Counseling 15

In the last episode of our soggy melodrama, Wife had agreed not to bring Boyfriend 5 to the house, but to go rent a hotel room for them to meet in some time next week. A couple of days later, I made the obvious follow-on remark to Wife that of course it is very easy to say she's going to meet him in a hotel and then bring him to the house anyway -- after all, I'll be out of town -- so could I please have a photocopy of the receipt? Surely it would have been obvious to anybody I was going to ask for this. It was obvious to all of you, wasn't it?

But it seemed to take Wife by surprise. She said she'd have to ask Boyfriend 5. Then she never got back to me.

So when we met Thursday in Counselor's office, I asked about it. Is this OK? Can I get the photocopy?

Apparently the answer was No. Or, well, mostly No. When Wife asked Boyfriend 5, so she says, he got very angry and insulted. I was trying to control him. I was trying to force him to do one little nit-picking thing after another. If he was going to pay for the room, then I shouldn't have the slightest say in anything. He should be free to come and go as he likes. What's the problem, don't I trust him? [insert smirk here] I should be willing to take his word on things without having to check. And so on, and on, and on .... He conceded grudgingly that if Wife paid the hotel bill, then he would have no say in the matter; but he still didn't like it. (I should note that Boyfriend 5 always gets really mad when he wants to scare Wife away from probing in a certain direction; in retrospect, this last-minute concession of his makes me think the real issue is that he fears my getting his credit card information. Or maybe he just wanted to make her pick up the tab while still looking gallant?)

When Wife finished relaying this second-hand tirade, I commented simply that no, of course I don't trust him. She knows that already. And when it comes to this kind of thing, I don't trust her either. Again, this is hardly news. So without a receipt, I have to assume that they went around behind my back. Without a receipt, I have to assume that they came to the house after agreeing not to. Without a receipt, I have to assume that it is no longer possible for me to make agreements with Wife about anything, because if she pretends to agree to something it is only for the purpose of duping or exploiting me. I didn't quite want to threaten her with something irreversible, but I wanted to make it clear that this is not a minor issue to me.

Wife, for her part, responded in an absolutely classic fashion: she's just a victim caught in the middle between the two of us, trying to placate us both; the problem is that neither of us will accommodate the other; whatever happens, one of us will walk away unhappy ....

And at this moment both Counselor and I seized on the last point and said, Exactly!

From there, Counselor and I more or less tag-teamed Wife. I no longer remember who said what. But both of us insisted that Wife is the one in a position of power here, because one way or another she is going to make a decision on the question of the receipt. That decision will mean either that she takes a stand with Boyfriend 5 to face me down ("Hosea, you're not getting a receipt!"), or that she takes a stand with me to face him down ("Boyfriend 5, either you agree that Hosea gets the receipt or don't come."). But one way or another, she is going to tell one of us, "I'm choosing for the other guy and you don't get what you want."

Will one of us walk away unhappy? You bet. While the choice is hers, and while it is free in the sense that it is uncoerced, it is not free in the sense of being without cost. Choosing either direction will have consequences, probably serious consequences. So she has to shoulder the responsibility for those consequences. She can't find a way to make everybody happy, so she has to choose whom she is going to make unhappy. She might feel sorry in the abstract, but she will choose to do it anyway because that choice is less bad than the alternative. And she has to realize that this is a position of power -- indeed, she holds the most power in this whole enterprise. The mask of helplessness that she has hidden behind for years now just doesn't fit any more. She can no longer afford the cowardice that has made her wear it for so long.

"But either way I choose, I'm probably going to end up losing one relationship or the other."

And Counselor said, "Maybe what you are seeing is that if you are true to yourself, you can't keep both relationships anyway."

Wife walked out of his office at the end of the hour looking a very somber and unhappy woman. And all I could think was "Hallelujah!"
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Was this just a backrub? part 2

At the same time that I posted yesterday's story and question below, I sent it to D in an e-mail. The substance of her answer agreed with all the responses I got here, but the tone was far more urgent. She wrote as follows:

Hosea, any court I've worked for would consider the behavior you describe as totally inappropriate -- wildly so -- and any lawyer with training in sexual matters would consider the request part of an attempt to groom the child for further sexualized behavior. That may ultimately be with the groomer, or with other partners the groomer arranges for the child. Hosea, you MUST intervene here and insist that all touching behaviors without clothes on (and I'd suggest that neither child or adult should appear without clothes in front of the other after eight or nine) -- particularly by the adult, but also for the child -- be avoided. Boundaries! It's not a matter of being a sexual prude -- I'm not -- but there is a world of research that suggests that family dynamics involving sexuality are highly charged in our society. Ask yourself -- if Son 2 talked about his behavior with his mother with friends or teachers (the teachers would be required by law to contact the authories. Absolutely. I would if a child told me what you described. I'd be fired in a heartbeat if this came out in court and it was clear I had not notified the authorities.), would he be ridiculed or feel embarrassed when he found that his friends had no such experiences? If the answer is yes -- and it is -- then it's inappropriate, and any court would consider it damaging to the child and want it to stop. Lotion? Come on, Hosea. I use it every day and have never asked a child to apply it. This isn't something done for her because she's ill, it's for low level sexual gratification, those "little grey areas" you once humorously mentioned, but there is nothing remotely funny about this behavior. By allowing it to be continue you can be held for 'neglect', for failing to stop something you knew was happening and should have known was harmful for the child. She could be charged with 'abuse' , the most serious charge, and risk losing her child. Scary? Yes. Professionally accurate? Yes again. Do something -- today -- and make it stick.

I think we have lots to discuss. Thank you for asking for my view. I realize I sound harsh, but if you could see my face and feel my hands touching yours with compassion, you'd realize that I saw a whole lot in the five years I was a GAL [Guardian ad litem], and nothing you describe is new to me. That said, I also know the consequences, and how difficult it is for the child to deal with the shame and confusion such blurred boundaries present. I have every reason to believe you will protect your children -- just do it.

Wow.

None of the comments I got yesterday were quite as intense, but everybody expressed discomfort with the story. This reassured me, because I felt discomfort too. That's why I asked the question. And here's what I did:

My very first reaction was not to know quite what to do, so I tried calling D -- even though it was an unexpected time, and a great essay on how not to get busted says never to call at unexpected times. But my call rolled directly into D’s voice mail, from which I deduced either that she was on the phone or that she had shut your phone off. However, I took seriously her injunction that this could not wait, and so I decided to wing it.

My next step was to take Son 2 for a walk. He asked "Am I in trouble?" and I assured him that he absolutely was not. But I asked him about lotioning Wife's front, and had he done this before? He said quite clearly that he had done it only once before last night (for a total of twice ever). The first time, it was at Wife's instigation or suggestion. The second time (that would have to mean last night) it was his idea, "Because I know that area builds up a lot of dead, dry skin, and lotion is the best way to get rid of dead skin." But why did I ask? I have to admit I stammered a bit while trying to figure out the right way to put it; but finally I just pointed out that a woman's breasts are part of the private areas of her body, and ....

Well, I got no farther than that and Son 2 shot ahead of me down the sidewalk. He was plainly either embarrassed or ashamed. When I caught up with him, he said "So I am in trouble!" And I had to take some time to explain to him that no, he wasn't in trouble. Yes, it was inappropriate for him to be lotioning Wife's breasts; yes, if he mentioned that to one of his friends or teachers, they would probably get upset. But no, that didn't mean that he was at fault! How could he be, if no-one had ever taught him that it was inappropriate? Could he explain the Pythagorean Theorem if nobody ever taught it to him? I just wanted to explain this to him now, so that he would understand and there wouldn't be an issue later. We ended up talking far longer about why I wasn't mad at him, than about why he shouldn't lotion Wife's breasts. But in the end, I think he understood both points.

Next, I went to talk to Wife. She was lying down, back in the bedroom. "So, did you and Son 2 have a nice walk?"

"Yes, we did. I was talking to Son 2 about lotioning your front last night."

Click. I could almost see and hear her defenses falling into place.

"So you told him all about why he's not supposed to do that?"

"No, I really didn't have to explain that at all. When I pointed out that breasts are a private part of the body, he understood immediately and was very embarrassed. Or ashamed. Most of what I had to explain to him was that it wasn't his fault."

Wife said very little to that, and indeed said almost nothing throughout the "discussion". I used the example of a daughter, and pointed out that if, hypothetically, we had a ten year old daughter who had been lotioning me when I was stark naked, all it would have taken is one phone call by Wife to make sure I never saw my children again. Of course Wife told me that her intentions had not been sexual. Rather than contradicting her (which would mean either telling her she was lying, or telling her she didn't understand her own motives -- and I didn't look forward to either of those discussions), I added simply that the intentions of a man being lotioned by his daughter might not start off sexual either ... but then suddenly instead of being 10 she's 14, and things spiral out of control. Wouldn't she be alarmed if I allowed a daughter to lotion me while I was naked?

She said that she didn't know ... that it was hard to put herself in that situation.

Privately I think that means just that she didn't want to accept the obvious implications, but I didn't say that. What I said was, "Are you sure? Don't you think you would actually say 'Hey, stop! I've been a victim of sexual abuse, so I know that it starts slow and subtle! I know that it starts with things that look like they might be innocent! But I also know that's not where it ends, and I'm not going to let my daughter suffer the same way I suffered!' Wouldn't you say that instead?"

She was resolutely silent to that question.

Since Wife was clearly not going to engage in the conversation, I just wrapped it up by repeating the basic idea why this behavior looks so inappropriate, and by reminding her that I had already explained it to Son 2. I hope this is enough. Knowing how embarrassed Son 2 gets at the slightest mention of romance or sex, I think it may be.

You know, I'm sure that in Wife's conscious mind, there was no sexual intention. But I think her conscious mind is not the whole story. For years, Wife has been very jealous of her relationship with Son 2; for years she has cultivated it, and I have always had a general unease that she has trouble knowing where to put the boundaries. (I mean, I think that boundaries have often been a problem for Wife in general; but I think the problem is more pronounced in her relationship with Son 2 than in almost any other.) Partly, this may be a result of her own sexual abuse when she was a girl ... what I have read suggests to me that those who were abused are often foggier on what is an appropriate boundary than those who were not. But I think another part of it is just that Wife is so desperately hungry for love (of all forms), but she can't bring herself to ask for (e.g.) physical love from me. So I think she is trying to fill that hunger with her children, who still love her unconditionally and from whom she is still willing to accept love. It's not a pretty situation, but I think that may be part of it.

Was this just a backrub?

I want your opinion on something that happened this evening. I can't decide quite what to think, other than that it looked very odd.

The boys were getting ready for bed; Son 2 had already taken his shower, Son 1 was in the shower. Son 2 offered to rub lotion on Wife's back, which he does often. She generally reciprocates by giving him a backrub afterwards. I was in the next room on the computer. When I came into the bedroom for something, Son 2 [age 10] was rubbing lotion between Wife's breasts; she had rolled over on her back stark naked for him to lotion her front. Later, after the boys went to bed, I asked her if she thought there was anything unusual about that. She said no she didn't, and in fact she has let him lotion her like that a few times before, but she was also too groggy to be able to discuss it at all clearly. So after trying to carry on a conversation for a few minutes, I gave up and let her sleep.

Anyway, I'm trying to decide. Is this something bland and boring and not even worth noticing? Is it offbeat but no more than that? Or do I have reason to be disturbed? I am reasonably sure that if I polled the PTA, it would not show up as a majority practice -- but after all, what does that prove? Nothing, I realize. So I am not quite sure what to think, and an opinion would be welcome. Even if it is a stupid question, by all means feel free to tell me so ....

Sixfold trivia

I have been tagged by Gotta Change It over at Chicken Scratch for a meme. Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on his/her website
__________

Six unimportant things about me? Let's see if I can narrow it down to only six ....

1. My grandfather worked on the Manhattan Project. (No, you've never heard of him. Trust me.)

2. My family moved once a year from the time I was born until I was 7. We're talking big moves, too: across the country, to another country, that kind of thing. The first neighborhood that I remember well enough to be nostalgic about it is a good three thousand miles from where I live today.

3. When I was 9, I had a supporting role in a made-for-TV movie. We're only talking about a one-hour after-school special -- something with a totally impossible plot -- but I got out of school for a couple of weeks while it was being filmed, and it was a lot of fun. (No, you haven't seen it. That was a long time ago, and it has since plunged into a well-deserved obscurity.) A couple of years later, I made a TV ad for Mazda, as they were introducing the "rotary engine." (Again, you haven't seen it. Heck, I never saw it.)

4. When I was applying to colleges, I was accepted by Harvard but turned them down in favor of a tiny institution that nobody else at my high school had ever heard of.

5. The first girl that ever got naked for me was my next-door neighbor when we were both 4. The next one was a girlfriend my senior year of college. (I was pretty shy.) The third one was Wife (although it happened a year before we actually got married).

6. Speaking of shy .... I am always very quiet and mousy in a new or unusual situation. (This baffles people who know me well, who can never get me to shut up.) In particular, I always start new jobs as The Quiet Guy ... you know, the one who tries his best to disappear against the wallpaper? Despite this, it always happens -- at every job I have ever held -- that one day I am introduced to somebody who says, "Oh, so you're Hosea. I've heard so much about you." (A variant experience is that I walk down the hall and someone I have never seen before in my life waves and shouts "Hi there, Hosea!" on his way past.)


Now I have to tag six other people who haven't already done this meme:

L, over at Melted Candy
Coquette, over at Meeting Madison
Infidel, over at Infidel at the Gates
Apollo, over at Apollo's Fire
KJ, over at Space Between
Titus the Lazy Philosopher, over at Philosophy of Infidelity

Counseling 14, Discussing her plans

Well, contrary to D's fears on the subject, Wife told me today about her plans to see Boyfriend 5 the week I am out of town.

We were just getting settled, and Counselor asked if we remembered where we had left off last week. Yes, I volunteered -- we were talking about the possibility of Boyfriend 5 visiting some time, and you suggested that we brainstorm together to figure out how to handle the logistics of it. But we haven't done any of that brainstorming yet, because our schedules these days mean that we rarely talk at all.

At that point, Wife spoke up and mentioned the news that Boyfriend 5 might be able to come to town one day while I was gone. I probably should have acted more surprised, so that she would be less likely to think I might have heard it before. But as it was, I simply smirked at the suggestion that the timing was a remarkable coincidence. Imagine that it should just so happen the one week he was free was the week I would be gone ...! Who'd a thunk it?

OK, what about the logistics? Where are you going to meet? You remember I don't want them in the house, right ...?

I remember, Wife replied. But I don't want to spend all bloody day in a coffee shop drinking stale coffee. Besides, you have to remember that these guys are terrorists. (Oh yeah, forgot that part) There is a price on the heads of the whole family, so they never want to stay out in the open long. Therefore I really want to bring him to the house.

Counselor kept trying to interrupt to explore the process we were going through, and to make sure we could express our feelings about it. Any other time I would have gone along with him, but today I was a little impatient: Sure, that's great, we should explore that stuff -- but you heard Wife. She's talking about a visit planned for two weeks from now. Let's get the plans nailed down now and then go back to discuss our feelings about it all.

So, I asked Wife, do you have any other ideas about where you and Boyfriend 5 could meet?

No, she said. None. Well, OK a couple, but I know they won't work.

Like what?

Well, I guess if your only objection was to him coming to the house, then maybe we could meet at a hotel or something. But I know you won't accept that either.

This was the point I had been waiting for. In fact, while I knew nothing about the timing until D's phone call yesterday, I knew that Wife and Boyfriend 5 had discussed the possibility of checking into a hotel, and Boyfriend 5 had told her very confidently, Hosea will not accept that alternative. Hosea claims that his only concern is for your safety or that I don't steal the silver spoons, but all he really wants is to control your every move. There is no way he will accept his wife meeting a strange man in a hotel room.

So of course I said yes.

Naturally it wasn't quite that easy. Counselor kept asking me what exactly it was that made me not want them in the house. (I insisted I didn't want to go there right now, or we'd never get back to the topic at hand.) Wife had a bunch of complaints about hotels, like she wouldn't have our bookshelf handy in case she wanted to look up something to read to them, or she wouldn't have a kitchen handy in case they wanted lunch, or there wouldn't be a hotel anywhere in town that would let them check in before noon, or .... (Wife is very good at finding everything that could possibly go wrong with any plan you care to propose. If anybody knows of a job opening for a gloom-and-doom prophet, drop me a note.) Wife also said she felt like this solution was being shoved down her throat and once again she was powerless before the tyrannical Hosea. She kept this up until I objected, Wait a minute. If this is unilateral tyranny, then what do you think a compromise would look like here? I have accepted every single thing you want out of this proposal to get together with your Internet boyfriend except this one issue of the location where you meet. The only way I could possibly be more flexible would be to die. (Or leave, I thought privately, in which case you could do any damn fool thing you felt like. But that would have been pique speaking, and I didn't say it.) What in all this can you possibly give up in order to meet me "halfway"? When I put it like that, she backed down and agreed that this was a solution where she had been heard, and where she had had the power to negotiate some of what she wanted rather than simply having to capitulate. Sweet of her to see it that way, and all ....

The last few minutes of the session (yes, that really did take the better part of an hour) was devoted to comparative trivia. Where would Wife find a hotel that would let her check in at 8:30 am, just after the kids had gone to school? Counselor and I both pointed out that this is November and not exactly prime hotel season, so any hotel in town would be likely to work with her on this. I also pointed out, maybe a little indelicately, that every town (ours included) has some establishments who cater to an ... ummm ... hourly clientele, and if she could find one of these then doubtless the staff could be very accommodating. Also it would probably be cheaper than a high-end place, which is another plus. Wife said she'd make a few phone calls.

I never thought I'd see the day that I was encouraging my wife to check into a seedy, hourly motel with some stranger she had met on the Internet. It is a sign of where things have drifted to that this looks better to me than the other alternatives.

Now if only she sticks to the plan -- which means, if only Boyfriend 5 doesn't persuade her to change it behind my back. And if only he doesn't knock her over the head or something. I suppose I should still worry about that stuff too, but at this point I am trying to pick my battles. The fact that I don't want to cancel my trip isn't even my primary motivation, solid motivation though it be. I think the comments on yesterday's post are largely sound when they point out that I wouldn't have a lot to gain by staying home, because then it will just be some other week instead. And I can't stay home forever.

So we'll see how it goes.
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My plans, her plans ...?

I just got off the phone with D. She had been talking with Wife (remember, they are best friends and talk almost every day, these days) and Wife mentioned that I have a business trip coming up. "Oh really?" asks D, who of course has already been making plans to meet me there.

Yes, continued Wife, and apparently Boyfriend 5 is planning to visit Wife during the same time span. In our house? Sure, just not when the kids are home from school. (Wife knows I don't want him in our house, and the kids might not keep their mouths shut.)

Now, D has learned by this point that just because Wife says something doesn't make it true. And just because Boyfriend 5 tells Wife something doesn't make it true, either. So this could be pure fantasy all the way around.

But Wife told D that she is still sending Boyfriend 5 small amounts of money on a regular basis. (If so, it's not out of any account that I can see, unless she is sending him cash through the mail. But why would she lie about something like that?) And of course I think Boyfriend 5 is a con artist, and not the glamorous terrorist he claims to be. This is all old news to all of you.

So, ... supposing he shows up ... what then? Honestly if all they want to do is fuck, I am long past worrying about that. Have a nice time, and change the sheets when you are done. But they could do that in a motel. On the other hand, if Boyfriend 5 wants to use his visit as an occasion to pocket valuables, it might be a long time before we ever saw something missing: God knows the house is so cluttered it could be months, and then we would assume we had just lost whatever it was. (It really is bad, that way.)

D said that of course if I wanted to cancel my business trip and stay home, she'd understand. She'd be "bereft" (her word), but she'd understand. And really, she and I are on the same page, I think, when it comes to my responsibilities (and hers) to our respective households. Neither of us intends to abandon those, so I know she means it.

Only what do I want to do? Never mind that my employer is kind of expecting me to take this trip ... never mind that I have already cancelled something like 3 business trips in the last year -- an unprecedented number for me. Even if the trip were purely elective (it's not), the fact is that I also really want to see D, too. But I don't like the idea of this schmuck having the opportunity to help himself to Wife's jewelry, or our checking account numbers, or our credit card statements, or anything like that. And our house is so disorderly that if he were inside, he could easily lay his hands on any one of those things in the time it would take Wife to go to the bathroom.

So I have some thinking to do. D said she was too exhausted to think straight (she's been working long hours and then e-mailing me when she should be sleeping), so I should figure out the right thing to do and let her know.

Never a dull moment, huh?

Gotta Change It has tagged me for a meme, but that will have to wait.
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Gratitude

In a telephone conversation last week, D mentioned that she rarely hears any sense of gratitude from me ... not to this or that person, but at a more basic level for the real blessings in my life. I wasn't quite sure what to tell her, although it is true that this is the kind of thing I don't often express where people can hear me. Sometimes I see the most remarkable coincidences drop into place, as it were providentially, and when I see them I say a little "thank you" in my heart. But I usually don't say it out loud, and sometimes it takes me a while to notice.

My upcoming business trip was originally scheduled for this very week: I was due to leave on Sunday, November 2. On Monday October 27 (six days before my flight), I found out there had been a mix-up and the fellow whom I was travelling to meet was planning to arrive on November 17 ... hadn't I known? (No, in fact, his office had never informed me.) So I scrambled to change a lot of plans, all of a sudden.

Three days later, on Thursday, October 30, D and I exchanged a couple of remarkable e-mails, ending with the one in which I mentioned this trip. Had it not been for the mix-up at the other guy's office, there would have been no time -- between Friday morning and Sunday afternoon -- to pull together plans for her to come see me.

I just realized five minutes ago how providential the schedule mix-up was. Of course you could argue that this makes Providence into an accomplice in adultery, but I'm not interested in going down that path right now.

And I can assure you I am grateful ...

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