How not to run away from home

 The other day I saw an article in the Atlantic about a woman named Toby who decided to run away from her life. She was volunteering inside a prison and fell in love with one of the inmates. As they talked together, they began sketching what it would look like to run away together. The fantasy grew and grew, becoming more real and more compelling each time they talked. And so one day she put their plans into action. She left behind her husband and her kids, packed her inmate boyfriend into a dog crate, and drove away with him.

Of course they got caught. (Otherwise there wouldn't be an article about them.) Almost two weeks after their great escape they were trapped by a police barricade on the highway. She went to jail. He went back to jail, with an extra ten years added to his sentence. Now she gives talks about transformation and redemption. She tells her story and works to inspire other women. She has a website. I think this is what penance looks like today. 

Joking aside, though, the story reminded me powerfully of Wife, and especially of her romance with Boyfriend 5. As long as I knew her, Wife always had dreams of escape, of flight, of running away from whatever her life looked like at the time, of getting into her car and driving blindly as fast as she could until she was Far Away and could pretend to be Somebody Else. That was always what freedom looked like to her.

And Boyfriend 5? (Who claimed to be a terrorist abroad and turned out to be a lonely woman here in the USA?) What did Wife get from him (her)? Time. Attention. And endless sympathy. Also flattery. Also B5 described many (fictional) problems in his own life, on which Wife could offer advice to help. So B5 made her feel seen, and appreciated, and needed. And that's very much like what Toby describes, in recounting the steps that led her to run away with her felon boyfriend. The article says, "But now she felt someone notice her. She felt someone recognize that she had needs." It can be intoxicating -- obviously, given what Toby did next.

So does that explain Wife's infatuation with Boyfriend 5? I think so. I think she felt the same kind of neglect Toby felt, and responded just as overwhelmingly to the same attentions. It makes sense.

This doesn't mean that I take on myself all the responsibility for Wife's emotional affair with Boyfriend 5. Like in my post last night (but in mirror image), they were her actions and so she is responsible for them. And the story of how we got there in the first place -- how we got to the place where she felt so alone and so neglected and was therefore ready to snap at B5's bait -- is a long and tangled one with plenty of fault on both sides. To understand all is not to forgive all, and I can say I understand it without making her a spotlessly innocent victim.

But I do think I understand (at least a part of) how the whole thing looked to her, and why she could be so intoxicated that she couldn't see any of the rest of the world. And Toby's story sounded very familiar to me as I read it.

Familiar. And compelling. And sad. For Toby's sake, I'm glad she has come through on the other side. I wonder if Wife ever has ...?

         

I'm going to regret this

I told you all about Wife wanting to come to my family's Christmas. In the end it came to nothing, but it took a while to get there. Son 2 was staying with her for most of the season; and what I arranged with him was that maybe she could show up when I wasn't there. But then nobody called my mom to make arrangements. Turns out that Son 2 told Wife, "I'm not your social secretary. If you want to visit Dad's family, you have to pick up the phone and make the arrangements." And she never did it. So that was good, as far as it went.

But I couldn't stop wondering about next time. So today I wrote Wife an email, as follows:

Hi.

You asked to join my family's Christmas this year, and that got me to thinking about what "family" really is. It's not a perfect definition -- certainly not complete -- but I think part of it has to be this:

Your family are the people who always put you first (and you them, of course).

That doesn't mean you always hang out together, or you are always interested in the same things. But it means that you don't betray each other.

But by this definition you chose to opt out of my family years ago, by your own actions.

The day that became really clear to me was July 14, 2008. That's the day you paid Boyfriend 5's electric bill with our credit card, after I had spent an hour begging you not to.

You had never met Boyfriend 5 in the flesh. You had never spoken to him on the phone. In fact, you remember that he turned out not to exist at all; you were just being played by a lonely girl in Dallas who pretended to be a terrorist from ----.

And if you had been willing to act like family, you would have gone along with me when I asked you not to pay "his" bill, ... just to make me happy, for no other reason than that I asked. In reality you pressed me for reasons.

So I told you that Boyfriend 5 looked like a fraud. (He was.) I told you the Internet is full of thieves and scam artists who harvest other people's credit card numbers for purposes of identity theft. (It is.) But you decided you were in love with Boyfriend 5, ignored what I said, and paid his bill anyway. With our credit card.

And here is the important part. When I thought about it later I realized this was exactly in character. When it came down to a choice between me or The Other Guy, you would always choose The Other Guy. You and I can both think of other examples too, but this is the one that crystallized it for me. In some ways this was a very tiny betrayal, but this is the one that made me realize I could never trust you not to betray me.

But if I cannot trust you not to betray me, then we are not family. Simple as that.

If you want to visit my mother on some other day, or prowl through thrift stores with Brother and SIL, ... it's up to them. If they enjoy your company and want to see you, it's a free country.

But please don't ask to join "family celebrations" ever again. By your own actions, you chose to opt out of my family.

Happy New Year,
Hosea

After clicking "Send" I forwarded the same email to my mother, and to Brother and SIL, so they would know I had made the request. Since I assume they know nothing about Boyfriend 5, I included a cover letter as follows:

Dear Mother, Brother, SIL,

I hope this finds you well. It was great seeing you all for Christmas.

You remember there was some discussion about Wife wanting to join us some time over the holidays. The more I thought about it, the more that felt wrong to me and I finally figured out how to express it in words. So I sent the attached note (below) to her today, asking her never to make that request again. I am sending it to you as well, so we are all on the same page.

The event that I reference in my letter took place over a decade ago. I had better explain what happened, because I realize I jump into the story in medias res. If you don't want to know about it, you can skip this part.

Wife had met someone on the Internet who claimed to be a terrorist from ---- named "B5", and after a while she decided she was in love with him. I was pretty upset at that part, but then it got worse: one day he told her he couldn't afford to pay his electric bill, and so she paid it for him online with our credit card. She called me at work first to ask if it was OK and I said "No, absolutely not." I explained the risk that "B5" was an identity thief and that giving up the card number could be very dangerous. But after I got off the phone she decided that I must be wrong. She "knew" that B5 was a wonderful person whom she was in love with, so it would be perfectly safe.

In the end it turned out that "B5" really was a fraud, but -- thank heavens! -- wasn't interested in stealing our credit cards. But the event was a turning point. She had done worse things before, and would do worse things after. But somehow this event, small though it was, made me realize that nothing I said was ever going to matter. And so it was the beginning of the end.

Mostly I have kept pretty quiet about the things that went on at home while I was married to Wife, and I'm not trying to dump garbage in your laps today. But since I asked her please not to ask to come to Christmas again, or any other holiday, I wanted to be sure you knew I had done so. Then in the interests of transparency I decided to send you the same letter I sent her. And then I realized that I had better attach this cover letter because otherwise you wouldn't know what I was talking about.

In other words, it's not my plan to start complaining about all the bad things that are securely in the past by now. I consider this to be an exception.

And of course -- as I say in the letter to Wife as well -- if you enjoy her company and want to spend time with her outside of family events, by all means feel free to do as you like.

If you think I'm wrong about any of this, I should probably understand why so please drop me a note.


Thank you,
Hosea

And I have spent the rest of the day on tenterhooks.

I have gotten no reply from anybody yet. But I worry that sending these will prove to have been a catastrophically bad idea. I guess I'll find out.  

Poor boundary control

Janeway raised a question on my post from a couple days ago, and my answer began to get a bit long. (You're shocked, I realize.) By the time I hit my third paragraph, I decided to graduate it from a comment to a post of its own.

She asked:

Okay, so all you asked of her regarding her ongoing extramarital activity is not to let the boys find out that she's fucking someone else. Yet, not only has she introduced son #2 to this man, but also feels comfortable enough with son's knowing him that she can recount stories about him?

The short answer is:

Yes, that's right.

The longer version is, ... well, a little longer.

In the first place, she might not remember my saying anything. Wife has a lot of trouble remembering things she doesn't want to remember, in much the same way that she is very good at misremembering things when the altered version fits one of her ongoing narratives better.

In the second place, even if she did remember, I'm not surprised at her doing something else instead. In general I'm reluctant ever to ask her anything, because it sometimes seems that the mere fact that I asked her makes her want to do the opposite. If this were a Dr. Seuss book instead of real life, I would start asking her to do the opposite of what I want in the first place, but the pattern isn't quite reliable enough or mechanical enough for that. And maybe I am overstating it? But some days it sure does seem like that ....

Of course, you might think that she would be motivated to keep that part of her life separate anyway. Basic privacy concerns would be one reason. ("Sweetie, I'd like you to meet the man who has been banging the daylights out of Mommy every day this week while you've been in math class." Maybe not.) Then there are those warnings I read that in case of a divorce children automatically take sides against whichever parent (if any) they think has been screwing around.

But Wife has always had very poor boundary control.

• Back when she was seeing Boyfriend 2, she would meet him in a public park with the boys in tow and then she and he would talk while the boys clambered all over the playground equipment. (I assume they were only talking, in a public parkwhen the boys might come back at any moment wanting a snack. I never heard any stories to the contrary.)



• Boyfriend 3 was a relative of some friends of my parents, so she was quite open about taking the kids to go see him and his family. The sexual involvement lasted only a couple weeks before he broke it off because his wife found out and he had an attack of religious conscience. But the emotional involvement had been building for some time, and it never occurred to Wife that she needed to be at all discreet.



• Boyfriend 4 lived with us for two years, so he may be a special case. In some ways I think the boys became fonder of him (as a kind of uncle-figure) than Wife ever was, especially after they stopped fucking.



• And as for the whole Boyfriend-5/Friend drama, well of course that played out online. But Wife certainly discussed them with the boys. At any rate she discussed the parts she thought were innocuous, such as that they were terrorists, or that they bred dogs. But could she keep the romantic lilt out of her voice? I doubt it. I know for a fact that Son 2 watched over her shoulder as she signed off an IM-conversation with "ILYAAF" and guessed correctly what the initials stood for.

So no, I am not terribly surprised that she let Son 2 meet Pop, nor that she would tell him stories.

To be sure, the story that I overheard wasn't a terribly flattering one. Pop took her to lunch at a restaurant somewhere, and then right around the end of the meal had to make a couple of phone calls. So he got up and left the restaurant and was pacing back and forth outside, talking nonstop into his phone and chain smoking. The waitress brought the bill and Wife was left sitting there, alone and embarrassed, saying "My date had to make a call but he'll be back." (Yes, she used the word "date" when telling the story to Son 2.) It was a long time -- I don't know how long, but she made it sound an eternity -- before he came back and paid the bill so they could leave.

Now, Wife was telling this story in order to say what a rotten guy Pop was for being so rude. (This was Thursday night, by which time she was already pretty disenchanted with him.) But I couldn't help interrupting at that point with a theory: "He probably wasn't just rude. He was probably relying on your embarrassment being so acute that you couldn't make yourself just sit there and wait, so that you would pay the bill yourself and leave rather than wait for him to come back and settle up. He must have been very disappointed when you stuck it out like that." Wife took this as an occasion to congratulate herself with, "Well, I stood my ground." But what a sad choice of something to congratulate oneself on ... outwaiting your date in the slow race for the check!

Not this shit again! part 6

Wednesday I spent an hour on the phone with Lawyer, bringing her up to date and getting some information from her.

• You recall that I had sent her Friend's e-mail and she was appalled at it. So on the phone, I asked her, with all the divorces she has handled over the twenty years she has been in practice, how a letter like this fit into her experience? In what kinds of situations had she seen this kind of thing before? She said she had never seen anything like it before.
• Then I explained that Friend is now not returning phone calls and has dropped out of sight at the prospect of Wife visiting. I added that this may mean the drama is suddenly and completely over ... and from one perspective (even if only one) that makes any motion for divorce now look kind of beside the point.
• On the third hand, the fact that it could happen at all indicates a chronic level of denigration and bad judgement that is simply toxic.
• On the fourth hand, a divorce won't stop e-mails. If Friend or Boyfriend 5 or the Man in the Moon wants to e-mail Son 1 and Son 2 they can do so after a divorce as well as now.
• And I explained that both boys denied ever getting such an e-mail.
• As you can tell, this line of talk started to get pretty tangled.

But Lawyer gave me some information I hadn't heard before. She said that in her experience, children are more likely to speak up about what they are feeling or what is going on after the paperwork is filed and the wheels are in motion. Before then they don't want to rock the boat. Before then they can worry that if they say something then maybe they caused the divorce. But after it's already happening, then they are freer to talk. I hadn't heard that before.

She described again some of the process of the paperwork.

She had a couple of comments about custody.

• First, the boys are old enough to express an opinion about where they want to live. (I worried that Son 2, e.g., might say he wanted to live with Wife in order to parent her. She told me that the court can appoint someone to talk to the boys privately, and that it's amazing how freely kids will talk about what they really need once their parents are out of the room.)
• Second, if the boys are in private school then "custody" means "custody when the child is not at school." The percentages used to feed into the calculation of spousal support are percentages of non-school time only.
• Third, I told her I'd heard somebody say that unless one of the parents is a convicted axe-murderer, courts nearly always award custody 50/50. Her immediate response was "Yes." Then she qualified it with, "Maybe you don't have to be an axe murderer ... I've seen a couple of other cases." But basically yes.

I did not end the call by giving her any clear instructions. I said I wanted to digest this information. A couple of times I mentioned having discussed the topic with "my friend D." So she asked, "What does your friend D think you should do?"

I answered, "My friend D thinks the situation has been toxic for years and wonders what the heck is taking me so long."

She said, "Well I'm not here to tell you what to do. You tell me what you want. But I kind of agree with her ...."

Not this shit again! part 5

Just a brief update.

I asked Son 2 a week ago (or so) if he had ever gotten an e-mail from Friend. He stared at the floor and mumbled, "No." But then immediately after he added, "Remember Dad, I hardly ever check my e-mail."

A couple days ago I had a chance to ask Son 1. He also said "No," much more directly. But then I would expect Son 1 to say anything directly.

On the other hand, the e-mail I printed out shows their addresses quite clearly, so I don't think they could have failed to get it unless there was a totally providential network failure. Which I doubt.

I have to assume that the real answer for both boys is "Yes, but I don't want to talk about it."

"Friend" has gone missing

I don't know if I've mentioned that Wife is planning a flight to visit her sister later this month. Her sister has been sick a long time, and Wife has dragged her feet for months but finally decided to fly out to visit. And on the way back, she's going to fly to the city where Friend lives, to see him. She booked the tickets, giving herself three nights with her sister and five nights with Friend. She is not booking any hotel, because in each case she plans to stay at the home of her sister and Friend, respectively. Then she e-mailed Friend to let him know her itinerary, and to ask him to pick her up at the airport.

That was eight days ago. She has heard nothing from him since. Nothing!

So she told me that if he was going to be such a jerk, she wouldn't visit him after all. I pointed out to her that maybe the silence is because he never really existed at all, and when confronted with the prospect of her actually arriving in town the person pretending to be Friend suddenly didn't know what to do. I suggested she fly out there anyway for maybe one night, rent a car and a room at a Motel 6, and then drive out to the street address that she has for this character to scout it out. Is it anything at all like the description she has been given? Does it have a name on the door, and (if so) whose? If she knocks on the door, who answers and what name do they give? And so on. She said she'd think about it.

Meanwhile yesterday Wife finally started showing a little initiative in this area. Years after I raised doubts about the existence of any of these people, she finally called the company that Friend claims to work for, and asked to speak with Human Resources. They have never heard of him. She dialed a number she had been given for Friend's lover's twin brother, and got a man who said he had never heard of Friend and didn't have a brother. But then he did confirm the existence of some of the other names in this dreary soap opera, so I'm not sure what that means.

Wife isn't sure she wants to fly out there with nobody to meet her, but I am urging her to do so. Partly I admit that I'm being mean and spiteful in wanting to rub her nose in just how much a fantasy this has been all this time. But partly also, I don't want Friend to contact her two weeks later saying, "Oh the most horrible thing happened ... there was a flood and an avalanche and I lost my phone service and Internet connection ... and so did all my friends ... and by the way I've been in a coma for weeks, ... oh, and my dog ate my homework. But everything's going to be just like normal now, isn't it? Please?"

I don't know what she'll do, but the story is taking an interesting turn.

Not this shit again! part 4

Not long after I wrote to my lawyer (I was in a meeting so I'm not quite sure when it was), she wrote back to me as follows:

I read your email and the letter which Friend addressed to Son 1 and Son 2. I am appalled!! Son 1 and Son 2 should not be involved in this situation in any way. I know that you agree because you have held off proceeding with the divorce for the sake of maintaining the status quo for Son 1 and Son 2. After reading your email setting forth Wife's history (which we discussed in depth when you retained me) and realizing that Friend sent a letter to Son 1 and Son 2, I wonder how are you maintaining the status quo. Or if this is the status quo, is this healthy for your sons?

It is good that Son 1 is attending boarding school and that Son 2 will be doing so in the future because at this time this provides some emotional protection for them.

I understand that your biggest concern in proceeding with the divorce is the custody of Son 1 and Son 2. You stated in your email that you thought it would be simpler and easier on the boys "if we could keep a stable status quo." Based upon what I read in your email and the fact that Friend felt he could send a letter to Son 1 and Son 2, once again, I ask are you maintaining a stable status quo for your sons?

With respect to advising you how to proceed, it is difficult to express more to you in writing. I believe that we need to have a telephone conference or meet again if you can arrange to do so.

Please let me know when you would like to talk.... I look forward to speaking with you.

We set up a time to talk. I'll keep you posted from here ....

Not this shit again! part 3

So I wrote to my lawyer a couple days ago, reminding her that I'm out here (although I had dropped any action a year ago) and asking if I still had some hours to spend. She replied that yes I did, and how did I want to proceed? Today I wrote her as follows:

You asked me how I wish to proceed, and I am not 100% sure. You have seen a lot more divorces than I have, and I would like your advice. I understand that giving advice isn't free and takes time, just the same as any of the normal legal work that would move me forward. I understand and accept that this is probably not a routine six-minute e-mail. [My lawyer normally bills each e-mail at 0.1 of an hour.] But advice is what I need right now. I will try to be as clear and succinct as possible.

BACKGROUND, PART 1:
- Last year I held off filing the papers because I was concerned about how destructive the divorce process might be for our two children, Son 1 and Son 2. I do not expect to reach an amicable resolution with my wife. (I would be glad to be wrong.)
- Since that time, Son 1 has entered 9th grade in a boarding high school.
- Son 2 is in 7th grade, but is likely to attend a boarding high school too, when the time comes.
- That made me think maybe it would be simpler and easier on the boys if we could keep a stable status quo until Son 2 enters high school, and then dissolve the marriage when neither of them lives full-time at home.

But now I think I might be wrong.

BACKGROUND, PART 2:
- My wife Wife has a history of infidelity, mental illness, and chronic denigration of others -- especially me. The things she says are often outright lies; less often they are just distortions of reality.
- Three years ago (late 2007) she started an on-line flirtation that has grown to consume most of her life by now. [It finally reached the point of being blog-worthy here.] To date, she has never met this fellow in the flesh. One of the names he uses is "Friend" and that's the one I'll use here. (This is a real simplification, but I'll save the details for some other time.)
- A couple evenings ago, she left one of her e-mail accounts logged in when she went to bed. I snooped, and found a letter from Friend addressed to Son 1 and Son 2 -- copied to Wife -- dated back in June.
- I have shown this letter to a couple friends. [That would be D, plus my gentle readers here. At the time I wrote this, I had gotten feedback from Janeway and L.] They agree with me that it is appalling.
- But they also tell me this letter is a sign that I have been a complete idiot to trust in a stable status quo for another two years into the future. They all agree with each other that if this letter is any sign of what the boys are hearing behind my back, then no matter how destructive the divorce turns out to be it can't be any worse than the status quo.
- In short, they are all telling me to get it in gear and move forward at once.

I don't know if they are right. I would like you to read the e-mail and tell me how you see it, compared to the other divorces you have seen.

That's my question.

If my friends are right, then I guess I need to stop dawdling. At that point, I will have to figure out with you the next step: is it to pick up where we were?

Also for the future: you need not answer this now, but please keep it in mind for later. I strongly believe that Wife's history of psychological instability and her poor grasp of the truth -- plus other factors -- would make her a very poor custodial parent, and that her percentage of the children's time should be shrunk as small as practically possible. My friends agree with this, but they also point out that it can be really, really hard to convince a court of that. And they point out that Wife has been telling all her acquaintances evil things about me for a long time. This means I will need advice how best to collect objective evidence of the kind that is persuasive to a court, in support of a settlement that gives her very limited custody time.

As I say, I assume that last paragraph is a topic for a later day.

What follows below is Friend's letter to the boys, from June. Thank you for your help.

I then inserted the letter from Friend that I reprinted for you here. I'll post later how she replied ....

Not this shit again! part 2

In my last post, I talked about Friend’s e-mail to Son 1 and Son 2; and I mentioned that I had sent it also to D. Here is her reply:

Hosea, I think Wife wanted you to find the information you found and it is past time to address the situation. If that means she learns that you have read some of her posts, then so be it. I would not make that blindingly obvious, but I would not deny it either (remember that she already knows you have read some of her posts because you gave me the account address that allowed for sexual blogging [For some time -- maybe a year or so -- Wife and Friend and a bunch of other people were all contributing to something called "My Journal" under the name of "The House of Normandy."] and she traced my address to discover she and her friends were being monitored). I’d keep the conversation about Friend’s letter to the boys. The letter is very rank; there is an evil there that makes my skin crawl.

I think there are a couple issues here and one is the ongoing matter of honesty. The only reason to mention and then to show that you went to the two training sessions is to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you did not abandon your family for ten days in order to be with me. [Wife had suggested in a recent e-mail to Friend that I spent this whole week-and-a-half with D. It's true I was there a day-and-a-half, not that I care to discuss it with Wife; but I only wish it had been longer.] That seems important. It also seems important for her to visit this person, whoever she/he is, and establish some reality or lack of reality.

Second, whatever the differences between you and Wife, to have them discussed with the children is beyond inappropriate; it is manipulative and destructive. There is also a level of knowledge the letter presupposes that makes it clear that I have been right about Wife’s willingness to share her affairs with her children and that one of her ongoing projects is to fill their minds with all kinds of hateful stuff about you. Yes, I think both boys will end up rejecting this viewpoint and finally rejecting her, but they are still kids and the resources you bring to distance yourself from her madness and venom are unavailable to them. The letters need to stop now. God knows what “Friend” will send Son 1 at school, where it becomes impossible for you to monitor his email. I think you have some difficult decisions to make; does it really make sense to stay with her ‘for the children’ when “The House of Normandy “is both trying to recruit Wife and paint you are a violent, insensitive lout? I have long questioned your decision, but if you decide it still seems correct, you need to find a way for the boys to be free from this madness.

I’d do two things; first, your lawyer needs a copy of the letter and any other materials you have to establish yourself as better qualified to be the custodial parent. Second, you need to tell both boys you know about the attempts Friend has made to contact them, and to briefly say that they should keep out of this matter between you and Wife. You can usually set up some kind of block that will screen for any messages from his accounts. I’m guessing that it will stop; after all, we know that emails are not considered private and confidential (that also includes ours) and can be used in court. (Given the nature of our relationship, the love we share is pretty mundane and poses much less of a danger to the boys than “The House of Normandy”. I can’t imagine Wife not understanding that matter.)

You will need to have a focused discussion with Wife, which means you probably need to arrange for Son 2 to be somewhere else. Do not let Wife switch the topic of conversation; stay with the emails to the kids. And set down some “if…then” guidelines. Wife wants to stay with you, and “Friend” wants her to remain married too. Unless she wants an immediate divorce, she will make sure that Friend never contacts the boys again while you are married to her and Son 1 and Son 2 are under eighteen. It’s not negotiable nor will the demand change. That she loves “Friend” or Boyfriend 2 [Yes, it turns out she has also been in touch with Byfriend 2 again recently. (sigh) Surely they deserve each other.] or even “Boyfriend 5” and what she does about those loves is none of your business any more. Yet as long as you share custody of the children, she needs to obey some basic outlines of decency and respect.

You may have to spell these out to her; she can only understand black and white rules. I believe it was Aristotle who declared that some individuals were born to be in servitude because they were too indolent to live as free men; they were unable to think for themselves and work for the good of the polis outside of serving a ‘master’. *Sigh. That seems cruel and the assertion rejects the Enlightenment notion of fundamental human dignity. Has mental illness diminished Wife’s dignity to the extent that she must be protected for her own good? To have her misery and disability exploited by ‘Friend’ and then to drag your children over that cliff is quite terrible. You can love and protect your sons, but she may have to rely on the mercies of God. The future cannot be but a wilderness for her.

I so wish I could hold you and that all discussion could cease. Given that impossibility, know that I am available all week-end by phone, and that in my heart, all my love is yours.

I did call D later today, and we talked for close to an hour. I explained that I really don’t think forbidding Friend to contact the boys will do me much good if I have no way to enforce it ... which I don’t. I agree that there is something about the letter that makes my skin crawl. But I don’t know what to do about it. I can put a filter in Son 2’s e-mail because he still lives at home. But if Friend is indeed (as I believe) actually a phony identity created by the same person who has pretended (to Wife) to be Boyfriend 5 and even Celine Dion (yes!), then he or she has a great facility for creating new e-mail addresses. So a filter would be pretty temporary. And in any event I don’t see how I could reach Son 1’s e-mail, at boarding school.

I did agree, though, that maybe it is time I contacted my lawyer again (whom I have not seen since this point here) ... maybe I can send her the e-mail and get her opinion of it. I certainly need advice from someone.

Not this shit again!

I thought I was long past giving a shit what Wife said about me or to whom. Really, I know it's going to be venomous lies and there is nothing I can do about it ... so why stress?

Then this evening I discovered that three months ago, Friend sent an e-mail to the boys.

That's out of bounds. I don't know what to do about it ... probably nothing, since I can't admit I know. But I am just as upset as I ever was years ago at this kind of horseshit. So since I don't have any idea what to do, I'm going to burden you all with it and then go have a drink. Or three.

Oh, ... the one sensible thing I did was to send a copy to D. She has worked in enough dysfunctional families that she'll probably have a better idea than I do for what should come next.

Here it is, all formatting as in the original, even when it seems inconsistent.
____________________

Son 1 and Son 2:

I think I owe you both an apology.

While talking with your mom this morning, I got the distinct impression that she spoke to you concerning me yesterday. In fact, I know she particularly spoke to Son 2 because this morning, I was relaying messages to her to pass on to Son 2.

Let me say a couple of things. I really like both of you boys. I think you're great. You are two of the best kids in the world and ya have one of the best mothers, too.

I know that you are very protective of your mother. I know that your family situation isn't easy right now. I don't know the total picture, nor most of it, but I do know that your mother is very unhappy, and having spoken with your father a couple of times, I have the basic outline of a drawing of your family situation filled out, granted without all the colors filled in.

To both of you:

I am sorry if I thought you were hostile or hated me. I don't know how you feel about me, but I would like to say that I am here if at anytime you need to talk. I will not judge, even if you want to talk about your mother. I make it a habit of listening without judging. If you'd like to talk about guns, sports, law enforcement, fires, the president, Mars, alien invasions, or anything I'm here.

I want to make it clear that I love your mother very much. Yes, we are friends, but I also love her. I don't know if this is wrong. Is love wrong?

I guess I felt like you two didn't like me because if I were in your shoes, I might not like me either. I spend a lot of time talking to your mother and spending time on the phone with her and when I was your age, this would have made me really, really angry. It would have made me want to break windows, or go into my room, turn my music up as loud as I could, and play my video games all day and all night, if I could have and if I had had video games.

I met your mother through an online support group called C-T-D, (connecteive Tissue Diseases), which she was a founder/moderator of. I joined that group in July 2005. I liked your mother right away, and because of something she said online, I wrote her privately. I was being picked on by several list members because of my burns. Your mother was the only one who dealt with the problem. I appreciated that and we struck up a conversation.

Seven or eight months down the road, your mom met Boyfriend 5. Once she and Boyfriend 5 started becoming friendly, (I was friendly with him, too and considered him a friend at that time), she sort of left me behind. We still talked,but only on her terms. If she didn't want to respond to an email of mine, she didn't. That was ok though, I saw what was going on between her and Boyfriend 5. You may wonder what did I see?

I saw a woman who had a lot of love to give, not just for her children, but for adults as well. I saw a woman who was not receiving that love at home. I saw a woman who was very lonely. I saw a woman who cried all the time.

Boyfriend 5 seemed to fill a void that I could not fill and he seemed to make your mother happy. I was happy for them.

Now, maybe i'm slow on the uptake, but it wasn't for a while that I discovered that there was something going on between Boyfriend 5 that was more than just a good or even best friendship. It was more than abrother/sisterly love, either. You boys are smart, I don't need to spell it out for you.

I believe in being honest, so this is what I'm doing.

In Feb, 2006, Boyfriend 5 got really sick. I would write to your Mom and tell her how he was doing. We also began having our own internet conversations, then. This went on for quite a while. We were friends, and I would even say she was even a good friend, but it ended at that point.

Skip ahead to November of 06.

My father was murdered in November of 06, and I was a witness to that murder. I did not reappear on the internet until December around Christmas. Wife was one of the few people who offered genuine support for me during that difficult time. She gave me her phone number and I began to call her.

At first, I didn't call her a lot, because I didn't want to impose. Then, I found we had more and more things in common and we began to call each other more.

We stayed friends for over a year. In fact, I told her that in no way would I ever have a relationship with a woman. I had Rod as my partner and I was strictly gay and did not, under any circumstances, want to change that.

Our friendship, however, grew deeper and stronger and we began to tell each other things that we otherwise would not have.

One of the things your mom shared with me is just how unhappy she was living with your father. She did not tell me the whole story, nor did I ask. Some things are just meant to be kept within a family, you know? She did tell me that she felt at times verbally, mentally and physically mistreated. I pointed out to her that even though she felt this way, and that her feelings were valid, that didn't necessarily mean that was your dad's intent. She agreed that this might be true, and might still be true today. we both agree however, that this doesn't change the way she feels and how she feels is very scared sometimes.

I have made it clear that while I love your mother very much, and would even ask her to marry me if she wasn't already married, I *DO NOT* *UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES* want your family to break up. I want your mother to be happy. Even if that happiness doesn't include me. I have told her this many times. She knows how much I love her, but she also knows I don't want to be responsible for the family breaking up.

Now, that I've said all that, let me explain some more about why I thought you all hated me.

As I said, if I were in your shoes, I would be upset, too. I would feel that this person has come along, and even if I didn't start it, Boyfriend 5 did, I am still doing it, just like he used to do. I am talking to your mother all the time, I am calling at all hours when I can, and it seems like we are always on the phone.

You can ask your mom if I make her happy. Ask her if I fulfill her emotional, spiritual, and mental needs. I can't answer that for her and I wouldn't want to. She does all that and more for me. She makes me feel whole. She makes me feel complete. Without talking to her or emailing her, I feel naked. I feel as if something deep and profound is missing in my life.

I'm sorry if I thought you all hated me. You have a right to be angry at me. You have a right to feel as if I'm stealing your mother away. You are certainly entitled to your feelings and I am certainly willing to hear what they are if you'd like to share.

Remember that whatever you tell me will not be retold to your mother and certainly not to your father. I am here for you boys.... NO matter what happens. I want the best for your whole family. I care about you...all of you.

So, I hope I've cleared the air a bit. I hope I've made it clear that I don't want anything from your mom, other than what I already have, her love and friendship.

I would like to try and get to know your dad, too, but I have a feeling he doesn't want to get to know me, and that's fine.

If you have any questions, or would like to write back about anything, you are certainly welcome to do so. I will try to answer promptly, but due to work schedules, it may take me a few days.

Ahh, yes, and there is one thing I almost forgot. Wife had pointed out to me that one of you said that if I really cared, I would have come to visit. On two occasions I did have plane reservations to do just that. On the first occasion, I even had the tickets in my hand and was on my way out the door to go to the airport when I found out that Hosea had invited Boyfriend 4 to come down and spend the whole time he was gone. I suspect this was to chaperone your mom and to make sure I couldn't come. The same thing happened the second time, but fortunately, I found out early enough that I was able to cancel my flight.

Now, you may ask, "Why didn't you just come anyway?" I am an autistic. I have something called Asperger's Syndrome. This means I am a high-functioning autistic, but it means I don't do well with strangers, or people who have hurt deeply those I love. I know Boyfriend 4 hurt Wife by his drinking and it would have upset me to be in the same house with him and to have to be nice. It would have also upset me since I felt that your father was using Boyfriend 4 as a chaperone and I didn't feel this was appropriate. I love your mother very much, but she is a married woman and I would NEVER do anything to compromise those marriage vows.

I hope I have explained some things to you.

Friend, M.D.

Is Wife autistic?

When I wrote a few days ago about Wife's inability to catch emotions from other people, Janeway asked me if she might be autistic. Interestingly enough, D had suggested something very similar when I told her about the same event. I have only a moment or two right now, but here is the relevant section from her e-mail:

"Is Wife is autistic in any way?... if she is, it might explain a good deal. Autistic Disorder is diagnosed if a patient fulfills a total of at least six criteria from three lists. (1) Impaired social interaction: Lack of peer relationships and absence of social or emotional reciprocity would seem to fit. (2) Impaired communication: language that is repetitive, stereotyped, or idiosyncratic fits some of what you and I have heard for years. (3) Activities that are repetitive, restricted, and stereotyped: Rigid performance or routines and rituals that don't appear to have a function or abnormal (in focus or intensity) preoccupation with interests that are restricted or stereotyped. Her activities with Boyfriend 5 and Friend and all of that crowd might fit this category. Autistic spectrum disorders are absolutely devastating, both to the person and to the family, and they certainly cause behavior that seems out of touch with other people's emotions.There is also a condition known as atypical autism, which is a label used for disturbances that don't meet criteria for Autistic Disorder because of too few symptoms, or atypical symptoms. It is used to diagnose adults who may have some of these symptoms, as autism is usually diagnosed as a child. I hope this helps you understand the condition better; you might want to seek further information and support if you think it might be helpful for the family to understand autism better.

"She says she doesn't enjoy Son 1's baseball games, but that's not true. Wife thinks that sports are beneath her interest as a highly intelligent person, but again, that's false on many levels. She has certainly been excited at the games I've attended, ...."

Gotta run. But it is food for thought.

Eighth date: the home front

So what was happening at home, all the time that D and I were going to the movies, to the theater, to one restaurant after another, ... and of course all the time that we stayed back at the hotel in bed, whispering softly, kissing sweetly, caressing delicately, and fucking as if our lives depended on it?

I didn't get any horror stories of Wife falling asleep at the wheel (although come to think of it I didn't exactly ask). On the other hand, the boys were only in school two days that week before Thanksgiving Break kicked in, so I think the risk should have been minimized. But I did learn a few odds and ends when I got back.

The day of my return, Wife spent an hour and a half on the phone with Friend (who is, I am convinced, merely a role played by the same charlatan who spent so long claiming to be Boyfriend 5).

The day of my return, while the boys were home from school, Wife decided to make chocolate-chip cookies with them. She got as far as mixing up the dough, but never actually baked the cookies. "I ran out of time," she told me later. But then she didn't bake them Thursday morning, before we drove to visit my parents for Thanksgiving Dinner; she didn't bake them Saturday or Sunday,when we were home all day and doing nothing. Anyone who remembers the great saga of cleaning up the study will recognize that this is starting to look like many of Wife's other projects. When I got home from work today I realized that she hadn't baked anything, but there was visibly less dough in the refrigerator than there had been this morning. Aha, I see. "Baking with the boys" has come to mean "letting the boys make up cookie dough for me to scarf during the week." OK, got that.

And then she went to see an attorney. In fact, Wife was awake when I got home late, late at night, so that she could tell me what she had learned. The short version was, "You can't afford to divorce me, so you're going to have to learn to live with me."

Say what?

The longer version was that she had given this fellow some (inaccurate) figures purporting to be our monthly income, and she had gotten him to estimate child care and spousal support based on some other highly doubtful assumptions. Based on the outcome of this dubious calculation (garbage in, garbage out) she concluded that in case of a divorce, neither of us would have enough disposable income to continue to live in exactly the same neighborhood of the same city where we live today. And so she concluded that divorce is financially impossible.

That there are people on this planet -- and even in our state -- who somehow make do with these smaller sums she has in mind does not seem to have been a relevant consideration for her. She assumes that staying put is an overriding concern for both of us, so that anything which imperils that is financially unthinkable. I dunno, babe; I do have some financial priorities, but never moving for the rest of my life isn't at the top of my list -- even if it does kind of appeal to my native sloth.

Anyway, I'm not terribly worried. This attorney specifically says that all he does in family law is to give advice, not represent parties in litigation. I'm not sure where he makes his money, but apparently inciting expensive court battles ain't it.

And I don't think Wife was quite expecting me to reply, "Wow. Well, we're going to have to do some hard thinking to figure out how we can each of us get by on these numbers ...."
__________

There was one odd postscript to Wife's visit to the attorney: she got lost trying to find her way back to her car.

I should explain that his office is on the main street through downtown, and that we have lived here for some 19 years. She had parked a couple blocks up from his office and walked down to it, because parking on that street is often at a premium. She didn't tell me how far away she had parked, but she made it sound like it wasn't far. But when she left the office, the sun was going down and she couldn't recognize any of the landmarks. She didn't know where she was, and she couldn't remember if she had parked up the street or down the street. So -- again, entirely on her own account of the story -- she wandered back and forth up and down the street looking vainly for her car, more and more lost and finding nothing. Her feet started to hurt, so she took off her shoes and walked in her stocking feet. Finally she saw a store she recognized; she went into the store and asked how to find the cross-street where she had parked. They pointed her in the opposite direction from the one she had been drifting; and when she went that way she found her car promptly and came home.

And of course I have to wonder if events like this one have anything to do with her sudden reluctance to divorce?

Crazy plans

While the conversation yesterday morning had a lot to say about the state of our marriage, we talked about some other things too. One piece of news is that Boyfriend 4 is going to get married.

Apparently he met this woman on the Internet. She and her two daughters live 2000 miles or so from where Boyfriend 4 lives right now. She had been living with another guy (not the father of her girls) until he picked up and left all unannounced; so Boyfriend 4 flew out to help her with some of the daily domestic challenges for a week (much as he did for us a few years ago), fell in love and decided to marry her. He has flown back home to pack up his stuff. A month from now she will fly out to see him, they will load up a van, they'll stop here to visit for a few hours on their way out of state, and off they'll go. Their plan, apparently, is to take the girls out of school by offering to home school them instead, and then drive around the country in an RV.

Wife thinks this is crazy, and can find a dozen major flaws in the plan without breaking a sweat. Of course it is crazy. There's no doubt. It shows absolutely no care for the future, no prudence or foresight. Only, ... how much future does Boyfriend 4 really have, at this point? 18-24 months? How much does it matter if he decides to do something crazy on a lark? How long is he really going to have to deal with the consequences?

It may be a little crazier for his blushing bride-to-be, who runs the risk that as soon as she marries him she'll have to start nursing his decline. But for Boyfriend 4 himself, the prospect of leaving the stage on the crest of a new adventure may be just the thing.
____________________

Speaking of crazy plans, Wife is thinking about flying out to see Friend.

Or maybe not. Friend may be out of town on business. But at least she'll see one of Friend's housemates ... whose rich husband will be buying her ticket but will also be out of town on business ... or something like that. (I haven't bothered to ask why, if they are rich, they live with multiple housemates. Let it pass.) She tells me that they said they would pay for her ticket and all her expenses for a week, but she'd be back by the weekend. What did I think?

Well of course I think it is deranged. Surely she knew that before she even asked, so I didn't bother to say it. So here is what I told her:

1. It's a free country and you are an adult, so I can't stop you and won't try. All I will insist on at the most basic level is that if you end up incurring any expenses unexpectedly, you pay for them out of your money and don't expect me to contribute. That sounds callous and shallow, I know, but I really can't stop her so all there is not a lot of point in digging deeper. Call regularly and keep in touch with us so we know you are OK.
2. Watch yourself. Of course that is always good advice to anybody who travels. There are always Bad Guys who prey on confused tourists. But all the more so in this case, watch carefully for anything that seems wrong, because these people have told you so many stories that don't add up. I don't want to get a phone call from you saying, "The good news is that my flight arrived OK and I met up with my friends right away. The bad news is that they want a zillion dollars ransom money in small unmarked bills in a nearby parking lot by midnight tonight."
3. If you get a chance, snap a photo of some of these people on your phone. It would be great to know if they really exist. Does Friend, for example, really have any of the visible burns he has talked about before? For that matter, will you even see any mail addressed to Friend anywhere in the house? This part of the trip could be very educational.

Or not. She nodded at everything I said, but I have no idea what will really happen. My guess, based on things that have happened before, is that they will call her tomorrow morning and cancel the whole trip. But I guess we'll see.

Sixth date 4, Brief narrative

Let's see if I can give a bare bones account of what actually happened last week. Let's see ... chronologically? Thematically? A mix ...?

Revisiting the week as I wrote this, I think it is pretty likely I won't have any friends left in the blogosphere by the time they finish reading it. (sigh) I hope it helps that I am aware of the problem. I am trying to figure out the next steps from here.

Cleaning

[Saturday] D started by helping the boys tidy their room and put away their laundry. Only they couldn't close their dresser drawers because of the huge numbers of shirts falling out of them. Wife says "If they'd only hang up their shirts it would be no problem." D asks the boys, "What are these shirts? Can you show me? Do they still fit? Do you like them or wear them?" Then she weeded out a couple of bags worth of shirts that no longer fit and/or that neither boy was willing to let touch his body. And suddenly the dresser drawers closed nicely.

[Sunday, Monday] D and I totally rearranged the storage units. Wife and I have rented a storage unit ever since we moved into our house. You may recall that back in January we had to rent a second unit because of all the junk we moved out of the house. Well, two units cost twice as much as one unit (fancy that!) and the expense was getting to be a nuisance. D and I rearranged things so that we could consolidate into one unit, and surrender the second one. And mostly we succeeded at this by simple geometry ... we really threw out very little. (Well, ... considering.)

Also, D cleaned the bathrooms again. Yes, she had done that back in January. It is possible somebody else might have done it since then, but I'm not taking bets.

[Tuesday, Wednesday] Then she started in on the living room, which had been left out the last time around. The boys had left a bunch of junk lying around, and there were books strewn. Also the room was hard to use (and therefore drifted into being a junk depository) because of the way the bookshelves and furniture were arranged. OK, well D got the boys to pick up their own stuff. She consulted a bit and we agreed that the brick-and-board shelf had to come down ... that would improve the space enormously. (I would swear that Wife was in on this agreement, but maybe she thought we were talking about something else.) So D went to work on the shelves, pulling down books to dust them and asking what could get donated to charity or the library or something. As the project went on, she got significantly more aggressive on this point; and in the end we must have culled somewhere over a thousand books. Not that this really stripped our living room, you understand ... there must be twice that many still on the shelves. Or more.

[Thursday] Last thing was to organize a whole box of filing into which I had been pitching papers pell-mell for a long, long time. She did ask me (several times) if I had any intention of ever dealing with the papers, and was tolerant when I said yes.

Other chores

D did a lot of laundry -- every day -- and did the dishes after every meal. (She doesn't believe in dishwashers.) She also offered to help Son 2 pack for a big two-week expedition he was leaving for -- call it a campout, which is close enough. She helped me plan, shop for, and cook the meals. She made a huge raft of sandwiches for Son 1's sports team, which had a number of games during the week. There's probably more that I'm forgetting.

Sex

Since D was staying in our house, there wasn't really a good venue for sex. But we improvised the best we could, using what little standing room we could find in the storage units and the garage. I can't say either of those venues worked for me terribly well, but they did seem to work for D -- rapturously and repeatedly. At any rate she certainly sounded like she was enjoying herself ... and the loss of muscular control is something I'd only ever read about before. I take all that as a good sign. (Seriously, it could sound like I'm griping and I'm not; given the very tight constraints, I think the sex was one of the things that worked out best during the whole week.)

Fights

There were a lot of them.

Wife blamed D for throwing away all those shirts; although honestly I had wanted to do the same thing for years. Wife buys stuff without any visible regard for whether we need it or already have it; I have enough shirts to go to work for three weeks without repeating a single one, but she still tells me I need a few more. The thing is that I'm too dilatory or slothful to get around to purging the boys's shirts, to say nothing of wanting to avoid the inevitable fight that it would (and did) generate. But when there were so many shirts that they would never wear, it was the right thing to do.

D for her part got progressively more irritated at Wife's refusal to say Please or Thank you or even Hello, at Wife's seeming inability even to notice when D was scrubbing her fingers to the bone cleaning caked shit out of the inside rims of our toilets, and at Wife's consistent failure to make even the smallest gesture of politeness: Can I get you something? Would you like a glass of water? One way of explaining this neglect would be to say that Wife didn't want D to do the things she was doing, but it is pretty hard to think that about scrubbing the toilets. Nor does it explain similar rudenesses over breakfast or dinner, when no work was being done at all (except for cooking or washing up). In any event, when Wife shouted about some of the other topics, D shot back with this one.

Wife resented the hell out of our pruning the books, and truth to tell we probably went overboard. But the way she reacted wasn't very productive, because it mostly meant repeating the refrain, "You can't throw those away because their mine, mine, mine, all mine! Do you hear me? Mine, mine, MINE!" This just cemented D's diagnosis that owning all this stuff has totally distorted Wife's view of the world, making it all about her. Since Wife acquires the stuff with no concern for whether we will need it or ever use it, the overall pattern looks unhealthy. And no, D was not terribly gentle about explaining this back to Wife; rather, when Wife had screeched for long enough at D, D would shout back at her to open her eyes up to other people besides herself. The point about basic civility (see the preceding paragraph) fit in here too.

Occasionally Wife would argue that she needed these or those scholarly tomes because she still reads them on a regular basis and is going to go back to scholarship any day now. Mind you, she failed her master's exams nearly fifteen years ago and hasn't seen the inside of a university since then. The "scholarly tomes" in question were all covered in spider webs and insect droppings, so they probably hadn't been used all that recently. But Wife claimed that they had been and would be, all the same. This argument just contributed to the impression both D and I have, that Wife spends most of her time in a world of make-believe.

Wife was also angry that D offered to help Son 2 pack for his expedition. What was she trying to say, that Wife wasn't good enough to pack her own son? (Somehow the topic had shifted from getting the work done to whether Wife was good enough ... but don't conclude that this is self-absorption.) Now, Son 2 is a gentler and more sensitive kid than Son 1, and I really didn't want him being caught between two such dominant women. So I pushed both of them away (figuratively) and insisted that Son 2 should pack himself. After all, if he's going to be gone for two weeks, he'll have to be able to take care of that. This seemed to work out OK.

Shortly after we finished with the books, Wife went out to get "one last thing" that Son 2 would need for his trip. She came back not having found it, but having bought a big box of candles (we have candles already, not that we use them), some personal electronics (for which we have no need), and a pair of $60 earrings (she must have hundreds of earrings). I lost my temper at this and took the bags away from her. I went immediately back to the store to return them. In the process, I also took Wife's wallet and hid it somewhere I am reasonably sure she can't retrieve it. (I can, easily enough.)

That's how I confiscated Wife's wallet.

While I am still speaking of the wallet, I should explain a couple of things. I let her keep her driver's license and all her keys. She recently set up an ATM card with our bank that lets her access two separate accounts holding inheritance money from a relative that recently died. These accounts are in her name alone, so I have no ownership rights on them. And I let her keep that ATM card. (Between them they add to something over $23,000.00 ... so as long as she is willing to drive to the bank, she has access to plenty of money.) I also let her keep her insurance ID cards and her library card. So she is not without resources. But I hope to impede her ability mindlessly to piss away our common resources as long as she is making such irrational buying decisions.

While I was gone, she spent the time murmuring softly to Son 2 about what a beast I am and how she won't put up with it any longer, until he was curled up on his bed crying in fetal position. (Nice send-off for his big trip, huh?) When I came back and found out, I told her "No more. You are going to be happy and cheerful until Son 2 leaves tomorrow evening. I don't care what anybody does to you or says to you, but you are not going to say a single, solitary unpleasant thing until that time. Then after he leaves, you can say anything you want." She couldn't make herself be pleasant, but she did succeed in shutting up, which I guess is the next best thing.

She also got on the phone to Boyfriend 5 ... or no, I guess it was Friend. That's when I picked up her cell phone, insisting that she deal with the here-and-now instead of fleeing into fantasy land. I handed the phone to D, saying I was really too upset to know what to do with it. D put it somewhere around the house. I'm sure it will turn up.

That's what happened to the cell phone.

Travel and heat

The next day we took Son 2 to the spot where he was embarking on his big trip. Everyone said nice things to him, and we all hurrahed him off. (Wife sulked when she wasn't actually talking to him, but never mind.) Then we went from there to visit my parents and spent the night. The next morning we hung out at my parents' house for a while, preparing a big barbecue for lunch. D spent a lot of time chatting with them and getting to know them.

After I took a shower that morning, I couldn't find my comb so I checked in Wife's bag for one. I didn't find a comb, but I did find her Smith & Wesson 38. Now, I don't know about you but I honestly can't think of any legitimate reason for her to have brought a handgun along on this trip. So I lifted it out of the bag and hid it at my parents' house. I also told my parents -- and D -- what I had found.

Not ten minutes later, Wife asked me in a long-suffering voice to give her back her handgun. I asked her why she had brought it. Her answer was, "I always carry it whenever I go anywhere, so that it can't get stolen by someone breaking into the house."

This is a pure lie -- a total fabrication -- and I told her so. I know perfectly well that on plenty of other occasions when we spent the night at my parents' house, she did not pack a weapon. So what was she planning? Was she going to kill us all? Or make a dramatic last stand and then kill herself? Both? Or what? My private theory is that she didn't have a plan, and in fact that she didn't even know why she packed it. But that doesn't make me feel any better.

Anyway, that's how I confiscated the handgun.

Coda

Later in the week we went to one of Son 1's sports events, went out to see a silly summer movie, got pizza and ice cream ... fun stuff. I read aloud a funny essay I had found. And Monday morning I took D to the rental car office, from which she was going to drive herself a few hours away to visit some relatives. First stop, of course, was her adult daughter, whose comments on the week you have already read here.

This will have to do for now ... it's more than I really had time to write, but no matter. I want to add another post or two that spend more time thinking about what happened, not just narrating it. But that's for another day.

On lying, part 5

Several readers have pointed out that D is really in an impossible position, maintaining a friendship with Wife at the same time that she is involved in an affair with me. She has realized this, of course, but some days it is driven home to her just a little more powerfully than others.

Two days ago, I got a letter from D after she had gotten off the phone after a long conversation with Wife. She was pretty concerned about a number of things, and her letter began, ...

Dear Hosea,
After listening to Wife talk about your recent behavior, I can't help but wonder about your stress level and well-being. Below are some of the points she made, both about herself and about you. I'm concerned, and I question how transparent you are being with me.
Wife says you are drinking -- a lot -- and that this has been an on-going concern for years. If you are drinking anywhere near as much as she insists you are drinking, it seems reasonable to question your consumption. She says your snoring is directly related to your drinking. Yes, we split a bottle of wine, several times; you did not manifest any hostility and you did not snore. But an entire bottle, night after night? Scotch, three or four glasses? ... I don't understand.

The rest of the letter was in the same vein, and the accusations which Wife had made about me were just as dreary and just as implausible.

Wife reports that you are increasingly hostile and angry; ....
Wife says you told her last night about more job cuts, and you may be at risk....
Wife says that you are overwhelmed with financial concerns and are likely to incur more debt....

And on and on. Finally she ended with:

In short, I am worried. Perhaps you can reassure me, perhaps not. Let's just work towards honesty, our earliest promise to one another, and still sacred.

Now at one level I was fairly irritated at this; I mean, this was the kind of e-mail I was getting from D last fall (see here, et seq.) and I thought we were past it. But at another level, I know that Wife can be remarkably persuasive even when she is lying through her teeth -- persuasive enough even to make you doubt things you saw with your own eyes. So it didn't surprise me too much that she could make D doubt her own knowledge of who I am and what must be the truth. So I did reply to everything she said, item by item, although I fear that some of my pique showed through the surface:

Dearest D,
Oh good heavens, this is ridiculous. I don't drink anything like those quantities. One glass of brandy last night, period. I think two the night before. I haven't kept a list, but the quantities on days before that are comparable.... An entire bottle [of wine] a night, night after night? I would be far too ill to go to work -- the thing is absolutely impossible.
I am not aware of being increasingly hostile and angry, but Wife has been known to say I am "hostile and angry" when I am merely distracted....
I said *nothing* last night about more job cuts ... Holy cow, where did this come from?...

And so on. Item by item. I ended by saying something like what I said just above:

I am a little vexed that whenever you have one of these conversations with Wife, you write me asking about *my* honesty and *my* transparency, when your practical experience should suggest to you that the trouble does not often lie there. But I guess it is difficult to be really at ease when you are thousands of miles away from the situation, and that this is one of the tensions inherent in our relationship as it stands today.... [Then there followed a paragraph that was a lot more romantic, before I signed off.]

So far, there wasn't much in this exchange to warrant talking about it, except by way of random griping. But then the next morning, D sent me a letter that pondered the whole situation as follows:

I'm not sure what to think about my relationship with Wife. After writing you and receiving your letter back, I know I have wronged you and I don't know quite what to think about her. I have never had a 'friend' who literally lies about everything. You write about [a social event we went to recently that I haven't bothered to describe here], and it's clear that you know this woman [someone we met there], and enjoy her company. For Wife, she was a new acquaintance, who was a hairdresser, not a shop owner, and you weren't around for any of the conversation (I specifically asked). I don't mind disagreements over education; I've engaged in a few of those myself. But why lie about the small particulars? ... More disturbingly, she tells endless lies about you; everything from the way you speak to her, to your lovemaking, to your behavior with the boys, to your drinking...none of it has any basis in fact. She cheats on you like a tom cat. She doesn't discuss books, or music, or theater, or philosophy or religion. Our conversations center around the minutia of her life.

As a mother, Wife has no real regard for the boys. Her discipline, or lack of effective consequences bothers me, but many first year teachers [for example] have many of the same problems and I'm tolerant because they are dedicated to the kids; they can be taught how to manage a classroom. Wife is different; she just doesn't deeply care about her children. She has mapped out Son 1's future with a chilling casualness; [she thinks] he's beneath serious consideration because [she thinks] he's just not smart enough to be a real intellectual. Not only is that a completely unwarranted conclusion to draw about Son 1, but the idea that only 'intellectuals' are worthy people is offensive, extremely offensive. I feel she uses Son 2 for low level sexual satisfaction and she works to keep him dependent on her, refusing to either model or teach the social skills an adolescent boy needs in our society. I see no effort on her part to engage the boys or to learn about the challenges ahead as they enter manhood.

So exactly why do I spend any time with her? Most sensible people are more particular about their relationships. If I introduced you to my brothers and sisters, or to my colleagues, you would be impressed and you'd admire all of them. But neither of us admires Wife, and while I may not be as pessimistic as you are about the possibility of real change, the evidence is on your side of the discussion. I find myself questioning you unfairly and without foundation, and feeling unclean, dragged down to a level that is at once sad and yet also frightening and miserable. I realize why you stay with her, although it's not easy for me, and has certain drawbacks for you as well, but above all, I'm not sure how to befriend this woman. I feel pity for her, I remember what she used to be like and I mourn the loss of that person, and I'm sobered by the realization that Jesus' words about the choices we make having consequences we cannot undo are remarkably clear-eyed.

D took the discussion in another direction for a paragraph or so, and then said something that had never occurred to me: ...

I need to understand a great deal more if I'm to deal with her habitual lying, [but] it's clearly clinical in degree. It has occurred to me that she and Friend are actually enmeshed, rather than Wife being duped by this elaborate fantasy about Boyfriend 5 and his family. Rather, she has helped to create the fantasy; I realize she may be making up the stories she tells so often about the various members of this clan. Victim/perpetrator; the line is very blurred.

Maybe I should have thought of that, but I never did.

Anyway, then D wound up her long letter:

I owe you a deep and heartfelt apology for doubting you on any of the issues she raised yesterday, although I was glad to hear that the financial picture is workable, and that you are not awake at night worried about your job. I'm sorry, Hosea. It won't happen again.

Wow.

I'm really not sure how to summarize this. I know I have said that sometimes Wife seems more and more disconnected from reality, and this is part of it. But she is so convincing when she lies like this! So I have to wonder ... does she even know she is lying? (And if so, what could possibly be her motive for lying about irrelevant details?) Or does the truth simply get rewritten before it is written to her memory? Or what exactly is going on?

Most of the time I try not to think about this, and most of the time I can succeed. But some days it just mystifies me.

The incredible shrinking boyfriend, cont'd

D was on the phone with Wife the other day, and got the latest installment in the saga.

Friend (who knows everything there is to know about Boyfriend 5) told Wife that Boyfriend 5 has been having a lot of trouble with pain lately (because of his various illnesses), so he has gotten re-addicted to opiates. He knows that Wife would never accept this in him, so he secretly checked himself into a methadone clinic where he will be totally incommunicado for eight years. (I don't make this stuff up, I just write it down.) Wife told D this means she'll have to postpone eloping with Boyfriend 5 until he is out, eight years from now. Then she mused, "I guess it wouldn't really be fair to Hosea ... taking the best years of his life and then leaving him completely bereft and desolated by running off with Boyfriend 5." D, for her part, was wondering, "Why would you make plans to run off with somebody that you don't even know is real?"

Wife also told D that Friend has trouble keeping his stories straight. Wife is starting to wonder (so she says) whether Friend could be delusional. "He tells me he suffres from Asperger's Syndrome ... could that make him hallucinate some of this stuff?" (No it couldn't, D thinks to herself. Asperger's is a whole different thing.) Apparently she has not considered the idea that this is all fiction. That's just one of these rotten ideas that Hosea suggests.

The incredible shrinking boyfriend

I suppose this is as good a time as any to summarize the developments with Boyfriend 5. Basically, he has been dropping farther and farther out of Wife’s life. At the same time, the slack is being taken up with his Friend (whom I may have to christen “Boyfriend 6” if this keeps up, but not yet). So it is not like Wife is spending any less time online or on the phone ... it’s just that the object of her affections has appeared to shift.

You all know that I don’t believe the stories about Boyfriend 5: that he is a terrorist from the Old Country, and a trained magician who can teleport, and a vampire. Well, I am pretty sure that Friend is an equally ficitious character concocted by the same (real-life) person. Interestingly enough, Boyfriend 5 has never talked to Wife by telephone. Friend does; and he explains to Wife that the reason his voice sounds like a woman’s is that his vocal cords were damaged in a bad accident a few years ago. Wife appears to accept this explanation unblinkingly.

Anyway, the story about Boyfriend 5 – pretending for the moment that the basic narrative is all true – is that he has gone for weeks without contacting Wife in any way. Wife has been pretty unhappy about this. She points out that, “A year ago we were inseparable. A year ago it was a big deal for him to go even a single day without talking to me, and if he was going to be offline absolutely unavoidably, he would do whatever it took to get word to me of what was going on. Now I can go for weeks at a time without even knowing what city he is in.” Oddly enough, Friend generally seems to know where Boyfriend 5 is, at any rate if Wife gripes to him about it.
“Oh yes, he told me he had business to take care of in This Place or That Place.”
“By the way, he asked me to tell you that he won’t be online for a few days because he got mad at his laptop and threw it into the lake.”
“Boyfriend 5 has been really ill for the last couple of weeks, and it will probably be another couple of weeks before he is well enough to talk to you.”
Somehow Boyfriend 5 is always able to get word to Friend, but it is progressively harder for him to communicate with Wife.

His growing distance hasn’t stopped him from developing new skills, which Wife explained to me with some admiration one evening. I don’t know if I ever explained that Boyfriend 5 is nearly blind; he has something wrong with his eyes that means he needs a screen-reader for his computer, that he cannot tolerate anything more than trace amounts of light, and that he cannot focus at all well to see. This disability has been part of the story for a long time. Only it turns out now that he also rides horses competitively – you know, dressage, steeplechase, that sort of thing. And somehow he does this while blind, an achievement that just knocks my socks off. He also manages to compete even though he has all these political enemies who want him dead; for some reason he has not the slightest worry about being shot by someone hidden in the crowd while he and his horse are prancing in full view of the judges.

As Wife has spent less and less time with Boyfriend 5, she has spent more and more time with Friend. They talk on the phone for hours every day. At one point he even claimed to be in love with her, although she wasn’t at all sure what to do with this sudden declaration. He has asked her to write sexual fantasies for him, and to post them on the Internet. (She found a site for this and has posted a few under an assumed name.) Most recently, he has gotten her avidly involved in some kind of online game about horse breeding ... I guess this was when the conversation about horses started, during which Wife learned the news about Boyfriend 5’s new skill in this area. So this is where her hours go, most days.

But Friend may have overplayed his hand. Recently he told Wife that he had to come to our town for business – that he was, in fact, already here. Does this mean Wife can go meet him? Well, ... no, actually not. I suggested to Wife that this would be a great opportunity for her. I also suggested, not to put too fine a point on it, that it would be useful to discover whether Friend was real or not. Wife said he would never consent to showing up merely for that purpose, because he would resent the suggestion that he owed me anything (including proof of his physical existence). But I countered that this isn’t about me at all. This is about whether he is any kind of friend to her ... whether they have any kind of relationship at all, regardless what sort. After all, I went on, friends do things for each other. Friends do things for each other, sometimes at considerable inconvenience, if they truly care about each other. So if Friend truly cares about Wife, he wouldn’t want her to have to endure all the skepticism that she gets from me. Allowing her to meet him – allowing us to meet him – would be a favor he did for her! I can understand that he doesn’t owe me a damned thing. I even agree. But what about Wife? Does he (who once proclaimed his love for her) care about her so little that he wouldn’t be willing to do this? Does he care so little that even when I was away for several hours running errands, he could find the time to telephone (from his cell phone, so there was no local area code displayed) but he couldn’t find time to drop by the house to steal a kiss? Really?

Annoying fellow that I am, I have pointed all this out to Wife and asked her to think about the implications. Is it truly believable that a real-life, flesh-and-blood person – who also loves her or even wants to call himself a friend – wouild treat her this way? Or is Friend’s behavior indicative of something else? I proposed two alternatives: either he doesn’t really exist, or else he doesn’t care about you. Pick one. Wife has said very little in reply.

D tells me, however, that Wife is listening. In their phone calls, Wife admits that she is having serious doubts about the whole Boyfriend 5 / Friend melodrama. So D tells me that she is encouraged that Wife may in time pull out of this obsession with an unreal world, and try perhaps to engage a bit more with the real world instead. It would be a great thing if D were right. I guess we shall see ....