faraway City. (Same airport, but I ended up at a different office.) So for a couple of days I didn’t have to deal with Wife or the boys, and my evenings were fairly unstructured.
D wanted me to call, to help her through this week, and I didn’t do it. In retrospect she didn’t make it very clear to me that she was having a bad week, though I did hear some bitterness from her on the order of “Don’t feel you have to call or anything, I’ll just sit here alone in the dark.” But for all I could tell that was just because she was generically lonely. She gets lonely easily, and that in turn makes her needy and clingy. She didn’t drop any hints that there was more going on than that.
But when we talked today, I got an earful.
It’s going to take some time to re-establish our relationship after this…. I really needed you and you just weren’t there for me…. You really hurt me very deeply by not calling ….
Of course I apologized for hurting her, saying that was no part of my intention. And then I sat and listened to her tell me about how difficult her week had been and how awful it was of me that I wasn’t there, … for the better part of an hour, until I was fifteen minutes late picking up Son 2 from his morning athletic class. (And if I hadn’t cut her off I’d probably still be on the phone now.) Towards the end she turned philosophical, musing that all of us make terrible mistakes and the only thing that makes any love relationship possible is forgiveness: God’s forgiveness of us, and our forgiveness of each other. And I didn’t really say a lot from my side.
But I was thinking, and my thoughts weren’t terribly pretty. In the first place, I was chewing over her remark that I hurt her deeply. I suppose I did, but I can’t completely get rid of the idea that hurting somebody is rather more active than that, that it involves doing something and not just failing to do something. OK, that’s picking at nits, I realize. When somebody has a right to expect that you will take a hand and you don’t, that’s almost as bad as doing something overt. But all that does is raise a second point: should she reasonably expect that I am there to weather the storm with her? We are not married, after all; and I have told her clearly (if not bluntly) that we never will be. Does our relationship – whatever you call it instead – carry this level of obligation with it?
And then the third thought is maybe the most important: what do I want? What do I want from the relationship? Do I want it to be one where we help each other through these kinds of storms? Or am I looking for something shallower than that? What would it look like if our parts were reversed? If I were the one having the crappy week, would I want her to support me, to help me through it?
Finally a question I can answer: No, I would not. I don’t know what that would look like. If I’m having a crappy week, the last thing I want to do is tell people about it, because then I have to manage their reactions as well as the original problem. It’s just that much more to carry.
Or am I lying to myself about that? After all, D and I started getting closer to each other when I wrote her about my troubles with Wife, because I couldn’t carry that burden by myself any more. (That’s the same reason I started this blog, and began inflicting all my whiny problems on you, my long-suffering readers.) Since that time I have had to carry a lot of D’s emotional reaction to my situation, besides carrying my situation itself. But I did open the door specifically because I needed help.
So maybe now I owe her that same help in return. It sounds fair and logical when I think of it that way. Only just at the moment I can’t feel it that way. Just at the moment, all I can feel is, What do I need this for? This I need like a hole in the head. Enough already!
Of course, at the same time that I’m grousing, Enough already, another part of my head is telling me to slow down. What am I saying -- that I want to break up with her? If that’s what I’m saying, do I really mean it? Have I really thought this through? Or am I just reacting with my own emotional storm? It’s been three years (just about) that she and I have been together; for the last year at least, I have started having moments where I imagine us breaking up. The only times I imagine it are those times when I am frustrated enough with her anyway that the thought is always a vast relief. I wind up thinking, “One down and one to go,” as if my goal were to get rid of all the women in my life. But I don’t trust myself. (Besides, that's crazy, isn't it?)
So let me ask you. You’ve known me for the same three years, most of you; or, if not, all that time is still sitting in the back years waiting to be read. You’ve seen plenty of my faults over those years. Am I just being a selfish prick? Is it just that I want all the benefits (the sex, and any support she has to give me) without giving back to her in exchange? Or is this nuts, and time to call it off?
I’m sure I haven’t given you enough information to make a fair or reasonable choice; and I am sure that I have prejudiced everything I’ve said to make myself sound more honorable and long-suffering than I really am. So if you correct for what I have written by assuming that I am acting worse than I describe and D is acting better, … what’s the verdict? Does it sound like this relationship is still worth it and I’m just overwrought? Or not?
Let me know what it sounds like to you ….
Friday, August 19, 2011
The bane of honor
"Love is the bane of honor, the death of duty."
-- Maester Aemon to Jon Snow, A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Nineteenth date
I'm late posting: this happened a month and a half ago, right at the end of June. Time flies ....
I had a short trip to Faraway City: two week days and a weekend. Still that's something, right? I guess. In the end most of what I remember was the drama.
We had dinner one night with the Consultant. It's the last time he'll be doing any business with my company, as he is being reassigned. It's too bad: he's fun and easy to work with. Besides, he's the only one in real life who knows and socializes with both of us as a couple. So D and I went out to dinner with him one last time, drank plenty of wine, told stories and had a great time.
The next morning I woke early to find D was not in bed. Huh? The room was dark and for a moment I thought she must be in the bathroom, but there were no noises from that direction. I sat up and saw a thin ray of light coming from the door. I walked over to it, and found D sitting in the hallway reading the paper, holding the door ever so slightly ajar with her foot. I stuck my head out and made a quizzical noise; she looked up, saw I was up, and came in.
I asked if something was wrong. D looked a little uncomfortable, and then said, "Well it's really ironic."
"What is?" I asked, thinking that whatever it was couldn't be good.
"Well for all these years we have laughed about how crazy Wife is for complaining about your snoring, because all the times we've been together you've never snored."
I knew what was coming then, and felt ... how do I describe it? A pit in my stomach? Two inches tall? Loathsome and unworthy? All of the above? Fighting about sleep and snoring is an old, old theme between Wife and me, and it has left me feeling chronically both despicable and bitter. I allude to it in all these posts, and discuss it most fully in this one. Hearing it now from D was just a nightmare, but all I did was stare at the floor and wait for her to spell it out.
"But you know, lately you have gained a lot of weight. And now, ... you snore. Yes, you do. And I couldn't sleep."
Take me now, Lord. Strike me with lightning, buffet me about with terrible winds, sink my feet in a river of boiling blood, it can't be any worse than this. Gaining weight is what D has always said killed her desire for her husband (see here) though I have begun to suspect that can't be the whole story. (I think I've said this a couple of places, but this is one.) And snoring ... dear God, not this again.
We talked. We must have. I don't remember a word of what we said, until dawn finally lit up the sky and I got dressed to go into the office. D reassured me she still loved me, of course, but I was completely in a daze.
And when I got back to the hotel at the end of the day I was still deeply depressed. I asked D kind of pro forma what she wanted to do this evening, but my heart wasn't in much of anything. D for her part had a very definite agenda in mind. It was Friday night at this point. Our dinner with the Consultant had been Thursday night, but we hadn't fucked then. (Too much wine.) This means we had had no sex since Wednesday night when we arrived, two whole days ago. And what were we waiting for? True, I was too depressed to have much interest in anything; but the great thing about sex is that once you start, even if you think you are uninterested, the sex itself takes over. So for an hour or more (D told me later that she looked at a clock and it was more) we both had a delightful time. And as we lay in each other's arms, basking in the afterglow, D felt in love and at peace with the world and I slid right back into the depression where I had been before.
Really, this wasn't crazy. The problem is that I was feeling worthless because of the snoring issue, and I had no reason to think that would go away. My only hope was that I could make it less intense by not drinking -- and so, for what it is worth, I didn't touch a drop of alcohol for the rest of the trip. (I actually stayed dry for about a month thereafter as well, although I haven't been so careful the last couple of weeks.) D, for her part, couldn't understand how anybody could be depressed after great sex, and it was truly difficult for me to tell her. The whole topic made me feel too worthless to be able to put it in words.
This feeling of worthlessness made me skittish for the rest of the visit. We were walking around downtown and I mentioned a movie that she hated; she replied by vigorously telling me what was wrong with it and I flattened myself against a wall as if she were going to smite me. I sulked and brooded as she tried one way and another to coax me out of it. All the time I kept hearing in the back of my head, Whatever you are doing, Hosea, it is wrong.
And then, our last afternoon in Faraway City, I actually made her mad.
We were out walking and had gotten caught in the rain. I had something in my pocket I didn't want to get wet ... I think it was a receipt. D offered to carry it in her purse, but really it wasn't going to get wet where it was and I just wanted to push on till we could get back to the hotel and dry off. She went stonily silent ... and then when we got back to the hotel she started packing her things.
I asked her what was wrong, and at first she wouldn't tell me. She snapped sharply about how I didn't value her and didn't care about her, suggesting I was only in it for the sex ... and I was surprised at how calm I was. It was as if I felt, OK fine. Go ahead and break up with me if you want to. At this point the weekend can't get worse; and if you break up with me there is just that much less drama I have to worry about in my life. I'll lose the outrageous highs, but I'll also lose some of the bumps in the road and maybe it's a fair trade. I didn't say any of this, of course, but I was thinking it. And I still didn't understand what was bugging her.
And then all of a sudden her anger cracked and she started to cry ... and with that she explained what was going on. "Hosea, when we get together you do everything for me and you pay for everything. When we met at the airport you carried my luggage. This afternoon you wouldn't let me pay for the movies, you wouldn't let me pay for the popcorn, and you wouldn't even let me carry your receipt in my purse for you .... Hosea, you never let me do anything for you, and what does that make me? I'm not an independent equal in this relationship, I'm just some kind of kept woman, ... and you buy things for me so you can have sex with me. What does that make me if not some kind of prostitute? And how do you think that makes me feel about myself when I look in the mirror?"
Oh, so that's the problem. I would never have guessed. After our wrangling about money at the end of last year (see, e.g., here and here and even the very beginning of here), I really have tried to pay for everything because it was the only way I could see to keep D from thinking I'm a cheapskate. But now I guess I leaned too far the other direction. I don't know, sometimes the middle ground can be hard to find.
Somehow I calmed her down and reassured her. The next morning I made sure to let her pay for breakfast, and to carry her own bags when we got back to the airport. And in the end I guess we were all right again. But I sure hope that next time we can tilt the balance in the direction of more sex and less drama ....
I had a short trip to Faraway City: two week days and a weekend. Still that's something, right? I guess. In the end most of what I remember was the drama.
We had dinner one night with the Consultant. It's the last time he'll be doing any business with my company, as he is being reassigned. It's too bad: he's fun and easy to work with. Besides, he's the only one in real life who knows and socializes with both of us as a couple. So D and I went out to dinner with him one last time, drank plenty of wine, told stories and had a great time.
The next morning I woke early to find D was not in bed. Huh? The room was dark and for a moment I thought she must be in the bathroom, but there were no noises from that direction. I sat up and saw a thin ray of light coming from the door. I walked over to it, and found D sitting in the hallway reading the paper, holding the door ever so slightly ajar with her foot. I stuck my head out and made a quizzical noise; she looked up, saw I was up, and came in.
I asked if something was wrong. D looked a little uncomfortable, and then said, "Well it's really ironic."
"What is?" I asked, thinking that whatever it was couldn't be good.
"Well for all these years we have laughed about how crazy Wife is for complaining about your snoring, because all the times we've been together you've never snored."
I knew what was coming then, and felt ... how do I describe it? A pit in my stomach? Two inches tall? Loathsome and unworthy? All of the above? Fighting about sleep and snoring is an old, old theme between Wife and me, and it has left me feeling chronically both despicable and bitter. I allude to it in all these posts, and discuss it most fully in this one. Hearing it now from D was just a nightmare, but all I did was stare at the floor and wait for her to spell it out.
"But you know, lately you have gained a lot of weight. And now, ... you snore. Yes, you do. And I couldn't sleep."
Take me now, Lord. Strike me with lightning, buffet me about with terrible winds, sink my feet in a river of boiling blood, it can't be any worse than this. Gaining weight is what D has always said killed her desire for her husband (see here) though I have begun to suspect that can't be the whole story. (I think I've said this a couple of places, but this is one.) And snoring ... dear God, not this again.
We talked. We must have. I don't remember a word of what we said, until dawn finally lit up the sky and I got dressed to go into the office. D reassured me she still loved me, of course, but I was completely in a daze.
And when I got back to the hotel at the end of the day I was still deeply depressed. I asked D kind of pro forma what she wanted to do this evening, but my heart wasn't in much of anything. D for her part had a very definite agenda in mind. It was Friday night at this point. Our dinner with the Consultant had been Thursday night, but we hadn't fucked then. (Too much wine.) This means we had had no sex since Wednesday night when we arrived, two whole days ago. And what were we waiting for? True, I was too depressed to have much interest in anything; but the great thing about sex is that once you start, even if you think you are uninterested, the sex itself takes over. So for an hour or more (D told me later that she looked at a clock and it was more) we both had a delightful time. And as we lay in each other's arms, basking in the afterglow, D felt in love and at peace with the world and I slid right back into the depression where I had been before.
Really, this wasn't crazy. The problem is that I was feeling worthless because of the snoring issue, and I had no reason to think that would go away. My only hope was that I could make it less intense by not drinking -- and so, for what it is worth, I didn't touch a drop of alcohol for the rest of the trip. (I actually stayed dry for about a month thereafter as well, although I haven't been so careful the last couple of weeks.) D, for her part, couldn't understand how anybody could be depressed after great sex, and it was truly difficult for me to tell her. The whole topic made me feel too worthless to be able to put it in words.
This feeling of worthlessness made me skittish for the rest of the visit. We were walking around downtown and I mentioned a movie that she hated; she replied by vigorously telling me what was wrong with it and I flattened myself against a wall as if she were going to smite me. I sulked and brooded as she tried one way and another to coax me out of it. All the time I kept hearing in the back of my head, Whatever you are doing, Hosea, it is wrong.
And then, our last afternoon in Faraway City, I actually made her mad.
We were out walking and had gotten caught in the rain. I had something in my pocket I didn't want to get wet ... I think it was a receipt. D offered to carry it in her purse, but really it wasn't going to get wet where it was and I just wanted to push on till we could get back to the hotel and dry off. She went stonily silent ... and then when we got back to the hotel she started packing her things.
I asked her what was wrong, and at first she wouldn't tell me. She snapped sharply about how I didn't value her and didn't care about her, suggesting I was only in it for the sex ... and I was surprised at how calm I was. It was as if I felt, OK fine. Go ahead and break up with me if you want to. At this point the weekend can't get worse; and if you break up with me there is just that much less drama I have to worry about in my life. I'll lose the outrageous highs, but I'll also lose some of the bumps in the road and maybe it's a fair trade. I didn't say any of this, of course, but I was thinking it. And I still didn't understand what was bugging her.
And then all of a sudden her anger cracked and she started to cry ... and with that she explained what was going on. "Hosea, when we get together you do everything for me and you pay for everything. When we met at the airport you carried my luggage. This afternoon you wouldn't let me pay for the movies, you wouldn't let me pay for the popcorn, and you wouldn't even let me carry your receipt in my purse for you .... Hosea, you never let me do anything for you, and what does that make me? I'm not an independent equal in this relationship, I'm just some kind of kept woman, ... and you buy things for me so you can have sex with me. What does that make me if not some kind of prostitute? And how do you think that makes me feel about myself when I look in the mirror?"
Oh, so that's the problem. I would never have guessed. After our wrangling about money at the end of last year (see, e.g., here and here and even the very beginning of here), I really have tried to pay for everything because it was the only way I could see to keep D from thinking I'm a cheapskate. But now I guess I leaned too far the other direction. I don't know, sometimes the middle ground can be hard to find.
Somehow I calmed her down and reassured her. The next morning I made sure to let her pay for breakfast, and to carry her own bags when we got back to the airport. And in the end I guess we were all right again. But I sure hope that next time we can tilt the balance in the direction of more sex and less drama ....
Monday, August 8, 2011
You can kind of tell these things, part 2
A while ago -- gosh, now that I look it was over a year ago -- I posted a reflection on how sometimes (maybe even often) you can see problems at the beginning of a relationship which doom it in the end. But then after seeing them you go ahead anyway: get married, move in together, whatever it is. In retrospect you wonder, "My God how is this possible?" And yet it seems to happen.
I don't have any more special insights on this question than I did a year ago, but I saw today that somebody at the Huffington Post wrote about the exact same issue, here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-gauvain/doubts-before-marriage_b_919868.html
Just for what it is worth ....
I don't have any more special insights on this question than I did a year ago, but I saw today that somebody at the Huffington Post wrote about the exact same issue, here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-gauvain/doubts-before-marriage_b_919868.html
Just for what it is worth ....
Friday, August 5, 2011
Borderline
You remember last week, when Wife called the police because I wouldn't let her drag the boys into one of our arguments? Well I sent a copy of the story to D, to the Consultant, and to my father and brother. My father replied by telling me about some of the phenomenally unpleasant things Wife had done during the Shakespeare Festival (before Son 1 and I got there): chronic complaining, mostly, with bouts of shouting at him for no discernable reason.
But then a few days later he wrote me about a friend of his from his Rotary Club, who is a clinical psychologist. Apparently he made an appointment with this fellow and showed him my account of the visit from the police, supplementing it with some of his own descriptions of what she is like to be around. With all this as input, my dad's friend diagnosed Wife with Borderline Personality Disorder.
I thought that was kind of interesting ... one of her psychiatrists diagnosed her with the very same thing years and years ago, although I have no idea if he ever treated her for it. (To hear her tell it, all her psychiatric treatment over the years has been for depression; the fact that she has been put on medication for bipolar patients, and even on anti-psychotics, she chalks up to her depression being "treatment-resistant.") My dad naturally wondered if you can lock people away for a diagnosis like this, and found out the answer is No.
On the other hand, my question is whether this is enough to deny her custody. At this point I have gone back to drafting a Parenting Plan; my earlier idea of waiting till Son 2 is in boarding school has proven foolish. Of course it is likely that everybody except me realized this fact a year ago ....
But then a few days later he wrote me about a friend of his from his Rotary Club, who is a clinical psychologist. Apparently he made an appointment with this fellow and showed him my account of the visit from the police, supplementing it with some of his own descriptions of what she is like to be around. With all this as input, my dad's friend diagnosed Wife with Borderline Personality Disorder.
I thought that was kind of interesting ... one of her psychiatrists diagnosed her with the very same thing years and years ago, although I have no idea if he ever treated her for it. (To hear her tell it, all her psychiatric treatment over the years has been for depression; the fact that she has been put on medication for bipolar patients, and even on anti-psychotics, she chalks up to her depression being "treatment-resistant.") My dad naturally wondered if you can lock people away for a diagnosis like this, and found out the answer is No.
On the other hand, my question is whether this is enough to deny her custody. At this point I have gone back to drafting a Parenting Plan; my earlier idea of waiting till Son 2 is in boarding school has proven foolish. Of course it is likely that everybody except me realized this fact a year ago ....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Hated
She will not feed herself; she’d rather sit
And starve – or scarf up candy, sodas, sweets.
But let me fix a meal, she throws a fit:
My God, she’ll die if that’s the food she eats!
She will not clean the house, nor put away
Her books, her clothes, her dishes, all her mess.
She stays abed, and sleeps throughout the day,
Then blames me for the squalid clutteredness.
The boys won’t talk to her. They’d rather play
Computer games, watch movies, text their friends.
And so she vilifies me every day:
“Force them to hear my plaints, and make amends!”
I’m hated, loathed, in every way reviled.
Yet she depends on me, just like a child.
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