Pizza and poetry, 2

Of course, another reason I haven't posted much lately is that I've written things and just not gotten around to putting them on the damned blog.  A case in point: Back in February I wrote Debbie a sonnet where I talked about the Buddhist teaching on craving (illustrated by talking about pizza) as applied to love.  In one respect this was a successful poem ... in that it helped me court Debbie.  :-)  But at a philosophical level I wasn't actually happy with the resolution.  It seemed too tidy, too pat, ... too much something thrown together because it rhymed.  All of which was true.  But for a long time I didn't know where to go from there.

In July the two of us attended a "Mindful Couples" retreat, which discussed some of these issues.  But it wasn't easy for me to put the discussions into iambic pentameter.  Finally, very slowly, I started to squeeze out some verses.  And so by October I had completed a reply -- a riposte -- to the original poem.  I even made a mental note to myself to post it here right away.  But did I?  Ummm ... no, I just checked and I didn't.

So here, a couple months late, is the expanded version of that discussion of pizza and love that you might remember from the spring:

“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.

Riposte

"The goal? That matters not a bit," he said.

"There's always something Craving drives us to.

"The object counts for nothing. Once it's fed,

"Our Hunger's right back, craving something new."

“For just as drippping water cuts through stone,

“So discontented Craving wears down Peace.

“If you’d speak up for Love you must make known

“In what way Love bids this erosion cease.

It’s true that Craving goads us ever on.

But Love is more than Craving: that’s the key.

Our lusts run helter-skelter, here and yon,

And yet I love you ever, constantly.

Your love plants seeds of kindness in my soul.

Your mercy waters them and keeps them warm.

You gently raise a bower, green and cool.

There’s safety there, and refuge from the storm.

Thus Peace of Mind is nourished by Desire.

For Love’s a Dharma too, shot through with fire.

'Tis the season ....

Today is a virtual Christmas.

What this means is that the custody schedule gives me the boys through the afternoon of the 24, at which time I deliver them to Wife.  So they and I are visiting my parents this weekend and holding Christmas early.  Brother and his girlfriend will be coming over, we will all open presents, and everybody will eat and drink too much.  Tomorrow (Monday) Debbie will stop by to visit for an hour or so … not actually on the day of (virtual) Christmas itself, but nearby.  Then Tuesday we’ll pack up the car and I’ll drive the boys the three and a half hours to where Wife is living now.  After that, I’ve been invited to join Debbie’s family for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (meaning the 24 and 25, this time) … so I’ll log a lot more driving.  But I expect it to be fun.

I haven’t been posting a lot lately, and last night I tried to figure out why.  I think it’s because this blog has outlived its original purpose and I haven’t really found another for it.  The very first reason I created this blog, at the most basic level, was that I had to have somewhere that I could say – “out loud” as it were – that my wife had spent years sleeping with other men.  The secrecy had become such a burden that I had to tell somebody.  And there were a lot of other things I didn’t understand about my marriage, that I didn’t feel I could discuss with anyone because a gentleman does not tell that kind of story about his wife … no matter how much of a tramp she might prove to be.  So I opened a blog and began writing about her: her affairs, her tantrums, her crazy mixed messages; writing in anger, in frustration, in wonderment.

Then I started my affair with D, and the picture got even more complicated.  Now I had a clandestine affair of my own to manage, and so there was a lot to talk about on that front too … things I couldn’t tell anybody except D, and stories that I wanted to record so I wouldn’t forget them.  And so I posted quite a lot.  Gradually I began to see that D was way too much like Wife for my liking in the long term, and that I seemed to have a pattern (which was not serving me well) of falling for “high-maintenance women”.  So I began to ramp that down.  When the boys were both safely in boarding school I told Wife I wanted out, and we began the process of separation.  For a while, this too generated enough drama to write about.  And I enjoyed writing about my courtship of Debbie.

But things are stabler now.  I deal with Wife mostly through e-mail, and our interactions involve less emotional turmoil and more business.  I still have to work out what fatherhood is going to look like for me in this new world, but I’m seeing a therapist to help with that.  Debbie and I still have to work out how our relationship is going to work when we live a hundred miles apart, but there’s not a lot of drama in that figuring-out process: Debbie is willing to sit with problems until they become clearer, rather than railing at them, and the change is a good one.  We can talk without knowing the answers, and feel our way forward instead of shouting.

So what exactly do I need a blog for?  I’m not sure any more.  I’ve posted a little bit lately, but mostly because I wanted to keep my hand in.  I like being Hosea, and I don’t want to give it up.  I’m just not sure if I have anything more to say, really ….

Maybe I should do like Debbie and just sit with the question, rather than having to have an answer right now.  So I won’t do anything precipitate like closing up shop, or at least not right away.  But I have been pondering the question ….

Time to go be Christmas-like with the family.  More later … I hope.  And to all of you, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Hair, part 2: The world is crazy

I just found this article: http://www.independent.com/news/2013/dec/04/men-are-going-bare-down-there/.  And all I can say is that the world is crazy.  Deranged.  Abso-fucking-lutely insane.  A bloody madhouse.

The last time I wrote about this subject was two years ago, and you’d think that I’d have said everything I had to say at that time.  But apparently not.  Never underestimate the world’s ability to outdo any level of craziness you think you can imagine.

Bloody madhouse.

Khayyam's advice

Old Khayyam, say you, is a debauchee

If only you were half so good as he

He sins no sins but gentle drunkenness

Great-hearted mirth and kind adultery

But yours the cold heart, and the murderous tongue

The wintry soul that hates to hear a song

The close-shut fist, the mean and measuring eye

And all the little poisoned ways of wrong

translated by Richard Le Galliene, from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Letter sent this afternoon to two local therapists

Good afternoon!

Are you currently accepting new clients?

I am in the process of leaving a highly dysfunctional marriage of nearly 30 years.  We have two children, boys aged 17 and 15.  And I am trying to sort out how my relationships are going to work in the future, wrestling with such questions as: what boundaries can/should I set up with my soon-to-be-ex-wife? what do I do to be the best father I can to my sons? how can I help them (as well as myself) navigate this transition? how do we build a nurturing life on the other side?  And so on.

A dear friend of mine is a client of --- --- here in town.  She asked him for recommendations who I could see to work through these topics, and he gave her a couple of names of which yours was one.  Hence my question whether you are accepting new clients?  And if yes, what’s the next step?  To iron out practical questions?  (costs, times, insurance, etc)  Or less tangible ones? (e.g., is this the right match?)  Please let me know how to proceed ….

Thanks very much, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Best regards,

Hosea Tanatu

Yelling "Stop it!" in my dreams

I wrote Debbie today to tell her how I woke myself up abruptly this morning.

My dearest darling, 

... I woke myself up this morning a little after 4:30 by shouting in my sleep. I was dreaming that I was at some kind of family get-together and my father was following me around to talk to me. I was feeling a lot of aversion and moved from room to room, but he finally positioned himself in a way that it was awkward to get past him so that he could keep talking to me. As I tried to shift around him he put out his hand and caught my arm a couple times to stay me. Finally I asked him to let go and he did; but then when I started to move he caught my arm again and I shouted “Stop it!” … thus waking myself up. It took me a little bit to come to myself and remember where I was; I still felt a little hot, burning knot somewhere between my heart and my throat, and I could still feel the spot on my arm where he had held me. So I got up and found some paper to write it all down (which is why I remember so much detail now), thinking as I wrote “So I wonder if that’s where the old family story came from that says ‘Hosea loves solitude’ … if it was just an excuse to get away from that?” ....

Till then, loving you now and ever,Hosea

She replied with this.

Dear Hosea, my love,

What a powerful dream to wake up to...! I actually think this strong energy yelling "Stop it!" is a wonderful thing and very healthy. From what you have told me, you have lived your entire life, until you moved into your apartment earlier this year, in close relationship with someone who has no idea what healthy personal boundaries are... first your father and then Wife. So it is cause to celebrate that you are finding your voice! And it reminds me how important this time living alone is for you. Helps me be patient. Getting solidly grounded in your solitude and aloneness (defined by my professor as our relationship with ourselves) is hugely valuable and beneficial. At least that is my experience over the past 4-5 years. It is life changing to surround oneself with people who understand or are at least working towards healthy relationship boundaries and to minimize time spent with people who don't. Again, my experience....

all my love,Debbie

      

Happy Halloween

 

I want a drink

I mentioned that Debbie stayed with me over the weekend.  I should add that for three days I didn’t drink. 

Mind you, Debbie doesn’t drink.  She’s a Buddhist, and she decided somewhere along the line that alcohol really didn’t make her feel all that good.  Besides, the Buddhist teaching is that if you use alcohol to make yourself feel better (and really, isn’t that the whole point?) then you’d be better off keeping your full mental faculties undimmed so you can figure out why you don’t feel good in the first place.  Once you’ve figured it out you can fix THAT (whatever it is) and feel good permanently rather than having to mask your unhappiness with booze.  It even makes a kind of sense.

Debbie’s never asked me not to drink around her, but I just don’t.  And when she’s with me, I don’t feel like I need to.  We cook, we clean up, we talk, we kiss, we hold each other, we fall into bed … not once in all this time does my mind feel like it wants a drink.  I’m perfectly happy just spending time with her.

But tonight, after she’s driven back home, it’s all different.  I don’t know why.  I can tell that I’m feeling anxiety about the evening, because my throat and my chest are just a teeny bit more constricted than they were last night.  It’s not fear or terror; it’s not a huge reaction.  It’s subtle.  But it’s there.  And it makes my mind whisper to me, “We wants a drink, precious. Be a love and pour us something.”

Am I afraid of spending the evening alone?  It’s hard for me to understand or imagine that.  As far as I know I LIKE being alone: that is to say, I love Debbie and it’s a delight to spend time with her; but there is something deeply restful and relaxing when she leaves and I know I’ll have the apartment all to myself for a few nights.  I’ve always felt that way, since I was very young.  I’ve always needed to get away from other people from time to time, to get the kind of peace and quiet that come only from deep solitude.  It’s part of what makes me wish I had discovered meditation thirty or forty years ago.  Naturally there are times that it’s useful to have someone else around, but only sometimes.  I’m not expecting some kind of natural disaster between now and tomorrow morning, where I’m going to need the second set of hands.  I’m not expecting anything but the peace and quiet that I know I’ll have.

Only, … in that case why the subtle, almost-too-faint-to-notice-but-nonetheless-very-real tightness in my throat and chest?  In that case why do I need a drink?  I don’t know.  Logically it makes no sense.  I shouldn’t have to have a drink, and knowing that I feel like this worries me just a little.  Maybe I’ll ignore the feeling.  Maybe if I go to bed early I’ll fall asleep before drinking anything, and I know that every night I don’t drink makes the next night easier.  That sounds like a good plan, actually.

Oh hell, let’s see if any of my glasses are clean, or if I have to wash one of them first ….

Old man

Debbie was in town over the weekend, and stayed with me all three nights (Friday through Sunday).  She spent the days working while I went to a meditation retreat (more about that in the next couple of posts), but we spent the nights together.  And in her own way Debbie is every bit as sexual as D used to be.  She’s not as overt about it: she can find other things to talk about, she doesn’t work sex into all of her musings about spirituality, she doesn’t give off the same vibe of single-minded obsession that D used to.  But all it takes is one long, lingering kiss and she’s ready.  Since I’m fond of holding her and kissing her, this means she spends a lot of time around me in various states of arousal.

And every time we are together it seems like I can do less and less about it.  Oh, we kiss and cuddle; we strip off our clothes and frolic; I do everything I can with fingers and lips and tongue, although Debbie is more sensitive than D used to be so I have found that I have to be a lot slower and more delicate or I risk hurting her with too much too soon.  Still, I’m figuring out the right touch, and I do everything I can in that direction.

What I don’t do is to get hard.  It pisses me off.  It embarrasses me.  It makes Debbie say concerned things like, “Maybe this is about trust: do we need to talk?”  And the answer is No, we don’t bloody well need to talk.  All we need to do is fuck.  It’s not about trust.  It’s not even about passion: if my desire had its way I would fuck her hard in every direction and devour her whole.  But I can’t.  I don’t know why not.

I suppose it is something physiological.  I suppose it’s related to being in my fifties.  I suppose I ought to ask my doctor for a prescription for Pfizer’s little blue pills.  Or maybe it’s caused by one of a dozen other ailments that bedevil old men.  I have no idea.

But Debbie is uncomfortable with the idea of a Viagra-induced artificial sexuality.  She says she is more comfortable with whatever I can do for her naturally, even if it is less.  I don’t know, we only had the discussion once.  Maybe I should raise it again.  But I understand her sentiment that prefers what is natural to what is artificial, other things being equal at any rate.  It’s the same sentiment that makes me subtly uncomfortable with women shaving off their body hair, and Debbie – bless her! – actually agrees with me on that point.  When we first got together she was shaving just because she had gotten into the habit of it somewhere along the line.  And she still figures that as long as she has to wear hose professionally she has to shave her legs.  But once she knew that I was content for her to quit the rest of it, she did.

Maybe this means by the same token that I’ll have to remain un-Pfizered.  But that in turn means that my hard-ons are soft and flabby and unreliable.  It means that the only time I get truly, intensely stiff is when I wake up first thing in the morning and have a column of piss pushing my dick into shape.  It means there is only so much I can do to satisfy a woman seven years older than I am who nonetheless puts my sexual performance to shame.

Getting old is no fun.  Who knew it was going to happen so soon?

Busy, busy month

It's been a busy, busy month, and doesn't look to be letting up.  But it's all good.

Two weekends ago, Hogwarts and Durmstrang each held Parents' Weekend (yes, the same weekend).  Wife went to Durmstrang but couldn't work out the drive to Hogwarts.  I went to both, but on a schedule that meant I didn't cross paths with Wife for more than about half an hour.  Both boys seem to be doing well.  Son 1 is a Senior and is applying to colleges.  Son 2 is a Sophomore.  I asked their respective advisors if they have seen any indication of bitterness or resentment about the split, or about our giving up the house they grew up in.  Both said No.  Son 1's advisor said "He's pretty much a 'What you see is what you get' kind of kid, and he hasn't expressed anything of the kind."  Son 2's advisor said, "If anything I think he's relieved that it's over."  Son 1 did ask me (as I was driving him to my place for a short break) to drive past the old house so we could see what the new owners are doing with it.  But that's all.

Last weekend my cousin got married in another state, so I drove ten hours to the town where he lives -- he and his wife, his sister (another cousin) and her partner, their parents (my aunt and uncle), another aunt, ... lots of family, come to think of it.  It was great to see them all.  I found myself telling the story of my separation with Wife several times, along with why I had hung in there so long.  Everyone was supportive; my aunt summed up the general attitude when she said, "I guess I'm not supposed to say this kind of thing, but I was so glad when I heard that you and Wife were splitting up, because I thought 'Now he can get on with his life!'"  And I told everybody about Debbie.  They want to meet her.  Oh, and one more cousin was there just for the wedding ... she invited me to come and visit her and her family (husband and son) in Peru, next time I get a chance.  I'm hoping to find one.

After a couple days visiting everyone I drove to yet another city well out of my way, where Debbie was at a Buddhist retreat where she was being ordained into a lay order associated with the spiritual path she is on.  I couldn't join her for the whole retreat, but I could be there for the ceremony ... which I enjoyed and which meant a lot to her.

I guess I actually showed up to work for a couple days after that, remarkably enough.

This weekend I am taking Son 1 to visit the college at the top of his list.  They are having an Open House, and so he spent the day talking to professors and students and having a wonderful time.  He was already pre-sold on the place and now he is even farther sold.  I'm looking at the price tag and having dark and gloomy thoughts (it's a very expensive school) but Son 1 is thrilled beyond belief.

Oh, and there's been a film festival going on in town every Wednesday.  And I've started going to another meditation class every Thursday.  And there's something else coming up again next weekend ... I think Debbie will be in town for a couple of days.  Next month I'll spend a week travelling for work, and then Son 1 has a week off for Thanksgiving and wants to spend the time camping.  And then it will be December, ....

Busy, busy, busy.

Some of this (like the college trip) would have happened anyway.  But most of this I would never have found myself doing as long as I was still with Wife.  I suppose it can't go on at this pace (or I'll wear out, for one thing).  But it is giddy and fun and I love it.

Paying your bills on time (a dialog of text messages)

Hosea:  AT&T just sent me an email that the mobile phone bill is overdue.

Wife:  I haven't paid bills this week getting ready for the weekend. [Son 2 has a week-long break from school, all of it with Wife. Also I guess she has other things going on too.]  Will pay them all Sunday.  My service is so bad I think I should get a 50 percent discount.  Hopefully this will be the last full month.  [She wants to cancel this plan and get a new one.]

Hosea:  Unfortunately it still counts as late despite all that.  Don't you keep track of when your bills are due, to avoid this???

Wife:  No.  I'm still trying to unpack the study and just unearthed the vertical file in which I kept all those things.  [You will recall that she moved over a month ago; how long does this take?]  All mail requiring my attention is currently in a big pile, apart from the big pile of filing and the other one of information.  This week I haven't done any paperwork and only just looked for the e-mails you sent me.  I'm just moving in and spent today cleaning so Son 2 won't be absolutely ill when I pick him up in the morning.  Still didn't finish, so will get up at 5:00am to try some more before I get him at 8:00.  Other stuff budgeted this weekend, though, include my nephew bringing a rocker back, so not till Sunday or Monday morning and then there's other stuff on the schedule too, so I have to squeeze in business including sending a budget to you AFTER I call City Hall again, into the mix ASAP.

Hosea:  Whatever.  Just remember that none of what you have said stops you from getting in trouble when your bills are late, so I would have thought you'd want to prevent that from happening.  But you're a big girl so you get to make your own decisions.

Marrying your parents?

Yesterday Debbie sent me a talk she had heard online about relationships.  (Actually it was a sermon, but kind of interesting all the same.)  The pastor mentioned several theories about how we choose the people we fall in love with, one of which was that we choose people who are like one of our parents.  The explanation had to do with healing the traumas of childhood, but I wonder if it isn’t simpler to say just that these are the personality types we grew up with, so we understand them and feel at home with them?

As I listened I thought about myself and decided that this is a pretty easy case to make for me: Wife and D are both like my father (loud, opinionated, narcissistic, always the center of any gathering, outwardly domineering but with a surprising lack of self-confidence beneath the surface), while Debbie is a lot like my mother (quiet, comfortable in silence and solitude, deeply ethical in an unobtrusive and tolerant way … they even look alike physically).  So when I called her later and we talked about it, I explained this and asked if it is true for her too.

At first she wasn’t sure.  She easily pegged her second husband as being a lot like her mother: no-nonsense, matter-of-fact, emotionally cold, and severely critical.  Then I asked, “OK, how about me?”  She said, “I’m not really sure. What comes to me first about you is your emotional warmth, and I don’t know where that fits in.”  I reminded her that she had described her first husband as emotionally very warm as well, not to mention a couple of boyfriends.  She continued to sound puzzled about how to fit this data into the theory about marrying your parents – indeed, about whether it fit at all – until I asked, “You haven’t told me much about your dad. What was he like?”  I knew he was an alcoholic while she was growing up, but what else?

And I swear as I am sitting here typing this that the first words out of her mouth were, “My father was emotionally very warm.”

“Go on.”

“Also he was curious, interested in things, … a lot more open-minded and open to the world than my mother ever was.”

“Yes?”

“And he was very passive – almost to the point that he couldn’t answer a question like, ‘Do you want a ham sandwich or a turkey sandwich? Do you want a sandwich or soup?’ He let my mother run everything. I actualy think that’s where his drinking came from later – that he felt trapped in his life, that he was suffering, and that he didn’t think he had any choices. He didn’t think he had any way out.”

Now let me pause here and ask: does everybody else see what I see?

“Debbie, dear heart, you’ve just described me. OK, maybe I’m not that passive any more, because I have worked hard at overcoming it. But when Wife and I were first married one of her running lines was, as she put it, ‘Chocolate or vanilla, Hosea? Pick one!’ And it was very hard for me to do. Plus, about ten years ago when the boys were a lot younger, there was a period of time when I ate and drank far more than I do now. I was probably seventy pounds heavier than I am today and I put away a fair bit of alcohol … all for exactly the same reasons. I was unhappy with my life and didn’t think I had any options because I was responsible to the boys and I had given marriage vows to Wife. So I ate and drank to insulate myself from it all. It’s true that I backed away from the precipice: I didn’t have a heart attack [knock wood] and I never fell into full-fledged alcoholism. Gradually I figured out how to make small positive changes in my life … disentangling myself from the net one strand at a time. And as I did those things, I gradually ate and drank less, and the weight began easing off me. But I totally get why somebody could end up in the place where your father did, because that could easily have been me.”

She was very thoughtful at this.  Apparently she hadn’t seen the comparison before.  Then she asked a few more questions, and we talked for an hour.

I don’t know if I’m sold on this theory as a general rule, just because it seems to apply in two cases (out of billions).  But it was an interesting evening.  If you’ve got a minute with nothing else to do, let me know if you think it works in your case too ….

Scars, a fairy tale

The Sangha that Debbie introduced me to typically does a "Dharma reading" along with the meditation ... some book relevant to the practice that people read aloud to each other for half an hour and then discuss.  Lately the book has been Tara Brach's True Refuge.  And a couple nights ago they were reading a chapter about PTSD.  I found it really interesting -- especially the explanation that someone suffering from PTSD often feels ashamed or guilty or broken, and that when they react to stimuli as if they were still in the middle of the traumatic event it can make them feel all the more broken.  In other words, they may not be able to do anything about the recurrent flashbacks -- but they can be self-aware enough to know that their reactions are not "normal" and the knowledge just makes them feel even worse.  It just digs the hole even deeper.

So I started wondering if this could be true of Wife ... if maybe this is part of why she just can't get over reacting to the people around her the way she learned to react to her family as a child?  And is it possible that she really does see how bizarre her behavior is, but is just powerless to stop it?  It's an interesting thought.  So after a while I sketched it out in a little fairy-tale, as follows.

I showed this to Debbie and she liked it.  I have not showed it to Wife.  Maybe I never will.  But I do kind of wonder what she would say ...? 

I had better clarify that while I have the external events pretty well right (if simplified), I can't vouch for my representation of her inner states.  That part is just guesswork.
__________

Once upon a time, long ago in a kingdom far, far away, a little Girl grew up under terrible conditions.  Many of her family were cruel or indifferent to her.  Her father had two personalities, one of whom tried to kill her when she was young.  Her mother would act protective, coach her, and shield her in crises, only to betray the Girl’s trust by turning unpredictably violent … and, far more insidiously, by cutting her deeply with words calculated to wound the Girl, stabbing deeply into her most vulnerable places, playing relentlessly on her weaknesses and fears.  Indeed, the mother did this with all her children, and also set them regularly at odds with one another, subtly encouraging each child to hate, fear, and resent the others and then loudly (and publicly) bemoaning it when they didn’t get along.  But this story is about the Girl and not her mother.

The Girl lived under these terrible conditions for many years until she grew to adulthood and finally left home.  By the time she left home these conditions had left deep scars on her.  In the most harmless circumstances she would find herself reliving the emotional intensity of her childhood; friends would say the most innocuous things to her and – occasionally, but unpredictably – she would respond as if she were still under hostile fire at home.  At the same time, she could not rid herself of deep feelings of guilt and shame, feelings she could not root out even when she knew they were wrong … even when she knew they were based on lies.  She could also see her own reactions when the memories came back to grip her, see the dark confusion on the faces of her friends when her emotional triggers made her react in ways that they didn’t understand.  She tried to explain, but nobody could get it who hadn’t lived there too.  Since she was determined to seek out safer places to live, this meant that nobody around her had been through the same kind of trauma; and so nobody around her could understand.  And when she saw herself react in ways that left her friends baffled – when she saw how the memories gripped her like iron, and how she was helpless to react in any other way – it just made her guilt and shame all the deeper.  So every day she lived out, in her memory and her emotions, the nightmares she longed to escape.

Nowadays we know that her experience has a name: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  And we have learned something about its treatment.  But back then nobody in this faraway kingdom had heard of PTSD, or at any rate nobody thought to wonder whether it might be what the Girl was suffering from.  Even the people who had heard of it usually thought of it as something that afflicted soldiers, and the Girl was not a soldier.

In time the Girl met a Boy, and they fell in love.  The Boy had a lot of compassion but no common sense, and he believed that if only he could love the Girl hard enough she would be healed.  Of course he was wrong: no matter what sentimental popular songs will tell you, love by itself isn’t enough.  You have to know what you are doing and you have to know something about the ailment before you can heal anybody of anything.  Think of pneumonia: no amount of love is going to cure the patient, unless the love is helped along by antibiotics.  And likewise with PTSD.  So in the end the Boy failed, fell out of love again, and left the Girl.  But this story is about the Girl and not the Boy.

The really interesting fact about the girl’s experience is that over the years she saw a lot of therapists … and yet none of that therapy desensitized her emotional triggers or made the memories in her head stop screaming at her.  But we know there are some kinds of therapy that truly can make a difference with patients suffering from PTSD: maybe they don’t all get completely better, but many of them can get somewhat better.  Only not the Girl.  Why not?

One possibility is that nobody ever diagnosed her explicitly with PTSD.  Doubtless this was part of it.  And yet, it is a known fact that some of the therapies which she did undergo included elements which would also have been used for patients suffering from PTSD, and yet they never worked on the Girl.  Even without a formal diagnosis, you’d think that using the right therapy would help, but it didn’t.  So again, why not?

Nobody knows for sure, but remember that for any therapy to work the patient has to trust the therapist.  If the patient feels hostility or antagonism towards the therapist, nothing is going to change.  And the Girl had learned a profound lesson in childhood – at her mother’s knee, so to speak – that when you trust people and let them get close to you, when you make yourself vulnerable to them, they betray you with malice and sadistic cruelty.  Certainly she felt that way about the Boy.  In some ways she let him get closer to her than almost anybody, and yet all the while she was sure that he was about to betray her for the sheer cruelty of watching her suffer.  For years she expected it as something imminent, something that he would do tomorrow.  Sometimes she even thought that he had done it, while he scratched his head with puzzlement and tried to figure out what was going on.  So maybe it makes a kind of sense that she came to think badly of most therapists, that she condemned most therapies as stupid and their practitioners as charlatans.  Maybe there was never any way she could feel safe trusting a therapist with something so fragile and vulnerable as healing.

__________

I don't know ... just for whatever it is worth ....

Movie meme, 4

Another attempt to pin this down: see also here and here.


Wife: Cate Blanchett, in "Blue Jasmine"

I just saw the movie a couple nights ago.  Who would have thought that Woody Allen would go out of his way to make a whole movie about what Wife was like a year or two ago?  (She's getting more functional, now that -- with the move and the separation -- she has to.)

The Albatross fell off ...

... and sank
Like lead into the sea.

Escrow closed yesterday.  I got my check from the escrow company and deposited it in the bank.  They have mailed checks to Wife and to my parents, and have arranged to pay off the mortgage and the home equity line of credit.

I am finally out of the business of having to worry about a house.

Out of the house

We got all our stuff cleared out of the house last night, except for one carload that Wife couldn’t fit in her van and that she is going to drive back this morning to get.  (The dollies and brooms and extra boxes, etc.)  We didn’t get the place cleaned, but our real estate agent told us not to bother because the buyers are going to redo it all anyway.  The lady across the street took some of the wooden patio furniture we had out back on the deck, and our agent is going to offer the buyers our lawn tools (rake, shovel, etc) if they want.  So we did indeed meet the deadline (escrow closes tomorrow) … strange but true.

Most remarkable is that we got some one to take two huge pieces of furniture I thought we’d never unload: Wife’s hand loom (a behemoth that stands taller than I am, that she bought in a fit of antiquarian mania one day and never ever ever used … not that I’m bitter, of course) and her piano (a heavy, Victorian upright grand with carved hardwood weighing … well God knows what it weighs, but a lot more than you think).  In both case we ended up advertising them on Craigslist for free.  The loom was gone the same day, much to my surprise.  The piano took three or four days: people would express a lot of interest, come take a look, get an idea just how damned heavy it is, and leave again – never to return.  Finally one young couple came prepared with a truck and a dolly and straps – and help – and took it away.  The girl was bubbling over with enthusiasm and gratitude: she said she knows how to do all the servicing it needs to bring it back into tune, that this is something she has really wanted for a long time, that she will treasure it, and Thank You so very very much.  She told her young man, and his father who was there helping, “After helping me with this you don’t ever have to get me anything else for Christmas or birthdays or anything ever again!”  One part of me is glad to have passed it on to someone who seems to know what she is doing and who really wants it.  Another part of me reflects that she sounds just like Wife used to sound back when she was young, with the same infectious enthusiasm that could persuade people (like me) to help her out in launching projects that were totally crazy.  That makes me wonder if this girl will ever follow through with any of her grandiose plans, or if (like Wife) she prefers planning to execution – if, in other words, the piano will be doomed to gather as much dust at their place as it did at ours.  That would be ironic and only fair (I guess) but a little sad.  But hell – it ain’t my problem any more.  Thanks be to God!

We delivered Son 2 to Durmstrang for the beginning of the school year yesterday.  Up till then he had been helping with this whole project.  Several times in the last week he’d launch into “Oh my God school is about to start! What happened to my summer?”  But it would be followed quickly by “And once I’m back at school, all this moving business is your problem, not mine any more!”  Well he was right.  And now it’s pretty much over.

I’m still absorbing that after nineteen years we really are completely out of the house.  It’s a new world out there ….

Wife moved yesterday

The movers came.  They loaded boxes and furniture in the truck.  They drove it to Wife's new place and unloaded it.  Son 2 and I went back for the cats, so I have no idea whether they finished on time or whether (as the team leader hinted he was afraid of) she threw a fit because they went over.  If they went over.  She did have them rearrange things a couple of times and seemed to blame them that the boxes didn't all fit where she wanted them to fit. 

I drank too much last night.

I don't know what else to say.  We have to get our old house totally cleaned by Monday.  Does any of you want a free piano?  I'm not physically all that tired, but I am tired of dealing with it.  Tired of thinking about it.  Tired of having to be in Wife's physical presence, and of her non-stop complaining.  Tired of it all.

But it's almost over.  This part, at any rate.

"MY children won't have anywhere to sleep!"

We’ve got two weeks to get out of the house.  Progress is dismal.  I have started taking half days off work to help pack.  But Wife’s focus is taken up with little things.

Last night she asked me, “Can I have the bunk beds?”  [She means the bunk beds that the boys used to sleep in, that I amd my brother slept in a generation ago, that we have had on long-term loan from my parents all this time.]

I told her, “No.”  She has invoked the sacred principle of heirloom-inheritance so many times to justify why she has to keep so much worthless antique crap that I’m a little surprised to hear her ask.  Surely she recognizes that by the same criteria she invokes so often, I would be breaking some kind of sacred bond to let her have them?  But of course this counts without her other sacred principle, viz., that she should always be allowed to have whatever she wants for free.

She tried quite a few variations to get me to change my mind, starting with “Well you’re not using them,” which is true enough but the only way to get them back again (assuming she didn’t trash them in the meantime) would be to wheedle her for them and I want as little to do with her after the separation as humanly possible.  (I haven’t mentioned that part yet.)  Then she moved on to, “I didn’t realize that you had already decided to be so mean to me!”  This was probably supposed to sting, because time was when she could get me to do backflips by saying that, as I would fall all over myself to prove that I didn’t want her to think me mean.  But that was long ago.  And finally she ended up with, “Well if you won’t give me the bunk beds then that just means that MY children won’t have any place to sleep when they come stay with me!”  I’ve come to be amused that she always uses the singular pronoun when talking about the boys.  They are never “our” children to her, but always “my” [i.e., Wife’s] children … all by herself, presumably, by parthenogenesis.  Well, I tried to point out, she could go buy them beds.  She bought herself a bed a few months ago.  There followed a long list of reasons why she couldn’t – why, in fact, she was completely helpless in this area and so anything that was less than perfect in the outcome was my fault.  I spent a few minutes discussing, but not many.

We sorted some more books.  I took another box of them; she took another … what was it?  Four?  Six?  Eight?  I lost count.  A lot.  And this was on top of the boxes and boxes she has already claimed.  Babe, I know you’re leasing a house but where you gonna put all them books?  When you gonna read ‘em?  One thing I have noticed is that an awful lot of the time we will uncover something she likes and she will immediately say it was an inheritance from some family member (meaning that it is her property separately and I have no claim on it).  Every time we have found any china or silver, for example, it came from Aunt Betty or Uncle Herman.  Well I haven’t recognized any of the china or silver, so she might even be right.  Also, I don’t a lot care about it one way or the other so long as I have dishes to eat off of.  But I had to smile when we opened one of the boxes of books that had been sequestered in our garage for years, and found a complete set of Sherlock Holmes: the stories, the novels … everything.  Immediately she said, “That was my father’s. I recognize it from his apartment.” 

Oh really?  I opened the flyleaf and pointed out that the publication date was sixteen years after her father died, and a good ten years after she and I were married. 

“Oh.  Well you don’t want them, do you?”

I don’t know.  I’d enjoy them.  And I haven’t taken that many books so far this evening ….

“Well if you really want them THAT MUCH then I suppose I won’t FIGHT over them …!”  [Here she heaved the deep sigh of the chronically oppressed.]

I took the books.

And so it goes.

Another from Ikkyu

See also http://thegreenleaf.co.uk/hp/Ikkyu/06ikkyubathing.htm

Progress, 3

Just a brief update.

Wife signed a 12-month lease on a house.  It’s the best one she has looked at so far: the size of the house we are leaving, all new everything, and within her price range.  She is very relieved that she’s got it: this has made her a lot calmer and more rational on other fronts.

Mind you, a couple days ago she met with her attorney to discuss my proposed support offer, and declared herself “very very depressed” with the outcome.  What was it that was so bad?  Just that her attorney told her that everything in my proposal was perfectly legal (surprise) and … implicitly, at any rate … reasonable too.  Wife wanted more, of course.

But right now she’s focused on getting the house packed so she can move.  One thing at a time.

Sister Failure in Japan

I just discovered this poem today.  It’s perfect ….

Wife, daughters, friends.
This is for you.
Enlightenment is
Mistake after mistake.

-- Ikkyu Sojun, 15th century Japanese Zen Master

Progress, 2

Last night, I learned that Wife has a lead on another place to rent – a house, actually, about the size of the one we are selling.  Son 2 was with her yesterday when she looked at it, and he reports back wonderful things.  It is large, spacious, airy, and light; the owners are completely re-doing it, putting in new appliances and a hardwood floor; and it comes with a gardener, to boot.  Also, to hear Wife tell it she seems to have made a good first impression – not normally her strong suit, these days.

Nothing has been signed yet, and of course it ain’t over till it’s over.  Anything can happen befor the ink dries on a contract.  But it sounds better for Wife than any of us had dared hope for.

I have to admit that it felt a little funny listening to Son 2 go on and on about this place, especially when he finally asked “Why couldn’t you have found a place like that too?”  All this as I was driving him back to my apartment for the night: the apartment I got back in May that has two rooms (i.e., “1 bedroom”) plus kitchen and bath; and no appliances besides stove, oven, and refrigerator.  Clean, but not fancy.  And enough for what I need, but nothing more.

Silently I spent the drive reminding myself that this apartment is what I wanted, almost exactly.  I don’t want to have to look after a big house.  That’s part of why I am so glad to be selling ours.  There is something exciting about big houses, to be sure; and they inspire the admiration of others.  But for me it is borrowed enthusiasm – the enthusiasm that comes from knowing that other people think this is desirable.  In my heart of hearts, I myself don’t desire it.

And there are practical reasons, too.  My apartment is cheaper.  It’s also an hour closer to where I work; adding the price of gas there and back each day would make the real price of a big house Out There even higher than it already is.  Wife should be able to afford it if she is frugal in other areas, and if we come to a reasonable agreement on spousal support.  But my apartment is in a perfect location, and in any event I was in a bit of a hurry to find some place because I had already left the house.  You remember all that.

The meditation class I went to a few months ago taught one kind of meditation (called “Mudita”) that focusses on rejoicing selflessly in the good fortune of others.  If Wife really does get this mansion she hopes for, I will have a lot of opportunity to practise Mudita meditation.  There are parts of me that have been predicting her downfall or come-uppance with this separation, that have been looking forward to sneering as her bad attitudes and execrable social skills land her with nowhere to live and nobody willing to help her.  It looks like that won’t happen, and I have to remember to be happy.  It even benefits me for her to be well-off, because it means she will be easier to deal with during other parts of the separation.  So it will be a good thing for her to get a place she loves, that she can afford.  And it’s a good thing for me to be in the little place where I am, which is exactly the kind of little place I have always dreamed of.

In the biggest picture, all these things are true, not just platitudes.  But I do have to remind myself not to be small.   

           

Progress

Two things, both of which I touch on briefly in the previous post.

Wife may have a place to live.  She has been accepted by someone renting a house, who did not bother to check her income.  So the fact that we have not reached a settlement yet, and she therefore can’t prove any support from me at all, doesn’t matter.  This has lifted her spirits considerably.

Also, Son 1 is back at Hogwarts.  We spent the weekend moving him in.  The down side is that more burden (of every sort) will fall on Son 2.  But at least Son 1 is out of the day-to-day maelstrom.  That has to be a good thing.

Aftermath

For what it’s worth, she was better the next day.  Maybe she had gotten it out of her system?  Or maybe all the attention satisfied some narcissistic urge inside her?  Or maybe all my theories are full of shit and I have no idea?  But she was brighter and more able to focus.

She also told Son 2, “Wow, I must really have been tired last night. I went to bed at something like 5:00 and I guess I slept all the way through the night.”  Was she trying to spin the event, so that he wouldn’t remember it?  Or did she genuinely black out and not remember it herself?  I have no idea which.

The next day I wrote to Counselor (whom she still sees weekly) as follows:

Hi Counselor,

Wife tried to commit suicide last night.  (Thursday evening, August 15.) 

She took some of her medications (don’t know what or how much) on top of one or more martinis and no food, and then lay down and went to sleep.  When she got up again, several hours later, she was stumbling and muttered that she “didn’t try hard enough.”  She tried to vomit and couldn’t, but was speaking in a disconnected way.  I called 9-1-1; but by the time they got there she was able to answer all their questions coherently enough that when she refused treatment they had to allow her to do so, and they left.  I sat with her until she went back to sleep and then I left too.  Son 1 stayed up most of the night on the computer but also watching her medications, to make sure she didn’t try it again the same night.  And apparently she didn’t.

I am concerned for her, naturally.  Her overall level of functioning has been getting worse and worse since I moved out, and the challenge of having to pack and move is taking a real toll.

I am also concerned for the boys: they are both competent and resilient, but they shouldn’t be in the position of having to conduct a de facto suicide watch on a parent.  Adolescence can be tough enough without adding that to the mix.  I’m not sure I know what to propose instead.  But at the very least I figure you should know about it.

If it also turns out that you have advice, so much the better.  :-)

It wasn’t until Monday that I got back to my e-mail and saw this reply:

I've tried to contact Wife on the home phone and her cell, Hosea, but have yet to speak with her.  Can you tell me how she is doing?   we should talk about the question of hospitalizing her, if that's the only way to keep her safe.   my cell is xxx-xxxx.

I know this may be traumatizing for you, and especially the kids... I'm sorry.  Depending on her emotional state, we should try to find a way to get the kids out of the situation where they are feeling responsible for her safety.

Call or email... Either way, can you let me know the situation?

And my answer, that I sent just about an hour ago:

Hi Counselor,

I only got this e-mail this morning.  Several things:

1. Wife’s mood was significantly – very much -- better the next day and over the weekend, partly because she may have found a place to live when she moves out of the house.

2. It’s also better when she doesn’t drink (and the boys have more and more urged her not to drink).

3. Son 1 is now back at school: we drove him to Hogwarts over the weekend, so he will now be occupied with school activities and not in the middle of it all.  He has a cell phone, which means she can still text him (and sometimes she does, sending him long screeds of panic).  But as far as day-to-day supervision or intervention goes, he is out of the picture.  He can still be splashed, but he can’t be called on to do much about it.

4. The downside of Son 1’s departure is that more will fall on Son 2. In the normal course of things that ought to mean just “More of the work of packing the house.”  But of course if she takes a downturn it could also mean “More caretaking.”

5. Traditionally Son 2 has taken on a significant amount of parenting Wife, starting as early as when he was three.  From time to time I have tried to suggest that she’s the grown-up and he’s the kid, so really he’s not responsible for her.  But he has spent a lot of years acting as if he felt responsible for her emotional well-being.  It may take the advice of someone besides his dad (i.e., a counselor) … and on a regular basis (not just once in a while) … before he really accepts that it’s not his job.  Or maybe I’m wrong and worrying too much.  I don’t know.  I guess someone who understands this stuff should evaluate him …?

6. For what it is worth, Son 1 several times urged me to take the next two weeks off work completely to help with the house, “because otherwise Son 2 will have to do it all by himself.”  Ostensibly his words were all about packing, but I wonder if he had in mind the emotional burden as much as (or more than) the physical burden?

7. Our custody schedule has Son 2 with me for two weeks now, starting last night and continuing until Friday night August 30.  However, while that addresses where he has dinner and breakfast and where he sleeps, I have not been able to articulate a plausible reason for forbidding him to help pack the house: so this morning, for example, I gave him bus fare and a map of the busses to take to get from my apartment to the house.  I plan to pick him up in the afternoon after work.  And unless something changes, other days are likely to be the same.  This puts him back there for most of the hours of the day.

8. I totally agree with you that the boys should not be in a situation where they feel responsible for her safety.  I’m not sure how to make that happen.

9. Son 2 goes back to school on Sunday, September 8: two days before escrow closes.  So one way or another, he would normally in the middle of things until the end unless some kind of deus ex machina removes him.

10. On the other hand, once he is gone he doesn’t have a cell phone (and his school forbids them).  So his only window into the home situation becomes his traditional once-a-week phone call home.  And if it were important or advisable, perhaps that could be cancelled or cut back.  It would need someone besides me to say so, though.  I could not appear to be disinterested, obviously.

11. The boys haven’t been acting traumatized, so far as I can tell what that looks like.  Maybe I can’t tell.  We can talk more about this if it is relevant.

12. My cell number is xxx-xxxx.

Wife tries to kill herself

This post is a little out of date, but it belongs here in sequence – just dated last Thursday night.

I went over to the house after work to help pack stuff.  Wife was drinking; this made her bitter, angry, and illogical.  I was helping the boys dismantle their bunk beds and she came into the room, screeching at me about my support offer and alleging that it would leave her in poverty.  (In case you wondered, the math doesn’t begin to support this.)  Her face was maybe six inches away from mine and she was screaming at the top of her voice.  I made myself just breathe, and then responded in a low voice, “Please get out of my face. Please get out of my space. I can’t answer you when you are like this because I can’t think.”  I said this a few times while she stormed threats at me, and then she said, “I’ll get out of your space all right! Just give me forty-five minutes!”  She ran back into the bedroom and slammed the door.

The boys and I wondered if this meant she was calling a friend to leave, or something worse.  But in a while she seemed to be asleep and both of them sighed, “Good. Maybe if she sleeps off the martinis she’ll be better.”  We went back to work, disassembled their bed, and moved it to storage.

They asked me to stay to dinner.  I was going to meet Debbie, but she had been out of town and wasn’t back yet; also the boys really wanted me to stay for company.  Wife was still silent.  So I stayed for dinner.  Son 1 grilled some chicken breasts on the barbecue, I boiled up some rice, and we had quite a pleasant meal.  A good bit later I took off.  Debbie was back in town by then so I drove by her place on my way home.  (She is moving too … I think I’ve mentioned this. Busy summer.)

While I was at Debbie’s, Son 1 texted me that Wife was awake.  She had gotten up, stumbled to the bathroom to try to throw up, and mumbled semi-coherently “Didn’t try hard enough.”  Son 1 was adamant that I should stay away and not let her know that I knew; he insisted that he and Son 2 had the situation under control and could manage her, but my presence would reignite her fury.  But when I told Debbie – who is a nurse – I heard a very different story.  Debbie urged (quite rightly) that teenage boys should not have to conduct a suicide watch on their mother, and that I should call 911.  She added that even just hearing about it second-hand, she was walking a fine line by not interfering; but if she saw it directly she would be legally obligated to call.  I thought for a few minutes and then decided that she was right.  I texted Son 1 that I was on my way and left.

Son 1 texted me frantically telling me to stay away.  When I got to the house he came out to stop me.  But I insisted I had to go in.  I checked that she was still keeled over in the bathroom (Son 2 was attending her), and called 911.

In the end it was a huge waste, I guess.  Her pupils were pinpricks but she answered their questions flawlessly and so they legally could not take her against her will.  They spent a lot of time getting my story and Son 1’s story.  They also explained that the way she looked fit what we were telling them, and that if she had slipped up on even one question they could have taken her.  But she didn’t.  And so after an hour or more they left.  They boys and I privately expressed amazement to each other that she could pass this test, although I admitted that she had always said she would do anything to prevent being hospitalized for mental problems against her will.  Son 1 joked that maybe she practices the answers in front of a mirror, for just such an event.

It was late by now, after 11:00.  I sat with Wife until she went back to bed and fell asleep.  I also moved all her medications out of the bedroom and into the study, where Son 1 was playing computer games.  He said he’d be up until late (in fact he stayed up till 5:00 in the morning) so he could keep her from getting into more drugs.  Son 2 went to bed.  Once Wife was asleep, I left to go back to my apartment.

What a night.