What is it inside you that needs to die?

Jumpstart 8 May 2010
Inspired by Trisha Lachman's writing group In Hocking Hills, Ohio.


The last time I saw my wife, she was walking from our house to her car in tears. My apologies followed like petals in the wind, but did little to assuage her hurt. Minutes earlier we'd had an argument. She said something which penetrated deep into the hidden, off-limits, high-security, do-not-enter chamber of my mind. Her words challenged my self-image as a generous, trustworthy, compassionate person. Because she did this, I verbally tore into her. Toward the end of the argument, my mouth smoking like a German machine gun and she in the room weeping, remorse backed into my consciousness and began unloading all my sins in our marriage. In my mind that all-too-common refrain reverberated : "Idiot! Why did you do that?"

My apologies were better than nothing, but the damage was done and she left shaking and shattered in the way that only a very close loved one can shake and shatter another.

* * *

We figured out many years ago that our marriage was not of the forever and death-do-us-part variety. We knew it was not a matter of if, but when we part and go our separate ways. There would be no waiting for a diagnosis and prognosis. We could dispense with the heroic marriage-saving Hail Mary gestures. Could skip the fruitless effort keeping a terminal marriage on life support. We each knew our marriage had an expiration date, and only two questions remained: When do we allow it to pass? How to live in joy and integrity as it passes? Well, there was one other question, which seemed to answer itself organically over time, and that was "How/when do we tell our two daughters who were about 9 and 11 at the time?"

While neither of us found much joy or skill in our marriage, we did find joy and profound meaning in being in family. Our decision was simple choice, if complex in carrying out: we would remain married as long as it made sense--as long as there were no abuse, as long as there was a commitment to respect, as long we could pursue our happiness within its structure. For an additional ten years we stayed married, creating and deepening our sense of family, while also working and often struggling to maintain an useful and loving sense of marriage. After our youngest left off for college in Illinois, it made sense for the marriage to die and so to see would happen next in our lives.

And so Bea found a new place to live and started her new life, and I, though living in the same house where my daughter's would return during college breaks, did the same. We visited the mediators, drew up and signed the papers, amicably divided the assets, and then waited for the six month waiting period before the death of our marriage would be recognized by the state.

But I felt something else needed to die. Maybe it was my idea of what our marriage was supposed to be. All the expectations I held about what our marriage, about her. The expectation that marriage partners are supposed to behave a certain way and even feel a certain way--things neither of us achieved in my mind. All these things had to die so I could see ourselves differently. Not as ex-21 year marriage partners, and not as roles upon which we would confer our love depending on some standard of behavior. I needed to see her and myself as only one thing: as a beloved child of the divine.

Somehow none of that came out in the argument we had. Like all of our arguments, I really don't recall the details of it. She said something I didn't like, so I said something that she didn't like and then escalation. In any case this argument was different for the simple reason that neither of us had to deal with the other. We could each walk away and not deal with the other person living in the same house, eating at the same dining room table, using the same driveway. She could go, I could go, and that could be that.

A week later I called her at work. I felt afraid and shy, feelings I hadn't felt toward her since the beginning of our meeting 30 years ago. Before the call I took a deep breath and asked Spirit that I treat her as someone to be loved and cherished regardless of all else. She answered after a few rings, apprehensive and cool. Then we talked. We talked of kids, of her new church, and began to fall into the easy rhythm of friendly conversation that we had lost some many years ago. We talked of a mutual friend at our old church who'd had a stroke. The last thing that this friend had told me was, "Did you say hello to Bea? Tell her I think of her all the time." It took me a minute to say this as I choked back tears.

It was sad about our friend, it was sad for us, it was sad for the marriage that had died after 21 years. It was also one of the best conversations of my life. And when I hung up--a wonderful lightness.

It was almost one year ago when I wrote this. Bea is in a long term committed partnership. I too am in relationship. And today we share a deep abiding friendship that is 30 years in the making.