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 ....