A Dialogue Between My Husband and My Husband

In the past few months, my husband has kindly shared the following with me. In his own words:

1. Fault

  1. Nothing is my fault. Marriage just isn’t for him. His wanting to divorce has nothing to do with me or my attractiveness, but with his decision that he is better alone, that he is tired of making sacrifices and compromises.
     
  2. Everything is my fault. He has been unhappy with many things for a long time now, and I didn’t read his mind and fix them. So he is walking away.

2. Depression — His

  1. He feels disconnected from everyone. He loves only work and hates the rest of his life. He is emotionally stunted, feels like an observer in life, and gave me permission to have sex with other people so that I could find “some happiness.”
     
  2. He is happy with everything in his life except our marriage. He is not depressed. He has just changed.

3. Depression — Mine

  1. I am abnormal and need therapy because the breakup of my marriage shocked me. I did not work hard enough at becoming less depressed over the years, and he was enabling me during the marriage to not improve. I need therapy also because I regret our marriage.
     
  2. I am trying to control him when I tell him I feel suicidal. Also, I am a drug abuser.

4. Alimony

  1. He is happy to pay me more if that’s what it takes to avoid using lawyers.
     
  2. I deserve nothing and I won’t get alimony, and he will file for divorce earlier rather than later to avoid paying me.

5. Dog Care

  1. He does not want any responsibilities, including the dogs. He wants to get in a car and just drive far away from everything and everyone.
     
  2. He wants the dogs one weekend a month.

6. Control

  1. I am too controlling because I need to know when he’s going out, where he is, and when he will get back. He wants to be spontaneous.
     
  2. Everything I do, everything I ask, is only to try to control him.

7. Love

  1. He cares about me like a sister, but says everything he can to hurt me. He says he does not love me anymore.
     
  2. He says he does not love me anymore.

Posted by: Supersonic Jane | July 31, 2009 | 11:33 am
Posted in: This Life | Comments Off

Wondering If There’s Any Way to Transfer Calls to India

When the phone started singing “Fur Elise” early this morning, startling me out of a sound sleep, I knew my parents were on the other end. I had specifically programmed the phone to play that song when they called, as I had — not fond, exactly, but certainly not bad — memories of all three of us children learning to play it on the piano. I did not realize, however, that programming the phone in this way would cause me to instantly feel dread and a “what do they want now” feeling upon hearing the beginnings of the song, much like Pavlov’s dogs must have been annoyed at the drool forming at the first bell.

I picked up the phone and answered it with, “Do you know I’m still sleeping?”

“Sorry, sorry,” said my dad. He moved right on to more important matters. “Ww mozilla dot org says ‘does not exist.’ Why?”

After 35 years of dealing with my father, I have learned that the questions he asks are often not the ones he really wants answered. I countered with a question of my own.

“What are you trying to do, Dad?”

“Go into my gmail.”

“You have to go to gmail.com.”

“It’s not working.”

“That happens sometimes.” (I wanted to say, “It’s the Internet,” but a conversation yesterday with my mother had ended with her being unable to understand that “the Internet” was not the same as “Internet Explorer.” She had, in fact, summarized our conversation as, “So there’s the Internet and then there’s Firebox.” “FOX, Mom, it’s FireFOX.” “Yes, Firebox.”)

Instead I said, “Sometimes the site is down.” I wondered if I should point out to my father that I was not a Google engineer, and decided that would only make him ask me to become one, so that I could provide immediate email support to him at all hours, instead of just at dawn.

“OK,” he said. “I try again later.” He hung up. He does not like to say goodbye on the phone, either because social conventions escape him, or because he considers saying goodbye a waste of time and phone money from back in the days when you paid per minute. But that was fine, because I had already hung up too. After all, I am my father’s daughter.

Posted by: Supersonic Jane | July 19, 2009 | 11:20 am
Posted in: Bits | Comments (4)