What Would Elizabeth Bennet Do?

A few of my friends, as am I, are going through really difficult times in their marriages. As I talk to my friends and think about myself, I am starting to ask "What would Elizabeth Bennet do?"

For those of you not entirely familiar with Pride and Prejudice written in 1813 by Jane Austen and turned into a dozen movies in more recent times, Elizabeth Bennet is the main character who meets Mr. Darcy, an intelligent, handsome, wealthy and brooding man with limited social graces. (Mr. Darcy grew up with no one ever calling him on his bullshit because he was Mr. Darcy.) Mr. Darcy falls in love with Elizabeth and he asks her to marry him against his better judgment because of her low connections, etc. to which she tells him she wouldn't marry him if he were the last man in the world:

“From the very beginning—from the first moment, I may almost say—of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”

Ah, Elizabeth Bennet and the power of no. The power of "I find this behaviour unacceptable." The power of "I won't put up with this bullshit even if you are smart, handsome and rich."

We must also look at Ms. Bennet's behaviour before she tells Mr. Darcy to fuck off. She refuses to marry the insufferable Mr. Collins even though he would secure her family's estate after Mr. Bennet dies. She dallies with Mr. Wickham, whom she later realizes is a cad and then she backs off her affections for him. This is a woman who knows what she does and does not want. She has standards.

When Elizabeth said no to Mr. Darcy,  the ball was in his court. What did he do then? To finish the story, Mr. Darcy listened to Elizabeth, and then goes out of his way to demonstrate to her that he is not the self-absorbed jerk that she thinks he is. The romance isn't just saved because Elizabeth spoke. She was walked away, Mr. Darcy acted and Elizabeth revised her opinion of him; hence, Pride and Prejudice is considered one of the great feminist love stories of all time.

Being Elizabeth Bennet is a lot harder once you are married, but shouldn't the same standards apply to the people we are married, too, perhaps even more so? I was reading an article on Medium.com which also channels Elizabeth Bennet: "You cannot have a real relationship unless you are willing to leave the relationship."

The challenge is harder when there are kids and a mortgage. It makes it harder to walk away, and so people put up with greater and greater levels of inappropriate behaviour. This isn't to say conflict and open disagreement is bad. As the Medium article by Brianna West states,

"Couples who are more confrontational are typically healthier and happier. Can you say your truth? Can you risk losing the relationship? The more you can say ‘I am unhappy,’ the happier you can be. This is because the more honest you can be about your needs, the more you’re giving your partner a chance to understand and adapt to them. When your primary goal is to sustain the relationship because you’re afraid to lose it, you’re more inclined to stay quiet and small, even though you feel disrespected or neglected."

Jane Austen couldn't have said it better herself.

Betty & the Chicken Farm

Last Friday night, I went to a used bookshop in Pike Street Market. I didn't know what I wanted to get, but I wanted something new and fun to read, not a parenting book on how to deal with your troubled teen.

I fell upon The Egg & I by Betty MacDonald, a Pacific Northwest writer and author of the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series. Published in 1945, The Egg & I is memoir about the early part of Betty's life from her childhood in Seattle, to her marriage in 1927 to a chicken farmer on the remote Olympic Peninsula.

Sometimes when I pick up a book in a store, I'll read the back jacket, the table of contents, or flip it open to the middle. Of course, there is also reading the first page:

"Along with teaching us that lamb must be cooked with garlic and that a lady never scratches her head or spits, my mother taught my sisters and me that it is a wife's bounden duty to see that her husband is happy in his work. 'First make sure that your husband is doing that kind of work he enjoys and is best fitted for and then cheerfully accept whatever it entails. If you marry a doctor, don't whine because he doesn't keep the hours of a shoe clerk, and by the same token if you marry a shoe clerk, don't complain because he doesn't make as much money as a doctor. Be satisfied that he works regular hours,' Mother told us.

"'It is depressing enough for a man to know that he has to work the rest of his life without the added burden of knowing that it will be work he hates. Too many potentially great men are eating their hearts out in dull jobs because of selfish wives.'"

I stopped reading there. I was slightly repulsed. Betty's mom does not sound like a modern feminist. But, the book cover said this book is a classic, so I thought I might get it anyway because it is only $7. I thought I might find it interesting to read about something I would seriously question myself.

When I got home, I read more of the book and about Betty online. Betty continues:

"This I'll-go-where-you-go-do-what-you-do-be-what-you-are-and-I'll-be-happy philosophy worked out splendidly for Mother for she followed my mining engineer father all over the United States and lead a fascinating life; but not so well for me, because although I did what she told me and let Bob choose the work in which he felt he would be the happiest and then plunged wholeheartedly in with him, I wound up on the Pacific Coast in the most untamed corner of the United States, with a ten-gallon keg of good whisky,... and hundreds and hundreds of the most uninteresting chickens."

This is a book I could read.

When I googled Betty MacDonald, I read that she grew up in Laurelhurst, a historically posh neighborhood in Seattle. When I read that she married a chicken farmer and moved to the boondocks, I wanted to fly back in time before Betty married this guy and take her for a walk around Green Lake and say "Oh honey--marrying a chicken farmer and living on a chicken farm is such a bad idea. You are smart! You are elegant! You are funny and refined! Chickens are dumb, smelly and poop all over the place." I bet her some of her friends did try to tell her, and I bet she didn't listen because she was in love with the first guy that paid her any attention.

When I got home, I googled Betty. She left Bob and the chicken farm in 1931. You know the old cliche--a bad date makes a good story. Betty's bad marriage made a famous memoir.

I began to think about Betty's mom's advice. At first pass, I thought it was crazy. Now I think it isn't wrong, but I might take a different spin on it. Instead of being blindly happy about your husband's work, I might say don't marry a guy whose job you hate.

When I read more about The Egg & I, I felt a little like Ginny Weasley when she found Tom Riddle's diary in her book basket when she was shopping for school supplies. I just picked up this book not really knowing what it was really about. It seems interesting, but it also could be dangerous.

So where does this leave me? Jack became leader of his group about seven years ago. At that point, his job became all consuming. He works long hours and has a hard time being physically or emotionally present. When real problems arise (see: The Boy, Wilderness), he lacks the bandwidth to adequately cope as he is spent on work. Based on my own personal data inventory of people I know who have held this job, I've seen 100% divorce rate. I've never known anyone in this role in other hospitals around the country who isn't on their second spouse.

Jack and I have talked and talked and talked about his job. He loves his work. He admits it is too much, but he sees no way to change it.

Now I wish Betty could fly forward in time, take me for a walk around Green Lake, and tell me what to do. What would I tell her I want: companionship. Steady and reliable companionship. I went out with friends this weekend, but I don't want to go out with a different friend every night. I want a constant companion who knows my stuff and I know his.

150% and Slack

My husband Jack is a physician with administrative responsibilities. He works long hours, including nights and weekends on top of his regular 9-to-5 responsibilities. He says he has two or three different jobs with one title, and that is true. He gives 150% of his effort and energy to his job.

This is a problem. I've always known it was a problem for our marriage and family, but this week the light bulb went off that this was not good for his department or good for working women with families.

In his field, they expect everyone to give 150%, and the schedule and workload is assigned as such. But what happens when one of those people can only give 75%? Usually, these people are women. Being a woman myself, I should take their side, right? Even though I am a stay-at-home-mom/recovering volunteer whose husband makes enough money that we can comfortably live on one income? (I need to eradicate the phrase "We don't need the money" from my self-talk.)

Anyhow, what happens if you have a job where you need to give 150% and your child develops a chronic illness that needs to be stabilized? What if you get divorced? What if your parents become ill and can't take care of themselves and you are the only child or responsible offspring? What if you nanny is hospitalized? What if--god forbid--these all happen at the same time? Who picks up the slack?

For a single mom, she takes care of her family and her co-workers pick up the slack. Her former partner might not be part of the picture any more, or might not consider family work a priority.

For some married working women, they take care of their family and their co-workers pick up the slack. Even for women doctors, their husband's job take priority.

"I can't work nights or weekends for three weeks because my husband is out of town" or "I can't give you my schedule until my husband gets his surgery schedule."

The conflict here isn't between husbands and wives, it is between the two people who are responsible for raising children, which is different. Before kids, I used to travel for work and never checked Jack's schedule before I agreed to go. Throw a child into the mix, and everything needs to be negotiated. Someone has to raise the kids, because kids can't raise themselves. Nannies and au pairs are helpful, to a degree. My daughter is sixteen and incredibility independent, but she didn't know how to pump gas until last night. Someone needed to figure out the skill gap and fill it. That was me.

Previously I wrote that the Mommy Wars take place between moms and dads instead of between women. I now think the collateral damage of that conflict extends to the workplace. The workplace suffers when husbands put their jobs before their wives', and then the damage comes back home. It is a whirlpool that keeps going around and around.

Men think their jobs are important, which is fine. Their jobs are important, but so are women's jobs and so are raising children.

Many workplaces have changed so that they bring more family balance into the picture, which is great but not always sufficient. I met one woman consultant at the Change Management conference last month whose firm had a program to encourage women to come back to work after they had a baby. Her child is now four and she is still working. No such programs existed when Claire Adele was born sixteen years ago. Those programs would have been helpful for me to a degree, but it wouldn't have changed my husband's job or the amount he had to work. When I was working, there was a big push for new moms to get paid leave. I thought it was awesome until someone said men should get it, too. The incrementalist that I am thought it was a bad idea because it might take away from women, but I was so wrong. Men need to take parental leave, too, so women don't have to do it alone. Giving men parental leave is an employer's way of saying, "You are a parent, too. Don't dump it all on your wife."

I remember when the Boy was born. He was born the Monday after Easter. I remember sitting in his room on the futon chair breastfeeding him when he was four days old. Claire Adele was two and a half, and was spinning around in circles in the middle of the room. Jack popped in to say goodbye and left for work. I nearly died. Two weeks later, he went to a conference in Italy. It was hell.

My solution: maybe jobs shouldn't require 150%. This might be blasphemous for me to say when I am looking for a job. I am sure some employer might google me and see this and think "She won't be committed." Maybe they are right, but maybe they need to rethink commitment. But the point isn't about commitment, it is about slack and who takes care of things at home or work when the shit hits the fan.

At home, it is women who often pick up the slack when things go bad. At work, it is typically men or women without kids. Again, this is like the whirlpool of reinforcement. The more women pick up at home, the more they pick up at home. The more men pick up at work, the more they pick up at work. The balance continues to get out of proportion. This is what needs to change, and one way to do that is to not to have the basic expectations to be 150%. This is fine when life is perfect and no one has a sick child or parent or no one gets divorced, but the model falls apart when something happens--and it does because it is life--there isn't excess capacity. We need to add slack into our systems and into our lives.

Relative Empathy

Last week, I was at a luncheon where former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly spoke. Kelly did most of the talking as Congresswoman Giffords had a difficult time speaking as a result of injuries from being shot in the head. I didn't realize the degree of her disability. She seems bright and cheerful in photos. She smile might be a little off, but other than that she looks healthy. It seemed there was a struggle behind each word she spoke. She has a difficult time walking. It seemed that attending this luncheon with 1,500 was exhausting for the guest of honor. It probably was not as exhausting as the month of therapy while she was recovering from a gunshot wound, but exhausting nonetheless.

Kelly made a comment towards the end of his speech. He had recently had surgery on his arm after he had a pole vaulting accident. ("Yes," he said. "Pole vaulting.") He was complaining about his arm one morning over the breakfast table, and he said Giffords replied, "You have to be frigging kidding me."

This made me think of relative empathy. Can we have empathy for those who are suffering less than us? Clearly, getting shot in the head is way worse that hurting an arm, but for the person whose arm is hurting, it is still a big deal when they can't get dressed or make lunch. They might have pain, even if it is temporary. Are they not allowed to complain? Are we in a competition of who hurts the most?

I hope not. And yet...

It can be hard to have empathy for people who are struggling with problems far less complicated than our own. To be clear, I am not talking about people who are whining about imaginary problems. Jack is growing through a challenging time in his job. To outsiders, it would appear that he is fine, but he is disappointed in himself with some aspects of his own work. The job he has now has so many tasks and expectations that he can't possibly do them all, so he picks what he thinks is in most need of attention. His focus tends to be on the good of the organization while neglecting his own development. He worries about the long-term implication for his career by sacrificing other external parts of the job.

I have been a volunteer, a stay-at-home mom and a budding politician for the past sixteen years. I feel like Gabby Giffords listening to her husband. Jack is worried about whether or not is career is perfectly awesome, whereas I don't even have one.

But then people who are suffering health-wise from issues far greater than a torn ACL might not think I have reason to complain. I was told by one friend I injured myself doing a leisure activity. I am fortunate enough to have time and money to ski, and I have good health insurance that pays for surgery and physical therapy. Jack and I have saved enough money for rainy days that we can pay the out pocket expenses without deciding which bill we won't pay that month or charging it to the credit card. Then again, Jack has a good enough job that we can afford to save money and still take vacations and ski. We still make choices. We drive old, used cars. I wear old clothes. We live in a small house that had what my friend Sarah gently called "deferred maintenance."

To be clear, I am not complaining. Of all of the problems in my life--mother dying of Alzheimer's, a son who struggles with adolescence, a knee that isn't fully recovered--money isn't one of them. When I look at my life, I could easily say it could be better, but it could be worse. My mom didn't die when I was twelve. My son recognized he has some problems, and that gives me infinite hope that he will pull out of this tailspin. If one were heartless, one could say, "All parents die. Being a teenager sucks. Middle age people have bodies that fall apart. What's new?" Well, this is all new to me, even if collective humanity has been experiences these things for ages. I've never watched my mother die, but Roz Chast has, and she wrote about it in Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant? I got it from the library Saturday, and I've read it twice. Having empathy gives us to the chance to learn about things that haven't yet happened to us--yet.

I haven't been to church in a million years, but I think of the song I heard growing up, "Whatever so you do, to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me." I understand the sentiment. Those who are hungry or homeless or ill or other otherwise suffer need an extra dose of compassion and support from those who have more to give. Yet, I thought it was kind of weird that we would figure out who is "less" than us. Is that condescending? Do we need to compare? I have a friend from college who married a man who became very wealthy. She is tall, thin and athletic. She has two beautiful, intelligent sons. On the surface, she really has nothing to worry about, but she still has worries, concerns and problems just like the rest of us. One of her problems is people telling her she doesn't have problems and she should just shut up. I think that is incredibly harsh, and frankly wrong. Who am I to say she doesn't have problems?

Or, is this why we have tribes? Is this why tall, skinny, rich women tend to have tall, rich friends? Because they can give each other and get back empathy? Does this apply to everyone?

Maybe the point is empathy is empathy, all the way around.

Nineteen Years

Jack and I just celebrated nineteen years of marriage last week.  One of the interesting things about being married that long is seeing things we use every day that we got as wedding gifts, and realizing they are nineteen years old.   I buy things all of the time, but then never calculate how old they are after I've had them for a while.  I recently went to the Title Nine warehouse sale.  I went to the sale years ago and bought a coat.  This year, I bought a new coat.  When I got home, I looked in my check register to discover I bought my old coat in 2007.  Yes, it was time to get a new coat, but I never knew how old it was.

Wedding gifts, on the other hand, have a precise age.  The duvet cover on our down comforter?  Nineteen years old.  While the color is still fine, it is in reasonable condition, I wasn't planning on using it for nineteen years.  I picked out a new one (one sale, of course) but Jack thought it was too flowery.  The Boy overheard our conversation, and was torn on which side to take.  Should he pick the side of his beloved mother, or side with his dad who doesn't want a bad cover that looks like an English garden?  What is wrong with an English garden?  This duvet was cheerful.  Eh.  I deferred to Jack and didn't get it.

The down comforter is also nineteen years old (gift from Jack's parents).  Our steak knives from my cousin Matt and one of Jack's friends are still in service.  The food processor from another friend is still working, though we had to get a new bowl and blades.

The sadder thing is looking at things that I've had since before we were married.  Nesting bowls?  Older.  Pots and pans?  Older.

I don't remember getting older.  How did I end up with all of this old stuff?

Thirty-Six Questions

The column "To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This" from the New York Times "Modern Love" series has gone viral.  The essay was by a woman who participated in a study by psychologist Arthur Aron that suggests the intimacy between two people can be accelerated by staring into someone's eyes for four minutes and answering a series of thirty-six personal questions.  Earlier this month, Daniel Jones, the editor of the series, published the list of questions:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/fashion/no-37-big-wedding-or-small.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

While I think there is merit that people can feel closer to another person by sharing details, I am not sure I buy that this guarantees falling in love.  Perhaps I am the most skeptical, least romantic person in North America.   If I were to answer these questions with my parents, brother or kids, would I fall in love with them?  (Ick, by the way.)  No offense to members of my immediate family, but I sure hope not.

What if I were to take this test with someone I was completely incompatible with, let's say someone from another state who views domestic violence as a reasonable way of controlling a partner?  Could I fall in love with a Neanderthal?  I hope not.

What if I were to take this test with a husband of my friends?  Would I pack it up and leave Jack for a neighbor after a long dinner conversation?  Could this test cause someone to fall out of love with their spouse and in love with someone they just met?  Maybe it does, and that could be scary.  Could this be the magic love potion the world is looking for, or is this snake oil?  Or, it is a combination of the two?  (Maybe this is what poor Taylor Swift needs, to sit down with some reasonable, available young man and become vulnerable.  I saw on her Instagram account that she wants to meet 500 guys and is giving away meet and greet tickets.  That is one way to find a soulmate -- have a contest.  I digress.)

What if I were to answer these questions on my blog?  Would everyone who reads my blog fall in love with me as I share my deepest thoughts and feelings?  Would I want to?  Who would care?  If people don't fall in love after answering these questions, does love exist?

Here goes.  I'll start.   Question 1.:  Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

This doesn't give me a number of people, so I will take license and pick a few.  Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Jesus, Nelson Mandela and Gandhi, all in their prime, and Hitler when he is about 23 years old.  Topic:  Why genocide is a bad idea.  Perhaps we could avoid the Holocaust.  Just a thought.

Let me know when you start to love me.

Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout won the Pulitzer for fiction a few years back.  My friend recommended I read it, and I loved it.  It is a hard book to read.  Olive is not likable, but she is compelling.  Frances McDormand is making it into an HBO mini-series and will play the lead role.  The New York Times has a nice article about it.

Olive is a horrible mother and wife.  She is incapable of being happy.  Strout gets inside this woman's mind and we learn why she is so awful, and how she turns minor insults into major catastrophes.  I remember one scene where Olive visits her grown son in New York.  While she is there, she spills food on her shirt.  No one tells her, and she is convinced they are laughing at her, when no one really noticed.  Olive flips out, and starts screaming like a lunatic.  Seriously -- she is a bona fide lunatic by then.  I was surprised that I felt sorry for her.

Why did I like reading about this miserable woman who takes her anger out at the world?  It was painful and cringe inducing.  I read it a few years ago, and saw the article about the mini-series in the paper, and it brought up a lot of emotions.  Maybe the book felt like a cautionary tale -- don't turn into a bitter crone.  Lately, I feel a little bit like Olive: a mad, pissed off angry woman.  Anger has taken hold of me, and yet I feel completely justified.  It is not that I enjoy being angry.  It is one of my least favorite states of mind.  I think some people might thrive on righteous indignation, most of which is directed at my husband and the challenges we've faced in the past few months.  I'd rather be calm.  Yet, I am still angry.  I thought I'd be mellowed out by now, but no.

Nevertheless, when I feel like I have been wronged and misunderstood, me and my anger are like a dog and a bone.  I can't let it go.  When I get to this point, I feel like something needs to change.  I need to take a new direction, find a new path.  Right now, anger is taking up a corner.  I don't need it to take up more space.

Low Expectations

I was at coffee today with my friend Sarah.  When Jack and I had our separation a few months ago, I stayed at Sarah's house for a week while I settled down.

"Maybe staying with Jack is the best of all of your possible options," she said.  "There are other alternatives out there, of course, but maybe as you consider them, you should see that Jack isn't the worst thing out there."

She has a point, and I generally agree with it.  Here is where my brain and heart start duking it out.  Before I get into this, let me tell you something else Sarah said to me ages ago, before the shit-hit-the-fan in my marriage.  At the time, I was feeling lonely in my marriage.  Why did this hurt so bad, and would be I better off single?  If I were single, I would be even more lonely.  Or would I?

Sarah said it was all about expectations, and not in a bad way.  When we are married, we expect to have companionship and not be lonely.  So when we are married and lonely, we have the disappointment of having our expectation not being met.  If we are single and alone, our expectation are not being dashed.

Also comes into play is the ability to change.  When someone is single, they have the opportunity to go out and find ways not to be lonely.  They can be open to new relationships.  When someone is lonely in a marriage, the opportunities to find non-platonic companionship are different.  Of course, men and women need friends outside of the marriage.  I am not talking about relying on my spouse and kids for all human contact.

So I could go with Sarah's idea that Jack is the best of all possible options.  But what I were still lonely and Jack didn't change?  Would I then be falling back to the position of low expectations which got me in this position in the first place?  He started working way too much.  I expressed my frustration, loneliness and disappointment, which met with his resistance.  I stopped complaining, I just lowered my expectations, which allowed him work more, which everything even worse.  I was in a lose-lose spot where no matter what I did, there was no positive change from my perspective.

Jack maybe the best alternative, but low expectations are not an options.  Brain, meet heart.  To be continued....

Luxury

Some women don't need to have a man around all of the time.  They are content when their husbands travel or work all of the time.  They are happy as long as their men make good money and they are well stocked in fancy shoes and have an ample allowance to travel and go out to lunch with friends.

I am not one of those women.

I read an article this week in the Seattle Times about Satya Nadella, the new CEO of Microsoft, which got me thinking.  In 1994-1996, he got his MBA from the University of Chicago while he was living in Seattle.  He would fly out on Friday and would catch the red-eye back at the end of the weekend.  I am guessing he worked full days during the week.  (Maybe not.  I don't know.)  I don't think I could be married to a guy who was gone seven days a week.  What would be the point of being married?  This would assume the marriage implies some level of companionship at the core.  Maybe he worked extraordinarily hard during that time to stay close to his wife.  This is a quote from Nadella that was posted on NPR's website:

"At home, raising kids or maintaining a loving relationship, realizing that you have achieved something fantastic is much harder to see. For example: making sure you are at home, reading to your kids every night, just trying hard to be a great parent with just hope that it may make your children great people and parents themselves, but that for most people you won't know the result of your efforts for 20 years and nothing is certain."

I don't know if Nadella had kids while he was in business school.  But what if someone with his work schedule did?  I am not a woman who could handle that.

Which leads me to another point.  A friend of mine posted a link to this blog post on Facebook, Being a Stay-At-Home Parent is a Luxury...For Your Spouse.

http://www.babble.com/relationships/being-a-stay-at-home-parent-is-a-luxury-for-your-spouse/

In my fourteen years of being a stay-at-home mom, I never figured this out.  It is a luxury for Jack that I stay home and take care of everything.  He shows up at 6:30 p.m., and dinner is on the table.  If a kid is sick, there is no questions about who will take care of this child.  Summer camps and alternate plans?  All mine.  Who makes sure the kids leave for school on time and driven to soccer?  Who is home when they get home?

Yep.

I am more than a little sore right now.  Jack just finished working 19 days in a row, which for a workaholic, is like a boozer going to Mardi Gras.  The deal was when he was going to work a weekend, he was supposed to take a weekday off.  I told him he didn't even have to spend it with me.  He could go for a long bike ride or whatever.  He worked two weekends in a row with no days off.  Why didn't he take a day off?  "I have a bunch of deadlines and too much work to do."  No shit, Sherlock.  He always has too much work to do, which is why he is a workaholic.

"No, really, it will get better," he says.

The other day, I was flipping through the calendar when I saw twelve days overlapping two weekends marked out on the calendar when Jack is going out of town.  Did he discuss it with me as he was putting it on the calendar?  No.  I knew the trip was coming up and the month, but did I know it was 12 days including two full weekends?  No.  I asked him what he was thinking when he put it on the calendar, did he think to tell me?  No.  Did he think it was important to tell me?  No.  Am I seeing a change in behavior here?  Not really.

This spring, he was galloping up and down the West Coast while I was at home, taking the Boy to soccer try-outs and helping the kids finish up the school year.  Do I have any say in his schedule?  When does "luxury" become "taken for granted," and the person holding down the fort is ignored and dismissed, assumed they will be there to keep everything in place?  Treated like the staff at Walmart, who work when they are told to work or they don't have a job?

Okay.  That was super bitchy.  I am not treated like Walmart worker.  But the challenge of being a "luxury" to one's spouse is that it implies an inherent inequality in the relationship.  I am sure some marriages manage this just fine, where both parties have open and mutual communication, respect, admiration, etc.  But happens when that open communication isn't there?  What if I had plans during that time?  It wasn't even considered, which therein lies my problem.  I don't make plans because God-only-knows what the Job will bring in.

Back in the day when I working in compensation consulting, the partner at the firm I worked at was called by the Chicago Tribune.  A study had shown amongst MBA graduates, that men whose wives worked earned less than those who didn't.  It was statistically significant, but not socially so.  The MBA's whose wives didn't work earned on average $10,000 more a year.  I am assuming the women who worked made more than $10K, so the family as a whole had a greater income.

The partner called several us of into his office to discuss why this might be the case.  Years ago, I though it was because the men with stay-at-home wives asked to earn more, or they worked a little bit harder.  Now I think it was because the guys likely never had to say "no" to the job.  They probably never had to say "I need to check with my wife if I can take that trip," or "I can't work late.  I have to drive the baseball carpool."

The so-called "Mommy Wars" are more likely fought husband v. wife, than mom v. mom.  Sure, there are plenty of issues that need to be resolved, like equitable pay, opportunities for promotion, flexible work hours, etc.  I don't mean to diminish the barriers that exist for women to raise a family while working.  But much of that conversation starts at home before women even get out of the door.  My friend Eleanor who is in her nineties told me,  "Men don't want their wives to work.  You just need to go out and take control of your own life!  Don't wait for your husband to come around.  Just do it.*"

So what does this mean for me?  If my staying at home is defined a "luxury," it means it really isn't so much needed.  Sure, I like being a stable, predictable presence in my children's lives.  I like home cooked meals, even I don't like cooking them.  But I like being busy.  I like solving problems.  I like having something meaningful to do.  I need a sense of accomplishment.

It makes the idea of going back to work a whole lot less scary.  For me, anyway.  I am not sure Jack will feel about it.

___________________
* Eleanor very likely didn't use the exact phrase, "Just do it."  She has studied Shakespeare.  She is not likely to quote a Nike commercial.   A Nike commercial quoting her?  That could be possible.

Some Men Like Crazy

On our vacation, I read Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl.  A friend of writer friend of mine recommended I read it.  I am writing about my brother's battle with schizophrenia, and my friend thought this book would be a good reference as Ruth writes about her mother's erratic and unpredictable behavior.  Later, Ruth's mother was diagnosed with mental illness and was medicated.

One of the interesting subplots is relationship between Ruth's parents.  Ruth's father is a neuro-typical, sane man, yet he loves this woman who served spoiled food on a regular basis and ships her daughter off to French language school in Montreal without discussion.  She schedules big events with no skills on how to organize them, causing havoc for everyone around.  Why does this sane man love this nut job?  And this man seems to be psychologically normal to Ruth.

Some men like crazy.

I have many dear friends with diagnosed mental illness who are in stable and meaningful relationships.  People with mental illness deserve to be happy, too.  I am not disparaging people with mental illness.  These friends own and manage their illness, not take everyone in their path into their cyclone of unpredictability.

Back to the point.  Some men like women who are unstable, needy, clingy, mean and selfish.  Why?  Are these women so interesting or humorous that they sweep men off their feet?  What about us regular girls?  What are we to do?  I am slightly neurotic.  I own that.  But I don't think men have fallen for me because I obsess over small details, worry about things or vent after a stressful meeting.  

There must be something that men get out of these unstable women.  Do they like helping them stay on an even keel?  Do these women make them feel needed and important?  Do they like helping someone stabilize?  Or, do these men have a blind spot for crazy?  Do they just not see it?  Or, do these women treat men differently than they treat others, say their parents or children?

I think Ruth wonders the same thing in her book.  

Sheryl Crow, Books I am Afraid to Read and My Best Fictional Friend, Bernadette

I was at Ravenna Third Place books yesterday picking up some stuff for the kids.  I found my way to the non-fiction table, and picked up a few things, including Bill Bryson's new book on the year 1927. Nearby was a book called The Astronaut's Wives Club: A True Story by Lisa Koppel about the women who were married to men in the space program in the 1960's.  It looked fascinating, but I was afraid to read it.  When I got home, I couldn't remember the other books I bought, but I remembered the one I didn't.  I guess I don't have the gumption right now to read about women back in the day who quietly smiled, wore perfect hair and lipstick and stood by their men.

Or maybe I should.  Not that I want to read a primer on how to be a throwback (egads), but perhaps it shows the underbelly of being the second bananas to the bravest men in the world.  But at the end of the day, we all have to be married to someone, don't we?  While we have a choice, why happens to those who fall in love with someone who is inaccessible?

Speaking of inaccessible, I saw a headline in a Good Housekeeping magazine at a newsstand in Victoria last week.  Rockstar Sheryl Crow was on the cover, and it talked about her going on blind dates.  (Sidebar:  Really?  Sheryl Crow on a blind date?  Would she want to date someone who doesn't know who she is?  I doubt it, because the only people who have never heard of her must be 25 years out of her age range or have been living under and rock and never turned on the radio in the past 20 years.  Anyhow.)  I love Sheryl Crow, and I found a copy of the magazine in the waiting room while the Big E was getting her teeth pulled.  Sheryl said when she dated famous men, she felt smaller.  She was living in their shadows, not a place she wanted to be.

Speaking of Sheryls, I am also afraid to read Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg.  Why am I afraid to read this?  I support women working and in leadership roles.  I used to work, and I have been President of at least six different groups in my life, plus numerous roles on boards.  I guess I am afraid to read it and see that I have failed to lean in and take corporate America by storm like I should have.  Instead, I slunk away and crawled off the track years ago when I had kids.

But not to be depressed!  In comes Bernadette!  I am making Jack read Where'd You Go Bernadette by Seattle author Maria Semple.  This book reflects the plight of many middle-aged American women, women who once held promising future which were derailed by factors outside of their control.  We watch Bernadette's demise, and then grabbing back control.  It is wonderful.  Even two years after I first read it, it lingers in my mind.  When I posted on Facebook that I bought a copy, multiple friends asked to borrow it.  No less than eight people have read it other than me.  It made its way around northeast Seattle in two months, with one person finishing and passing it on to the next.  I wish I had everyone who read it sign it just for the record.  So it touched a chord not just with me, but with many of the people I know.

Maybe I can read those other books, knowing I have Bernadette to safely come back to.

Competing with Water

When I was a sophomore in college, I asked Jack to join my family on our summer vacation.  My parents said I could bring a friend.  They were very surprised that I invited my boyfriend, but decided to let me bring him.  My brother also brought a friend.  We went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where my parents rented a house near the water for a week.  Jack was a swimmer in college, so a trip to the ocean was a good thing for him.

It was a good week, all in all, with a few memorable moments.  Jack got a horrid sunburn and had a painfully itchy back as a result.  He thought his Chinese genes protected his skin and he wouldn't get burned.  No such luck.  My dad and Jack went deep sea fishing together, and both my father and Jack got a bad case of seasickness as the small boat jostled in the waves.  My father was called back from vacation to attend a meeting for work.  My brother had just graduated from high school and I was in college.  This was the only time we could take a family vacation given our schedules.  This time was sacred.  My father's company had gone through three presidents in a year, and the new one was especially difficult.  Being called back for a non-essential meeting was the last straw.  My father flew back to Ohio, went to the meeting, quit his job, and flew back to South Carolina for the rest of the week.  Now that I think about it, that might have been the last trip my parents, brother and I took together.

In spite of the itch back, seasickness and my father quitting his job, it was a good trip.  It was on this trip that I fell in love with Jack.  I had always liked him, enjoyed his company and so on.  But this was the trip where I knew I needed him.  I couldn't sleep at night, knowing he was in another bedroom across the hall.  I had liked other guys before, but I never found one who kept me awake at night.

Anyone can fall in love on vacation.  It is a cliche.  The Go-Go's had a song about it in the 1980's.  Grease is about summer love meeting reality.  Nevertheless, there I was.  This was different because I fell in love with a guy I had been dating for a year, a guy who I would see in the fall when we returned to Chicago for school.  This was more than a summer romance, more than a cute boy I met at the beach.  Part of the reason it was easier to fall in love there was because we were removed from homework, finals, swimming, friends, laundry and everything else.

In college, Jack swam.  He was a walk-on on the varsity team.  He had a big heart, lots of passion, but his skinny 5'10'' frame couldn't compete with men who were four to six inches taller.  But he tried and never gave up.  He perfected his technique on his stroke, showing me at dinner in the air the best way to butterfly.  Jack has always been a passionate guy.  He never does anything half-baked or half-way.  He is all in or not at all.

Jack loves water.  Unlike other guys I was attracted to in college, Jack couldn't dance.  In the water, though, he had a grace I have never seen him possess on land.  He didn't just float, he skimmed the surface, dancing on the water.

On the day before we left vacation, we went to the beach.  The water was warm and the waves were high.  Jack dove and jumped for about a half an hour.  I watched, sitting on the beach.  His back was to mine, but I could sense something: joy.  I had never seen Jack so happy as when he was jumping and diving into the crashing waves.  His hands caressed the crests of the waves as the smaller ones slipped passed as he waited for the bigger ones.  The next time I had ever seen him so happy was the day he graduated from medical school.  I took the afternoon off from work to join his family for the ceremony and dinner.

I remember thinking at the time that I could not compete with water.  It wasn't a sad or tragic thought; rather, that I could never make Jack as happy as he was playing in the water that day.  I didn't know what the idea meant at the time.  Jack is passionate about ideas, work and play.  In some ways, that is what attracted me to him.  In high school, I had a few boyfriends who doted on me, which I didn't find appealing.  I wanted someone who had strong interests in the outside world.  I wanted someone who was independent versus treating me like I was their prized petunia.

And now, all it has fallen out of whack.  Jack's interests and independence had taken over such that I was no longer a part of his emotional or intellectual life.  We were boiled down to the practical, and I took care of almost all of that.  What is left?

Occupation: Divorced

My daughter watched a video in school some time this past year on what democracy meant to people in China.  (Spoiler:  The people they interviewed had never head of it.)  One of the women who was interviewed had her occupation listed as "Divorced."

"How can that be an occupation?" asked The Big E.  "You don't make any money.  And how can it take up time unless you sit around thinking about it all day?"

How true.  I guess later in the video the woman talked about being a lawyer who worked for the government.  So, did the people making the video make an honest mistake, or do they believe that for a woman to be divorced is a larger marker than what she might do for a living?

My writing teacher Theo wrote about her divorce.  She said the hardest thing was being "fired" from her job as a stay-at-home-mom.  When she got divorced, she had to find work.  Her old occupation of taking care of the kids--while important--did not pay for rent, food and the electric bill.

Back in the olden days, divorce was frowned upon.  Women were shamed and made to feel inadequate because they had failed as wives.  Yet, sometimes divorce is a good solution to a bad problem.  Some women need to be empowered to leave fruitless situations.  They might be abused, neglected or in a situation where the person they are married to has toxic behaviors and won't change.  The same holds true for men, too.  Some men might stay in hopeless marriages because they don't want to abandon their kids, or they might feel guilty for leaving an unemployed spouse in a precarious position.

My friend Jane wrote to me today and mentioned how difficult all of this back and forth, "should I stay or should I go" would be.  It is hard, and I am not sure the outcome.  Until I see meaningful and sustained changes, I am keeping the nuclear option of divorce on the table.   I really don't have a choice.

But what has changed in the past few weeks?  I would say that our lives have settled in a little bit more like a regular tide after the tsunami has passed.  The shore is still raw, scraped by the force of the water, and we are still assessing the damage.  Do we stay, or find another place on higher ground to live?  Life isn't as emotionally turbulent as it was even a few weeks ago, though it still has its moments of anguish, like last week when I was getting checked out for cancer.

Perhaps a better metaphor is the dam on the river has broken.  The water used to flow, but then the dam came and stopped the river.  One day, the dam broke and water flooded the plains.  The water used to be there once, but in the meantime, plants, animals and people settled in and around the dry parts. The water coming back was not expected, and it came back in a fury.

Past, Present and Future

Last night I was down at the park and I ran into a neighbor.  I told her about the lump in my breast and how I had the rapid evaluation this week.  She asked, "When you found the lump, did you question your past?"  She was curious, not judgmental.

Interestingly, I didn't wonder about my past.  I was worried about the future.  I was surprised at my answer.  I didn't look back at all -- only forward.  My first thoughts were about if I didn't survive.  What would I miss about my kids' lives, like weddings, graduations and grandkids?  Then I became more practical:  What would the next year look like?  Would I have another birthday?  How sick would I become?  Would I have to cancel our upcoming vacations?  Would I have to cancel a walk with a friend that I had scheduled for Thursday?

Do I question my past?  Very often, I do, which is why I was surprised at my answer.  I often look back to my decision to become a stay-at-home mom and not having paid employment.  I look back at the factors that lead to that decision, like having a full-term stillbirth followed by a miscarriage.  I look at the friends I've made and the work I've done as a volunteer.  Being a mom doesn't come with high levels of intellectual fulfillment or a grand sense of accomplishment like the paid work force can provide.  Instead, I saw my kids grow up.  My decision was for me, not so much them.

I also look at the past few years with Jack, and how difficult at times they have been.  In the past two months, I have not really been able to look at the future as I have been too busy trying to figure out what happened in the past.  Jack wants to push it behind him and focus on the present:  What is he doing today to show that he loves me and the kids?  I am moving more into the present, but it hard when the past has been so painful, more than I realized at the time.

Last night, the Boy and I watched Up while Jack was working.  My present viewpoint on marriage is skewed from what it was months ago given recent events and how Jack's workaholism nearly destroyed our marriage.  I always thought I'd grow old with Jack, just like Carl and Ellie in the movie.  Now I am questioning if that will be possible.  I feel cynical and angry that my life so much more complicated than it was before.  I always thought my dying words to Jack would be "Thank you for being part of my life."  Now I am not so sure.

The future is hard for me to see, and a possible brush with cancer forced me to look ahead.  The biggest thing I fear about the future -- a cancer free one, thankfully-- is the lack of control I have if I stay with Jack.  It is not that I couldn't make decisions about my future:  I will still have free will.  In order for our marriage to succeed, Jack needs to change.  He needs to get his workaholism under control for this marriage to work, and I have very little power to change that.  I can support him, but my support will only go so far.  I tried to help in the past, and it only made things worse.  I told him I needed him to work less, and he resented my intrusion.  As far as staying in this marriage goes, right now I am here on faith -- faith that the future will be better than the past.  It is hard to faith in someone who let me down so badly in the past.  As Jack says, I need to keep looking at his present behavior.  Is he trying to change?

Clean Anger

Jack and I have been talking a lot lately about the situation of our marriage since it fell into crisis two months ago.  In many of these conversations, I have been calm, thoughtful and articulate.  In others, I have not.  I have yelled, cried, screamed, and called him a fucking asshole.  I am angry that I was betrayed.  I am angry that I was neglected.  I am angry that I was ignored and not listened to.  I tried to tell him in a rational, calm voice many times that I was lonely, that I needed more from him.  When I told him, he turned away, making the insult even worse.  I was heartbroken and crushed to discover that I had been lied to for a year.  I was also really pissed off.

Jack has been reading Love Busters by Willard Harley, Jr. which was recommended to us by a friend.  There are several love busters, including dishonesty, being critical, and leading an independent life.  Another love buster is anger.  Anger can destroy love.  We had reached an impasse, where he wasn't listening to me, and I would get angry.   The more he wouldn't listen, the more angry I would get.  The more angry I got, the less he would listen.  It was a riptide we couldn't escape.

Jack and I talked to our therapist about my anger and how it made him feel.  He said he felt anxious and clammy when I got angry.  He wanted to curl up in a ball like a pill bug.  I said I got angry after being trampled by a rhino.  A rhino with very thick skin, ignoring me.

The therapist said my anger is clean anger, anger that is a result of protest or protecting boundaries, versus abusive anger.  Protest is saying I am hurt or this isn't working.  My anger is not abusive with intent to hurt or destroy him.  My anger is my heart trying to protect itself.

Small as it is, this is progress.

Maui and NZ

Here I am, back to the topic of my marriage.

Yesterday, Jack and I had a difficult conversation.  It wasn't capitally difficult, like the ones few weeks ago where I was calling him a fucking asshole every three sentences, screaming at the top of my lungs.  Instead, I informed him that I am still keeping the "nuclear option" on the table, meaning I am reserving the right to call the end to this marriage should I need feel sufficient changes are not made.  I was also questioning what I am getting out of the marriage.  How does this relationship benefit me? I know it benefits him and the kids, as I take care of so much.  But how I am supported?  How does he show care and concern for my well-being?  For the past several days, I had been asking him to write a list of ten nice things he did for me in the past year.  I gave him days to think about it, and each time I asked him he acted like I was asking him a trick question, or asking him about something that had not yet been covered in class.  All I was asking him to do was name ten nice things he had done for me in the past year.  That's less than one thing a month.  To my annoyance, he struggled.

He is not happy with me keeping the nuclear option on the table.  "If you want to call it quits, let me know," he said, rather stressed.  "I will leave if you want me to."  He was moderately defensive when he said versus being in a zen state of "If you love someone, set them free" mode.

"I need some faith that we have a chance,"  he said.  "If I don't have faith that this will get better, I am not sure I can stay."

Right.

Um, I was the one who was lied to and neglected.  I was the one who was trying and met up against the defensiveness of someone with addiction.  Someone who was in over his head and was suppressing those feelings at my expense and his.

"I have been the one who has been going on faith," I said.  "I am the one waiting to see if things get better."

"Oh," he said.  "Yes."  And he switched directions instantly.

Yes,  I want to let him know he has a chance.  I still enjoy his company, which makes this whole situation all the more infuriating.

Earlier yesterday morning, he rattled off about four very nice reasons why he liked me.

"You are the most intelligent, thoughtful, introspective person I know.  You are so in touch with your emotions.  You are empathetic and sympathetic," he said as we were standing outside of our marriage therapist's office.  "I need you."

"All of those reasons why you love me are exactly why all of this is so painful.  If I were less intelligent, less caring, less thoughtful, perhaps I could handle this better," I said. "But I am not.  I am all of those things."

He paused, and I left.  I went to a nearby shop for a picture frame.  The Big E painted a picture of the Boy, which I love.  Aside from the nostrils, it looks just like him.  My friend Abbie said it was good that I was taking care of things like painting the bathroom and dining room and other things that would make me happy.  I was putting what I wanted to take care of on the agenda, not just those that belonged to my family.

Later that night, the Boy had a band concert.  We continued our rather stressful conversation before the show began, ratting off and rehashing our therapy session from earlier that day.

"Why do you want to be here?" I asked him for the thirteenth thousandth time in the prior six weeks.  "Why are you back?"

"I wasn't happy then," he said.  "I was miserable.  I know I hurt you, but living that life was not making me happy."  Okay, fine I can buy that.  He continued.

"I really enjoy our conversations," he said.  "I've actually been happy these past few weeks now that we are talking again.  I feel relieved that things are out in the open and I am getting help."

Well, that's is nice.  Really.  Excuse me while I vomit.

Okay, I am back.  Sorry for the awful sarcasm.  I apologize.  That is not a reasonable way to solve problems.  Jack has a point, but this point was so sharp that it burst the tender membrane that was my heart.   Seriously, I could have skipped the year of lies and the previous three years of increasing neglect.  Couldn't you have just talked to me before all of this shit happened?  Where were you then?

+++++

So back to the title of this essay: Maui versus New Zealand.  I've wandered far afield.  (Okay, I think I've already told this story on my blog, but eh.  Here it is again.)  A few years ago (I think it was when the Boy was in second grade), that Jack and the kids got me a $20 iTunes gift card for Christmas.  Now I love iTunes.  I download music all of the time.  It was the kids idea to get me a gift card, which was sweet.  What was not sweet was that this was a shared gift between Jack and the kids for me.  The only gift the three of them got me was something that was purchased two days before Christmas in the checkout line at the grocery store.  I cried for two days at that lack of thought they put into getting something for me.  Me, the person who made Christmas in our household.  If that Christmas were a sports event, there would be a little tag at the end that said, "Brought to you by Mom!  Thank her for making this holiday AWESOME!"  I was pissed.

So, the following year we went to Maui.  "Now no one can be upset this Christmas because we are in Maui," Jack said.  And it was a great trip.

In the grand scheme of things, getting a $20 iTunes card for Christmas is not cool, but nor was it a felony.  It was one of the many small cases of neglect, and the trip to Maui was restitution.

Fast forward to May, June and July of 2014.  I was talking to my friend Jane the other day and she said there are two types of problems:  those that money can fix and those that money can't.  A trip to New Zealand and long-overdue upgrades to the house are now on the schedule.  The Boy, Jack and I went to lunch today near Jack's office downtown, and walked past a Tesla dealer.  "A new Tesla would really accelerate the forgiveness process," I told him and laughed.  He laughed, too.

The trip will be nice, no doubt.  It will be time spent away from work and the hubbub of life in Seattle.  Both kids will be transitioning to new schools, the Big E to high school and the Boy to middle.  Everyone will need a break.  Changes to the home will be nice, too, as we will be fixing up our nest together.  (Or if the nuclear option comes to pass, I will have a nice house to sell or keep in case I need to push the launch button.)

But I don't need a new car.  I am just hoping for a new and improved husband.  And that's a problem money can't fix.  And no matter how I try, I can't fix him either.  He has to change himself.

NZ, or Cheaper than Divorce

Joan Didion wrote The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir about the year after her husband and long-time companion died.  In it, she talks about the good times and the rough times she and her husband had.  Once when they were having a difficult time and nearly broke, they went to Hawaii.  Why?

"It was cheaper than a divorce."

Jack and I face a similar situation in our marriage, and are meeting our challenge with similar relish.  This weekend, Jack booked four tickets to New Zealand for our winter vacation.  The Boy wants to go to Peter Jackson's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.  (The Boy is wildly excited that The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies will be released days before our trip.  He plans to see the movie in NZ.  He is dancing/stomping around the house at the thought.)

Jack and I are clipping through books on marriage repair.  One book, His Needs, Her Needs, was recommended by several friends.  The Five Love Languages is another we have read.  Jack, to his credit, is dutifully providing me with "acts of service" to help me feel loved (i.e., making dinner, folding the laundry without being asked, etc.)

In this vein, we went for a bike ride yesterday and contributed to the "Recreational Companionship" bucket from His Needs, Her Needs.  The Big E is in Japan for a week, so Jack, the Boy and I rode from the University District to Woodinville where we had lunch at the Red Hook Brewery.  (Jack worked the past two weekends, and next week The Boy is in a soccer tournament.  In a given month, this was really the only day we could have made the trip.)  Jack and I had lunch there in 1997 when we were in the Pacific Northwest on a bicycle tour vacation.  I had been dreaming about riding there since we moved to Seattle, but there had never been a good time.  That, and The Big E is not an avid cyclist like the other three.  (The Boy is not an avid traveler, so he has times of being the odd man out.)

I didn't realize how far the Red Hook Brewery was -- eighteen miles from our house, or thirty-six miles round trip.  With breaks, it was about a five hour trip.

So, it was good.  We didn't talk much, but that is the nature of cycling, which is fine.  Jack shared a thought with me on the trip.  On many long cycling trips or even skiing, there is a plethora of middle aged men out exercising on their own.  If I am ever divorced, I will spend every winter weekend at Crystal Ski Resort.  The last time I was there, there was an 8:1 ratio of men to women on the mountain.  The Burke-Gilman Trail had a similar ratio.  There was one man maybe ten years older than me at the brewery, taking his new bike off his Audi station wagon.  As Jack was fixing my flat tire, Jack noticed this and shared his thought with me.  If she is going to start over, why not start over with me instead of with one of these other guys?

That is a reasonable question.  Why shouldn't we start over with each other?  I am inclined to say yes, but there will need to be some significant repair in the meantime.  After all, none of those men on the Burke-Gilman had lied to me for about a year on various topics.  By lie, I also mean lack of openness, honesty and transparency.  If I am the person who is supposed to know him best, why did he withhold significant information from me?  The answer to that still remains unclear.

And Jack wrestles with another problem.  Until this year, he has generally able to choose what he works on and when.  His new position has considerably more responsibility.  One thing he has been slow to accept is that in life many of us don't get to choose what we do.  We all don't have the freedom to do as we please.  Therein lies the primary basis for responsibility.  I struggle with whether or not to get a paying day job, but after losing a daughter years ago, I am still conflicted about motherhood and career.  Yes, I would prefer to have a day job, wear a suit and collect a paycheck.  Instead, I am spending the summer with my kids and taking then back and forth to camp.  Even people high in power don't have much choice.  Take Queen Elizabeth I.  As queen, she could do whatever she wanted.  Did she want the Spanish Armada to attack England?  No.  Could she sit back and watch?  Yes, but that would have been disastrous.  Instead, she called upon her navy to defend her country.

Dear Jack,

Sometimes we do things because we are called to do then, even when we'd rather be doing something else.

Lauren

A Note from a Friend: Disaggregate and Blaze Your Own Trail!

My friend Jane wrote me a note last week.  (Jane of "The M-Word" post.)  These themes have been kicking around in the back of my mind.  

Lauren:

I say disaggregate (what we always tell the school district!).  It is so daunting to address the John-as husband-as workaholic-marriage-self confidence-job marketability-mid life questions about purpose as a single monolithic challenge!  It always makes sense when people say break down a problem into smaller pieces.

Recently, nearly everything is focusing like a laser beam on John (his workaholic tendencies, his choices, his emotional availability, etc.) and what impact his behavior and choices have on you, your marriage and your family.  This is a central relationship and person in your life, so of course it--and he--deserves a significant amount of your attention, but perhaps only a portion!

There are plenty of other pieces to this puzzle that have more to do you with you and just you than they do with the people with whom you live, and I think that part of this deserves as much--and, really, more--attention.  It seems like you are finding yourself in a somewhat unexpected place: you are a stay-at-home mom and you aren’t sure if the dividends have been what you anticipated or wanted or thought you agreed to.  You have been an extraordinary volunteer, but again, it isn’t clear if that is the right fit for you going forward--does it produce the outcomes you want?  In both cases, maybe this is a good time to take a new look at what is right for you.  What do you want?

There are a number of potential outcomes.  You could, for example, decide that you want to be the primary care provider at home and you want to stay out of the work force until the kids are in college.  If you made that choice now, you would be doing so with a clear understanding of what the “returns” are.  You might have new demands of the people involved if you were to make a conscious choice to do this.  My primary point is that the choosing would be in your power, and you would have some influence over the terms.  And, knowing what you know now, you might negotiate a little differently!

Similarly, you might choose to go back to the paid work force.  That might become a priority focus of yours.  It would involve different trade offs.  You would derive some of your “returns” from different sources (co-workers, bosses, etc.) and in different forms ($$$, different types of satisfaction re: work products, etc.).

I hope you will feel empowered to stop and consider the choices before you and not feel that John is calling the shots on all of the above.  He has a full plate of things he has to work through.  Those things don’t have to dictate how you feel about yourself and your choices.  You deserve to be your number one priority right now, Lauren.  You have been through an incredibly rough experience.  With the help of your friends and people whose opinions you respect, you can put the pieces back together and craft a way forward of your choosing.

Your friends are one source of that support.  I just said to someone today, “if you aren't feeling confident about yourself professionally, perhaps you could borrow some of the confidence that I have in you”.  Similarly, a friend of mine is at a major transition point where she wants to change jobs (and coasts), but she doesn't expect any support whatsoever from her husband (he is content in his situation and doesn’t really have an incentive to make changes).  I told this friend to look to others that will support her in this endeavor (if not her husband). 

Rather than thinking of you at a dead end, I think of you at the beginning of a totally new and different road.  Terrifying not knowing what is around the corner, yes.  But, the opportunities are plenty.  You are smart, you are capable, you are caring.  Even more than recreating your trust in John (which is important; just a separate issue), I hope you will recreate trust in yourself.  Believing in yourself will help put some of the other stuff in perspective, it will give you a strong foundation from which to navigate these complicated waters, it will help give you the strength to move forward.

How?  By doing exactly what you are doing.  Borrow some confidence from your friends.  Remember that these are people whose opinions you value and respect (know that we are right when we tell you that you are awesome and capable and that you can do this).  Put yourself first in a way that you have not done for some time.  Allow yourself to think about what you, just Lauren, wants and not what the other people in your household need or want.  And, go after it!  Blaze your own black diamond trail.

Fondly,

Jane

Finding my Tribe

Note:  I am doing some blog maintenance and finding old posts that I never bothered to publish.  This one is from May 7, 2014.  As I mentioned in a previous post, this is my mid-life crisis happening.  I talked to a dear friend today about the collapse of my marriage.  She asked, "What are you afraid of?"  Not in a bad way, but in the philosophical sense.  This is a question for me to ponder.  It turns out, I am becoming less and less afraid of life in general.  

I suppose I can also add "Workaholic Husband and Subsequent Collapsing of Marriage" to the list.

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What happens when you don't belong in the tribe that you aren't sure you belong to?  Technically, I am a

Mother.  Daughter.  Sister.  Wife.

I am also

White.  Upper Middle Class.

In many ways, I've lead a charmed life.  I friend of mine was giving me shit the other day about it.  I recently applied for a job and I didn't get it.  I was crushed because I thought I had a decent chance at getting it.  Before she gave me shit, she gave me a pep talk.  She asked to me remember other times I failed, thought the world was ending, and picked myself to get back on the horse again.

"A good friend of mine from grad school said to expected to be rejected twenty times before you land a job," she told me.  "You've not gotten a job before, right?"

"Before I graduated from college, a consulting firm found my resume, interviewed me and then gave me a job," I replied.  "That job found me.  And when I left that job, I went to my college alumni office, and looked for who was hiring.  And I got a job again."

"Okay," she said.  "Think about a time when you were dumped by a guy."

"There was one guy in college, but I am not sure that counts as an official break-up because he moved to another state.  So it wasn't like I was really dumped.  He just moved away."

"You have never experienced rejection before," she said.  (This was the giving me shit part.  She was otherwise empathetic about not getting the job.)  She was kind of shocked.  Another hard part is that also really don't need a job, so I really can't cry too hard about that.  I would like something meaningful to do and to accomplish something, but my family doesn't need the money.  We could always use more to save for retirement, who couldn't?  My husband has a good job with long hours and we are fairly frugal and live within our means.  (Frugal to a fault, but that's another story.)  My being gainfully employed is optional.  Before I let her think of me as some kind of sheltered princess, I reminded her of the piles of tragedy and challenges in my life.

My first child died.

My brother has schizophrenia with a tragic outcome.

My mother has Alzheimer's.

So where do I belong?  I grew up with a bunch of lovely feminist elementary school teachers (thank you, Sharon Kolin) who taught me girls can do whatever they want.  Hellen Keller, Sally Ride, Susan B. Anthony and Eleanor Roosevelt were my role models.  Nancy Reagan was not.  Yet, here I am, 45, and my life is closer to Nancy's than the others. 

What the hell happened?

I married a doctor.

My first child died.

My brother has schizophrenia with a tragic outcome.

I had two kids.

My mother has Alzheimer's.

I sank.  I would never say I was depressed, because I wasn't.  I was able to escape the hell of losing a child and move on.  I withered as I watched mental illness ruin lives.  It took everything I had not to fall into the abyss, to stay sane.  My life shifted into neutral.  I am dog paddling in purgatory.  I got tried to write a book about my daughter and one about my brother.  I got a volunteer job to keep me busy, but also as penance.  Or maybe restitution or an offering to the gods.  I knew I couldn't make things back to the way they were, but maybe I could make or find peace.

Where do I belong?

The Toughest Job in the World

Note: Here is another blog post from April 23, 2014 which I didn't post at the time.  My marriage was in mid-collapse, but I had no idea at the time.  Welcome to watching my MLC (mid-life crisis) appear in real time.  I was looking back at the fourteen years of being a stay-at-home and trying to re-enter the workforce. 

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You might have seen by now the viral video from American Greetings on the toughest job in the world.  As of now, 15 million people have watched this on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB3xM93rXbY

The toughest job in the world is 24/7, no breaks, standing, lifting things, little sleep, and knowing medicine, finance, and culinary arts.  This job requires extra work on holidays, "with a happy disposition."  It requires giving up your old life.  All for no pay.

** Spoiler:  The toughest job in the world is being a mom.  **

Like anyone else with a heart, I cried when I saw this.

This video was circulated amongst a group of stay-at-home moms who are now deciding how and when to return to the paid workforce.   I have no intentions of debating whether or not to stay at home with kids.  I know many women have little to no choice if they work.  Other women choose to work, that this is fine, too.

I belong to the camp of women who "decided" to stay-at-home with my kids.  "Decided" is a tough a word for me.  My husband works night and weekends, and the job I had at the time my daughter was born required extensive travel, at least three days a week out of town three weeks a month.   One year I traveled so much that I paid income tax in California even though my home was in Chicago.  Given my husband's and my combined schedules, either one of us needed a new job, or we would need overnight childcare several days a week.

Before all of that, my pregnancy history was complicated.  I had a full-term stillbirth followed by a miscarriage.  My third pregnancy with my daughter was complicated.  While she was fine, the pregnancy had its problems, including a subchorionic hemorrhage, which meant I bled throughout the first trimester.  At the end of my third pregnancy, I had been pregnant for 92 weeks with no baby.