A piece I wrote about my relationship two mos. before disclosure. There’s much more I see now while reading this about me and him and the us we were or seemed to be.
The Conversation We Never Had
“Why do you love me anyway? I’m a mess. A wreck. What’s wrong with you?” I asked over and over again.
You’d never engage me, not in the way I wanted, hostile and feisty, except to say, “Is the prosecution speaking?” You pointed out the way I attacked myself but wouldn’t do word war.
“You are amazing, a warrior, a heroine,” you’d say. “You are doing the most honorable work a person can do – breaking the cycle.” You gushed and raved as though my tear-stained face, have woken from a nightmare, equaled the look of a solider returning home, with a bloodied and torn uniform.
“Here, come here,” you’d say lifting your arm like a bird’s wing so I could rest. “Do you want some tissue or water?”
I’d nod my head “no,” unable to speak in my nightmare sleepy fog.
”It was awful, just awful,” I’d say. “So scary. Scary.”
“I’m sorry, so sorry,” you’d say. “Do you want to talk about it?” and it could have been the content of my sleeping brain or childhood.
I’d shake my head no. “Maybe in the morning. It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream,” I’d say to ground myself.
“You’re safe now,” you’d say stroking my hair.
I bathed each night listening to Bernie Siegel tapes on how to beat cancer. I wanted to know how those battling for life gained courage and perspective. You’d knock on the bathroom door to ask if I wanted tea or water. When I sobbed, “I’m sorry, so sorry, this isn’t how young love is supposed to be” you always said, “You have nothing to apologize for,” or “It’s not your fault.”
You could have rolled your eyes, lost your temper or been disappointed at parties I didn’t want to attend, the way I was clingy and afraid when you’d pack for a business trip and I’d follow you around like a dog, asking when you’d be back, if it was o.k. if I called you and if you could leave me a message on the answering machine.
It was before either one of us knew about co-dependence, before I knew how to dig deep and find safe spots within. When I was tired, you said, “Rest. Nap. You work so hard.” When I asked, “Don’t you think I’m lazy, crazy and maybe have something else wrong with me, like a disease?” you acted as though the questions were ludicrous and brushed them off.
You treated me with patience, kindness and not only endured my crisis but my attacks when I’d say, “What do you have some damsel in distress thing? Can’t you find someone without problems to love you? Are you afraid you can’t find someone better? Do you just not want to be alone even if it means you’re stuck with me?”
“I’m not going to talk to you when you’re doing this,” you’d say, “I’m not going to fight with your pain” and you didn’t. You refused to engage and when I apologized, later, after crying or journal writing, you would accept my apology. When I went on and on about how awful I was, what a bad person I was to such things, how you deserved so much better, you’d say, “Take it easy, you already apologized.”
You focused on our shared love of reading, sharing poetry lines out loud during long car rides, playing each other songs from favorite CD’s, camping out on a blanket on the living room floor to watch the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings and getting take-out and moving the TV. out on the porch and both calling in sick one day to watch a full day of the OJ trial. You would say, “We’re lucky to have found each other. Love is rare.”
You never said, “You’re difficult, negative, a pain in the ass.” You never threatened to leave or said, what I feared, that I was too hard to love. You let me rest in your love, told me over and over I was stronger than anyone you had known, more gutsy and determined and ethical and how it was an honor to love me.
Now, seventeen years later, I have finally been able to nurture you through grief and loss as you lost one and then the other parent. I could hold you as you faced your own past, your brother’s violence outbursts and abuse, and your own grief at turning fifty, fearing age and mortality, and turning the age your brother was when he attempted suicide. I could hold your hand after you talked to your nephews who wept openly in your arms about their father’s depression and desperation. Now, I can say, “You are a wonderful man, worker, poet with passion and heart and humor. Our daughter is so lucky to have you as a father. I am so lucky to have you for a husband.”
When you say, “Sorry to be a load,” when you are melancholy, during the holidays, missing any connection with your family of origin, it is me who can say, “Don’t even say that.” Finally, I can refuse to engage you in your fears and reassure you with love because you taught me how.
—–
After disclosure, he was hurt that I was unable to “be there” for him the way he had “been there” for me. I too questioned my loyalty. I simply was not able to “be there” while so hurt and wounded and betrayed. To know, now, how he did love me in his way, how I loved him in mine and how he was acting out for the entire marriage is so tragic on so many levels. We did our best. Even him. I believe that. Love isn’t always enough. Abuse, neglect, childhood trauma are strong foes and though we went in the ring for many rounds, in the end, the marriage was knocked out.
