Happy Halloween

Wife in tears, part 3

This is still more drama from last week, but I hardly have the heart for it. This fight was about food. I traditionally make dinners, and a couple of months ago I started trying to vary my repertoire of dinners ... a repertoire which had gotten very stale over the years. Among other things, I started introducing a lot more vegetable dishes and cooking fewer meals that centered on greasy meat.

Well one day last week Wife came completely unglued about dinner. This is the same woman who for years has told her vegetarian friends, "Well I used to be a vegetarian before I connected with Hosea, but he refuses to eat anything except large hunks of meat." Only now that I am doing something just a little different, it seems that I am a tyrant who doesn't care if my family starves because "everybody hates" these meals (never mind that I see the boys taking seconds) and I "never fix anything with any protein in it any more." And so on, only there were tears and a lot more shrieking.

Oh hell, forget it. It was plenty dramatic at the time, and that's when I told myself I should add it to the "Wife in tears" series. But I can't even remember what was said, ... or care much, either.

I think Wife must have been under a lot of stress last week, because so many things seemed to set her off. I asked her to handle all dinners this week. More work for her, but maybe less screaming.

On lying, part 6

The other day, I was reading an essay by Leskek Kołakowski on lying. Kołakowski, of course, grew up in Communist Poland, so one of the kinds of lying that interests him is political lying. But as I read along paying maybe half-attention, I suddenly lit upon two paragraphs which I think may be tremendously important in understanding Wife.

I have written before of my frustration with the casual way that Wife treats the truth. Now of course Kołakowski's political explanation per se is not appropriate here, because Wife grew up as an American. But she grew up as (in effect) an only child of (in effect) a single parent; and her mother – who was far the dominant influence in her early life – played pretty fast and loose with the truth herself. What impact would that have on an impressionable child? This is exactly the topic Kołakowski addresses, even if indirectly.

"When we turn to the kind of lies told in politics, however, there is an important distinction to be made. Lies in politics are a frequent occurrence, but in democratic countries freedom of speech and criticism protects us from some of their harmful effects; the distinction between truth and falsehood remains intact. If a minister disclaims knowledge of something he knew perfectly well, he is lying; but whether or not he is found out, the difference between truth and falsehood remains clear. The same cannot be said of totalitarian countries; in particular it cannot be said of communism in its heyday, the Stalinist era. There the distinction between the true and the politically correct was entirely blurred. As a result, people half came to believe the 'politically correct' slogans which they had been mouthing, from sheer fear, for so long, and even political leaders sometimes fell victim to their own lies. This was precisely the aim: if enough confusion could be caused in people's minds to make them forget the distinction between truth and political correctness, they would come to believe that whatever was politically correct was thereby also necessarily true. In this way an entire nation's historical memory could be altered.

"This was not merely an instance of lying: it was an attempt to eradicate altogether the very concept of truth in the normal sense of the word. The attempt was not entirely successful, but the mental devastation it caused was vast, particularly in the Soviet Union. In Poland, where the totalitarian regime had never attained its full potential, the effects were milder, but still deeply felt."

Custody and revenge

Part of my discussion with Wife the weekend before last consisted of my trying to position the conversation about our separation so that I could get more time with the boys by agreeing to store some of Wife's piles of useless junk. As I reported back then, this offer on my part (though I never phrased it quite that baldly, I think) caused D to panic. I gave some of her remarks in the post linked above, and my reply was kind of long and pedantic. But in particular, I replied to her question ".... In short, what do you get out of this arrangement besides more responsibility and the pleasure of the boy's company?" as follows:

It is not just the pleasure of their company, delightful as they can be. I am also taking to heart your remarks about the toxicity of Wife's influence, and therefore am trying to reduce the amount of time they spend around Wife to an absolute minimum. I think it may be one of the best long-term services I can do them.

Some time later I re-read that, and it smelled intolerably smug to me. Also, I know that when she gets into a panic, D is particularly intolerant of self-righteousness and self-congratulation. So I sent a follow-on note a while later that ran:

Reflecting on our conversation on the phone, I realize that I was mistaken in something that I wrote. Specifically, I said, with respect to my custody goals, ... [and then I quoted the line immediately above]. But of course my goals have very little to do with suggestions of toxicity, yours or anybody else's. They are, rather, purely vindictive, motivated by a desire for revenge. And as such, they are also likely to get in the way of any rational solution. A rational solution doesn't have to be nice or kind, but it cannot be motivated by passion. (sigh) Oh well.

For what it is worth, D replied to this second statement far more mildly than I had anticipated, a sure sign she was recovering from the alarm she had expressed earlier in the weekend.

I realize you may have written that when you were depressed, but I might reconsider in the light of day. I'm not doubting that there is a measure of vindictiveness in your wish to keep the boys with you. But it's small.The idea that revenge lies at the bottom of your desire for primary custody is absurd. Wife is unable to provide discipline or affirmation. She is passive and dependent. She is often ill and weak, and unable to provide basic supervision or care. She is inconsistent at best, and frankly, an inconsistent parent can be more difficult for a child to understand than a overly harsh parent. Her behavior, particularly towards Son 2, has been inappropriate and sexually charged. She is their mother, and she does love her children. But she has genuine limitations as a caregiver. Hosea, almost none of what we do is "purely" anything. It's always a measure of good motives and less honorable ideas. It's important to recognize your real desire for revenge. But it's even more important to sift through these matters carefully, aware of your strengths and goodness. The research is very clear; even one good parent who truly cares, and loves their children with insight and thoughtfulness, can cancel the deficiences of a poor parent. You are that good parent. It's important that the boys get as much from you and your friends and family as possible.

We agreed to settle on "mixed motives." But sometimes I wish I couldn't see myself so well, because there are times (like this) when I don't much care for what I see ....

Wife in tears, part 2

Tuesday of last week, I worked till almost 6:00 pm; I was reviewing a draft document written by one of my employees, and I wanted to finish it up because it had been sitting on my desk way too long. So anyway, along about 6:00, Son 2 and I left the office; and as we were walking to the car, I called Wife on my cell phone to say we were en route.

She picked up the phone on the first ring, and I heard an deafening, inarticulate shriek. Of course this worried me, and I asked her what was wrong. I got a torrent of words that came out so fast I couldn't understand them. I asked her -- through the shrieking -- to repeat it: what was wrong? On the third try, she finally slowed down enough that I could understand her. This afternoon she had tried to balance her checkbook for the first time since we separated our accounts at the end of July -- and she couldn't make it balance. She was beside herself: weeping, wailing, moaning. I talked to her for several minutes (many minutes) and reassured her I would help her with it -- maybe tonight (if she could stay awake) or maybe on the weekend. I repeated -- over and over -- that it would turn out all right, that I had total confidence that we could solve this. I refrained from using any affectionate pet names to help calm her, such as I might have done in earlier years, because somehow they seemed out of place; but otherwise I was as comforting as I could be. There's no way the world will end over one unbalanced checkbook, and there's no way we can't find the problem and fix it. Just put it all away right now, and we'll tackle it together. It will be OK.

During all this time, Son 2 and I were standing in the parking lot of my work. When I finally got off the phone, I opened the car for Son 2 (who was looking a little impatient) and said, "I'm sorry you had to wait. Mommy was pretty upset."

He replied, "Ya think?" [It's an expression he picked up from D, ironically, after her two visits to stay with us.] Then he added, "You only told her, 'Relax, don't panic, everything will be all right' about fifty times ...." But he wasn't mad. He was just playing at being long-suffering, and perhaps teasing me just a little. He chuckled and added that of course he hadn't really counted how many times I had said it, but was just making a point. At any rate it seems that he wasn't panicking.

I often worry about Son 2, in particular, getting sucked into Wife's craziness because he is sensitive and because he has long seen Wife's well-being as his personal responsibility. I have to remind myself that he is also capable of being totally dispassionate about it all ... and that he is getting more so all the time.

Out of the mouths of babes

Son 2 and I were talking last night over dinner, and somehow the conversation turned to hangovers. (Don't ask me why.) Son 2 wondered if I had ever had a hangover and I admitted that yes, well, over the years I've had a few ... not a lot but a few. Son 2 started to say that he was never, ever going to have a hangover, and then qualified it by saying that maybe in college he would. (He is 11 years old, so the whole concept is a little theoretical at this point.) I wanted to demystify the subject for him a bit, or at least deromanticize it. So I explained that basically a hangover is just like having a headache at the same time that you feel queasy in your stomach. Nothing special other than that. He said "Oh," with what sounded like a smidgen of surprise and disappointment that it should be something so commonplace.

To emphasize how dull and ordinary this is, I added, "And there's nothing special about a headache or queasiness. Your mom can feel that just by being sick -- you know she gets those symptoms a lot because of her illnesses."

And Son 2 lobbed back, "Mom can feel that just by seeing HAPPINESS."

Wife in tears, part 1

The assumptions I made Saturday about how smoothly my conversation with Wife had gone proved to be a little overconfident. At the time, I thought I had gotten at least to the point that she could envision a more-or-less weekend custody arrangement.

Then Monday she called me at work to say -- in an obviously tearful voice -- that she "just couldn't live with" an arrangement that meant she saw the kids only on weekends because it would make her just an adjunct to their lives.

I asked, Do you want to work it out right now?

No, we can talk when you get home.

Because if we have to discuss something complicated during the day, I'll ask you to send me e-mail.

When you get home is fine.

OK, we'll talk about it when I get home.

But then, very unwisely, I couldn't resist a parting shot. "Remember though, my point over the weekend was that you don't spend that much time with the boys now. If that was a problem for you -- if you wanted to be more than an adjunct to their lives -- then I would have thought that you would have done something about it before now. The plan that has you see them on the weekends is a plan that gives you as much contact as you have today. So yeah, if you want to we can talk about it when I get home ...."

OK, it was a vindictive and stupid thing to say.

When I passed this story on to D, she let me know this in no uncertain terms:

I feel like frigging Myrtle, about to run into the street and get hit by Daisy [all from The Great Gatsby]. I have had the day from hell, not purgatory, and you have been kind, extremely so all day long. I'm still going to scream, "Stop! Hosea, think!" I'll probably deserve to get run over.

Hosea, it is absolutely imperative that you get as much time with the boys as possible. If I were you, and the stakes were this high, I would avoid gratuitous personal attacks on Wife. So you really expect her to think of herself as an auxiliary parent? Is she going to sit at home and think, "...gee, Hosea is right. I do very little for the boys; if I accept his arrangement, I'll be able to see them for as much as I usually see them, and since that's not very much anyway, I'll be content." I don't think so. I think she will remember the spankings you used to give the children and think of them as abuse; she will recall all the times she bragged about how talented and smart the boys are and how much she contributed to their education. She will realize that there is nothing -- literally nothing else but her role as their mother to give her life meaning, and she will fall apart. You will not gain custody of the boys by reminding her that she is useless and that her role in their life is very small. You must think about what your attorney said about custody matters and you need to depersonalize it. It is rational to argue that your ability to provide transportation and supervision of their homework after school means you should have them during the week. It is rational to argue that her diminished health means you should have primary custody. It is hopelessly subjective and unkind to build your argument for custody by accusing her of not spending time with them anyway, (sub-text: you are a bad mother) so she should just give them to you. After all, she thinks you are also going to keep the house, so you get it all. Sure this is slanted and unfair. It's emotional stuff and you are pretending that you are being impartial. Not so. Re-think.

Re-read the books I gave you. Contact your lawyer. But do not belittle her parenting skills if you want to achieve an amiable divorce. Please walk around this issue again. You wanted to be kind and generous; I argued that it was extremely difficult to compassionate after you have experienced years of humiliation and denigration at her hands. Just think again, with your heart and feelings fully engaged. I know you can approach this from a different direction, and if you can't, ask for help.

God in heaven, I hope you will forgive my saying all this.

In the event, Wife and I have not picked up the conversation at all since that point. I deserved the smack upside the head, no doubt about it. I deserve another one for not going out of my way to bring the subject up again as soon as I got home, specifically to reassure Wife on this point. But it seems like there is always more.