Dinner with Debbie: depression and … D

A couple of nights ago I had dinner with Debbie.  I was feeling slightly feverish (from an unknown bug) so we agreed we wouldn’t kiss.  Still, it had been two whole days since we had seen each other (aren’t the first stages of love grand?) and so we both wanted to get together again.

She started out by telling me something she had been reading about how illness is perceived in different cultures: specifically, in this case, about a concrete case where mental illness (epilepsy) was understood as a special spiritual gift.  We both agreed that there really does seem to be an aura of specialness, a light in the eyes, emanating from those with mental disorders.  I talked about how magical Wife had seemed when I first met her; Debbie talked about her favorite aunt as she grew up, who was also crazy.  We agreed, too, that there is an intensity about these people that makes them exciting to be around, even while it completely destabilizes the lives of everyone within splashing distance.

I asked her if she had ever been diagnosed with depression, because I wanted to test a hypothesis that I formulated a few years ago.  Over the years I have noticed that with most people, my conversation is very superficial and unsatisfying, as if we somehow spoke different languages or came from different worlds.  This is frustrating because it means that I go through life seeing many good and admirable people with whom I would like to be friends … only I can find absolutely no basis for a friendship with them.  Maybe we can be colleagues who respect each other’s work, but no more.  And then on the other hand there are a few people with whom I understand instantly that I can talk deeply and at length.  All too often these are people who are somehow on the margins of whatever enterprise we are engaged in: people who don’t fit terribly well into the company or school where we both find ourselves.  Or they are people who have something far from admirable about them.  And often I have found later that they are depressed.  Since I suffer from depression too, I had hit on the idea that maybe somehow the depression is what I see in someone when I meet him or her, that tells me right away, “This person is like you and you can talk to each other.”  Maybe this is what I first saw in Wife, that attracted me even though she later proved so unsuitable in so many ways.  Maybe.

Only it turns out Debbie isn’t a chronic depressive.  She was afflicted with it twice: once was clearly situational, and the other time was a side-effect of another illness.  I explained my hypothesis and she suggested that maybe the real key is that the people I can talk to – the people I understand – are people like me who have a very extensive inner life.  (I figure this is a nice way to say, “People who wander around talking to themselves a lot.”)  This will include a lot of depressed people, because depression draws one inward; but it’s not exactly the same.

And then she said something about her own experience and used the phrase, “that was back when I still confused intensity for intimacy.”  I thought of my long-standing issue with “high-maintenance women” and laughed … and then kept laughing … and couldn’t stop.

Gosh, do think that might have been a bit of a give-away?  Debbie clearly did.  She asked, “What does this bring up for you?”

And so I told her.

I made it brief.  No names, precious few details.  I explained that I had broken it off because the intensity got too much for me.  And I explained that I often found myself wondering, “What the hell is it with me and high-maintenance women, anyway?”  (But I did not tell her that I have this blog. See, even I can learn.)

Debbie said, “Gosh, that makes me really hope I’m not a high-maintenance woman.”

I reassured her that it doesn’t look that way, using basically the same observations I made here.  But then I added that this is a story I have been really afraid to tell her; that after my fear that she would laugh at me for having been in love with her all these years, my next biggest fear in the whole relationship so far has been telling her about my affair with D … because I feared she would disapprove.

She looked thoughtful.  “I don’t disapprove. I don’t know what I would have done in your situation, with a marriage like what you’ve described. In general my own inhibitions have been strong enough and absolute enough that any kind of straying has been just unthinkable for me.”  This explains, by the way, why years ago, when she finally figured out that our relationship at work was acquiring romantic undertones, she called in her husband to slam on the brakes. But then she mused, “Well, except for once ….”  Then she told me her story.  It wasn’t quite the same, though, because she had been single at the time (but the guy was married).  Still, I clung desperately to her saying she didn’t disapprove ….

We had been talking for two hours.  It was getting time to go.  But I asked her one last question: “Have you heard of Sara Teasdale?”

“I think so. Wasn’t she a poet? I don’t know any of her work.”

“Yes, she was a poet. But I thought of her apropos of our whole discussion of intensity. Because there was this one poem of hers that I found years ago, in a textbook Wife was teaching out of back when she taught high-school English. It has stuck with me ever since."  And I quoted her “Barter” (which you all know by heart from seeing it on my sidebar for so long).

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness --
Buy it and never count the cost!
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost.
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

Very softly she said, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

We wrapped up and went our separate ways.  But I have been thinking about the dinner ever since.

Ooops!

When I wrote about visiting Debbie at her home, I said there was one more topic we discussed that deserved a post of its own.  What happened was that a few days before, while we were e-mailing each other back and forth over the question when I am going to stop wearing my wedding ring, Debbie accidentally forwarded the whole e-mail stream to somebody else. 

In fairness she was tired, so she didn't notice when the cursor apparently jumped back into the address bar where it didn't belong and interpreted one or two keystrokes as the first letters of another friend's e-mail address.  Consequently this long conversation, in which Debbie was trying to unpack how uncomfortable she felt about desiring me so intensely while I am still married to somebody else -- and during which we each punctuated our remarks with professions that naturally we would still love each other no matter how the discussion turned out -- showed up not only in my Inbox but in that of her friend Aimee as well.

Ooops!

That much I already knew.  And when Debbie found out what had happened (because Aimee had e-mailed her right away about it), she let me know that if it had to be anybody she was at least glad it was Aimee.  She said that Aimee is already someone with whom she has shared the depths of her soul, someone she knws she can trust with anything.  So (in effect) thank God it was her.  Debbie also reminded me that nothing we had said was bad in any way, and that much of it was rather beautiful.

But Sunday I learned more about it.  Apparently she and Aimee, though they live in different states, are part of some kind of professional work group that collaborates on projects every so often.  I didn't quite catch the details.  And there was a phone call the next day between Debbie and Aimee, and including one other woman as well.  Aimee asked Debbie's permission to talk about what had happened (rather than keep it behind the back of the third woman), and then explained how the whole thing had gone at her end.

First, she had scanned the e-mail, realized that it was intensely personal (and not for her), and deleted it.  Then she had talked to her friends, asking "Would you have read the whole thing if it had been you?" and every single one of them said "Yes, of course!"  And she found her own feelings quite conflicted.  On the one hand she was happy for Debbie at finding someone after all the trouble of her divorce and her loneliness thereafter.  On the other hand she felt kind of jealous, as if two of her best friends [two?] were whispering something behind her back that excluded her.

Fascinating story.  Of course, I said I didn't want to think of Aimee feeling bad over any of this.  Is there any chance that I might meet her some time?  Maybe so ... she's likely to be in our state for an event several months from now.  Is she herself alone?  Good heavens no, she has a husband and a family ... and in fact in earlier years Debbie had envied her those things.  But now of course Debbie is the one with the radiant NRE-glow, so it's only natural that Aimee should feel twinges the other direction.

I was also interested by the contrast between friendship and romance.  If I had anything profound to say about it, that would be the point of this post (not just the story).  The thing is, Aimee's feelings of exclusion look (from a certain point of view) almost exactly like what I used to feel whenever Wife would take another lover.  (See the three-part essay here, here, and here on this subject.)  But I don't think anybody really believes that Aimee is secretly lusting after Debbie's body (notwithstanding the article on female desire that D sent me once long ago).  So what is going on, then?  Why should Aimee feel so protective of her "relationship" with Debbie (if you want to call it that)?

In his last book, Allan Bloom talks about the differences between what makes a great lover and what makes a great friend.  He concludes unequivocally that they are different, but he does not come down in an obvious way in favor of either over the other.  Perhaps I should actually read the damned book instead of just ruffling the pages. and reading the dust jacket blurbs.  Maybe then I would understand better what has Aimee so upset.

It's a little small-scale drama.  Nothing on the kind of grand scale I used to see all the time with D.  But I still have to think that's a good thing.

"It surprised me"

Yesterday afternoon we took Son 2 back to Durmstrang.  Then I drove Wife back home, said I was going out for a bit ... and drove over to Debbie's place to visit her.  We had only an hour before she had to leave for a prior commitment, but it was the first chance I've had to stop by where she lives, and I wasn't about to pass it up.

She lives in a condominium development not too far from our house, actually.  Her place occupies two stories with a stairway between; the guest room was neat and tidy but the rest of it looked comfortably dissheveled.  She showed me the paintings on her wall and told me the story behind each; we looked at some photos of her and her family when she was a girl; we talked; and we kissed.

We kissed quite a lot, actually.  No more than that, except for hugging as we kissed ... although when we were sitting side by side on her sofa that more or less meant that I had one hand cradling her head and the other on her hip (or around her butt).  In fact when it got time for her to leave, I whispered "I guess I'd better let you go" and her voice was unusually husky as she replied, "Yes, I think that's a good idea. It's going to be tough going to bed tonight."

But we also talked.  Much of it was getting-to-know-you-again chit-chat: about our families, about where we grew up, about what we remember from childhood.  She said, "I think I'm a little bit older than you are," and it turned out that she is seven years older -- exactly the same age as D.  She talked about her sister, who has a great job (earning far more than Debbie does) and just recently became a grandmother; I told her about Brother, the rock musician in the family.

And we talked about us.  How we have gotten together again after so long.  What it was like for each of us when we were working together.  I told her in so many words that at one level or another I've been in love with her for many years ... that I wasn't absolutely positive I phrased it to myself that way at the time, but in retrospect I certainly did.  So when we met again I knew quite consciously that I had this huge romantic fog already in my brain, built up over years of reminiscence.  

Interestingly, that wasn't her perception at the time.  She said she knew she enjoyed me, she was happy to spend time with me, ... but she didn't frame it to herself in romantic terms.  So when we met again this year and she suddenly found herself with such strong feelings ... "It surprised me. It really did."  Maybe that's why she felt the need to call a halt after our first lunch, why she found herself struggling so much with her feelings for me.  For me there was no struggle ... just a fear of being laughed at in case she didn't feel the same way.  On my side, I was perfectly clear with myself what I had been feeling all along -- perfectly clear that I had fantasized about taking her to bed any number of times.  But it seems that when she started feeling exactly the same thing, it came as a shock to her.

Or almost a shock.  During our second lunch I had asked her about the times I described back here, when she and I started having lunch regularly and then all of a sudden her husband began joining us.  During that lunch all she said was that she didn't remember the event; she was sure her husband wasn't feeling jealous but she couldn't explain it better than that.  Last night she said that since the time I asked her, she had thought about it more and realized that yes, at some level she had begun feeling uncomfortable about the relationship ... not that I was being too aggressive, but just that her own feelings were becoming "inappropriate."  In other words, she was the one who began to feel she needed a chaperone. 

As an aside, I have to add that at another time she mentioned that she had already by then decided that her marriage was unsatisfying, and that she would leave it once her daughter was grown. What I deduce from this is that "appropriateness" -- legal and social form -- is a lot more important for Debbie than it is for me. She has not crossed the mental line to an acceptance of infidelity as more or less normal, or at least as a position on the spectrum of sexual behavior which is not all that uncommon (and not all that big a deal) in the grand scheme of things.  This must be also why it is so important to her that we not actually fuck until I have moved out of the house.  I'm going along with this because I don't want to pressure her into violating her own moral principles, and because I figure it may help me look a little better to my children or to friends in town.  But we clearly have different perspectives.  I assume there will come a day somewhere along the line when I will have to tell her about D, but I'm going to have to be careful how I do it.

One thing puzzled me a bit.  As we talked, I had the distinct feeling that I was acting a part.  I don't think anything I said to her was untrue -- certainly all the stuff about being in love with her for so long is stuff I have said to myself and to you many times.  I sure think it's true.  Only why did I feel like I was just reading my lines as I said it?  I'm happy to be with her, and the kissing is very nice -- but I keep expecting a woozy, inebriated feeling that just isn't there.  The lift of the heart, the pleasant joy?  Yes and yes.  The crazy, drunken "I can't believe this is happening but don't let it stop"?  The "I don't know what I said or what I'm about to say because being with you lifts me completely outside of myself"?  No and no.  I don't know why not, and I don't know if it should trouble me.  I can think of several hypotheses:

• I don't really mean any of it and I'm just trying to coax her into bed.  I truly believe this one is false, but to be fair I have to put it on the list.
• I spend so much time by myself thinking about these things, that by the time I say anything to her I have already said it to myself a thousand times before and the sheer repitition on the internal monologue is what makes me think I'm speaking the lines of a play.
• I just went through this whole falling-in-love routine with D not all that long ago (well, fours years), and so at this point maybe I'm getting a little jaded or blase about it.
• I'm not jaded at falling in love, but I am subconsciously comparing her with D.  But D was flamingly intense -- "high-maintenance" -- and Debbie is deliberately cool and subdued (because strong emotions frighten her).  So maybe it's just that I'm picking up on the difference and judging the whole interaction through that lens.

I don't know what's behind it, but it's something I want to watch.

There was one more thing we discussed, but I think it deserves a post of it's own.  Coming soon, to a blog near you ....  

Low maintenance?

I'm almost afraid to write this.  Murphy's Law or the Evil Eye or something might trip me up.  And how do I knock wood on the Internet?

But have you noticed something about all the e-mails and lunches I have reported here, with Debbie?  There's a month and a half ... almost two months here.  Even with that long silence the first month, I can't help but think it is a statistically-significant sample.

And in all that time, what don't you see?  Think back to all my early e-mails with D, way back in October 2008 -- just about a month, actually.  Think back to this one, for example.  What you are not seeing in my e-mails with Debbie is argument, misunderstanding, hurt feelings, abject apologies ... all the god-damned drama that inaugurated even the rosy, falling-in-love period with D.  One step after another, it's been "Oh, you think that too? Oh, you feel that too? Oh, you value that too?"

It won't be that way every single day.  It can't be.  And in fact right now, she and I are discussing the question, When am I going to stop wearing my wedding ring?  It's an issue that makes her feel awkward and vulnerable.  And yet, the whole discussion has been low-key.  She and I have been able to reassure each other that, no matter how the discussion goes, it's not going to be any kind of deal-breaker.  Our feelings are still steady.  We can trust each other enough to talk about it without guilt or anxiety or drama ... just to talk through it and see where the conversation leads us.

Such a change.  Dear God, but it is pleasant and refreshing.  And this is a contrast with D, whom I still loved quite recently -- don't let me even get started contrasting Debbie with Wife, whom I last loved that way some decades ago.

Is it possible ... can it be ... that I have found a low-maintenance woman who loves me, and whom I love?  Or is there another shoe waiting to drop?

I'm hoping for low-maintenance.  Cross your fingers.

Jealous

Son 2 goes back to school today after a week’s vacation.  Son 1 went back on Wednesday.  While I was at work during the week, Son 2 baked brownies and made fudge with Wife, played board games, and so on.

I find myself being jealous of the time he spent with her doing fun things, especially since I often have trouble thinking of fun things to do.  There’s a whining voice inside my head that says, “I don’t want him to have fun with her! I want him to have fun with me! I want to be the favorite parent!”

I’m starting to think this same whiny voice is behind my desire to get the majority of custody time.  Yes, I think many of Wife’s principles are dysfunctional; yes, I think she’s an ineffective parent; yes, I’m disgusted by her incestuous fantasies towards Son 2.  But for heaven’s sake, the boys are in their middle teens.  Son 1 is sixteen; Son 2 is fourteen.  And eight months out of the year they spend at school, around people who are supposed to be excellent role models.  So what the hell am I worried about?  They are their own people now.  How much damage can she really do?

The truth is that the whole idea of “favorite parent” is a red herring.  Both boys have criticisms of both of us.  (Different criticisms.)  Both boys will continue to love both of us anyway, just because we are their parents.  And even if, as adults, they decide not to spend time with us at all – or worse (from my vanity’s point of view), even if they decide to spend time with her and not me – that’s not the real point.  The real point is that they grow up to be good, ethical young men.  What they do after that is out of my control and none of my business.

It doesn’t stop me from feeling jealous anyway, but I try to remember that.

Emails with Debbie, 4

From this point our letters to each other became a lot longer, so I am going to have to pull out just a few excerpts.  But I'll try to keep to the basic thread of the narrative, how we opened up to each other so quickly.

Hosea:

On the basic question how much we should write each other between lunches (and about what), the first and loudest answer that jumps into my head is in the voice of the Greedy Child lurking somewhere in the back of my brain, who insists that if he’s going to have to wait THREE WHOLE WEEKS (pout, sniff, sulk) between lunches then he jolly well wants to be able to write in the meantime.  Greedy Child is also sneaky enough to agree completely with what you say about the unsatisfactoriness of cyber-romance and the superiority of relating in person, only to pivot on his heel and whine that what this really argues for is to meet more often.  (smile)  I certainly don’t say that Greedy Child should get his way all the time, because sometimes he’s just wrong.  Figuratively speaking, sometimes he clamors for things that will just give him a belly-ache.  But he sure is loud.

Debbie:

Your Greedy Child makes me laugh.  I'm glad you are aware of him and I hope you are taking good care of him.  I first thought to suggest you offer him a cup of warm chamomile tea with a bit of honey and some soothing words so that he can relax, but I am guessing he won't be soothed and that distracting him with a good, hard run of, say, 5 or 6 miles might be better.  Greedy Child prompted me to look inside myself to see what voices are asking to be listened to... there is Tender Heart who says that this is exciting, there are many things I like about him and these warm, loving, desirous feelings feel pretty good, but the intensity scares me, I'm not sure where this is going so would you please take good care of me?  And there is Inner Wisdom Voice who says it's good to keep my heart open even when I'm feeling scared or overwhelmed, but it is also good to go slowly and take plenty of time, that I am happiest when I stay true to my deepest values and what I want for myself in my life than when I run after the feelings of the moment.  If the feelings stay constant over a period of time, I can trust them.  There is serenity and solid happiness I can rely on when I do this....

About the need to get to know each other [again after all this time]... I couldn't agree more.  There are a couple of important areas where I feel it would be good for you to know more about me.  As I said at lunch, it's important to me to be able to bring my whole self to my relationships and that means you have to be able to get to know those various parts of me.  Also, I'm aware that I am a pretty complicated person with a fair amount of "baggage," and while we can never really know another person fully because we are all changing all the time (where would the fun be if we could?), it would be good for you to be able to have a certain degree of "informed consent" as you begin to share your heart with me.  And I am sure there are many things that it is important for me to know about you.  Getting to know you again after all these years gives me pleasure... both seeing and recognizing the things about you that I liked so much back then, such as your way with language and your humor, and getting to see who you are as a person today.  I'm impressed with how vulnerable you have allowed yourself to be with me and yet, that seems to be coming pretty easily for both of us.... 

Moving on to the emotional impact of e-mail itself... I have a concern.  The emotional intensity I have been experiencing in response to you, while in many ways wonderful, is also somewhat exhausting.  Both seeing you in person and exchanging e-mail contributes to that.  So I may need to take breaks.  And surely the intensity will ease over time.  Maybe you are not experiencing this in just the same way.  

Hosea:

I continue to gaze in wonder at how much ground we have covered in the comparatively short time we’ve been talking, and at how directly we are able to talk about what we feel and want.  You said something similar when you remarked that we have let ourselves be vulnerable to each other.  Am I mistaken, to be amazed by how quick, how smooth and absolutely natural the process has been?  I’m pretty much a foreigner to any kind of conventional dating (if there is such a thing), but somehow I can’t imagine that most potential couples start talking to each other the way we do, as easily as we have been talking.  I find myself wanting to comfort Tender Heart by telling her she is spot on when she describes these “warm, loving, desirous” feelings, and yes they do feel pretty good; and further, that I would never willingly do anything to hurt or scare her.  I understand, however, that the sheer intensity can be scary whether I will or no, and that this is wrapped up with the whole topic of energy and silence. 

I want to talk a little bit about energy and silence, but I’m not quite sure where to start.  They are bound up with each other.  So on the one hand, no, to some extent you are right to guess that I have not been experiencing our reconnection quite as forcefully as you describe it for yourself: delightful, exhilarating, enticing, and full of promise … yes, it has been all of these for me.  But I think I would stop short of “overwhelming”.  On the other hand, I do think I have experienced what you are talking about.  I had a dear friend once whose levels of personal energy were just phenomenal, so much so that she exhausted me.  [This was D, of course. Who else could it possibly be?]  It wasn’t so much that we were doing exhausting things together (no mountain climbing or deep-sea diving), but rather that I found myself getting worn out just by being around her.  And so while she kept telling me, “Oh we must spend more time together,” I learned that to keep myself from crashing into a sudden, deep depression I had to limit our time to short visits separated by long breaks.  It’s not that I didn’t enjoy our time together, but the sheer outpouring of energy left me ragged.  I think you may be describing something similar – perhaps not word-for-word the same, but close enough for purposes of my understanding you.  If that’s it, … well, I have to shake my head softly at the irony of finding myself on the other side of the equation, but what else can I say?  I know for sure in that case that backing off became a basic and essential coping mechanism.

Debbie: 

I'm so happy for your letter.  It is almost unbelievable to me how well we are communicating and how natural it seems.  Everything I have offered to you, you have met with understanding and caring.  And I am happy for all the things you are telling me about yourself.  Your insight and ability to be honest are very reassuring to me (and I simply enjoy your talking to me).... 

You know, I'm not sure how many people do "conventional dating."  Some, maybe.  I didn't date a lot, but I guess once or twice it might have been somewhat conventional.  Mostly I have looked at other people with curiosity and wonder at how they can date over a period of time,  gradually getting to know each other.   You occasionally hear of couples who spend hours and hours talking when they first meet and feel a strong, natural connection right away, but I think it is unusual.  I have not experienced the ease and depth of connection this way before and I am very, very happy for it.  Regardless of how things go or what direction things take,  I am also amazed and very grateful for how we are able to be vulnerable and share so much of ourselves and have it be so natural and easy.

I'd like to respond to what you have said about energy and silence and intensity of feeling.  I admit that I did feel a bit overwhelmed last week by your eagerness (well, Greedy Child's).  That has passed.  Now it is my own strong emotions that are challenging.  Even good feelings can be stressful when they are so strong.  I want to tell you something, but I don't know quite how to express it and get it reasonably right so that you can understand (I had hoped to tell you about this in person).  Here goes... preferring to stay in a moderate zone of emotional intensity and feeling anxious when my feelings become strong is a remnant from my childhood.  I grew up in an alcoholic family that turned violent when I was twelve.  My feelings as a young person were either totally numb or off the charts in intensity (usually fear or anger or both).  Much of that is in the past, [and then she explained some of what she had done to overcome it]....  So to come back to the present,  I think the reason I am feeling somewhat overwhelmed by my own intense feelings, even though they are warm & loving, is that as a child and young adult, I associated any strong feelings with bad things happening.  I'm quite sure this will pass, and probably quickly, with familiarity.    Is this okay to have told you this?  This is where the informed consent comes in.  If you can love the wounded parts of me as well as the strong healthy parts, that would be a wonderful thing.  Tender Heart would love to be comforted by you.

What else could I say to her but that of course this was fine with me.  And my ear, listening for the use of language (as always), once again picked up the word "love" -- this time very explicitly about my loving her.  Absolutely progress in the right direction.

There was one more component of our exchanges before our third lunch, but it belongs in a different post.  I also think that it may have been what it took finally to close the gap.

Why does Wife keep doing this?

Saturday night.  Son 1 has gone back to school.  Son 2 goes back tomorrow.  We have dinner out, then come home and watch a movie.  Son 2 goes to bed.  Wife takes her night-time pills and then goes into the back bathroom for something.  I'm dawdling till they are both in bed to see if I have any e-mails from Debbie.

After five or ten minutes I hear a low moan from the back bathroom.  Was that a trick of the wind, or what?  I go back, and Wife is slumped in the sink.  Her face is pressed against the mirror.  Her glasses are cockeyed and half off her face.  She is unconscious and incoherent.

Sigh.  This again.

I get her into bed and get her glasses off.  I try to talk to her but it's no use.  I ask her, "What are you going to do when you are living alone?"  She mumbles something that makes no sense.  Son 2 sounds like he is still awake, so of course he hears the whole interchange.  I should have been quieter.

Why will she never learn that as soon as she takes her night-time meds she has to get in bed right away because they will knock her out?  How hard is this to figure out?

I need a drink.

Oh, by the way I just found out that Debbie doesn't drink.  (sigh)  Maybe she'll be a good influence on me.

Maybe not.  I wonder what we've got a bottle of in the house ....

Emails with Debbie, 3

When Debbie cut short our dialog (at the end of the previous post), I wondered if I had stepped across some line somewhere without knowing it.  God knows that happened often enough with D, so I wouldn't have been too surprised if it happened again here.  So I asked her about it:

Hi Debbie,

I realized this afternoon that I’m not quite clear where you see the boundaries on the usefulness of e-mail, so I’d like to ask.  But please bear with me for just a minute so that I can frame the question.

You’ve said – and I’ve agreed – that now and for the near future we’ll have lunch from time to time but not get together for other kinds of occasions.  There are several reasons for this: you mentioned one on Monday, but after only a short reflection I thought of a couple others as well.  So in a nutshell, it’s the right thing to do.

Do you see the same considerations applying to e-mail?  I mean, … that it is useful in (say) organizing lunches but should be limited to that?  If yes, I’ll treat it that way and not use it to extend the conversation.  I know you said that quite clearly after our last lunch (a month ago), but I’m not quite sure if you were saying the same thing again earlier today.  Maybe so.  Again, if yes, that’s what I’ll do.

No hurry or pressure for a quick answer.  Just whenever you feel like it.  I will in any event not write more until I hear from you again, and that can be as short or as long as you like.  Either way is fine.

All the best, in every way,

Hosea

Fortunately, her answer was a lot more nuanced than I feared it might be:

Hi Hosea,

Actually, yesterday I was truly overtired and my mind was dull, but I didn't want to wait to reply.  That's why my message was so short.

But your question is a good one.  I'm not sure where the boundaries on e-mail should be.  Why don't we talk through this and decide together what is best for us to do?  It is occurring to me that negotiating decisions and working through issues doesn't have to be the difficult struggle it often was for me with my husband and that it sounds like it has been for you with Wife.  You and I have an opportunity to do something different.  I feel a big sigh of relief when I think that we might covenant with each other to take a collaborative approach to whatever comes up, to try to work through things together, as best as we can.  Are you up for it?

So... these are my thoughts about e-mail.  First, I love reading your messages to me.  I love how you talk and I can hear your voice clearly in your words.  Discussion is good - we continue to get to know each other and it is helpful to clarify questions.   At the same time, I do feel somewhat uncomfortable with e-mail for a couple of reasons.  I don't entirely trust the privacy of e-mail.  I know that any e-mail you send or receive at work is the property of your employer and when I hear you describe your company's strict e-mail policy, I feel concerned that there could be trouble for you over using your company e-mail account for our conversations.  Makes me a bit reticent to discuss anything personal (but I am doing it now!).  My other concern has to do with the emotional side of e-mail.  Our exchanges are evoking plenty of strong feelings of various flavors for me and it seems to me that cyber romance is not a good idea right now for some of the same reasons that dating needs to wait, but also because I would prefer that most of our relating be in person rather than online.

That's what comes up for me... what about you?

yes, fondly,
Debbie

There were a lot of points in this note that I found very encouraging.  "Romance"?  "Dating"?  She and I have the chance to do "something different" specifically as compared to our (respective) difficult marriages?  All of it good.  And then there was, I think, the first use of that verb ... "love".

I was very happy to read that.

Emails with Debbie, 2

Continuing the conversation from my previous post, Debbie wrote me:

I, too, think it was useful to take a pause to think things

through and invite some clarity about my own emotional processes.  I

appreciate your honest self-examination and I am glad for our talk. 

Happy, actually.  It's amazing how freeing honesty can be, even when

circumstances and feelings are complicated or difficult.  I'm looking

forward to seeing you again.

And I her:

You are absolutely right that honesty is freeing, and it can open up options that were never available before.  A less happy example -- for many years I observed a strict silence about the craziness in my marriage, and not coincidentally I also felt permanently locked in place.  People would ask how things were at home, and I would say "Fine" and then change the subject.  It was only a few years ago that I could bring myself, very cautiously at first, to talk about it with anybody. [Naturally in the first instance I'm talking about all of you; and then after a while, about D.]  And it was only after I was able to do so that I could see there were alternatives.  As I say, it's a less happy example but it reinforces the point.

But right now I'd rather think about more cheerful things instead; so I am looking forward -- sunnily and with a smile on my face -- to seeing you again.

Fondly, Hosea

Debbie:

More about honesty... it took me a good long while and a lot of painful

work to see the truth about some aspects of my marriage. And some of it

I couldn't see clearly until I had been out on my own for over a year. 

So I do know what you are talking about and I want to acknowledge how

important it is.  I find myself wanting to say that you deserve to enjoy

happiness in your life and in your relationships.  There is peace and

relief ahead, I promise. At least that has been my experience.

with an open heart,

Debbie

Hosea:

I firmly believe what you say about the peace and relief ahead, because in a way I can see it in front of me.  And the consequence is like when I ran cross-country back in high school (I was never remotely fast enough to be competitive, but the coach was good-humored about letting me join the team just to get in better shape), ... when I got to the point in a run where I could see the destination, then I knew it was only so many more footsteps until I reached it and it was only a matter of plugging through them.  Maybe not a perfect analogy, but there's something useful in it.  I have found, too, that sometimes it takes time and distance to see things clearly.  Just the other day I found myself remembering one of Wife's long-term gripes about me -- something I had never understood because it was so foreign to any of my own perceptions -- and suddenly there was a click in my head and I saw it from a different angle.  "Oh, so that's what was going on!"  It was a little point and nothing profound, but it had taken years for the sediment in my head to settle just right so that I could see it.

I think we are going to have a lot to talk about, and not only about the past.  It's a happy thought.

With warmth and affection,

Hosea

But then she answered like this:

I find I don't have a lot to say just now.   Looking forward to a day of

rest tomorrow after a week full of study and work.

may you be well,

Debbie

... and I began to wonder if she was trying to cut off the conversation again, kind of like before.  When I asked, that took us in another direction.

Emails with Debbie, 1

I explained here that within the space of three lunches spanning a month and a half (and with a prolonged silence of a month between the first two lunches), she and I have gotten to the point of holding hands and whispering "I love you."  Sounds like quick work, all in all,  Honestly I think part of the explanation has to be that we had gotten to know each other quite well years ago, when we worked together; and I now think that she must have had feelings for me back then similar to mine for her, or she could not have fallen this fast.

But some of the progress in closing the gap has been done in e-mail; so it is only fair that I back up to just after our second lunch, and fill in the story from there.

Anyway, after that second lunch (where we admitted that we were "responding emotionally" to each other), Debbie wrote me this:

I just want to say that I really enjoyed our time together at lunch

today.  While there is a great sense of familiarity, there is also much

new in the getting to know you again, and I am enjoying the energy

between us.  I especially appreciate how you ask questions to clarify

your understanding of something I have said or done.  It gives me

permission to be open and authentic, and how you have received what I

have said makes it continue to be safe.  You have done it a couple of

times now and I find myself admiring you for it and also wishing I could

be brave enough to do the same.  So maybe this is something I can learn

from you.

I wrote back:

Your kind words are sweet to hear, especially as I wasn't aware I was doing anything special.  But I think part of what makes it possible is that there has been time between our meetings (two weeks from the grocery store to our first lunch, and four from our first lunch to today) ... and I have been able to spend that time thinking.  I suppose in the last four weeks I must have stepped through that part of our conversation in my imagination ... well, any number of times.  Since I didn't know how you would answer, I tried to prepare myself for the worst (unnecessarily as it turned out, for which I am exceedingly grateful).  But this also meant I had to look at myself from all sides and really think about what was going on with me, too.  Because I knew that would be a part of the picture -- how could it not? -- and I knew I had to be honest about reporting what I saw, if I expected anything good from the discussion.

As for "brave enough" ... well I've never thought of myself as especially brave.  In some ways, as I told you over lunch, I see my life as marked by a kind of timidity that often doesn't serve me but that can be hard to shake.  But I don't feel that way so much when I'm talking with you.  It seems to me that was even true way back when ... unless I am just seeing the past through the eyes of the present.  But that's how I remember it.

I'm going to remember this lunch fondly for a long time.  And yes, I very much look forward to the next one.

I'm going to break this dialog up into several posts, both because that was how it unfolded in real life and because otherwise the post will become prohibitively long.  Stay tuned.

Legacy student

This is outside the main path of the narrative right now, but I want to make a note of it before I forget.  I was talking with Son 1 the other day, and he said something interesting.

Actually he asked me a question: "Dad, when you were a student at Hogwarts [like he is now], what did you say in your chapel talk?"  Hogwarts has a tradition that every Senior gives a chapel talk to the community some time during the year.  Son 1 is a Junior, but he has started to think about what he wants to say.  I think I have also mentioned that Son 1 is a legacy student, in the sense that both I and Brother went to Hogwarts for high school.  (Son 2, you will recall, is the odd one out; he's going to Durmstrang.)

"I'm not sure I remember. Why?"

"Well I wanted to ask you, and then I wanted to ask Uncle [i.e., Brother]. And then I figured I'd start out by saying, 'I'm not the first Tanatu to stand up here before you. My father talked about this, and my uncle talked about that. My talk will be different.' "

What struck me is that I hadn't realized how much it is a part of Son 1's identity at school, or of his self-understanding, that he is the third one in the family to go there.  That there is some kind of Tanatu legacy there that he's a part of.

I mused a little longer, "I kind of remember what I said at graduation, but I'm not sure I remember my chapel talk ...."

"Graduation? Oh right, you were valedictorian weren't you?"

"Ummm ...."

"Why didn't you ever tell us you were valedictorian, back when we were growing up? Do you realize I only found out my Freshman year, when one of the old teachers there told me?"

"I guess because I didn't want to come across as one of those fathers who ...."  I fumbled for words.

"Who says 'You have to follow in my footsteps'? Don't worry! I don't feel that way."  Then he laughed and added, "You can tell by looking at my latest grade report."

"That's OK," I said.  "You're also a varsity athlete. When I was at Hogwarts the idea of mentioning my name and 'varsity athlete' in the same breath could only have been a bad joke."

We joked a little more back and forth before drifting off the subject.  But he did ask me to try to remember what I talked about.

Third lunch with Debbie

I'll keep this brief.  I don't have time to write more at the moment.  And really, I should post about a week's worth of e-mails between us first.  Maybe two weeks.  I'll get around to that soon, to fill in the back story; because I think without the steps provided in those e-mails, this post may be a little abrupt.

Suffice it to say that this is only our third lunch and we have reached the point of holding hands and discussing what we can afford to do together ... where the boundaries have to be.  Debbie is no longer worried about not even going to the theater with me.  She asked if she can invite me over to dinner with some of her other friends.  (Sure, why not?)  But we both agree that we probably shouldn't actually fuck until I have moved out ... so if the boys ever ask, we can say so with a straight face.  I explained that their good opinion matters more to me than a lot of other considerations.

Update added June 27, 2022: I don't want to change anything else that I've written here, all of which was written in the moment. But maybe I can add a little more about what we discussed. Two points have stuck with me over the years. 

One is that this is when I explained about Wife's multiple infidelities over the years. Debbie was pretty quiet during this account, but then she said softly, "OK, so maybe you don't have to keep your side of the street as perfectly clean as I was thinking." And I agreed.

The second point didn't even involve words. We were talking about some of the things we might do together. Debbie was being a little cautious about committing to any of them, and I asked why. Without saying a thing she took my left hand in one of hers, and with the index finger of her other hand started tracing back and forth across my wedding ring. Clearly her unspoken question was, How long are you going to keep wearing this? And it took me a little bit by surprise because I had forgotten that I was wearing it. After almost thirty years, the habit of sliding it on in the morning had become so automatic that I didn't even notice I was doing it. I don't remember what I said. I think I mumbled something like, "Oh, right." And I started to think about when to take the ring off. At this point I don't remember quite when I actually stopped wearing it. But this lunch is the first time it was drawn to my attention.  

And as we parted in the parking lot, we exchanged the sweetest kiss ... and finally got to the words, "I love you."  "I love you too."  She was first with the kiss; I was first with the words.

I'm sure I did something at the office in the second half of the day once I got back from lunch, but I'm damned if I can tell you what it was.

Buddhism, pizza, and poetry

One point that I have left out of all these posts till now is that Debbie is a practising Buddhist.  When I had known her years before, she and her husband attended a Unitarian church.  But apparently during the years in between, she started meditating and then gradually learned more and more about Buddhism itself, finding it a refuge and stabilizing influence in her life.  During our second lunch, after talking about how we were falling in love with each other, she asked me if I was OK with this.  She said she didn't want to convert anybody, but it would be hard to be with someone with whom she could not share such a large part of herself.  Would I maybe (some day in the distant future) be willing to think about going on a retreat with her?  And of course I said yes.

Anyway, during our e-mails she asked me if I would be interested in reading anything about Buddhism.  When I said yes, she recommended Jack Kornfield's A Path With Heart, and offered that I could borrow her copy with all of the marginal notes she had jotted in it ten years ago, when she started meditating.  This sounded great to me, so we spent a little time discussing when we could get together so I could borrow the book.  We finally agreed she would stop by my office the next Friday evening, on her way out to dinner with a (female) friend of hers, after which the two of them were going to the symphony.  Beethoven was playing.

This was all good, but I was curious who Jack Kornfield was and so googled him.  Prowling around in the search results, I found a piece he had written that included the following paragraph, which caught my eye.

One of the interesting things when you start to look at and work with the hindrance of desire is to see that what relieves it, what makes one finally happy about it, is not so much the thing that you get, or the person, or the experience that you get at the end -- this is important, so listen to this -- it's actually the fact that the state of desiring has ended.  I'll give you a simple example.  Suppose you have a craving for some food that you really want to have.  It can be pizza or ice cream or cannelloni, you name it, whatever it happens to be.  You go and you get it.  You do all the things.  You get in your car, you go, you finally get it, you have it in your hand, and you take the first bite of whatever it is.  And usually the moment that you taste it, there's this great sense of delight and release, and so forth, and part of it may be because it tastes good and it's pleasurable, if it's part of your fantasy -- but the main piece is, in that moment, finally the wanting stops.  Do you understand that?  And that a good deal of the joy of fulfilling desires is not so much the getting of the thing, because you have it for a little while and then you want the next thing -- it's endless -- but rather that there's a moment when the wanting itself stops.  If you look closely in yourself, if you let yourself look, you find that the very process of wanting is painful; that the very state of not being complete or content or present with what's here is what the pain is about.

OK, it's not an unusual teaching if you have read anything about Buddhism.  Pretty straightforward stuff.  It did make me wonder a little bit about love and sex, about all the desire for each other that Debbie and I had been talking about (ever less guardedly).  Does that work the same way?  I suppose it could explain a lot of infidelity.  But if so, that makes Buddhism a strikingly anti-romantic religion.  Worth thinking about.

So I thought about this passage some more.  And then some more, ... and some more, ... and some more.  And finally, that Friday afternoon when Debbie was on her way to lend me her book (and then go off to a concert), I composed her the following:

“Just think of pizza,” Roshi said one day,

“You smell it, need it, crave it, don’t you see?

“Your mind’s a-blur, there’s nothing you won’t pay,

“And that first bite is sheerest ecstasy.”

“The second bite is not quite so divine:

“For with the first, the Craving drops its hold.

“Then it comes back, now maybe it wants wine,

“And finds the pizza greasy, stale, and cold.”

Is it like that with love? I stare in fright.

Do all the waiting, longing, and desire

Prepare us for one single, magic night,

And then, with dawn, cold ashes but no fire?

It must not be (although for some it is).

Without the Want, love still has work to do.

It builds its fire anew, each day, from bliss.

And makes our souls a home, a shelter true.

They’re not the same. Love has a different goal.

For pizza feeds my gut. Love builds my soul.

When she arrived at my work, all I said about it was that I had e-mailed her a little something based on a passage from Kornfield I had found on the Internet.  Maybe when she had a chance she'd like to take a look.

That evening she wrote me back:

I came home from Beethoven to find this...  you amaze me.
I 'm surrendering to these feeling of love for you, and while the desire is delicious, it's the love that is filling my soul.

Score.

And Monday was our third lunch.

So controlling, part 2

The other day I was browsing through some of my e-mails from D last year, and I happened upon one that caught my attention.  She wrote it last August -- maybe a month and a half after I thought I had broken up with her, but a full month before I remarked casually in an e-mail to her that of course our affair was over, at which point her replies stopped short. (I have heard from her exactly three times in the four or five months since, each note short and perfunctory: happy birthday, merry Christmas, ... that sort of thing.)

Anyway, the reason this letter from last August caught my attention is that D actually called me "controlling" -- D, who used to laugh at how Wife said the same thing and at how little control she (D) could see that I actually exerted in the relationship.  But in this case, she was replying to a line where I had mentioned how much I hate to be the center of attention; and D wrote back:

From my vantage point, you do insist on being the center of attention because you demand full control of so many aspects of our relationship. My desires, my needs, even my generous impulses are rejected unless they meet with your approval. There is little compromise. In part, I accept your control because there are aspects of my character that need reformation and work. But I might gently suggest that your fears are not productive or grounded in reality and that ultimately, your controlling side must collapse and accept some risk.

There it is, plain as day: "controlling".

When I first read that, I was just amused.  But then just recently, on my way to work one morning, I realized exactly what (I think) she was talking about.  The things she itemized that I was trying to control were all things she did that made me crazy, or that hurt me deeply in some way ... often because of her unspoken assumptions that in this context I ought to behave like that.  And so of course when one of these would come up, after the fight was over, I'd tell her "I don't ever want to go through that particular fight again, so let's not even re-create the situation that caused it. Please don't XYZ any more."  So controlling.

And in all this the real answer to it all is that I wanted out.  The affair had gone on too long and was too burdensome, D herself required far too much maintenance or management, and I just didn't want to be with her any more.  It was time to quit.

In retrospect, that's probably what it meant when Wife started calling me "controlling" too.  In the first years of our marriage, she complained (if anything) that I was too passive and exerted too little control, not the reverse.

But this is useful.  It tells me something about myself, and how I respond in relationships.  It also tells me (if I can extrapolate safely from only two cases) that when I start putting hedges around a girlfriend's behavior. it's a sign something bigger is going on and maybe we have to evaluate the whole romance.

If any of you ever finds yourself involved with me (I'm speaking to my female readers just now), and if you find that all of a sudden I am getting inexplicably controlling, maybe it's time for us to call the whole thing off.  Just a thought.


P.S.: I have also come to think, in retrospect, that I saw D exhibit a lot of the same behaviors which D herself called "narcissistic" when Wife did them.  Maybe I'm stretching too far there, but it has crossed my mind.  Of course, maybe I do the same things too without realizing it.  

 

Cat 1 has been found

He was at the veterinarian's.  Apparently our vet was driving along some time last week and saw this cat up in a tree -- dehydrated and hungry, but alive.  Climbed the tree, took the cat to his office, has been looking after him ever since.  Wife texted me from the office.

I had insisted we not tell the boys anything to make them worry, until we knew for sure what the situation was.  Good thing, so it turns out.

A happy ending.

Second lunch with Debbie

Debbie: It’s been great seeing you again, and this has been such a wonderful conversation. I suppose you’ll have to get back to the office soon.

Hosea: Pretty soon.  But … can I ask one more question?

Debbie: Sure.

Hosea: Did I hit a … wrong note … or something, in one of my e-mails? I mean, when you ….

Debbie: Oh, right. [Shy smile, stares at table.] No, it was nothing like that.

Hosea: [Looks quizzical. Waits.]

Debbie: [Continues to stare at table while talking.] I’m feeling very vulnerable here. But I found that I … was starting … to respond to you … emotionally; and I felt it was better just to slow down.

Hosea: Oh. OK. I think maybe we’re in something like the same place. I mean, … gosh, at some level I’ve been sweet on you for years, ever since we started working together. And when I first got your e-mail tabling our discussion I felt kind of like you had swatted me on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.

Debbie: Oh, no, it was nothing like that!

Hosea: But after that I got to thinking, and I began to agree that maybe it’s wise to slow down, at least for ….

Debbie: Right.  [Long pause.] So what do we do now?

Hosea: Now?

Debbie: Let me just say that for myself, I have a really strong sense that I can’t start any kind of relationship with you while you are still married. It would make me feel cheap.

Whoops! Really? Better think about that. Quite aside from what this says about the possibility of anything romantic with Debbie, will I ever be able to tell her about D? Good thing that I know this now.  But aloud all I said was …

Hosea: “Still married”? I might stay married for a long while, legally speaking, so that Wife can be covered by my company-paid health insurance.

Debbie: [Thinks.] Well, … maybe not while you are still legally married. But I can’t see doing any kind of dating – not even plays or concerts – while you are still living in the same house with her.

Hosea: But lunch is good?

Debbie: Lunch is great. Let’s have lunch again soon.