Take charge of the situation. You can relieve tensions at home by acting as the mediator or offering sage advice. Show compassion; save wounded feelings by overlooking faults. Stand by your decisions.Stand by your decisions. Well yes, I've gone far enough down the road this point that I was planning to anyway. And no, I don't normally take my daily advice from the horoscope in the newspaper. But I couldn't help noticing that it seemed ... relevant.
Wife had wanted to talk with me about some things I was doing that bothered her. A couple weeks ago, she had gotten mad and started yelling at me about one of them (I think I sighed and rolled my eyes in a really dismissive way -- you would have gotten mad at me too), and I asked her please not to go into it right then and there, in front of the boys. (Or at least Son 2 ... Son 1 might have already gone back to school at that point.)
She shouted back, "You always say that! You always want to talk about it later, but then Later never comes! So if you don't want to talk about it right now, buddy, then when is it gonna be? Give me a date!"
I looked at the calendar and told her, "Saturday, September 8, at 9:00 in the morning. Is it a date? Can it wait till then?"
She was a little nonplussed that I gave her an exact date and time instead of just brushing her off, but she accepted it. And so this morning, when she had read the paper until about 9:30, I asked her, "I think you wanted to talk with me about something?"
She started by expressing concern for me, that my depression isn't being adequately managed, that she thinks I'm drinking too much, and that a happy man wouldn't drink the way I do. (I don't get drunk around others -- indeed, it's been a while since I have truly gotten drunk -- and I don't let it interfere with my work. I also think I have cut back from where I was six months ago, or so. But she is probably right that I would drink less if I were less anxious.) Then she moved from there to some of the behaviors she objected to: the eye-rolling, the visible disdain, ... also that when she is crazy or temperemental I will grasp her hand at the wrist to get her attention and not let go until I can get her to calm down and listen. She talked about all this for a while, and for a few minutes I even answered her at the same level.
Then I backed up and said, "You know, you're right. All this sounds pretty unpleasant, and you shouldn't have to live with it. Maybe we should just pack it in and go our separate ways."
And from that point we talked for more or less the next nine hours straight. Don't worry, I won't give you a transcript here.
Wife was pretty upset: by turns weepy, reflective, and furious. I did my best to keep an even keel, and to remind her how unhappy she has been with me for so long. Surely this will be a good move for her too, ... right? She wept and asked what she could possibly have done different; she shouted that I should dare to "go behind her back" to see a lawyer and jot down some notes about a possible settlement. Then later she would admit that yes, in many ways her life would improve without me too. And after that it was back to weeping and shouting.
I didn't go into any of the details of my plan, because I want to review it all of a piece in Lawyer's office rather than niggling it to death here at home. I did drop some hints, however, most notably that I would like her to be able to keep the house. She said that would be impossible; I admitted it would require a lot of creativity but I wouldn't accept calling it impossible until that had been proven. At one point she calmed down enough to say that naturally she thought I was fooling myself if I really believed she could qualify for a loan in her own name to refinance the place, but that if it were really possible that would ease about 90% (her number) of her fear and unhappiness over the divorce because she is afraid of being homeless and she is afraid of having to get rid of all her junk. So we'll see.
Long ago we established a tradition of eating some kind of fun food Saturday night and then watching a movie. So I went out to get us some burgers. We had "Hugo" from Netflix. She shouted at me over most of dinner and then I coaxed her into giving it a rest so we could watch the movie. She loved the movie, by the way, and was a lot more subdued afterwards. She went to bed soon after, and here I am typing this.
Just before I went out to get the burgers, I sent the following e-mail to my family: my parents, Brother and his girlfriend, and my aunt and uncle. (I have another aunt but she lives in another state and I don't see her much.) I had drafted most of it last night ... indeed, you will recognize the first paragraph ... and just made minor edits this afternoon to soften the rought corners.
Hello everybody,
Yesterday we drove Son 2 up to Durmstrang and moved him in. It was a beautiful day, and Son 2 was in very high spirits. Moving him in was pretty easy, because he packed very minimalistically; besides, the school isn't actually all that far away, so it should be easy enough to get something to him if it turns out he is missing anything. (His roommate brought a lot more stuff, and I had to wonder when he was going to use it all. But who knows?) Afterwards the Head of School talked to us for a while about what we should expect from the school (both as parents and for the kids), there was a large barbecue for everyone, and then the parents all had to leave. Wife was pretty tired, since she hadn't had a chance to rest all day, and went to bed soon after we got home.
This morning I asked Wife for a divorce. This is probably not a surprise because it has been years since the two of us have gotten along at all well, and I assume the fact has been pretty clear to everyone. Ironically, the one area we have (more or less) agreed on over the years has been child-rearing -- I say "ironically" because I gather that even couples who stick together can't always say the same. But at this point a lot of that task has been taken over at a day-to-day level by Hogwarts and Durmstrang. Naturally we both hope still to have a role to play in the boys's lives for years to come, but I think there is less need now for those roles to play out on a common stage under a common roof. And so, since there is really no serious prospect that Wife and I will suddenly start getting along a lot better again, maybe it is time for us both to move on to the next phase of our lives.
We both want to handle the mechanics as quietly and amicably as possible. As a first step, we have an appointment Monday to visit an attorney whose advice I have sought out, to go over a draft parenting and financial plan. Doubtless there will be many points we will have to discuss and refine. But we have to start somewhere.
I WOULD LIKE TO ASK TWO HUGE FAVORS OF ALL OF YOU:
1. We haven't told the boys yet. I hope to wait till we can tell them in person, which will likely be around the first week in October. PLEASE do not discuss it with them until we have had a chance to talk to them first. (Of course if they raise the subject with you, then you know that somehow they have already heard, and so of course in that case it is perfectly fair to talk to them. But please don't be the one to leak it to them.)
2. I have no idea if she will, but it is very possible that Wife might contact any one of you looking for advice or just someone to talk to. By all means it's a free country; if she wants to talk to you and you want to talk to her, clearly that's between you and her. But please understand something important: many times in the past, Wife has had a hard time understanding me when I am talking about something emotionally heavy ... like our relationship. Time and again I have had friends or relatives come to me asking, "Did you really say X to her?" and it's nowhere near what I was really trying to say. Honestly I think this communication problem is a large part of why we can't get along: I want to say one thing, she hears something totally different, and we clash over it. When I put it like that it sounds like something that should be easy to fix, but we have both tried to improve the communication for years -- decades -- and it hasn't gotten better. I don't know why not. Anyway, the only point is this: if Wife comes to you and tells you I said X or Y or Z, it's fine if you want to offer advice or counsel or comfort. But PLEASE do not conclude that what she tells you is what I was really TRYING or MEANING to say without asking me first. The percentage of times that she has really heard what I was trying to get at is a lot smaller than you would ever think possible. I don't know why. I wish I did. Maybe if I'd been able to figure it out years ago, things could have been different. It's sad.
Anyway, we'll keep you all posted on how things progress. I'm sorry if we have disappointed you, and I know we have disappointed ourselves. We both wanted this to end up in a better place; but step by step, over thousands of days, we have somehow managed to end up here instead. My hope now is to make the next steps as fair and as painless as possible for everyone.
With sorrow for the past, hope for the future, and love for you all,
Hosea
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