Last night, I returned home after an eight day separation from my husband. Thursday was my daughter's fourteenth birthday, and last night we took a handful of her friends out to see the movie The Fault in Our Stars. It is love story about teenagers living with cancer. I stayed at home after the party.
The movie and the birthday party are not the point here. The point is that I got fed up and left. The shit hit the fan Tuesday night. I realized the status quo of our relationship could not and should not hold. Jack was unaware that this was the case. I was able to hold it moderately together until Thursday, when I friend saw my anguish and offered me a place to stay until I could recover. I knew I was taking a break during this time. The main question I need to answer is: "Should I stay or should I go?"
(There are lots of details as to what drove me out. Lots. While I wish to write about it, I will grant my husband and I some privacy over the details as we try to make sense of them ourselves.)
One of the main themes that has come out is my husband is a workaholic. Addicted to work. He took a survey in U.S. News and World Report, and answered 17 out of 17 for questions that suggest he is a workaholic. I am starting to understand the impact this has had on our family and myself. Reading Chained to the Desk by Bryan Robinson is simply terrifying. He describes workaholism as the best dressed addiction. It beats down the other family members. I felt a sharp pang of recognition when a woman writes about being ill and home with the kids while her husband trots off to work. I looked back a few bouts of violent stomach flu while my spouse carried on while I tended to toddlers.
The good news is Jack identified this himself. The hard part will be fixing it. It is not as debilitating as drug addiction, but it will likely be as hard to kick. As Jack said, he tried to solve the work problem by working harder. That is like the drunk trying to get sober by having another beer.
Which leads me to an interesting point. I was working with my writing teacher, Theo Nestor. I asked her to take a look at my blog and to see what she thought and to get some advice and direction. She recommend I develop a unifying theme for my blog, a few topics that hold it together.
After the shit hit the fan, I took a look back at my blog, and I understood the theme. It was theme of a woman barely holding on, barely holding it together. A woman who looked to her dog for unconditional love. A woman whose rage is starting to boil below the surface before she even knows what is wrong. A woman who cries for no reason. No, there was a reason. My heart knew something was wrong before my head figured it out.
And yet, I pray for hope. I think of two things I wanted to write about but didn't. When I was in Columbus, I visited the Columbus Museum of Art with my mom and dad. There was a beautiful exhibit of Judaica, showing the art of the marriage contracts, created as art. It was lovely. I spent a decent portion of time looking at the contracts.
And then, the night before the shit hit the fan, we were all driving the car going past Kidd Valley, a hamburger restaurant. They were selling Pina Colada milkshakes. When we got home, Jack showed the kids a video of the Pina Colada Song online. I checked the browser history to confirm the date. Perhaps that is something subconscious, too, perhaps a plea for help and connection from him via the song. Maybe he would rather be married to me than his job. Time will tell. As my friend says, guilt and admission are not sufficient. He needs to change.
This blog is about the little and big thoughts that pop into my head. I once read that when Flannery O'Connor walked into a bookstore, she would want to edit her published works with a red pen. In the digital world, we have the luxury of tweaking things up after we've hit the publish button. I can be a perfectionist/procrastinator, where waiting for the ideal means little gets done. Here I will share what is not--and likely will never be--perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment