Stormy Weather

The Greek weather and I seem linked. For a few days, it was warm and sunny. Then, suddenly on Sunday, it remained pretty, but cold enough that I retreated to my place early. Yesterday the wind turned down the temperature into the upper 50's and blew so strongly and coldly that people had their winter coats back on. For a period in the afternoon, it looked like it would rain – and while it didn't, the sounds of the wind howling lasted all afternoon and evening. Today I awoke to a sunny, sparkling day that was still energizing, but again cold – peaking at 58. The wind is supposed to return this afternoon.

This delicate balance between sunny and calm and cold and windy seem a little like the emotions running through me. Whereas the end of last week felt calmer and warmer, for no other reason than this is the journey I'm on, my feelings began to run more cold and turbulent. 

Sometimes, just as unseasonably as the wind, I have a strong feeling of being wronged. It washes over me followed by anger and resentment. This sense of injustice that I have invested so much and Emily's best version of honoring that is saying that she went to couples therapy and continued going. That's true in the sense that one day in October 2020, she was ready to call it quits immediately out of the blue – but instead did the therapy and kept going at it. Where it falls short is all the care that wasn't given, all the emotional burden laid on me and unreciprocated, all the physical, logistical responsibility given and returned with an unwillingness to help or be there the once-in-a-long-awhile that I would ask. All the times she gave herself the right-of-way when our schedules didn't align – and all the things I gave up doing so she would be happy and have her needs met. There is no honoring those things because the staying and doing therapy was honoring our relationship, commitment and what we mean to each other – but not the gulf of advantage taking and selfishness that emerged over the years.

Sure, a relationship isn't a line of credit or a scoreboard. Love, kindness and help do not create a debt and giving shouldn't be converted to power. Yet, I always had the idea that going first would set an example – a show of goodwill that would in turn inspire or spark a reciprocation. You need a break, I'll offer to give it to you. When you see me need a break, you'll do the same. These are the things we can do for each other. You're sick, I'll show up fully. When I'm sick, you show up for me. I saw building our relationship through a "put a penny in" lens. It turned out in therapy that Emily saw this as mounting, oppressive debt and control. My giving caused her to "owe" me and that gave me power. Although I fail to see where I ever was in the advantaged position. One thing was for sure – she felt more diffident because she would not give into what she perceived to be power and perhaps more determined not to be expected to reciprocate. In retrospect, this makes a lot of sense in light of her relationship with her parents and her family's MO. 

There is the paradox. If contribution toward a system of mutual care and interdependence can only be seen as a threat – an act of control to be resisted – then how do you create the ecosystem for a successful marriage?

For the past two days – as has come to be the case over the past year-and-a-half – instead of thinking of all the wonderful moments in our past 14 years together,  a select set of memories in which I felt severely wronged continues to percolate in my mind. All the resentments and anger related comes up over and over again – I'm not sure to what benefit because they will probably never be resolved. I don't know if these harsh, angry memories are working like a crowbar to help get me free of the gravitational pull to make things work – to remind me of why moving on may be the best choice. Or are they the basis of a self-serving narrative? Maybe they are just the things that need to come out of me and be told or written so they are no longer bottled up, building pressure – the barriers to forgiveness that need purging? Maybe they are also the moments when I should have taken action but didn't? Perhaps they can be some combination or even all of these things?

I'm angry about what I came to call "The Big Lie" – where she told me at our 10th anniversary in June 2020 how the kids are getting older and we could start to turn more attention to our relationship. That she saw this as the beginning of a great new chapter for us. Then in October told me she wanted a divorce and was at the end of a long, multi-year process of coming to this. I felt so betrayed, misled and foolish for believing her – for trusting her. It was as though she told me what she knew I would enjoy hearing to buy herself time. I lost my emotional trust in her.

I'm angry about when I vomited and she told me to go outside so as not to scare then two-year-old Sennen and then threw me a towel to clean up after myself when I came back in. She revealed herself right there and I chose to accept it. Never mind that she had been sick many times and I cared for her. Never mind that I cleaned her vaginal blood of the floor of the bathroom on my hands and knees hurrying because her parents were on the way over and she didn't want them to know how bad her postpartum blood-clot situation had been and I was happy (in a relative sort of way) to do it.

I'm angry about the flu I had where she didn't check on me even when I was running a fever. Or the time I had the shits in Thailand and she was upset that I wouldn't commit to helping her take the kids down the the condo swimming pool despite my having been in and out of the bathroom all morning. I'm angry that her response was anything other than, "We'll be fine – you take care of yourself." 

I'm angry at the times when I wanted to be able to call a time out and not talk/argue in front of the kids and she became angry that I would do it – and would instead want to disagree or argue in front of them.

I'm angry about when I was so stressed and depressed that I had suicidal ideation, told her, and then she didn't ask me again how I was doing until months later when I confronted her about it. Luckily, I did all the right things and talked to my therapist, saw the psychiatrist, upped my medication and felt better. Then I finally got angry and confronted her about it and she had the gall to defend herself for awhile before she finally took ownership. A casual acquaintance would probably have shown more care than my wife. I went with her to doctor appointments for her vertigo, blood pressure issues and of course for key prenatal care visits. She left me on my own at a critical moment.

I'm angry about all the drinking she did since COVID began and the number of times she became menacing and spoiling for a fight when drunk. And the way she showed up in front of our children sloppy and slurring her words. I'm angry about how on New Year's Eve she was terribly drunk and at a beach restaurant on Ko Samet, Thailand berated me, yelling in public, in front our children and our niece calling me an asshole, a baby and a liar (because I quit defending Sennen who was tired and wanted to go back to our apartment instead of staying up to midnight like Emily wanted. I told him instead that he and his mommy needed to work it out – I was supporting what she wanted from here out. I decided that she could face the reality of telling her crying, exhausted son he had to stay up instead of her arguing with me to avoid responsibility). 

I'm angry about the time I heard her complaining about me to our au pair.

I'm angry about the time she got drunk and called Sennen a name. And the next night when she got drunk and withheld the kids' dessert until they played a boardgame with her – when that's not what they wanted.

I'm angry about all the times she said unkind things about me or embarrassed me in front of friends. Usually when drinking.

I'm angry about all the times she unabashedly interrupted or talked over me when she knew how much I hated and it and how I never did the same in reverse.

I'm angry about all the times she saw me trapped in a conversation at a party and didn't come and rescue me – especially when it was family members of hers who she didn't want to get locked into conversation with, so instead she let me take the bullet for her.

I'm angry for all the deals and agreements she made and released herself from because she didn't feel like it. I'm angry that one week into what was supposed to be our year of trying things out post-therapy she threatened that maybe we should separate when that was a threat/tactic we had agreed not to do during our year

I'm angry at how hard she'll work not to take ownership and how she'll often resort to gaslighting in her tactics.

I'm angry about the time when Sennen was one and I was working 60 hour weeks, under a ton of stress, not exercising and feeling overwhelmed, so I asked Emily for the time to go to yoga on Saturday to help rebalance myself. I told her that I was sorry take time out for myself on Saturday when I already wasn't around enough during the week, but that I needed it for my emotional health and that it would make be a better husband and father. She told me taking that time might make me a better husband, but not a better father. So I didn't go.

I'm angry for all the times I gave up yoga to support something Emily wanted to do with that time at the expense of my emotional health. I'm angry at how little my mental and emotional health meant to her in general.

I'm angry that I was the strongest advocate of throwing Emily's mother a very nice Bat Mitzvah reception when Emily and her sister were reluctant to spend the money and do it right – but when Susan gushed the day after about how amazing it was that her daughters threw her such a wonderful party, Emily didn't  - and never did afterward – point out that I was also responsible for the party.

I'm angry for all the times Emily shared our financial information with people – including her family – when she knows how off-limits that is for me and in spite of all the times she promised not to do it.

I'm angry for the years she didn't take responsibility for her mental health and let me bear her intense anxiety. I'm angry that my struggle to support her through her anxiety was not a good enough reason to take it seriously.

I'm angry that Emily didn't have room to (after the fact) appreciate how scared I was during her postpartum trauma with Sennen when she was in pain and then appeared to be bleeding out (blood clots caught behind her stitches that burst) and while she was in the ER, I very seriously contemplated that might be raising the newborn in any arms alone. And that for two weeks with Emily in constant pain and a newborn I was largely taking care of, I was pretty exhausted and stressed. There was only room for her experience (which was quite serious and deserved tons of recognition). She got upset once when I said that we had gone through that struggle – she felt that only she had really gone through it. Albeit not the same, I went through it too.

I'm angry for all the times she hasn't offered to help carry in our put away the groceries.

I'm angry for all the times she has thrown things while angry and had a temper tantrum in front of our children. I viscerally hate when she throws things.

I'm angry for how many times I have asked for help and instead of saying "yes" she works out reasons why I don't need the help, how I might avoid turning to her for help or she can't give it. I have gone to elaborate lengths to find alternatives to asking my wife for a simple favor. Last week I had friends pick up a prescription for me and bring it to Emily.

Lastly, I am angry that it took Emily four years to learn to reset the internet router herself despite being shown more times than I can count and being the simplest damn thing on Earth. You pull the cord out of the back of the box, wait 20 seconds and stick it back in.

There, that feels better.