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Why Am I Still Here?

by Gi Gi Hayden

Posted to House Bloggers by Editor on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 10:42am

It's 2 am. He's still not home. Why am I still here? Why am I still so pissed? Why am I even contemplating leaving one more message on his turned-off cell phone? So that I can record my fury, my angst, onto that little microchip in cell phone cyberspace for posterity? Lord knows he'll never listen to it. He'll hit '7' to erase it the second he hears, “OK, now, where are...”

Twelve years of marriage and it's come to this. He's not home because he'd rather be somewhere else. With someone else. He denies it but my 'wife radar' is in good working order. I'm sick of picturing who she might be. That's not even the point anymore. It's ABW: Anyone But the Wife. If I tell my girlfriends, they'll all just tell me to leave him, to throw him out. My therapist will again urge couples counseling. Tried that at Year Eight. Lasted the requisite six sessions, with promises to “renew," “refresh,” “re-purpose.” You know the drill.

Make more traditions. Make more efforts. Make more love. Thanks, Ladies Home Journal. Thanks Kathie Lee and Dr. Ruth and Shania Twain. I see it's worked out so well for you.

I could just lie here in the dark. I could start trawling the Internet for a lawyer. I could call that guy from the econ summit, that guy from that party three months ago: “If you're ever free on Thursday nights...”

Or I could go downstairs. Get a jump start making the kids' lunches for school in five hours. Or get the hockey gear loaded in the Tahoe now. Save me a few steps in the morning school hustle. Instead, I swallow an Ambien and knock myself out, just as I hear the car in the driveway. Tomorrow with the lunches and hockey skates. Tomorrow with the confrontation, or the ignoring – I’ll figure it out then, when I sit on the train in my suit from Loehman's. Maybe I'll start shopping at Saks again, like I did before the two kids.

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The longer I'm half-in, half-out of this thing, the clearer I see myself.

I have a good friend, a therapist, who says we don't keep returning to the same type of man with the same type of issues (the ones our parents had) only because it's familiar, we keep going back for more because we're trying to work out our own issues and these are the places we can do it.

She's always right.

I was telling her the other day over lunch that I hesitate to get all the way back into it, because Sam had this underlying negative something that looks totally different than my parent's negativity. But's it exactly the same.

With my parents the glass isn't just half empty, it's cracked and leaking slowly. Present them any scenario and they go first to what could go wrong.

When my niece who just graduated high school was "hang a good paper on the fridge" age, my dad once looked at a her spelling test up there, 99 percent, and said to her "Oh, Ella, how could miss .... You know how to spell that."

She's a fabulous student. National honor society. One misspelling and it's what he sees before everything that was right.

Like I said, Sam is a different kind of negative. It's more an undercurrent, not so overt.

But it has the same effect on me. The way it feels heavy, like something weighting me down.

Whatever it is I'm trying to work out, if I leave this relationship, I plan on working solo for a long time to come.

Debbie Nigro's picture

How To Hook a Man

Literally.

Posted to House Bloggers by Debbie Nigro on Thu, 06/05/2008 - 10:18am

Yesterday in NYC I was walking briskly along with a businessgal buddy when the oddest thing happened. I hooked a man — literally.

I was carrying a suit bag filled filled with clothes on hangers over my left arm as we yapped our way down the street.

An older gentleman and his wife were walking past us in the opposite direction. They obviously passed too close and somehow my hangars hooked on the husband, and yanked me backwards after him.

I was trying to unhook myself from him but his wife thought I was intentionally molesting him and was pulling him away from me yelling, "He's mine!"

She obviously didn't see the hanger.

Strangely, the same thing had happened just three minutes before with a construction guy as I was crossing the street. That one almost cost me a two by four to the head.

So here's what I discovered: You can literally hook a man on the street.

Now I just have to work on my aim.

Megan Thomas's picture

Teaching The Kids How Not To Act

Posted to House Bloggers by Megan Thomas on Sat, 05/31/2008 - 10:00am
I'm afraid I'm teaching my kids some bad things. I'm afraid if my husband and I stay together and keep living the way we're living they will think it's OK to be in a lukewarm relationship. I'm afraid my daughter is going to think that parents who show a lot of overt affection are weird. This breaks my heart.

My parents were always very affectionate when I was growing up. It was almost embarrassing how much they hugged and smooched each other, but there was something cool about it because it was obvious that they really loved each other and enjoyed being around one another.

My husband and I used to be pretty affectionate — after all, that's what I grew up with so it seemed natural — but the worse the issues in our marriage became, the less affectionate we became. You would be hard pressed to see us holding hands or embracing each other for longer than a standard, "Hi, welcome home from work" hug. We're so distant from each other that showing affection seems weird. Sometimes, I just don't want him to touch me.

What is this conveying to my kids? I know people say that a separation would damage my kids, but what potential damage are we doing by staying together?

We don't scream at each other, but we don't portray a married couple who necessarily enjoys being around each other. I don't want my kids to get the impression that this is what a marriage is supposed to be like. I know that the example my husband and I set right now will have a lasting impression on our kids forever. I'm really trying to not screw this all up.

Couples therapy stretches out before me like a never-ending road, barely undulating, ascending only the gentlest slopes, never turning corners that so desperately need to be turned. There is no question the road goes somewhere better than our present location...but only eventually.

Indeed, the question before me is one of time. Am I willing to invest a few good years — my fleeting youth — in building a better relationship with my troubled husband?

No doubt such an investment has the potential to pay off big. A couple that goes through hardship and works together to find a solution can come out the other side stronger than ever.

But do I want to sacrifice the open window of opportunities in the present for pay off so far down the road?

Today in therapy it was clear Rob is capable of making breakthroughs that will allow him insight and room to find new behaviors that will make him easier to live with. But the more progress he makes, I'm worried the bigger the expectation (on his part and our therapist's) that I should stick around for the pay off.

A kindler, gentler, better communicator of a husband would be great, but sticking around for it to come to fruition — in what? two or three years? — will be the tough part.

Today I'm confident about being here, doing the work with him. Tomorrow? If my track record is to believed, tomorrow will be another story entirely. I'm taking every day as it comes, and perhaps one day it will feel like time to make a decision one way or another. Not today.

I did something last night that I never thought I would do: I "came out" to my friends about the problems my husband and I have been dealing with.

I was out to dinner with four other ladies and the subject of my husband's potential business trip came up. One of the women asked if I would be sad about him leaving again, and it all just came spurting out.

Some things happened that I expected would happen:

-They were all pretty much stunned.

-They wanted to talk about the subject way beyond what I wanted to talk about.

-They all told me they were on my side, which although comforting in a way, I don't want people having to choose sides between me and my husband. It's weird.

There were also some interesting things that happened that I wasn't really expecting:

-My friend sitting next to me didn't say a word, but just put her hand on mine and squeezed. Without a word it was an amazing display of encouragement and sympathy.

-One friend, without being asked, immediately assured me that her parents' divorce when she was young did not adversely affect her. She said that if anything, she's glad her parents divorced because she can tell now as an adult that they aren't compatible and it would have been tough growing up like that.

-Nobody tried to talk me out of leaving my husband.

-Nobody gave me the whole, "...but you guys are so good together!" spiel that I was dreading.

Believe it or not, it was one of the most intimidating things I have ever done. I felt so vulnerable, and I was really afraid that these women would have no way of understanding what I was going through. Although they are all in seemingly great marriages, they all did a fantastic job of not making me feel like an outsider because of my marital issues.

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This weekend a scientific conference created the opportunity for a convergence of Rob's old friends. Once a close-knit group of graduate school students, these men and women pursued jobs in their particular specialties and settled in various far-flung states and countries.

I had long ago grown close to them through Rob, but given our recent troubles, this time they didn't feel like my old friends. They were his.

It was tough to dutifully play the part of doting wife as brunches with other couples turned into walks around the old neighborhood, drinks at the pub, and eventually dinner as well. That's many hours of reminiscing and, eventually, tired smiles...

Talk focused on weddings, births, and — this gang's ultimate milestone — the defense seminars that concluded their graduate studies. It took me back to my first couple years with Rob, when every few months we were participating in the celebration of someone's landmark event.

We pub-crawled after friends' dissertation defenses, hosted graduation parties, and traveled the country for weddings. Our courtship was lined with others' milestones.

As the frequency of the rites of passage dwindled — once everyone had wed, settled into jobs, and had their first children — our sense of couplehood faltered.

Was it the ritual reinforcement of our roles within this community that kept us together? Years later, everyone else is going strong. Rob and I, now isolated from the community we were born into as a couple, don't seem to have our own glue. 


The other day was a doozy. The kids were both stir-crazy because of the rain, and when they get stir-crazy they get awfully clingy and needy. I had three deadlines looming and I had to go to a meeting. The house was a mess and I couldn't figure out a time to go grocery shopping even though the pantry was pretty much bare.

All in all, it was the kind of day where I felt stretched to the limit and although I wanted nothing more than to curl into bed and hide from the world it just wasn't an option.

Too many obligations, and not enough of me to go around.

After the kids were in bed I sat down to punch out the work that I had to do. I figured if I worked for two hours straight I could get to bed before midnight, then the next day I could try to tackle the housework and maybe get to the grocery store if everything worked out.

I had been working for a few minutes when my husband stopped flipping through the television channels and looked over at me. "I need to talk to you about something," he said, and then proceeded to tell me that I wasn't paying enough attention to him.

Now that's bad timing.

I was already on edge because I was trying to deal with so much at once. Sometimes it gets overwhelming: kids, work, keeping up the house...I understand that when I have so much to deal with my husband's need for attention might take a back seat. There are just some times when I have to get stuff done and I don't have the time to fawn over him.

That either makes me a realist, or it makes me incredibly insensitive to my husband's needs. Or maybe I'm an insensitive realist.

I work hard. It would be great to end an evening with my husband saying something along the lines of, "I know you've been stretched thin lately. What can I do to help?" instead of, "Pay more attention to me."

Elaina Goodman's picture

None Of This Is Mine Anymore

Posted to House Bloggers by Elaina Goodman on Sat, 05/10/2008 - 4:00pm

The other night I lay in bed with Sam at his place. The bed that used to be my bed, my favorite piece of furniture. The nightstand that used to be my night stand. The husband that used to be my husband.

And none of it felt like mine anymore. Laying there, body next to body, I was thinking: This man is my husband. And the words surprised me.

I don't feel married. Haven't worn a ring since before I left.

This man is my husband. I don't know what that means anymore.

There's no judgment, no longing. Just the thought. This man is my husband?

It's close to two years we've been apart together. I haven't dated anyone else. Haven't kissed anyone else. Haven't had sex with anyone else. In 15 years there hasn't been anyone else.

When I write these posts, I always feel like they should to go somewhere deep. Land on some wise thing.

I don't have that. No clarity to offer.

I'm just keeping with these words, meditating on the thought: This man is my husband.

This man is my husband.

If I repeat them enough, they'll lead me to the truth.

As any sometime-reader here knows, I feel guilty and ungrateful for wanting to leave Rob after he has been such a great comfort and support when I've needed it.

Recently a reader asked when Maya was going to start loving Maya. Indeed! As I pine over the hurt I might cause this nice man, and reconsider leaving him, I'm in danger of sacrificing my worth, potential, and dreams to protect his feelings. Not much self-love in evidence here.

And the fact is, I have done just as much for Rob as he has for me. Why don't I give myself that credit? While he helped me through depression, showed me how to get on track with money, and supported me through my parents' divorce and father's illness, I helped him leave an anxiety-provoking job and make a very successful career change. I refused to allow him to continue neglecting his health and made him start visiting a doctor and dentist regularly. I strongly encouraged him to find hobbies (he is now well into Tai Chi) after many of his friends relocated out-of-state and he was drinking alone and heavily. Most importantly, I started him on his pursuit of therapy, from which he is reaping benefits. That's not nothing!

But rather than growing together through our mutual support during life trials, we seem to have become two new people who don't need the other the way we did when we first married. It's a terrible irony that we helped each other grow and change, and now our new personalities don't seem to need what the other can offer.

Is it time to accept we've changed, say thank you, and move on? One thing is clear, I will continue this investigation with a healthy dose of self love. Maya comes first.