Anger

"If hate were people, I'd be China!"

~ Phil, delivering the last line in an argument with his wife, from the movie City Slickers.

Some quotes resonate with you because they describe how you feel, so well, with such brevity. Others seem to grab me because they are comically absurd. The above one falls into the second category, but it still has some resonance when this mild-mannered character snaps.

The simplified, five step path through grief is often quoted. They are:

• Denial and Isolation 
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance 

I certainly haven't followed them in any order, and a few people in my life have encouraged me to get angry with J. Our marriage counselor wanted me in that stage after only a couple of weeks of counseling. As I have mentioned, it is not really in my nature, and I wasn't convinced that anger was a necessary step in my recovery. But now I feel myself moving into that stage.

I am moving beyond just feeling ripped off and cheated, and some anger is starting to creep into my voice when I talk about the divorce. I am angry that she held back resentments and complaints for two years before bringing a few of them to light. I am frustrated that she told only part of the story, enough to feel like she was being open, but not enough to really explain anything.

I have come to the point where I still carry my share of blame and regret for the state of our marriage. But I am not willing to take the blame for the divorce anymore. I put my heart and mental health on the line to try and work things out with J. Nothing that came up seemed insurmountable. Quite frankly, nothing that came up seemed all that difficult to make right. But she seemed to think it was too late to work on our relationship or save our marriage. I did not give up, even after it was pretty clear that she had.

It is sometimes said that it is a thin line between love and hate. The truth behind the phrase is that the passion that once supported love, can now fuel the anger, leading to hate. But I am not even close to hating her, and I don't ever intend to cross that line. In all her hidden feelings, avoidance of conflict, and fumbling prolonging of the end, I believe part of it was out of love for me.

I don't feel much better having moved into the anger stage, but it does feel different. I've read anger can be a first step in gaining emotional distance from your former spouse. It is certainly just a piece of the puzzle and not the solution, but I am starting to believe that (appropriate) anger may be constructive. I suppose that in becoming angry about what has happened, rather than just being depressed or disheartened, you find a bit of strength and self-worth.

The feelings of anger are not particularly hot, and they do not linger. Still, it is a phase I don't want to spend much time in.

Quote of the day

"One last note, to anyone making changes: you will fail. I don’t say that to discourage you, but to release  you from the fear of failure … because if you already  know it will happen, then there’s no pressure to avoid it. Failure is an inevitable part of change, and in fact it should be celebrated — without failure, we’d learn  nothing. Fail, fail often, and learn. Then you’ll be better equipped for the next attempt. Find joy in every attempt, in every victory, in every failure, and the  change will be a reward in itself."  

Courtesy of Zen Habits

‘Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ ~Samuel Beckett

The hearing

So, through some awkward pauses and miscommunications, I was going to attend the divorce hearing myself. To make it even more odd, it would be just me and J's lawyer.

I had only met the lawyer once before, when we went over and signed the original paperwork. Even though J and I were amicable, and I was largely just agreeing to what she had proposed, the lawyer felt it necessary to do some posturing to prove her worth. She wasn't all that bad, but it was crap I wasn't willing to listen to. We've already agreed on everything - no need to get in a pissing match to show who's side you're on.

I was going to be back in Seattle for a little over a week, and I decided to schedule the hearing as early in the week as possible. I didn't need the cloud hanging over my head. We set it up for Monday the 21st, and the lawyer and I exchanged a few e-mails about what I should expect. It all sounded basically routine. Too routine really to end a marriage. I guess we just needed the state's blessing that we had f'd things up beyond repair.

The process of the hearing was that the lawyer would ask me a series of questions that I would need to respond to in front of the judge. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the grounds listed in the divorce filing was that, "This marriage is irretrievably broken". I still (and probably always will) have a problem with this phrase. I don't believe it is accurate, but it apparently is the standard phrasing for the state of Washington. So one of the questions was going to be "Do you believe the marriage is irretrievably broken?"

It was going to be difficult for me to say "yes" and feel like I was being honest. I initially e-mailed the lawyer to ask if there was any way we could avoid, or rephrase the question. I wasn't contesting the divorce, but I wondered what the ramifications of me saying "no" would be. I wrote her again the next day (before she had responded) to say that I wasn't trying to make things more difficult, and that I would do what was necessary to make the divorce final. The wording probably only mattered to me at this point. We agreed to meet early on the 21st to go over things.

The hearing was set for 1:30pm, and we were going to meet 15 minutes early. There was a huge line at the metal detectors downstairs, probably jammed up with people coming back from lunch as well as folks going to court. I made it upstairs about on time, and looked around for "Gina". Of course I had only met her once before, and my focus was hardly on her that day, so I looked at everyone gathered in the hallway hoping for a spark of recognition.

She wasn't there as far as I could tell, but the place was packed. And the weird thing was the majority of the people waiting were very happy. They were chatting and taking pictures, and there were small children and balloons floating around the hallway. It took a little time to realize that there were a couple of adoptions taking place, and there was a large contingent of friends gathered. It was ironically like a wedding reception. There were a few of us who were subdued, but happiness was the predominant emotion. It just felt weird.

The doors opened to the ex parte courtroom at 1:30pm, and there was still no sign of the lawyer. We all shuffled in to the pew-like benches, and someone in charge was handing out paperwork for those not represented by council. I walked up thinking I might have to do this on my own, but she sent me back and told me to wait for J's lawyer. After ten minutes, I sent a text to J asking for the lawyer's cell number. She responded relatively quickly, and I stepped out to call the lawyer. As I did, Gina came walking down the hall.

We sat down in the hall to go over the notarized paperwork I had brought, and to discuss the proceedings. It turned out we were missing the actual divorce decree, and the lawyer did not have a copy herself. I had brought up everything that was sent to me to sign, so I don't know if J or the lawyer forgot to include the decree. (I still haven't bothered to check who's oversight it was). The lawyer dashed upstairs to get a blank copy, and she ended up writing the divorce decree there in the hall. One more bumbling step down this awkwardly handled process.

Once it was filled out, we started to go over the questions she would ask. We were interrupted when the clerk came out to tell Gina she needed a special stamp on the decree. One more trip upstairs. In the meantime, texts were going back and forth between J and I. It was an even more odd moment than I had imagined. Everything continued to stretch out and I was sending play by play updates to my soon to be ex-wife. How did this all happen...

We finally went in around 2:00. There were probably ten other people there to see the commissioner (not a judge I guess) for various reasons. For the first ten minutes, the commissioner sat at the front of the room, working on his computer in silence. Though it wasn't, it felt like some weird power play to make us all sit there waiting for him. There was a giant digital clock on his desk, the glowing red numbers counting off the time as we sat fidgeting. Among the many thoughts flying through my mind was "I didn't pay for long enough parking. I am going to get a ticket to cap off this day."

He finally called up the first case, and it appeared he had been researching it during his ten minutes of silence. It was a custody case, and the man there to propose a visitation plan had not been very truthful. The next few cases went by quickly, several of them restraining orders. The happy adoption families were in a different room, and all the cases here seemed to be the depressing stuff.

When my number was called, Gina and I went up to the bench. She asked the preliminary questions about when we were married, were there kids, etc. My responses were quiet "yes" an "no" where appropriate as I stared at a small point on the commissioners desk. When it came time for the dreaded question, Gina showed her kinder side and did some rewording. The question she ended up asking me was "J has stated that the marriage is irretrievably broken, and as Washington is a no-fault state, do accept her statement?", or something close to that. A small bit of humanity from apposing council.

There were a couple more questions and it was time for the commissioner to speak. I looked up as he said, "I am convinced that the marriage is irretrievably broken, and I am granting this divorce." As Gina had promised, it all took about a minute to be over, but it was a long road to get there. It was further drawn out when we had to go upstairs for copies of the various documents, but by 2:45 it was all over.

Before the hearing started, while I was waiting for Gina to come back downstairs with the decree, I saw other couples who were making their divorce final. One couple was still hashing out details in the hall while a friend tried to play referee. Another couple came out who had already seen the commissioner. I had noticed them individually in the hall when I first got there, and they had not been standing anywhere near each other. They hugged for a long time in the hall when it was all over, and though I could not hear anything, my feeling was that this divorce was also not the guy's idea.

I'm sure it was for the best that J and I were not there together that day. Initially it seemed like we both should be there, but I'm sure it would have been that much more difficult to have her sitting next to me. I barely held it together as it is.

Going in, I felt like I should say something once it was all over, but I had no idea what to say. What do you say after all this time, especially when you did not want it to end. As we had been already been sending brief, emotionless text updates on missing lawyers and paperwork, I simply sent a final text that said, "It is official".

As I mentioned elsewhere, rather than heading to the nearest bar and drowning my sorrows, I went for a run once the hearing was over. I'd like to say I left all my troubles and feelings there by the roadside, to be washed away by the next high tide, but of course that isn't true. I still carry a lot with me each day, but I do feel a bit of closure now that the divorce is final. For my part, I will still pick things apart, trying to figure out what all went wrong. But the focus will be more toward what I will do better in the future, rather than lamenting all our mistakes.

Well, mostly.

Why I went to the hearing

As painful as the decision to divorce was to me, J and I had worked together amicably to work out the details. J had contacted a lawyer at some point to see what the ramifications would be. When she told me she wanted a divorce, she suggested that we use this woman (or another) as a mediator. Our understanding was that a mediator would work as a neutral third party that would be there simply to make sure everything was done legally, dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's. 

It turned out that since J went to see her previously seeking advice, that this lawyer (I'll call her Gina) could no longer act as a neutral party. J decided to retain her as her lawyer, but tried to keep her as neutral as possible. Gina drafted all the necessary paperwork based on what J and I discussed. I chose not to retain a lawyer, mostly because I trusted J, but also because I didn't want to spend money on a divorce I had no interest in taking place. I did have someone "in the know" look over the paperwork at some point to make sure I didn't miss some hidden phrase. 

All the financial details had been worked out long ago, sometime back in October of 2009. One of the big pieces of the puzzle was the sale of our home, but we had agreed how things would be divided up before it even hit the market. We were fortunate to have it sell amazingly quickly, and much of the "what if" details in the paperwork were resolved before they were ever filed. 

Gina redrafted the agreement to update it now that the house had been sold. And then it seemed nothing happened for 2 - 3 months. In February, I called to see what was going on, and the answer was apparently "nothing". After my call, things moved forward again and the papers were filed February 10th. There was a 90 day waiting period before the divorce could be made final. 

Honestly, I expected to hear something about a scheduled court date before then, but nothing was said even two weeks after the 90 days was up. I was planning a trip to Seattle later in June, so I called J and mentioned that we could schedule the court date then. 

Part of the reason I offered to attend the hearing was my reflex to be practical, and since I already had a trip planned... But I think my original intention was for both of us to be there. For some reason it seemed important for us both to be there when the marriage ended, just like we were together when it started. I also wanted to be there for a bit of closure. I wasn't really there when the decision to divorce happened, and I didn't want to be absent once again when it became final. 

Of course the discussion about the divorce hearing was loaded with emotion, and when I spoke with J on the phone, I did not clearly explain my reasons for wanting to attend. J did not have a burning need to attend, and I did not force the issue. By the end of the conversation, I ended up agreeing to go on my own.

I almost immediately regretted my offer to go to the hearing on my own. Not that anything should be expected to be "fair" in all this, but it didn't seem fair that she didn't need to be there to "face the music", as it were. But at that point, I had no idea what she was feeling, so I may have been attaching feelings that weren't there.  

I still had no interest in the divorce, but the sense of limbo while waiting for it to become final was almost as bad. The process seemed to have dragged on for years and it was as if a Band Aid was being removed hair by hair. So another big reason I was the one to get things moving forward again was to rip off the Band Aid and end the period of limbo. I suppose it felt good on some level to be taking some initiative, but it still seemed odd that I should be the one to push things forward. 

J and I ended up exchanging some e-mails a couple of days before the hearing. I told her all that I have written here. 

* That the reason I volunteered to go to the hearing was not because I had come to see things as she did.

* That I still didn't think divorce was the answer, but that waiting for the ax to fall was tortuous and unhealthy.

* That I didn't understand what all the delays had been about, when she never seemed to question her decision. 

Again, I will paraphrase...She let me know that she was surprised and confused about my offer to attend the hearing. It was always her intention to be the one to finish the process, but that she did not press the issue after my offer. She had not been looking forward to this day, and that this is what was behind much of the delay. She does not expect me to see things as she does, but she hopes I will find peace with it someday. 

My belief is that although she didn't seem to be questioning her decision, that she kicked each step and confrontation down the road both to avoid hurting me, and because she did not want to face them herself. Of course it didn't avoid any hurt, and I doubt the delay did her much good either. I sort of understand her motivations - avoiding pain is a natural instinct. But I still don't understand it. But without spending a day inside her head, I won't ever understand why she did the things they way she did. 

We certainly did a poor job of communicating while we were married, and I wrote to her in part to change that pattern. I am glad we cleared the air a little bit before the hearing took place. The e-mails did give me a slight bit of insight into what she was feeling, and I told her they might make the hearing the tiniest fraction bit easier. I'll discuss the hearing in my next post. 

9/9/01 - 6/21/10

A love neglected,
disappears,
stealing away while you sleep.
Left with a thousand
if only's and
what if's,
such a tragic waste
of love's chance.
Don't wait until
tomorrow.
Wake up!
Say it today.


J and I exchanged some e-mails over the weekend. They were painful, but also loving. The hole in my heart will heal over, but never entirely close.

I awoke early today, sometime around 5:30am. The sun was already up, and I couldn't turn off all the thoughts crowding my brain. One more odd coincidence that my divorce became final on the first day of summer, the longest day of the year.

Speaking the right language

The first book I read once counseling began was The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate by Gary Chapman. Any book that tries to break down a subject as large as love into five neat boxes is bound to be an oversimplification, but I found the book to be enlightening.

I will start with a couple of quotes I highlighted from the book:

"Love is not our only emotional need. Psychologists have observed that among our basic  needs are the need for security, self-worth, and significance. Love, however, interfaces with all of those."

-----

"Meeting my wife’s need for love is a choice I make each day. If I know her primary love  language and choose to speak it, her deepest emotional need will be met and she will feel  secure in my love. If she does the same for me, my emotional needs are met and both of us live with a full tank. In a state of emotional contentment, both of us will give our creative energies to many wholesome projects outside the marriage while we continue to keep our marriage exciting and growing."

He uses this image of each of us having a "love tank" that we need to try to keep filled if we are to lead full, enriched lives. While it is important for you to find many things in your life that "fill your tank", it is also an important part of marriage to do what you can to keep your partner's tank topped off.

His basic premise is that we both give and receive love in five basic catagories. They are:

• Words of Affirmation
• Quality Time
• Receiving Gifts
• Acts of service
• Physical Touch

The author's point is that though we express and receive love in many ways, we tend to gravitate toward one or two of these methods in our daily interactions. One of the main difficulties couples experience is when you are not speaking the same language (no surprise there). You may work many hours in order to buy gifts, when all your wife wants is quality time. You may think that flowery words are the language of love, when all your wife wants is for you to take out the garbage. You think you are showing your love in an obvious way, but it may go by unnoticed by your partner because that is not how they most easily feel love.

It was an interesting exercise to try and deduce not only what J's preferred language was, but my own as well. The book points out that it is typical for you to show love in the same way you wish to receive it. This makes sense, but I don't seem to fit into that neat box. Without necessarily realizing it, I seem to express love through acts of service quite a bit. This is especially true with my friends. I take pleasure in doing things for other people, and it is probably an expression of my love. But on the flip side, I don't wish that people would do things for me.

The more I tried to pigeon-hole myself into one of the catagories, the harder it became. I of course appreciate kind words, but they often make me uncomfortable at the same time. Part of that I am sure is the heavy-handed self criticism I have handed out in the past. "Don't tell me I'm great. I know better." I have been working to improve this, and I think I have made progress. I suppose if I had to pick, I guess I fall into the quality time and physical touch camp.

But the more important exercise (certainly as it related to our marriage counseling) was to see if I had been speaking J's language. The author mentions that your spouse is likely giving you lots of clues in the things he/she expresses, says, comments on, or complains about. I won't pass along my guesses as to what her language might be, but it is safe to say that I wasn't speaking it very clearly.

But poor choices in the past don’t mean that we must make them in the future. The author even gives you a little script to use if you need a launching point:

“You know, I have been reading a book on how to express love, and I realize that I have not been expressing my love to you in the best way through the years. I have tried to show you my love by _______, but I’m  now realizing that that probably has not communicated love to you, that your love language is probably something different. I am  beginning to think that your love language is probably _______. You know, I really do love you, and I hope that in the future I can express it to  you in better ways.”

What really hit home was that I wasn't doing enough to keep her "love tank" full, in any language. In my last relationship, I spent a lot of time trying to make my partner happy, at the expense of my well being. It not only left me feeling weak and ineffective, but it was ultimately futile. I came to realize that true happiness can only come from within, and I think I went to far in the other direction with J.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think I was a cold-hearted jerk or anything. I think I was actually quite encouraging, but after reading this book I realized I was not doing enough to help J find happiness. With the failures of my past relationship, and in coming to believe that happiness comes from within, I stepped back more in my relationship with J. I believed that she knew how much I loved her, and wanted her to be happy, but now I know I wasn't communicating it correctly, or often enough.

Despite your best efforts, you can not "make" another person happy, but by showing them love and keeping their tank topped off, it gives them the strength to find true happiness on their own. You are not propping them up, but standing behind them always with your love and support. Though I sought to encourage her when ever I could, I wasn't helping her find the strength by making her feel loved.

After finishing the book, I went to J and told her all this. That I loved her deeply and wanted her to be happy. That my expressions of love were not frequent enough, or communicated very clearly in the past. That I had not done enough to make her feel cherished, significant and special. I wished to change all of that and pledged to do so.

Unfortunately, it was "too much, too late" as the phrase was coined by someone close to me. But if isn't too late for you, and it probably isn't, then I think this book is worth the read.

"Love doesn’t erase the past, but it makes the future different. When we choose active expressions of love in the primary love language of our spouse, we create an emotional climate where we can deal with our past conflicts and  failures."

There is no script

I think its probably just people when they cheat on other people, tell themselves that they're doing it because they have to, because there is fate involved, and whatever happened, you're better off and probably the person that you broke up with is better off, and this is the way it was meant to be. This is fate...The ex-partner is just collateral damage. 

~ from This American Life's "Infidelity" episode.

I believe in fate and destination, but so much of that lies in our own hands.

~ from "Give to Live" by Sammy Hagar

In the movies, there would be dramatic music, or the sound of a needle being dragged across a record. The camera would zoom in on the moment when she decided she did not want to remain married to me, that she no longer loved me.

I spent months trying to find out what that moment, or series of thoughts were that made it clear in her mind that divorce was the right decision. Through months of counseling sessions, I imagined that even if we didn't save the marriage, at least I would come to understand (if not believe) where she was coming from. That like the play Betrayal, we would walk back in time to that point where she turned away from me and our marriage. That by going through our history together, the pieces would start to fall into place. They did not.

J believed in fate, that things happen for a reason. I did not, and I think that bothered her on some level. When she said we were destined to find each other, to fall in love, to be together - I believed we were just very, very lucky. As I have stated elsewhere, I don't think there is a grand plan that guides or controls the thousand events and decisions in our lives. I don't think things "happen for a reason". Things happen, and people try to find reason.

I can't imagine that even those that believe in the "things happen for a reason" way of thinking, ascribe a grand plan to every bit of minutiae in their daily lives. You almost necessarily have to draw the line somewhere or you might go mad. I don't think anyone subscribes to the belief that every traffic signal has meaning. But if you get in an accident, or narrowly avoid one, maybe you will subscribe significance to the timing of the red light. But then it just seems a matter of convenience picking and choosing what things are significant. 20/20 hindsight and rewriting history.

J and I met when I was working at The Keg Restaurant. What were the fated things that happened to bring J and I together? My losing my job after college? That one restaurant called a couple days earlier than another? That she dated a brother of a friend of mine who worked at the restaurant? That she chose that camping trip, and I was still awake and helped her with her tent when she arrived? Do we go so far back as to say that her Mom's car accident several years earlier was part of the plan, since J may not have moved back to Washington state otherwise? Is it all those things?

I am not here to berate those that do think things happen for a reason, or to try to change your opinion. I think our personalities, talents and upbringing may predispose us to certain behaviors and influence our life decisions. There may be something nudging us along this river of life, after all. That when we stray away from our character, there are events or decisions that may guide us back. Who knows? But when people say the that "everything happens for a reason", I reflexively find it to be a lazy attempt to comfort another, or justify their own actions. It is one thing to try to find meaning in the seemingly random, but to chalk up something within your control as destiny - well it doesn't feel all that great to be on the other side of fate.

I am paraphrasing, because my point is not to publish our private communication, but J said in a letter something to the effect that she feels there is a great plan for us in the future, and that this was all just a necessary step. What she said was probably supposed to both comfort me, as well as justify her decision to divorce, but I found it insulting. It makes me feel that our marriage, and the decade we were together, was just a tough lesson we had to learn to find our true happiness. That there was nothing either of us could have done to avoid this.

And it seems a little too convenient - that what she called destiny has changed from us being together forever, to now us being destined for something/someone else. Some may argue that we are just not privy to the plan, and that every little thing, positive or negative, is part of the process. If that is the case, then saying x,y,z is our destiny also seems presumptuous, since we really have no clue what part this event/love/wrong turn will play in the grand scheme of things. Who are we to read tea leaves and interpret destiny on the fly?

What I do believe is, that though things don't happen for a reason, if you are wise you can find reason even in the blows to the gut life hands out. Lemonade from lemons, new insight from pain and failure, the chance of a new path when a door slams shut, etc. People who have lost a loved one have been inspired to do great things in their name. And so many have found new passion for life after (or while) battling an illness. But I can't imagine someone walking up and saying, "well, your son died for a reason" or "good thing you got cancer."

In my own life, I have found new insight into myself that I probably wouldn't have gleaned without help from counseling. But I don't think our marriage had to end to make this understanding possible. Because of the divorce, and the sale of our house, I have been in a position to help out some friends. I probably wouldn't have had this ability otherwise. But to think "well, I guess I got divorced for a reason" seems ludicrous. We are all just doing what we can, with what we have, and what has brought us here.

Right now, I am feeling ripped off, betrayed, and sure, a little bitter (though probably not as much as it sounds on paper). I don't believe that J cheated, but it still feels like she was unfaithful in a way. That she did not have enough faith in me or our marriage to speak openly and honestly, and that she left mentally long before she left physically. There are still times when I wonder how we could have had such different views of our relationship, and what being married meant.

My friend mentioned that he has seen divorced men become embittered against women and marriage, but this is not how I feel. I have faith in love, belief in marriage, even if I never find those things again.

The 90 day waiting period is up, and the divorce will likely be final a week from today. I have no idea what the future holds. I don't expect any answers to my lingering questions anymore, at least not from J. There won't be a movie-like close up to zoom in on those key turning points, or a tidy happy ending by the time the movie ends. The script won't be released sometime in the future so I can pour over the hidden plot twists that I missed the first time through, or look ahead at the chapters that haven't happened yet. And I don't think there is someone out there that I have now been released to find true happiness with.

But it could happen, and I have hope that it will. But I don't think it is destined. I think it will take love, effort, and more than a little luck. In the meantime, I will continue to try to create my own meaning with everything this life has brought.

Quote of the day

There's a part of me in the chaos that's quiet
And there's a part of you that wants me to riot.

~ "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" by U2

Seeing the other side

A woman sent me an e-mail in response to my last post. It was supportive, but she wanted to give me a different perspective on the lack of open conflict in my marriage. She is also married to a man that does not fight or seem to get angry, and she finds it frustrating at times. I almost put the line "maybe the fact that I don't get angry pisses off my wife" in my last post, but it seemed a little flip. But I don't doubt that it is true.

Though we never really fought, J did come to me occasionally (maybe every year or so) in tears because she was upset about something in our relationship.While she cried, I shouldered the perceived blame and turned inward, letting the shame wash over me. I was torn up inside both by her tears and my failings, but on the outside there were no tears. This is something the e-mailer mentioned frustrates her. When her husband does not show emotion, she interprets it as lack of caring about the subject.

Of course in my case at least, nothing could be farther from the truth. Just because I seemed calm on the surface does not mean I wasn't emotionally connected to the conversation. Part of it is also a male, or maybe human, reflex to be strong while someone else is breaking down. It is a pattern of behavior to be strong in the moment to support the ones you love, only to break down later when the pressure subsides. And in truth, I doubt I was all that good at hiding the shame I was feeling in the moment.

It is no secret shame has distanced me from not only my wife but from my friends as well. I would beat myself up over failures great and small, eventually walling parts of myself off from the view of others. Overcoming this was one of the first things that had to happen to have any hope for personal growth, or the possibility of saving our relationship. I am still my own worst critic, and occasionally slip into the bad habit of berating myself, but I think I have done a better job at keeping the walls down and showing my emotions.

Actually, that is an understatement. I cry like I never had before. In the past, the only thing that would set the tears to falling was emotional triumphs in movies and finish lines. I wouldn't break down and cry for things in my own life, at least until I experienced the death of a friend. My emotions were kept safely behind a wall, but once I started removing the bricks, the stored up torrent was hard to control. I still have moments where the tears well up when I think back on everything, but there is less water pressure of stored emotion.

An interesting observation from my personal therapist early on in our time together - often couples in marriage counseling will switch places. Usually one spouse is more concerned and emotional about the marital problems, and is the one to push for counseling. Once the couple begins counseling, it is not uncommon to have the one who resisted counseling to embrace it, while the one who pushed for it retreats. This is what happened to us. J was the one who suggested/demanded that we go into counseling, but once on the couch, she began distancing herself from both the process and me.

And we also traded places on the amount of emotion we would show. I was now the person to wear his heart on his sleeve, and she seemed to take on the stoic role. I got a taste of what she was going through when she came to me in tears before. And it was not pleasant. On the outside, she now seemed to be completely distant from me and the moment. I know from my own experience that this may not have been true, but it is hard to fight that perception.

I have some indication that she went through her pain long before I did, but I have no honest idea of what she was feeling in the moments we were talking things through in and out of counseling.  I did ask her, but I never got a straight/satisfactory answer. But it was important to keep asking. I now know that silence can easily be misinterpreted, and lack of emotion can be construed as not caring. And when you fill in the gaps for other people's thoughts, instead of asking them straight out, your guess can be far from the truth. And moving forward with bad information can lead to some pretty disastrous results.

We never fought

"That's why God created marriage - so that people don't have to fight with strangers."

~Garrison Keillor from Prairie Home Companion

We never fought - never even argued really. The only time I remember raising my voice to J was when we were dating. It was very brief, and I was just venting my frustration for the fact that she had made us late for the fourth day in a row. Pet peeve of mine.

As I've mentioned previously, neither of us have a combative personality. I have been around several couples that argue regularly. It is not just difference of opinion being expressed, but fighting with some venom. And fighting unfairly - bringing up unrelated grievances, exaggerating wildly, and attacking personally. I can't imagine having a relationship like that. I'm glad that J and I did not act that way.

When J called one of our friends to tell her that we were getting a divorce, the friend didn't pick up the phone the first time because she was in the middle of an argument with her husband. When they connected a day later and the friend explained why she didn't pick up, I guess J said "at least you were arguing!" I guess she felt like she/we weren't able to do that.

It's not like we didn't talk about things and have differences of opinion, it just never got heated. But of course I am finding out that she wasn't being entirely open about her feelings. I kind of knew that she held on to resentments, like when she'd bring up a slight from a friend or co-worker that had happened (to me) a long time ago. I just didn't know she was holding them against me. I guess I assumed that if something was really bothering her, that she felt close enough to me to tell me about it. Or at the very least it would be blurted out in a moment of frustration.

An incident that came up in counseling - J and I were discussing getting a flat-screen tv for our anniversary. It was her suggestion and she asked what I thought. My opinion was that we already had two working tv's, so it wasn't something I wanted to spend money on. I also mentioned something about the only place to mount it was over the fireplace, and that it didn't really help the already awkward layout of the room. It turns out she was, in her words, so spitting mad that she thought she might say something she'd regret, so she said nothing. So I guess we were having arguments, but I just wasn't invited to them. Or too clueless to notice.

Later on, I asked J why she said "at least you were arguing" to our friend. I haven't argued with women I've dated in the past either, so I asked J if it was something that I was putting out that made her feel like she couldn't voice her opinions/frustrations/resentments. The only thing she said was that I was almost always right and that she found that very frustrating.

What do I do with that? No one likes to be wrong, and I am no different/better. Stupid mistakes bother me much more than getting facts or answers wrong. And I don't feel a compulsion to tell the world when I get something right, and I never try to make anyone feel bad when they're wrong. And anyway, in matters of opinion no one is really wrong - its just an opinion.

I think I am a rather rational person and my thought processes tend to run along that line. I don't really have arguments with anyone, least of all my significant other.  I am interested in how other people think and what their opinions are. When I talk about things, I'm more interested in learning than proving a point. I prefer to discuss rather than debate, and I don't feel that it is important that people think that I am 'right'. I don't think I hang on to resentments either. If something bothers me enough, I will say something, but I generally just let the little things slide. I wrote something about this last year. I'm no Zen master, and things still get to me, but the failings I carry around with me are mostly my own. 

I asked J what she thought I would say if after listening to my opinion on the flat screen tv she said, "this is important to me and I really think we should get it." I can say with lots of confidence that I would have agreed. She was bringing in a majority of the money to our household at the time anyway, and really, who wouldn't want to be talked into a fancy tv?

But clearly there was something between us that prevented open communication. So I need to look at myself and how I behave when I discuss things. It is of course possible that I am deluding myself in thinking I am so fair and balanced. Another friend said that in discussions and matters of opinion with his wife, he defers to the person who has the stronger feelings about the subject. That sounds like a pretty good place to start.

One more story. A man goes to a pastor about difficulties in his marriage. The pastor asks the man, "how long have you been lying to your wife?" The man gets indignant, proclaiming that he has always been honest and would not lie to his wife. The pastor just sits back, letting the man play out the rope. When the man finishes his rant, the pastor says, "when your wife asks what is bothering you and you say 'nothing', you are lying to her". Oh.

Arguing and fighting are certainly not the goal, but of course communication is so critical to any relationship. So be honest and open, learn from each other, stand up for what is important to you, trust in their understanding, don't let resentments grow, and if you must fight, fight fair. Give yourselves, each other and your marriage a chance.