1054 Weasel Words

Wednesday, January 03,. 2006

I have to confess to something that has been bothering me. In the previous entry, I used a "weasel word" when I said "...let's just say I had been effectively celibate for eight years when I decided it wasn't working." I was dissembling. Roman has rubbed off on me, I guess.

There are a few people who might read that sentence, and know it's not strictly true, and that would make everything else I say suspect, so I guess I should explain it.

Ex#2 and I had been in marriage counselling for years when it became pretty clear that he was not interested in changing anything. I continued in individual psychotherapy with the last psychiatrist we had seen together, twice a week for another 4.5 years. I had some serious problems of my own. Something about a "poorly integrated personality". Ex#2 was put on some antidepressants, but had no interest in any other therapy.

And so things dragged along for years and years. I was very unhappy. Toward the end, I still wanted to save the marriage, but it was obvious that I couldn't go on that way. I couldn't continue in a relationship where my husband didn't speak to me for weeks at a time, where there was no intimacy, where when he did speak to me, half the time it was a lie. The psychiatrist said that I had a few choices.

1. Ex#2 and I could continue as things were, with me lonely and unhappily celibate.
2. I could develop friendships outside the marriage, and remain celibate.
3. I could have secret affairs outside the marriage.
4. Ex#2 and I could agree to have an open marriage, where I would be allowed to openly take lovers.
5. We could separate.

#1 was unacceptable. I couldn't do that any more. I was doing #2, but it wasn't enough. I still felt unloved. In about the fourth and fifth years of the marriage, I had tried #3, but that was when I was very weak (the "poorly integrated" thing) and it made me feel very bad and out of control, and I spiralled down. It was very bad for me. I knew without asking that #4 was impossible. I didn't want #5 yet, but the tension in the marriage was beginning to affect Daughter. She was working her little six-year-old tail off trying to get Ex#2's attention, a near impossible task. (That's STILL a problem. Removal of the tension didn't fix that.) So, anyway, something had to change.

Dr. K recommended that I try #3 again. It seemed like the only option. Dr. K. said that I was stronger now, and that I could be in control .

I had a very brief fling with someone I didn't really like. I chose him precisely because I didn't like him. (That way he would be not threat to my intending to stay married, and I wouldn't much care what he thought of me.) Parts were very satisfactory (my not caring what he thought of me was very freeing - think about that a minute), but, well, I didn't like him. So then I had an equally brief fling with someone I liked. And then I found that I didn't like him any more. I lost respect for him because he was messing around with a married woman! I didn't see how he could respect me, either, and I was in danger of losing my own self-respect. So, I proved #3 wouldn't work, either. There was no way it could be acceptable to me.

And right about then, Ex#2 and I were having an argument about something [another lie] and he said "So, what do you want to do about it. I suppose you want a divorce?" Right up until that moment, I hadn't seriously considered it, but somehow, when he said it like that, like he dared me, I knew. I said yes, I do want a divorce. It's over. I'm finished.

So, that's where the "effectively" came from. Sorta like the small deviation from enforced celibacy was necessary "therapy", and didn't count.

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What kind of lies did Ex#2 tell?

Every year The Company threw a big Christmas party for employees' children. You had to sign up with the department secretary and get tickets. I asked him to sign Daughter up. The first time I asked him if he'd done it yet, he said he'd forgotten, but he would "tomorrow". The next day I asked him, and he'd forgotten again, but he'd do it "tomorrow". The next day, I called him at work and reminded him, and he told me he'd just done it, it was all taken care of. He'd actually get the tickets in a few days.

"Did you pick up the tickets yet?" "Tomorrow." Take two aspirin and repeat three times.

Then I found out that he would be out of town for two weeks, over the weekend of the party. The last workday before he left, I reminded him that he MUST pick up the tickets today, so we'd have them for next weekend. He forgot. But he assured me he'd call the secretary on Monday, and she'd have them ready for me to pick up. Monday evening I called him at his hotel and asked where I should get the tickets. He said that the secretary, Miss So-and-so, said that she would be at the party, Daughter and I should just go, and she'd give them to me there.

Daughter and I arrived at the doors of a hotel ballroom. Four-year-old Daughter was excited. Through the doors we could see a mountain of gifts, being handed out by Santa. There were balloons and rides, and food stations like at a fair, hot dog steam carts, cotton candy, everything to thrill a child. She was hopping up and down impatiently while I asked around for Miss So-and-so. I found her.

Yeah. Ex#2 had never signed up for the tickets, had never even spoken to her about them.

They couldn't allow us in.

Daughter cried. I cried. We were told we could go in, but Daughter would not get a gift and could not have any food.

So we went in and walked around, and looked at all the things we couldn't have, and then I took her to Chuck-e-Cheese (or however you spell that, I'm not looking it up) and we had our own party. But it didn't make up for what had happened.

Of course, Ex#2 swore he'd done all the things he said he'd done, he had a clear and detailed memory of having done it, but I know now what had happened. He'd lie and tell me something was done just to satisfy me, figuring that he would then be sure to do it the next day and make it right. And then he would imagine doing it, perhaps to lock it into his memory so he wouldn't forget, and by the next day he had a clear "memory" of having done it.

It happened over and over. He'd swear he did something, or told me something, or paid for something, when it was obvious to the world that he hadn't. This incident stands out because it wasn't just me that got hurt. Eventually I learned to check up on everything. You never knew whether something he said was true, or just imagined.

That's when he spoke to me at all.

He didn't even speak to me when it was important. I'd cook dinner, and sit there waiting, and he'd not come home all night. I'd call his office the next day, and the secretary would tell me he was out of town on business. It was embarrassing that she had to tell me. After the second time that happened, I learned to count his underwear when he didn't come home. That was how I'd know he was away, and for approximately how long.

I was married to him for 13 years. I married him because I thought his not pushing me into sex meant he respected me, and I knew he'd never hit me. I guess I tilted too far in my quest for safety. It was because I knew that I'd married him for the wrong reasons that I tried so hard for so long to make it right.
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