It was in the paper. The LA Times to be specific. The reason for my divorce. Ok, maybe not the reason, but a series of clues. All I have to do is call Encyclopedia Brown, and I'm in business. Who knows, maybe a small boy can make my wife happy. No wait…is that legal? Doesn't matter, she's into the Santa hat scene in Jarhead anyway. I need to pry the remote from her hand every time that thing is on. Pretty soon the remote control will be mine all mine.
So what was I talking about? Encyclopedia Brown? No...No--the paper! That's right. Right in the first section I think, they did a story about a Pew Center survey on marriage. One of the things asked in the survey was "What makes a marriage work?"
The list contained nine qualities listed in order of importance:
Faithfullness
Happy Sexual Relations
Sharing household chores
Adiquate Income
Good Housing
Shared Religious Beliefs
Shared Tastes and Interestts
Childeren
Agreement On Politics.
These are the things Americans are saying "Make me happy or else" over. I'm looking over the list, and I'm screwed. I think that means I'm good on number 2 though. Really though, I don't know if it's so much the things we don't agree on, but that I don't think MyWife and I agree on the list itself.
Look at it. Faithfulness, we discussed yesterday: She says I wasn't, I say I was. According to a teacher's pet amongst you readers, My wife's right, If I include "emotionally." Thanks a lot. I've been called emotionless before, I think that counts for me here.
Sex, we're good. Or were good, it's been a long time. As I remember it we were good. Did we have it? Yeah, yeah, we did. She says I was good…I'll believe her for ego's sake. So we have 1!
Chores? Once again we're at an impasse. Ask me, she doesn't do enough. Ask her, I don't do any. I do, but she doesn't see it, and now she doesn't care. Of course housework gets pushed aside a bit since I work about 55 hours a week. It's great that I work at home, but that's still time I can't do a lot of other stuff. I do the outdoor work, the outdoor cooking, and handle all emergency repairs. Those are my chores. Oh yeah, and bathrooms. She won't touch 'em. That's ok, cuz I won't touch her cat box. Well, the cat's cat box, she doesn't use it. She uses the toilet like everybody else…
Income we're good. She'd probably agree. That's 2 out of the top 4. Too bad it's 2 and 4. Being divorced this is going to be a really dark area. Then again so will sex. I'm not gonna be happy with myself for a while.
Good housing. Yeah, the house is nice. I got 3
Shared religious beliefs. Does it count if I have all of them? Can we spread them like God's peanut butter?
Shared tastes and interests. Probably the area we rock. My tastes are broader than hers, but we like most of the same movies, TV, and books and music. Well except her favorite band is Motley Crue. I've asked God to forgive her. He said he would, but suggested I try to get her into Stryper. Sometimes God is funny. At least I hope he has a sense of humor, or will hold the lightning strike until I finish this blog.
TZZT-ZZT.
Politics? Hee hee…that's funny….
So I get 4 out of 9, and they aren't even that high. If you give points for the qualities ranking, I've got 23 against, and 22 for. I think that's close enough to stay married. Maybe it's all the things after 9 that I lack.
What? I forgot to mention kids? No, I didn't forget, it's the other reason she's given me for the divorce. I want them, she doesn't.
It's ok, she told me up front, long before we got married. And no, I never though "oh, she'll change her mind." I don't believe you can do that with people: expect them to change "because he/she loves me." That's crap. Accept the person you love for who they are now or don't bother. If she didn't want them, then I needed to decide how badly I wanted them. Did I want children more than I loved my bride to be?
The answer was no, and I've never regretted the decision. Sure I have the occasional pang, but I never said a word. And no, it wasn't one of those seething cancerous pangs. Just a slight jolt when kids are around. I’m fascinated by them. They're raw potential waiting to be unleashed.
The night we were drinking last year, she led us to the topic of kids, or maybe I did (It was "we" who were drinking). I don't know how we got there, but she reminded me that she didn't want them. I said it was ok, but I think she took something in my tone. I'm not sure what, because I've never understood this part of the argument. I still wonder if this wasn't a staged confrontation. She knew "my answers" before I spoke them, no matter what I said. She stared saying things about how I did want them, and I said "Sure, but you said you didn't want them. I knew that. It isn't going to happen, and I'm okay with that."
Still on the defensive, for I don't know what, she says, "I always expected you'd get Ingénue pregnant, then we could raise your bastard child and you'd be happy."
"You know nothing ever happened between Ingénue and I right?"
This leads us into yesterday's blog.
She still won't talk about the child thing. I've tried. I want to understand why she's mad. What did I say? What does she think I said? The problem is, we were both drinking, so she filtered my mezcal worm words through her gin fizzy mind.
Last week I tried to return to it, since we were talking, but she locked up. I don't understand why this is the issue it is for her, and it seems to be the biggest. She'll talk about Ingénue, and I understand her problem there. But this one thing—nothing.
She even gave me the hand. The hand! Why won't she talk about this? Is she somehow embarrassed? Afraid that maybe I'll want a divorce? I don't know, but I think the Pew survey people didn't ask her. I think her list begins with children ends with fidelity and all else is wadded newspaper I haven't got a clue. Somebody call young master Brown, I need help here.
2 comments:
Perhaps you've already covered this in a later post (I'm trying to read chronologically), but I have an alternate theory about your wife's reaction to the alleged "affair."
I think she wanted out of your marriage, but needed a good reason. Your "unfaithfulness" provided that reason. So she latched on to your crush as emotional unfaithfulness to give herself license to distance herself from you.
Incidentally, I think everyone has crushes when you're married. It's how you deal with them that figures into the faithfulness issue. I had a crush when I was married, but I made an effort to keep it at arm's length. It sounds like you did the same thing.
My wife had a crush, too, and she told me about it. When she asked if she could meet him for lunch, I said no. She wasn't trying to avoid the crush, but was nurturing it. Although I was angry, I didn't even feel like she was unfaithful when she ended up meeting him for lunch anyway. I did feel like she was unfaithful (to the marriage) when she moved out.
If your wife had expressly told you to stay away from Ingénue, and you ignored her, that might be a different story. But it sounds like maybe she wanted you to have an affair so she could justify leaving you. It's just a theory.
I don't know if I've covered this succinctly or not since these early posts. I've had a LOT of time to think the crush over and deal with it. I've come to the conclusion that it was nothing more than a crush. I wish I hadn't had it, but I did. The difference is, as you said, what we do about it. I didn't do anything. I tried to nurture the friendship, but I always tried to be public with it, knowing my underlying feelings. I never met this girl without MyUnwife or a pack of mutual friends, and I ABSOLUTELY never saw her in a situation that MyUnwife wasn't first invited to.
As for your theory, yes, It's one that I've considered, and one that I hold to be the most plausible. But in the scheme of things, what does it give me? Bob Barker doesn't jump out from behind a curtain and say "You're absolutely correct! Here's your marriage back!" Nope. It's over, it's done and it's just a crying shame.
And for the record, I agree with you on the infidelity. I may never have cheated, but she "stepped out" on me when she left the marriage. She broke a trust, and it hurt.
Still, these are conclusions that take times, and MBs of blogspace to work through. Where where you when I was quietly breaking down, Dr. Snrkbutt? ;)
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