Last weekend, my daughters and I got our Christmas tree. Pulling out the decorations had a similar effect as the one I described in my post about my country house, where the familiar backdrop forces you to acknowledge the things that have changed in the intervening months.
Two Christmases ago (my, but it still seems like yesterday sometimes), R & I knew our separation was inevitable, but he was still living with us and the kids had no idea that our cozy foursome was on un-cozy ground. Not surprisingly, it was hard for me to enjoy Christmas that year. Everything we did–getting the tree, decorating the tree, hanging up our four stockings–was laden with the awareness of it being the last time we’ll ever do this. The last time we will all four decorate the same tree and wake up on Xmas morning together. The last time for this, for that. I happen to be especially bad at last times. When we took down the tree and packed up the ornaments into their usual boxes, I wondered which ones had spent the holiday in my house for the last time.
Last Christmas was difficult for the opposite reason: It was full of firsts. The first time I bungee-corded the tree on top of the car (may she RIP), the first time only three stockings hung on our mantel, the first time the girls woke up on Xmas morning and came into a bed that was mine alone. R joined us for breakfast, which felt absurdly normal and also miserably not so. I felt incredible pressure to hold myself together, to exude a see-everything-is-OK! attitude for the girls. The minute they left with R to visit his family, I sobbed for an hour (maybe two). Then, for the first time ever, I spent Xmas day alone, reading a new book–sad, but also, secretly, guiltily enjoying the solitude just a little bit.
And here we are one whole year later already. The girls and I decided we didn’t really need to drive to get a Christmas tree, so we got one around the corner and brought it home in the shopping cart. When we discovered that the trunk was too wide for our tree stand, I cursed, but at least I didn’t feel helpless or cry. I went into Mom-saves-the-day mode, grabbed the bread knife and shaved the trunk ’til it fit.
I can’t say that everything has come up roses (one look at my checking-account balance will quickly convince you of that), but a few aspects of my life are indeed much rosier than they’ve been for a while. For one thing, the gap on our mantel where the fourth stocking used to hang is not nearly as glaring.
On Xmas day, R will again join us for breakfast and I imagine it won’t feel as awkward as it did last year or as poignant as it did the year before that. To quote an old friend, it will feel, as so much now does, like the new normal.
And I won’t be spending the rest of the day alone this year either. What a merry thought.
Once again, the blogosphere threw me a bone. Just when I was feeling low on inspiration, Sunday’s New York Times Magazine landed with a thump at my front door and begged for my attention. So, thank you, Elizabeth Weil, for writing Married (Happily) With Issues (and, btw, feel free to introduce me to your editor because I’ve always wanted to write for the Magazine; actually, I got close once, but then…oh, never mind.)
The article chronicles Weil’s foray into marital therapy with her husband–only they engage in it before they’re on the verge of divorce. According to Weil, by the time most couples enter therapy, they have been unhappy for six years, making the endeavor futile. So kudos to her for trying to nip that shit in the bud (and sorry for cursing, but it felt necessary). Seriously, I’d estimate that 90 percent of couples I know who have gone to marriage therapy have ultimately ended up in Splitsville anyway.
Weil’s marriage follows the standard script: Boy and girl fall in love during their clueless, carefree 20s, get married, skip around and play house for a while until the game turns serious. Then they have babies and lose sleep and spend the next few years singing the Alphabet Song and groggily emptying the Diaper Genie until–surprise–one day they emerge from the fog and notice that the romance has mysteriously departed from their relationship.
Which is not to say that the kids are to blame, because of course we all love our kids and they add immeasurably to our lives and we can’t imagine a world without them (there’s also that pesky biological drive to perpetuate the species).
Ultimately, Weil concludes that maybe the “good-enough” marriage is, well, good enough. She asks what, exactly, a better marriage would look like: “More happiness? Intimacy? Stability? Laughter? Fewer fights? A smoother partnership? More intriguing conversation? More excellent sex? Our goal and how to reach it were strangely unclear.”
Now I’ll confess that my goal in writing this blog post and how to reach it are also strangely unclear. I’ve been mulling this what-is-a-happy-marriage stuff over and have not come up with satisfactory answers. I do, however, have a few new questions inspired by Weil’s piece:
OK–your turn. What are your questions and/or answers on this subject? My inquiring mind must know.
It’s not always easy to come up with ideas for blog posts, so when a holiday like Thanksgiving rolls around, it’s like a freebie from the blogosphere, a no-brainer. You simply write a post about being thankful, even if everyone else is doing the same thing, and even if the holiday was four days ago.
So, while this blog has chronicled the assorted forms of emotional and financial devastation for which I am decidedly not thankful, I am also genuinely grateful for many things in my life.
Here we go:
Oh, and one more thing: I’m very thankful that I got over my blog-aversion, read WordPress for Dummies, and created this blog, which I enjoy working on more than almost anything else I do all week. Mostly, I am thankful to you for reading it.
Being Mrs. Don Draper could turn anyone into a Mad Woman.
I’ve been toying with writing a Mad Men-inspired post for weeks, and now that the season finale has occurred (leaving so many of us questioning if life is worth living until the show resumes next summer), it’s time to get down to it. The show is so chock-full of marital woes that it would be irresponsible for me not to weigh in.
(Oh–here’s the part where I warn you that I will be revealing plot details–aka, “spoilers.” If that matters to you, stop reading, go back to whatever it was you were doing, and come back when you’re caught up.)
Cripes, could there be a more miserable portrayal of matrimony than the unions depicted on Mad Men? I mean, the writers won’t even pretend that there was such a thing as a happy, fulfilling marriage in the early 1960s. It’s just one smoky, alcohol-soaked, sexist nightmare after the next. Let’s have a look:
Yesterday the girls and I visited my good pal K. Her two boys and my two girls are the same ages and have known each other since infancy.
K unearthed a box full of home movies from when our kids were little. It was a rainy day and we thought it might be fun to show our increasingly too-cool, eye-rolling teenagers movies of themselves at age 2 taking a bath together (it’s so satisfying to really mortify a 13-year-old).
So we’re watching these tiny, completely un-self-conscious two-year-olds toddling around in diapers and droopy overalls. So utterly clueless are they of the metamorphosis they will undergo in just one short decade. They have no idea how often they will need to stare at themselves in the mirror, or how much they will care about how their hair looks. They have no idea that allowing their parents to choose their clothes will become the most horrifying thought on earth, or that one of them will insist on wearing something called Uggs on her feet.
I wondered if our 13-year-olds–she with her pout and perpetual eyeliner, he, wearing a knit cap even though he’s inside–are really the same people as those tykes. I mean, they have the same genes as those cute, goofy toddlers, but are they the same people? Know what I mean? (Do I sound like I’ve been smoking pot? I swear I have not.)
But what blew my mind more than the toddler-to-teen transformation were the the baby girl’s parents, who wandered randomly in and out of the frame. Talk about clueless. Who are those people–that curly-blond-haired woman with the impossibly thin and graceful arms that she won’t appreciate until she sees this video 11 years later? And that lantern-jawed man in the green shirt with whom she exchanges a kiss, a touch, a hug, some kind of affectionate gesture every time the camera catches them? Who are they, that young man and woman who seem to genuinely love each other?
Yup, we all know who they are. Still, isn’t it freaky that these two have the identical genetic make-up as a pair who now never touch, avoid looking each other in the eye, and pay an exorbitant hourly fee to a woman who will legally pronounce their togetherness a thing of the past? If you had told that couple back then that they’d be divorcing in 11 years, they’d never have believed you. Nev. Er. No way.
What am I getting at here? I guess it’s that while it’s always astonishing to watch children grow and change, we expect and accept it. That a decade can turn a happy couple into a divorcing couple, though, is mysterious and sad, even though, that, too, happens all the time.
R and I have been seeing a mediator. Mediation is divorce lite for conflict-averse couples who don’t want to drag each other to court or traumatize their kids with custody battles. It’s for the amicable divorcing, oxymoronic as that sounds.
R and I are the poster pair for mediation. We get along, have the same basic values, try to put the children first, and donate to WNYC when we can.
So if it’s all supposed to be so downright pleasant, why would I rather stick pins in my eyes than endure another hour in that office?
Oh, wait. Here’s why:
On the other hand, I have been thoroughly enjoying one of the major benefits of my marital disintegration. S currently stands for Strong, Sensitive and Swoon. Oh, and let’s throw in some Shoulders and a Sweetheart.
Yesterday I attended school with my 8th grader; it was “open school day,” the one chance to see what your kids actually do all day.
Parents were asked to sit in the back of the room during the classes. At one point, I noticed an attractive, stylish couple sitting side-by-side. Later, as we were milling about prior to the start of math class, I realized I was about to sit down next to the male half of the attractive, stylish couple. I gestured to his wife, who was seating herself on the other side of me, and asked if she wanted to switch seats with me so that they could sit together.
“No. We’re divorced,” she replied.
I found it funny that a) she would offer that information at all, b) she seemed blatantly relieved not to have to sit next to her ex and, c) she assumed it’s a given that divorced couples don’t sit together.
And then she asked me: “Are you married or divorced?” Just like that.
I found her directness curious. Typically, when you’re thrown together with the parents of your child’s classmates, one of the first things you say is “Whose mother are you?” or “Hi, my name is Cassandra. I’m Sam’s mom.”
After a few beats, I answered “I’m in-between. I’m separated.”
For one terrifying moment, I thought this bold woman was going to try to fix me up with her ex, but then math class began and suddenly everything became a blur. Algebra? Calculus? Why was the teacher writing random letters and numbers on the board and then, like a lunatic, adding parentheses and brackets? I wanted to stand up and say “Excuse me, kids, but you do not need to learn this. Sure, try to get a good grade in math so you’ll get into a decent college, but, really, don’t sweat it because there are no real-life situations in which you are required to write {} a, x , y and 5 in the same line. None.”
I wanted to share this insight with my kooky, blunt new divorced friend, but since there were 32 minutes left to class, I decided to look around and think interesting thoughts instead.
Needless to say, what I saw was a room full of 13- year-olds. Oh, the horror.
I flashed back to my own 8th grade year–the all-important Frye boots, Stan Smith sneakers, Huk-A-Poo shirts and Shetland sweaters. My size 27AAA “bra” and the stupid boys who made stupider jokes about ironing their shirts on my chest.
The whole dating/sex/relationship thing was a complete mystery to me at that point. I could not imagine how on earth I would get a boy to like me or ask me on a date. And to think that one might kiss me? Forget it. That stuff happened to other girls, usually the ones with real bra sizes. (Still, I kept my Dr.Pepper-flavored Bonne Bell Lip Smacker handy just in case.)
I looked at my lovely daughter, in the throes of thirteen-ness herself, and got a little lump in my throat, followed by a feeling of certainty that no guy will ever be good enough for her because she’s exceptional in every way (ahem–now’s when you politely say “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Christina.”) But maybe I was being a bit harsh, given that the pool of men available to her at this juncture are a bunch of doofy 13-year old boys and nothing like the fine assortment of gentlemen who will pursue her when she grows up and gets to join match.com.
I awoke from my reverie to the sound of math textbooks gleefully slamming shut. I guess a lot has happened in the 33 years since I was in 8th grade (wait, did I just write thirty-three years?? Dear god.) At some point, I got a boy to kiss me. I imagine my daughter will figure that one out too, though I doubt she spends much time picturing her separated self sitting in the back of her daughter’s classroom chatting with a stylish, blunt divorced woman. I mean, she still lives in a world where it’s important to learn algebra (or was it trigonometry?)
My conflicted relationship with my car came to an abrupt and tragic end on Thursday when the engine spontaneously burst into flames.
I did not make that up just to get attention.
I parked the Saab (which had passed inspection the day before) as usual on a nearby block on Thursday morning. Then I went home and began my daily procrastination routine. About an hour later, a neighbor rang the doorbell and asked: “Did you park your car on the corner of 16th St, near the church?” Me: “Um, yes.” Neighbor: “It just burst into flames.” Me, chuckling, certain that neighbor is delusional or has nothing better to do on a Thursday afternoon than pull jokes on gullible females: “Excuse me?”
Turns out the neighbor was not delusional and walked me over to my green vehicle, which was surrounded by two big red vehicles, also known as freaking fire trucks! The fire had been extinguished and the hood of my car sported a big burned bruised boo-boo (see photo, above). The engine was a charred black melty mess. Totally weird and shocking, right?
So that’s it; experts believe there was an undiagnosed electrical problem aggravated by a possible oil leak.
After all we’ve been through–the drive to Maine, the numerous breakdowns–and after just sinking six hundred !@#$%^&* dollars into it a couple of weeks ago, my car officially totaled itself, resulting in more family shape-shifting. You see, the Saab was originally R’s baby; in fact, he was so taken with it when we first got it that he spent hours on a nerdy website for Saab owners. We had joint custody of it for a few months after the separation, and then I got solo custody when R downgraded to a used Geo Prizm (one might say downgrading became a global aspiration for R, in fact, if one couldn’t resist being catty just once.)
Honestly, I think the car never got over losing its preferred driver, because it has been kicking and screaming ever since. Last summer, it broke down on the West Side Highway during our first R-less drive to the Adirondacks and, as chronicled in previous posts, has found every possible way to let me know things are not OK.
For now, I’ll be sharing R’s Prizm, which is not nearly as lovely as the Saab, but seems to have a more stable personality. Beyond that, my vehicular future remains unknown.
So now I’m really gettin’ bloggy wit’ it, referencing studies and trying to seem cool and opinionated and stuff. Today, a press release landed right smack in my in-box and I couldn’t resist. Did you know that middle-aged-and-older men who don’t ditch their wives for younger women are actually exhibiting suicidal behavior?
A study released last month found that men who marry women between 15 and 17 years younger than they are lower their chances of dying early by a whopping 20 percent. Men decrease the risk of premature death by 11 percent if their wives are seven to nine years younger. The certifiably insane guys who opt for older women have an 11 percent higher chance of dying earlier.
Assuming that “early” in this case doesn’t mean in the morning as opposed to in the afternoon, this information really puts my mind at rest. My own separation did not involve cradle robbery, so I have no personal axe to grind. But just this past weekend I was at a Big Chill-esque dinner party. A group of us who went to college together gathered to reconnect with one another–and also to bolster the spirits of a friend whose husband recently left her for a significantly younger woman after three decades and several children.
No one said it out loud, but I suspect many of us were thinking that this woman’s husband was just one more dumb-ass middle-age cliche.
How wrong we were! I mean, this new research proves that the guy went the younger-babe route purely for health reasons, just as one might suddenly start taking fish oil or a multi-vitamin. Instead of dissing him and jumping to conclusions, we should be grateful that he didn’t have a death wish.
(The research only applied to men in Denmark, but I think it’s safe to extrapolate, don’t you?)
I will probably never marry again, if only to avoid the possibility of having to tell people the marriage has ended. What a fresh hell was that.
Obviously, R and I were the first people to learn about our separation, and it was hard on both of us to absorb this news (however, please note that I suffered more). There was also a small inner circle of friends and relatives who knew what was happening early on, before we came out to the rest of the world.
Yet, despite the fact that the divorce rate in our country is famously around 50 percent, the rest of the world seemed incredulous. Shock, tears, fury and fear poured out of my assorted friends and family, who generally fell into one of these camps:
Now I’m going to do what bloggers are supposed to do, and end with a question: Have you ever had a strong reaction to the split of a couple with whom you were close?
