Letters to the Editor

• Response from LW - Part1

  [Read the article: I know in my heart I'm going to leave my husband ... but when and how?]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Unfortunately, a big storm here on the East Coast interrupted my internet connection for a day or so. What a tragedy! I am very sorry to have joined this circus so late.

  Before I delve into my tedious tale…THANK YOU to those responders whose letters were thoughtful and written in the spirit of this sort of forum. I really appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts. Mostly, it is nice to know there are at least a few people capable of offering sound insights, and not knee-jerk excoriations grounded in pain and fear.

  I have begun to write a letter to Cary several times over the past few months. I was always interrupted before I finished it (my daugher’s naps last only so long), and the letter always seemed so long and rambling. The other day, as I was reading his thoughtful response to another letter, I decided I would just dash something off, as complete as I had time to write it, and hope I was able to convey the most important issues. Sometimes I get tired of listening to myself think, and I have told very few people about this situation, and so have received little advice about it. I always appreciated Cary’s talent for intuiting the real issues and his amazing way of offering comfort and advice without sounding didactic or judgmental (something we all should strive for).

  As you can imagine, the whole story – including 7 years of a dysfunctional relationship with my husband, two very complicated family situations grounded in years of history, career changes, moves to different cities and my entire PPD drama – is a novella in and of itself. I’ve yet to draft a succinct version of it.

  Anyway, since it seems I have omitted so much important information, I thought I would help fill in some blanks. So, FYI…

  WHY MY HUSBAND IS NOT THE RIGHT MAN FOR ME:

  I did not include this information because I have been thinking about it so much and for so long, I feel like I need a spreadsheet to keep it all straight.

  My husband is from a broken home (father an abusive alcoholic, mother often absent, at work) and he has that classic “adult child of an alcoholic” syndrome where nothing in life is ever good enough. Absolutely everything, from the state of our nation to the coffee holders in our car to the way our neighbors landscape their yard, needs improvement. Nothing and no one can escape his scrutiny. And he feels compelled to talk about these “faults” most of the time (he was not always this way, but when the Republicans won in 2000, he really started to lose it).

  When we met, I mistook this “energy” as a can-do attitude. I thought he was a detail-oriented person with a lot of motivation. Given all of the slackers I met in the ‘90’s, I thought this was a very refreshing change. And I mistakenly assumed it was a sign of his willingness to be responsible.

  Well, “detail-oriented” does not begin to describe it. When we moved in together, I realized that my husband is obsessive. He needs to talk over things many times before he can make any decisions. Again, this can apply to buying a new pair of sunglasses or deciding whether or not to take a new job. The magnitude of the issue at hand is often irrelevant. He must talk about it morning, noon and night before he can make a decision and, even then, he will torture himself, and those he’s closest to, about whether or not he chose wisely.

  Since my husband’s father was often drunk, my husband was often accused of (and punished for) things he did not do. He was constantly forced to accept responsibility for things he’d never done. Now he has trouble taking responsibility for anything. He has a “shoot first, ask questions later” style of dealing with things. He cannot even consider that he may be wrong until he has taken you on an emotionally crippling tour of how wrong you are first. And then maybe, just maybe, within a few hours, days, etc. he might come to you and accept some of the blame. But not without emphasizing that you, too, are of course wrong as well. With him, everyone else is always to blame.

  My husband is great at listening but not hearing. Throughout my struggle with depression, I would explain to my husband how I was feeling and what I was going through. Because he was obsessed with projects he wanted to complete regarding our house (painting a room, getting new hardware for closet doors – you know, something prettier…) he was forever asking for my opinions and wanting me to be involved. He thought that these would be “fun” things for me to do as I recovered. I cannot tell you how many times I explained to him that I had more important things to contend with than paint and doorknobs. But he would still do things like interrupt me in the shower at 11pm at night, when I had not had time to shower for a couple of days, to ask me which switch plate design I preferred. He seemed to be oblivious to what was going on with me, no matter how many times I explained it.

  [CONTINUED in PART2]

  Permalink Saturday, July 22, 2006 09:22 PM