The Cat

Yesterday my 13 year old male tabby cat, who I left behind with my ex, died.  He was the world's sweetest cat.  My ex and I got him the year after we married, and he was our first baby (I always liked my ex for being a cat person).  Whenever I was alone and distraught, the cat would snuggle up to me and make me feel better.  I really believe that he knew when I needed the comfort.  It was torture to leave him behind when I moved out, but it felt like the right thing to do, both for the cat and my ex.  I have really missed him.  I always used my trips to my ex's to pick up or drop off the kids as a chance for kitty visitation, and he always ran to meet me to be petted and to shed fur on my clothes.

Earlier in the week, the cat started wheezing, and we thought maybe it was asthma or something treatable.  Turns out it was terminal cancer.  My ex was with the cat when he was euthanized, which I'm very glad about.  I'm glad that the cat had someone he loved, and who loved him, to see him through his last moments.  I had done the same with our other cat, also much beloved, a few years ago, and it was emotionally brutal.  I had a lot of empathy for my ex.

Tonight my ex and I sat down with the kids to explain it to them, which went about as well as could be expected under the circumstances.  I had brought a 3-ring binder, paper, crayons, and some photos of the cat.  We explained what had happened, hugged them, read them some books (Mr. Rogers could explain anything to a kid, I'm convinced), looked at pictures of the cat and talked about him, and encouraged the kids to draw pictures and write about how they felt.  We did a lot of hugging and crying.  I think we handled it the right way.  In the night, my son woke up and was upset about the cat.  He was at his dad's, and I'm glad the his dad did what I would have done:  curled up with him, stroked his hair, reassured him, and stayed with him until he fell back asleep.  This is the kind of thing I focus on when my ex annoys me.  He loves our children.

The cat represents more than just a cat, of course.  He was one of the symbols of our early marriage, how I felt in those days, one of our first cooperative projects.  I loved that my ex loved the cat, that he would sleep with us, and that sometimes I would wake up to see that cat, lying on his back with his head between ours on the pillows.  A lot of people "get over" their pets when their children are born, and though certainly the children were always the first priority, we never stopped loving the cat.

It is hard to let go.  My heart really goes out to my ex at this time, and I am glad to hear that he plans to adopt another pair of cats, who the children will get to pick and name, in a couple of months.  I'm proud that we were able to be there for our children and help them navigate through this.  It gives me hope that we can continue to cooperate and support each other.

So I Married a Zombie

Thanks for waiting patiently, if you're still out there reading.

Things are finally settling down into Midwinter Funk mode:  a little dark, but with a groovy bass line.  I'm working very hard on some unfinished business: first and foremost, finally getting divorced.  Believe me, I know how ridiculous it is that I'm not divorced yet.  It's embarrassing.  I moved out 2 years ago.  It's not that I have been ambivalent; it's that my ex doesn't do well when he doesn't get what he wants.  He's not digging in his heels about the kids or money or anything like that.  He simply does not want a divorce, so he is cooperating just enough to make it not worth hauling him into court, but so little that things are moving at a snail's pace.

This is par for the course with him.  In the past, he would get what he wanted by simply insisting on something over and over and over, no yelling or anything, just the same thing again and again and again no matter what you said until you just wanted to jam ballpoint pens in your ears so you wouldn't have to hear it anymore, and then it was just easier to do what he wanted so that he would shut up.  It got him all kinds of things in the past, so I suppose he's not unreasonable to try it, but it does seem that after 2 years, it might be time to move on.

Now, I know you're wondering:  "How hot does this woman have to be that this man doesn't want to let her go?"  Well, thanks for asking; you're too kind.  And, I know someone is asking, "Why would this man even want to be with such a faithless hussy?"  Also a fair question.  But it's not about me at all.  It's about control.  For him, this is not convenient, so it shouldn't be happening.  So he is trying to pretend that it isn't.

This leads me to my point (I usually do have one).  When I told my ex I wanted a divorce, he immediately started buying self-help books about how to save your marriage, fight for your marriage, improve your marriage without talking about it, etc.  I was amazed to find that some (not all) of these books and websites advocated that people in his position do exactly what he has done all along:  ignore what your spouse tells you.  If she says she wants a divorce, she's not really in her right mind.  She's mistaken about your ability to change.  Just keep showing her what a great guy you are.  Even if she says she's done, you're not done! Keep at it!  Is she having an affair?  No problem!  Just keep driving your point home, over and over and over.  Never give up!  Ever!  There's even a section on one of the website forums called "Divorced But Not Done."  I kid you not.

What humiliating advice, for everyone.  I can see trying to weasel another chance out of a situation that is rapidly deteriorating, and going for the hail-Mary pass in case it just might work.  I can see trying to demonstrate your ability to be a better spouse and parent, to show that you see the error of your ways and are willing to work on your contributions to the problem, and even to try to outshine the Other Woman or Other Man for a time.  But at some point, no is no, done is done, dead is dead.  For me, seeing him lurching at me again and again, saying the same things over and over but not actually respecting my wishes or changing his behavior in any meaningful way, is just creepy.  It's like fighting off a zombie apocalypse for 2+ years.

I really wish he'd go find someone else's brain to devour.

Glass Houses

I never thought I would have an affair. I truly believed I was a better person than that. I didn’t realize that I was a setup for an affair long before I had the opportunity. I think that many betrayed spouses assume that the source of an affair lies solely with the person who cheated. They believe that the cheater is defective, either that s/he is a heartless traitor or weak and deluded. It’s difficult to admit how warped the structure of a marriage has to be in the first place for one partner to consider having an affair, and the extent to which both parties are responsible for that structure.

Happy spouses don’t cheat. If a spouse is not happy in a marriage, there is a reason for it. That’s not to say cheaters are justified in cheating if they’re not happy – of course not. But if your spouse cheats, and you’re surprised because you thought everything was great until that point, you have probably been ignoring some pretty key problems that pre-date the affair, often by years, and those problems are partially your responsibility.

In Elizabeth Gilbert’s (of Eat Pray Love fame - I know, you either love her or you hate her) book Committed, she summarizes Shirley Glass’ research on fidelity and affairs, which I now totally need to read (her book is called Not "Just Friends": Rebuilding Trust and Recovering Your Sanity After Infidelity). Glass posits that marriages are made up of windows and walls. Communication between spouses should flow freely (windows); the intimate parts of yourself and your relationship should be closed to the outside world (walls). It’s only natural to be attracted to people other than our spouses sometimes, but when it happens, we open a window on those feelings with our spouse, at the same time setting a boundary with the outsider and refusing to become emotionally or physically intimate with that person. This has the practical effect of avoiding temptation, but instead of pretending the attraction doesn’t exist, which is unrealistic, you use it to build intimacy in your marriage by talking about unmet needs and finding a way to meet them within the marriage. It makes sense.

I think the corollary, and maybe Glass talks about this, is that if you try to open a window during these times, and your spouse shuts you out, then you have still done a good thing by exposing some key problems in the marriage. Then you can figure out whether you can resolve them or not. If not, at least you know why the marriage dissolved, without the confusion and chaos of involving someone else.

In my own situation, the windows and walls were all wrong, and had been for a very long time. My ex made it clear what he wanted my role to be. I was there to perpetuate a lifestyle, a paradigm of what he wanted his life to be. My needs were dismissed, in large ways and small. I tried to talk about it, perhaps not in ideal ways, but I did try. I tried nicely, I tried passive-aggressively, I tried outright aggressively, I tried in bitchy ways, I tried while sobbing my guts out and begging him to consider me, I tried by asking him to go to counseling with me. It didn’t work. I was walled off. He implied that I was crazy and unreasonable, that I had no right to want anything he didn’t want. After running into those walls for years, I lost all desire for any kind of intimacy with him. I was marking time, getting through the days, serving my sentence.

And then DB came along, and suddenly there was a window, and I didn’t want to close it. Now, Glass’ theory is that when I realized how attracted I still was to DB (and always had been – I thought about him over the years far more often than was entirely healthy), I should have cut off all contact with DB, then spoken to my ex and told him I was feeling this attraction to someone else and it had made me realize that I had a number of unmet needs that we needed to discuss. Realistically, I know that would not have flown. My ex would have raged and/or convinced me I was nuts. I don’t believe for one second that we would have been able to save our marriage. But at least I would have tried. And then I would have realized what instead it took having an affair to realize: that my marriage never was what I thought it was. And I could have gotten out of it with a clean conscience. And if it was meant to be with DB, we would have eventually been free to be together.

I have no defense. She’s right. But that’s not how it happened. Admittedly, one key reason for this was that I was not willing to cut off contact with DB. I couldn’t stand to lose him. Like many people, I aspire to high-mindedness that I do not always actually possess.

For DB, one of the most galling things about all of this has been that his ex truly believes their marriage ended simply because DB cheated. But while that was the match that set the house on fire, the house was already doused in gasoline and full of frayed, sparking electrical wires. Still, I know he wishes he had gotten out cleanly, and it certainly would make our lives now much easier if he had. His ex would still be bitter and self-righteous, but she wouldn’t have such strong justification for it.

It is really easy to slip into an affair if your marriage is unhappy and you’re subconsciously looking for a way out of it. It happens to good people, all the time. People are complex. I think we are kinder, stronger people when we remember that.

Boundaries

I've been thinking a lot about boundaries lately, especially the part where I don't seem to have any. Seriously, the crap I let my ex get away with would amaze you. To paraphrase, he wanted someone who would, to quote the timeless poetry of Sara Barielles, ride off into his delusional sunset. And the sick thing is, I did it. Whatever he wanted, that was what we did. I didn't get to eat when I was hungry, rest when I was tired, leave when I was ready, be comforted when I was sad, vent when I was angry, except when it was amenable to him. Everything, from vacations to sex to child rearing, it was all on his terms. Resistance was futile.

It's not that he is an overtly mean person - most people think he's quite nice, until they are on the receiving end of his narcissism. Even then, his form of manipulation is so subtle that often you don't realize what happened; you know you feel violated, but you don't know why. He doesn't yell, he doesn't throw things, he seems reasonable and oh-so-nice, but what he wants is what is going to happen, period. He pushes and pushes and pushes until he gets what he wants, and he will run over you with a bulldozer and never stop smiling. It's like Chinese water torture. I quickly learned that it was just easier to give him what he wanted, because he was never going to stop pushing. By the end - and the end came about 6 months before I had an affair - I felt like I didn't have any skin left. I felt like a pulpy mass of exposed nerves, and no one knew, because he was such a "nice" guy. It was a painful, enclosed, lonely, horrible place to be.

So, how do I not end up there again? The more I look at myself, the more I know I am susceptible to being manipulated in all kinds of relationships, from work to friendships to love. I was custom-built for someone like my ex. My whole life, I avoided conflict, because it always ended up with me losing, often painfully. So I just stopped resisting. In a way, there was sort of a Zen-like quality to the idea of bending so I wouldn't break. Only it didn't lead to a peaceful, detached, enlightened Nirvana. It let to footprints on my back. Once I realized that, it was as if a new lens clicked into place over my vision. I could never see my marriage the same way. I could never see any relationship the same way. Some say my spine grew 3 sizes that day (sorry, I've been reading too much Dr. Seuss with my son).

DB is a sweet, kind man, but he is human, and he has his own agenda. He does not want to manipulate me, but we all want what we want, particularly from those who are closest to us. Boundaries are important. Not to shut anyone out, or in; I think of it as more like a permeable membrane than a wall. I envision a barrier that lets certain things pass through, but protects my structural integrity and separateness.

Frost was right: "Something there is that doesn't love a wall,/That wants it down." ("Mending Wall," the poem is here). But we need to know where others end and we begin, and we need to know the difference.

The View From This Side

So, how does a nice girl become a fallen woman?

Are people who have affairs shallow, selfish sociopaths who are incapable of love, don’t feel guilt, and will fuck anything that moves? Some are. We all know people like that. It’s certainly easier to believe that everyone who strays is like that, especially if your spouse cheated. But even my ex-husband would tell you that I’m not like that.

At the other end of the spectrum, it would be far too easy to blame my ex for my actions. But my ex didn’t beat me. He didn’t cheat on me or call me names or belittle me publicly or privately or control my finances or molest our children. There were serious issues, and while those who know us tend to agree that I was right to leave him, and understand why I did so, he did not compel me to cheat on him. I chose to do that.

From my current perspective, I have learned that (a) almost anyone is capable of doing things they never thought they would ever do, given the right circumstances, and (b) having an affair is incredibly stressful for anyone with a conscience. If you do such a thing, there are some pretty powerful forces at work. No matter how you decide to resolve the situation, it’s important to understand what those forces were so that you can deal with them; otherwise you have wasted a lot of time and effort and soul-crushing guilt over nothing.

Look, I don’t expect hugs or warm fuzzies, nor do I expect pity for or absolution from the consequences my choices set into place. At the same time, I do maintain that I am not a bad person. I loved my ex-husband dearly. I took care of him, I cooked for him, I washed his underwear, I picked up his drycleaning, I listened to him and supported him, I was responsible with our money, I gave birth to his children, I tried to give him a comfortable, inviting home. I traveled with him, I had amazing adventures with him. I was a good wife. And I put up with a lot of crap. Crap that objective observers, including qualified mental health professionals, have deemed inordinate. I always assumed that I was doing this as quid pro quo – when I needed my ex to make sacrifices for me, he would do it. That never happened. It slowly broke my heart until finally it almost broke my sanity.

Why didn’t I try harder, or put my foot down sooner? Why didn’t I insist that we work things out in counseling? Why did I choose to start a new relationship rather than make the old one work? This is the truth. I was in denial over how bad things were. I was so busy trying to convince myself that I was happy, and the things I wasn’t happy about were my fault, and if I could just have a better attitude, there would be no problems. I remember the precise moment, long before DB came into my life, that I realized I didn’t enjoy having sex with my then-husband. I remember thinking that there was no way I could ever tell him, that this was going to be my life of quiet desperation, and that I had made my bed and would have to lie in it (literally). And then I felt horribly guilty and tried to pretend I hadn’t just thought any of that. I didn’t understand that the house was burning down until I fell in love with DB. And then it was too late.

That’s the honest truth. I didn’t manage to get my then-husband into counseling until I had no intention of working on the relationship anymore. There was nothing he could have done or said that would have (a) convinced me he could or would change the behaviors that were slowly killing me, or (b) made me willing to give DB up. So I left the marriage as quickly as courage and resources would allow. It sucked. It was horribly painful. But not even in the worst moments, like when my children were there to see the movers take my things away (my husband was supposed to have taken them somewhere but didn’t), with all the neighbors looking as I stood in my driveway and bawled, even then, I was not willing to stay. It felt then, and feels now, like a matter of survival, like running for my life.

Not everyone would do what I did. Some people might have been able to turn the situation around, to commit to counseling, to cut ties with their lover. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

A mutual friend of mine and DB’s, upon learning what we had done, sent us both a scathing e-mail stating that we had done “bad and shameful things” and recommending that we cut off our relationship while we got our of our bad marriages, and only then would he be able to support us. Neither of us had actually requested his support; he just felt the need to volunteer his input. I haven’t been able to speak to him since. It’s not that I’m angry at him for judging me – I judge myself. It’s not that this wouldn’t be sound advice if it hadn’t been about a year too late, and if either DB or I had had any daily emotional support besides each other while going through the hell of divorce. But where I am is so far from this friend’s perspective that I just don’t have the words to speak to him, and don’t know if I ever will. It’s like trying to shout across the Grand Canyon at someone. You can’t convey any meaning, much less nuanced meaning, across a chasm that immense.

I’m not trying to justify myself. I’m just trying to give the view from this side.