You guys were unbelievable on the whole Mother’s Day situation. Comments and tweets have been pouring in for days. It is hard to know how to adequately thank for something like that. But: thank you. It was balm to the wound.
I emailed some non-online friends, friends who have been even more in the loop over the years on Paul Stuff good and bad (I don’t like to overdo it on the blog), and they feel the same as you do. One question they asked, as some of you asked, was whether Paul might be mad about something. Another question they asked, as some of you might have wanted to ask but didn’t feel you could, was whether Paul might, perhaps subconsciously, want out of the marriage, and be pulling crap like this to make it happen. It’s a possibility I’ve been forced to add to the list along with brain tumor and early-onset dementia. As one friend put it, Paul has done his share of Jerk Moves over the years, as ANY human does, but she says in the last few years there has been a shift in the kind of things he’s been doing—as if he has actually changed as a person, in a concerning way that seems to require SOME sort of explanation.
It’s very hard to know how much of this to discuss here, as you can probably well imagine. My parents raised me in a sort of “What happens in the marriage stays in the marriage” environment, but I found that really backfired when my first marriage ended: no one could believe it had been bad, because I hadn’t talked about how bad it was; and because I continued not to talk about it as things were wrapping up, everyone assumed that meant it must have been my fault, and/or that I was a flighty person who would ditch a marriage at the very first non-blissful moment. And because my soon-to-be-ex husband had no trouble talking about it, he soon had the ear and sympathy of everyone involved. If things DO go badly this time, I’d prefer it not to go that way.
On the other hand, there are solid reasons for the “What happens in the marriage stays in the marriage” concept. As Judith Viorst says in Love & Guilt & The Meaning of Life, Etc., “One advantage of marriage, it seems to me, is that when you fall out of love with him, or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you maybe fall in again.” Marriages go through bleak times, and if you come OUT of the bleak time, then it’s nice not to have everyone knowing your business and casting side-eyes at your spouse (or at you, if it’s your spouse who’s been talking); also, it’s easy to overstate things when upset, and harder to walk them back when things are okay again. But…then if there comes an insurmountable bleak time and you finally decide it’s time to put everyone out of their misery, you have people saying you’re ditching the marriage at the very first sign of bleakness, and that any stories you tell of the earlier bad times are just you rewriting history to justify your bailing. Plus, who wants to act as if their marriage is perfect all the time? But of course you also don’t want to tell Every Single Little Bad Thing That Ever Happens, as if creating a record for the court. So it’s a pickle.
It’s even more of a pickle with online things. I can email my friends and vent freely about Paul, because we have long-established relationships with each other and know that a vent does not mean anything is seriously wrong. My friend M can tell me how her husband has recently been an idiot, and I answer back that husbands are idiots, and if possible I add a reassuringly similar husband-was-an-idiot story of my own, and we go on with our lives, feeling better and more able to cope and less panicky that maybe we married the wrong people. Neither of us think that husbands in general or either of our husbands in particular are literally, actually idiots, or that there is any real need for concern, and we both feel better for the interaction, both of us thinking this kind of stuff just falls into that not-really-serious category where EVERYONE is sometimes an idiot.
Online, that whole thing is less clear. You have probably seen it before: someone will vent about something that’s clearly being told at least 75% for the amusing entertainment value of the story, by someone who is clearly in love with the idiot they’re ranting about, and yet there will be commenters either going Full Concern and suggesting marriage counseling “to deal with your anger issues” or whatever, or else saying, “You should be grateful he’s not DEAD” or “You should just be glad he’s not CHEATING ON YOU” or whatever. It can be difficult online, speaking to an extraordinarily mixed group (from strangers on their first visit to the blog all the way up to people you’ve been friends with for years), to get across that tone of “just venting about an otherwise normal and satisfactory marriage.” It’s even more complicated when it’s NOT just that.
A long time ago there was a blogger whose blog I didn’t usually read, but I was aware of her and would sometimes go read a post if someone else linked to it. One reason I didn’t like to routinely read her blog was that she so often wrote things about how she and her husband were more in love every day, or how she fell more in love with him every year, or how she never knew how much their previously large amount of love could have gotten so much LARGER. That’s not how I feel about things in my own relationship, and so reading things like that made me understandably nervous: did I marry the wrong person or what? I mean, there are all those studies that say the fluttery-lovey feeling lasts, what, two years, and then it’s more a matter of shared experiences and mutual goals and growing trust/dependence and so forth. But then you see people talking about how the flutter-love has gotten EVEN MORE FLUTTERY and it can make you wonder. Look: you can tell it makes me nervous because I switched into second-person.
Anyway, when this blogger whose love for her husband was more intense with every passing day announced that she and her husband were divorcing, and that all her earlier words on the topic of love were because she was hoping that saying those things would make them true, it was hard to know what to feel. Relief, because maybe my earlier nervousness was unfounded (at least in this case) and most marriages DON’T keep reaching for higher and higher levels of ecstatic, heart-pounding love? Anger, because she had lied with reckless disregard for how those lies might make others feel about their own relationships, and because I am probably not the only reader who thought, “Uh oh…” as a result? Sympathy, because this stuff is hard and no one knows what they’re doing and it’s easy to make a mistake you think will reflect only on yourself but in fact has much further-reaching effects?
In my own case, with my own situation, I am not sure which way to go with this, and I think it’s quite possible to choose one direction and then decide later that that was wrong. But I am able to edit and/or delete posts, and you have shown yourselves to be unfussed by previous mistakes. Also, we are all in this life thing together, and it doesn’t help any of us to read a lot of posts about how blissful someone else’s life is, but it can help TREMENDOUSLY to read about someone else’s struggles. One of the best parts of a blogging network is that “I’m not the only one!!!” feeling. There is nothing as lonely as thinking you’re the only one who manages to be depressed even when you have this beautiful perfect new baby and everything went fine and nothing is wrong, or that you’re the only one who sometimes has to resist the temptation to get in your car and keep driving, or that you’re the only one whose marriage is having troubles that don’t make funny stories, or that you’re the only one whose kids are having worrisome issues, or that you’re the only one who isn’t finding at-home motherhood particularly #blessed #MomLife #HappyMama, or that you’re the only one finding it hard to make friends, or that you’re the only one who regrets some of your life choices, or that you’re the only one who doesn’t know what to do about a situation, or WHATEVER.
All this is to say that I plan to continue discussing what’s going on, at least for now, at least in general, though of course not alllll the details. And I will try to keep in mind the goal of representing things with reasonable fairness—or in a way that shows you clearly that I am feeling too mad at that moment to be fair, so you know to take it with a grain of salt, and so I know I can walk it back later when I’ve calmed down.
I am still thinking about how I want to handle things with Paul/kids; it takes me a long time to think such things out. Right now my loose plan is to address it with the kids as part of the Father’s Day preparations. I don’t want a do-over of Mother’s Day; I thought that was a really good idea, but I find I don’t WANT it. I will use the frame of Father’s Day preparations to explain how I felt when there were no Mother’s Day preparations. Then next Mother’s Day I may do a little refresher course ahead of time, or I may make my OWN Mother’s Day plans; we’ll see.
Paul and I have had one brief talk: it made me think he might be reading my blog even though he has agreed not to, because he seemed totally fine all weekend and Monday evening, and then Monday night came to me acting very sad and saying he had felt very sad for the past few days over the Mother’s Day thing, but that on Mother’s Day he just hadn’t known what to do. I’m not sure I can explain what a baffling thing this was to hear. It would have made SOME sense from a new father on his first failed Mother’s Day; it makes zero sense from a man on his 20th Mother’s Day, when the previous 19 went fine, and when he knows from extensive experience that I am not sitting there waiting to be WOWED by something BIG and IMPRESSIVE. Also: he felt sad? HE felt sad??? I didn’t know what to do with that. He seemed to want ME to comfort and reassure HIM, for something that HE had done to ME. Which. Again, this is something I would have expected from him 20 years ago, when he was young; it is absolutely not something I was expecting to start from scratch on at this stage of our relationship, when we have already covered this amply in the past. I seriously don’t understand what is going on. This is why I am not kidding when I say I have considered options such as brain tumor and early-onset dementia. It’s not that these behaviors are out of character, it’s that they’re back full-strength as if it’s 20 years ago and we’ve never done any work on them. Why are they back? Why are they back with no seeming recollection of having been dealt with before? Where did the work go? Where did the progress go?
Furthermore, he seemed to think that interaction, in which he said he felt sad and I said yeah that day really sucked, was the end of it. He has been cheery, and seems to think it’s all over now and everything is fine. So clearly there needs to be more talking, which I am dreading, especially because I am wondering which OTHER behaviors/attitudes from the distant past are going to show up. Will it even be possible to have a reasonable discussion, or is this going to immediately dissolve into more baffling events?
There’s one more thing I think you and I should discuss, if I’m going to give occasional updates on this topic. I think that if you try to keep giving sympathetic and supportive feedback, you are going to get quite tired of doing so, and also I will start to feel as if I shouldn’t tell you anything else because I’ll worry it’ll seem like I’m begging for another fix of sweet, sweet commiseration. If this goes on long enough, you may start feeling that I expect you to keep propping me up emotionally, and I may start feeling like I need to explain that actually I am ALSO really hard to live with. Let’s see if we can avoid all that. It is of course always, always, ALWAYS fine not to comment on ANY post of ANY kind, OBVIOUSLY, but I want to explicitly state that it is fine to take all future updates on this subject as the sort of thing where you read it and nod and go on your way: you have ALREADY expressed sympathy and/or outrage and/or support on this topic, and you should not feel you need to keep feeding me that. And of course this is not to say you MAY NOT keep discussing it with me if you WANT to.
I just wanted to say (as a long time lurker) that I am so pleased your blog has survived exactly as it is, when so many have turned into lifestyle magazines or disappeared.
Ditto. Thanks, Swistle.
Agree 100%!!
Yes. This. You. Swistle, how are you so great and funny and smart and wise and your freaking family did not at least make you a freaking handmade card!
Swistle, I love you and I loved this post.
Me too!
People grow and change, but not always the way you/we would like them to. There are men who start getting older and seem to really like the feeling of being mothered. They like the feeling of maternal warmth, and someone being in charge of them, and it outlives their own mothers. I think it’s a very hard thing when a relationship changes like that; if that is what’s happening, it would totally seem like something was really wrong, or at the very least, undesirable to most women. Well, except maybe the Vice President’s wife. (yeesh)
Obviously I know nothing here, but maybe there is some disconnection that has crept in over time. It seems like it would be worth looking into for an assessment.
You are not alone. I just want to say that I feel you on all of this – the husband difficulty, the struggle of what to post and not to post, with whom to share, etc. You sharing helps me feel that I’m not alone. It’s really hard when you’re married to someone who is not a monster, not cheating on you, etc…..but yet, they’re not really loving. Now most of the problem comes from my husband thinks he’s doing a great job! And likewise, when we discuss an issue, he feels like the problems is solved because it’s been discussed….that all bad feelings magically disappear. And then when he does the same/similar thing the next week, month, etc. he seems completely shocked that this sort of thing would bother me! It’s like he has zero memory of it. I know it’s not a male thing, because I know some really great men/husbands. My husband is a very thinking (not feeling) logical person. So I think feelings just don’t really register to him. And I am ALL feelings. We have been struggling for years to find that happy place of somewhere in the middle.
Anyways, I feel ya. Keep talking. *hugs*
This is so accurate. My husband feels the same. Once discussed it’s magically all better! NOOO! Still working on a happy place.
Ugh. My husband is NOT logical but does this same thing! He can see it when other people pull that crap, like he doesn’t like to repeat things to the children over days or weeks (like explain today, reexplain in a month) I am not entitled to the same exasperation when the thing is a thing we discuss over and over and over for YEARS.
I just saw this on twitter and had to go back and read what happened. I’m sorry, Swistle. I don’t have any brilliant observations and wisdom, since your other commenters hit all the same points. I have had my share of shitty Mother’s Days in the past, but not from willful avoidance. I think that the comment re “not my mother” just topped it all off and is unacceptable. I mean, I’m the one who figures out the gifts for my MIL for mother’s day, birthday, christmas, etc and I know I’m not alone. If you have to force the issue , then it kind of defeats the purpose.
You are my very favorite blogger.
The “comforting someone else when you’re the aggrieved party” thing drives me so far up the wall I hardly have words for it. I’m so sorry you had to have that conversation, AND that he seems to think everything is fine now.
I appreciate you talking about this stuff so candidly.
Yep yep yep yep
“Also: he felt sad? HE felt sad??? I didn’t know what to do with that. He seemed to want ME to comfort and reassure HIM, for something that HE had done to ME.”
I can’t even be reasonable about it anymore. It makes me say MEAN THINGS immediately. Like, I rarely WANT to swear at my husband, and I almost never DO, but this will make me have to bite my tongue like nothing else.
And then for that miserable interaction to be regarded as the fix for the whole situation? Well, it’s…just. Just…I don’t know what.
This seems obvious, but has his own mother recently died or been seriously ill or something? I can think of literally NO other reason for him to be “sad” and helpless about Mother’s Day. I am squinting my eyes very hard. And trying not to be angry about something that really has no effect on me, and yet, is very off-putting.
Before this update post, this morning I was thinking of “she’s not MY mother” and thinking well, the bare MINIMUM he could have tried, was “well son she’s your mom, what do you think we should do?” But he didn’t. Ugh. It’s very distressing. I understand.
That is a good thought, but no, nothing like that. His mom’s been gone almost 9 years, and he’s been okay on all the Mother’s Days in between.
Isn’t it funny how the way you phrased things (“Well, she’s your mom, what do YOU think…”) is only a small tweak and yet makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD in impact/meaning???
It does seem like a “what’s changed?” kind of situation though, if he’s been ok on all the Mother’s Days in between…and the things that you want on Mother’s Day are so attainable and well defined. Could it be his relationship with Rob? Teenage boys have a way of putting their dads on the defensive that might not be bringing out the best in Paul.
This is why I’m wondering about things like brain tumors / wanting a divorce: it seems like SOMETHING must have changed. BUT WHAT?
Im so glad that I’m not the only to wonder this exact thing. In my life I have decided its the midlife crisis. I used to think that was a joke or an excuse for selfish actions, but maybe its a real thing. They realize they are aging and they get weird about it. My experience has been that women come to this conclusion about ourselves much younger. Also, it didn’t happen at age 40 in my house, it was about age 45. I foolishly thought we’d sail past and then things got weird. It feels like regressions in many areas, unfortunately. Its been so challenging and so confusing for me personally that I’ve had to decide it’s our new normal, or I’ll loose my mind. Am I ignoring issues that should be talked about? Yes. Because that’s the only option that works right now. Marriage is infinitely complex I’m finding. The bright side? Its definitely not boring!
Also, most importantly, you are the best, you are my favorite and I deeply appreciate you sharing your life with us. Thank you.
That is SUCH a puzzling comment by P, I am also wondering if it is at all related to Rob being a college? Like he is seeing how life is going to be when it’s just the two of you? Even though I think that is 8-10 years away??
He could also be covering his feelings of guilt for being thoughtless & inconsiderate with “oh I feel so bad” to try & minimize YOUR being upset. I think it’s a common defensive reaction?
Anyway. I admire how you are thinking/handling an unpleasant situation. Hopefully it is not a Larger Marital Issues situation. (Hugs.)
Do you think his hearing could be beginning to fail? It’s incredibly isolating for men, and causes low level irritability. But there are many things that can do that at midlife, like mild depression; has he had a checkup lately?
I would really want to know about the rest of his conversation with Rob. Was it an otherwise positive one? Or was it one where he was feeling grumpy and maybe going through the greatest hits of hurtful things he can say? Has Rob, since leaving for college, made Paul feel like an important part of his life…or is there some hurt going on there? Is Rob going through the phase of his life where he starts to become very aware and very vocal about all the ways he plans not to be like his dad when he grows up? Does that take the form of transparently thinking Paul is a shitty husband? (Or…imagine me saying this part very quietly but…I get the impression that Rob is going to a very expensive college? The kind of place where most of his classmates parents make considerable amounts of money, and where he might be encouraged to think of himself as someone destined to make considerable amounts of money too? How does Paul feel about this? Money tends to be a MAJOR factor in men’s self worth.)
None of this would change the fact that Paul should have found two minutes to be sweet and appreciative to you on Mother’s Day…but it might change how personally directed at you his failure was.
Okay this is obviously a very personal question, but has the amount of sex you’ve been having changed over the time period you’re talking about? Maybe after the whole no more kids discussion? Sex problems=super weirdo man behavior sometimes so I wondered if that was a factor (not that it would justify any of it!) My husband seems similar to Paul and he went through a time where he was harboring some awful thoughts about me which he was writing about on his phone. I found them on there and confronted him, otherwise I’m not sure he would have ever spoken up. Obviously I knew things were off, like you’re saying, but did not at all understand the depths of it. And a lot of the reason was bc we’d had our second child and weren’t really having sex (for months, not just the initial six weeks or whatever). And he did seem like a completely different person. To be completely honest I’m not certain to this day which is his more true self, or if that other one is still lurking around. Anyway. Just wanted to throw that out as a factor to consider.
Thank you for the follow up, it is actually a relief to know you are deeply confused by this kind of behavior as it is something I cannot wrap my head around either.
I never comment, but I just want to say I love this. Marriage is hard. I’m married to a nice man, he’s good to his family and a good provider and why do I have so many things to complain about? Argh. He’s an engineer. One time we were “discussing” something I was very upset about and he said, you’re talking about feelings! I need data points! Argh. And yet I haven’t killed him and am very fond of him much of the time.
All that to say, I feel your pain. When Elizabeth gets older, it will help. I was ignored on significant days for years until my daughter got old enough to borrow her dad’s credit card and go shopping.
But..but…but…I HATE IT that as the only daughter I am forced (by society, by my family’s expectations, by my husband’s inadequacy) to fill this role. And when I do fill this role, I’m just FULFILLING EXPECTATIONS. Whereas, if one of my brothers calls or texts my mom, they get credit for somehow EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS. It’s the whole women-do-the-emotional-labor thing. And I’m not even a woman who is particularly GOOD at emotional labor, but I am still expected to do it.
Or when you reminded your brother TO call and he gets the gushing, “oh, I am so glad you CALLED. It just made my day!”
Ha. I’m the only daughter with four brothers, so I’m so used to that role I don’t even notice it’s happening.
Just wanted to say how much I appreciate this post and the comments section. Sometimes it is so hard to determine what’s ‘normal’ vs not, when it’s okay to feel aggrieved vs just needing to get over something, etc.
I certainly don’t have an answer, but appreciate you sharing. gI say this as someone who was unnecessarily unkind to my husband yesterday and a fight followed, but also fully believe there is a kernel of truth in what I was saying and he just doesn’t see it and agggh, I know I am hormonal and pregnant, but that doesn’t invalidate every feeling! And maybe I should be given a little grace for feeling like garbage 24/7 yet still managing to function! etc etc. Lots of fun around here you can tell. :)
I very frequently think about how, despite the share-all, bare-all mode of existence in which we all reside via social media and blogs, there is so little frank discussion about marriage. So many times in the heyday of blogging, I had to pore over a blogger’s archives to see what I might have missed when, seemingly out of the blue, she announced a divorce despite a history of the effusive posts that you are describing. And my reaction, pre-divorce announcement, was always exactly like yours to those effusive posts: to examine my own feelings and find them not at all like what the blogger was describing, and then to wonder whether something was wrong with me or my situation. So I am all in favor of greater online transparency regarding this apparently taboo subject.
I became enraged anew that Paul wanted your sympathy and comfort about something HE DID. Air horn to that. You don’t get to treat your wife poorly and then try to elicit HER sympathy and comfort. Also, couldn’t he have done a mea culpa dishwasher-unloading, treat-bringing, or flower delivery instead of just coming home and moping in your general direction? COME ON, MAN.
Lol at “air horn.” Perfect. Ain’t nobody got time for that extra emotional labor.
So true! That is also the default response of my husband in the rare instances where he admits to a major screwup. He gets upset and talks about HIS feelings regarding the mistake, and how my hurt feelings have made HIM feel so sad.
And I would LOVE more frank discussions about marriage, and not just funny sitcom parodies of it.
“Air horn to that” is the very best thing ever.
I love you (in an internet stranger appropriate way) and I truly appreciate your honesty in sharing. Your ‘work’ here makes me feel less alone in the world, so if our interactions here make you feel the same, it is all for the good.
Thank you for writing about the hard stuff. And writing it so well. I’m sorry this is hard right now, and I hope it turns out to be a weird blip you can look back on in your later years. Like a mid-life crisis presenting itself as a resurgence of poor behavior from 20 years ago.
I don’t know if this has any bearing on your situation, but I know Paul is a math/logic/computer type person. In my own interpersonal relationships, these types of people can have a hard time with feelings/demonstrating feelings/”needing data points” as Mary (with the patience of a saint) mentioned above. And I know that part of my husband’s problem (when issues I thought we’d dealt with rear their ugly heads) is it is actually a flare up of his ADD symptoms. He will also be extra tired, fall asleep almost like a narcoleptic, and it turns out he’s dealing with a lot of extra stress. These two suggestions are more like food for thought and might not apply to your situation at all, obviously. They’re more my own urge as a problem solver to offer up ideas. One thing that can sometimes make it very hard to live with ME :)
OMG
I don’t know if this helped Swistle, but it helped ME.
Ha ha, I too can be a bit of a FIXER! I like these possibilities you’re suggesting, because in this case one of the reasons I am so stressed is that I am finding it hard to think of any non-disastrous (e.g., brain tumor or wants a divorce) explanations for his behavior. At this point the possibility of other solutions is soothing and useful.
Not for nothing, but your fixer-ness is one of my favorite things about you. I get pretty tired of hearing “women don’t want you to fix it; they just want you to listen” because while I totally understand that’s the case for many people, it’s not me at all. I *like* solutions!
Amen, amen. My personal stress-regression behaviors? Sleepiness, OCD about dangers (checking the stove, updating the smoke alarms, holding the 4yo’s hand in the parking lot), a snappish defensive attitude. DH: silence, silence, silence, listening to weird atonal music and volumes that give me a panic attack. So we’re a fun couple when we’re stressed :/ Not to make light of anybody’s situation, but things get weird around here when stress visits.
My husband deals with stress by falling asleep too! Mid-conversation! Literally every time we need to have a serious conversation about a tough topic, no matter what time of day it is or how much sleep he’s gotten, he will either say “I’m too sleepy to talk” or simply fall asleep where he’s sitting. It drives me crazy.
Ha! Yes, the mid conversation thing used to just amaze me, but it’s gotten old over the years. Especially now that we have three little kids and not as much time for serious conversations.
I wasn’t even until recently that I realized it was one of his ADD symptoms. And when I brought it up to him like I’d solved a mystery, he was like, “yeah, no, I know. That’s what the neuro told my parents when I was a kid.” So. That was great.
My husband’s non-diagnosed (BUT VERY APPARENT, TYVM) ADD symptoms are *hugely* exacerbated when he has work stress. He keeps it together for work and loses it entirely at home. To the point of this week I told him at the beginning of a 10 minute drive, “I’m putting your mom’s present in the back of the car” and by the end of the 10 minute drive he said, “Where did you put my mom’s present?” When they are bad, they put actual strain on our relationship/marriage. I’ve asked him to talk with his dr about it and he refuses (he doesn’t believe he has it…despite doing things like going on a business trip without shoes….forgetting his passport on an international trip…and a million other things that are stereotypical Absentminded Professor aka YOU HAVE ADD). I think he used to use caffeine to self-medicate, but he’s reduced his caffeine intake a lot in the past few years.
Wow, this describes my husband to a “T” and his ADD IS diagnosed. It has been since he was in elementary school. Until his early twenties he took medication, but when he went away to college and stopped living with his parents he stopped taking it and never started again. He too self-medicates with caffeine. I’ve urged him to talk to his doctor about restarting some kind of ADD meds, but he doesn’t think it’s a problem. Yeah, not for you, Buddy. You don’t have to live with yourself.
I really hope this post survives; I think it will be helpful to so many.
I myself have been badly burned by adhering to “what happens in a marriage, stays in a marriage,” to the point where my divorce(s) seemed totally out of the blue to most people.
I hate to bring up the totally cliched “midlife crisis,” but I have to tell you that just today I purchased a book called “The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50” because I am struggling mightily with this phase of life. Research shows that happiness bottoms out for women around 40 and for men around 45-50 (but then things get much better). So…that’s where I’m at with things. xx
*adding to library list*
I just read about this too! Here’s a teaser:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/05/happiness-curve-life-gets-better-after-50-jonathan-rauch
I also wonder, as a commenter mentioned above, if this situation might be related to Rob now being “an adult.” (I put this in quotes because we know 19 year olds are far from adults). Perhaps this was an attempt by Paul to (awkwardly and badly and passive aggressively) pass the torch of responsibility.
*adds this book to my reading list*
I had the thought about “midlife crisis” too…and I also wondered about depression?
Some days I wish I was still anonymous on the internet. Thank you for continuing to share parts of your life with us. I love hearing from you and hearing from other old friends in your comment section.
Also adding to list.
I am yet another person who wondered about midlife crisis being a factor here. Before this year, I would have only been able to talk about it in clichéd terms, but I also started to feel that I must be dealing with this. It’s probably different for every person but, for me, it was the realization that I don’t have choices anymore. I mean, of course I have choices, but I also have a good stable job and two kids and a significant mortgage and value my security. So it would be foolish to — for example — go back to school to study the thing I’ve only recently discovered I love. Or to live in Europe. Or whatever it may be. All things are possible but they’re not all realistic. And that sudden, true realization along with a number of other related things (being over 40 and dealing with health stuff, for example) has really messed with my head. I wonder too, with Paul, if Rob going away to school has affected him. I’ve been reading your blog for a long time and have read your archives couple of times, and I got the impression that Paul is quite close with his kids. Maybe that is one piece in a midlife crisis puzzle.
Everything that everyone has said x 1000.
I’m the same as others; I rarely comment. But I feel compelled to let you know that this is helpful to hear, although I hate that you’re feeling shitty and Paul is acting shitty.
Nothing else new to say, except maybe that I do not read this expecting you and Paul to break up or not break up. It’s y’all’s life and only y’all are in control of what happens. But I support you in everything you’ve said about this situation and about the bigger picture surrounding it.
I have a ton of sympathy with this entire issue, having heard that exact phrase from Husband’s mouth when Boy#1 was a newborn. I was appalled and hurt (and hormonal) and vowed to make Fathers Day just as hurtful. Fortunately, I reconsidered that tactic and decided to pamper myself the way I’d like to be pampered on Mother’s Day. So while the kids were growing up, on that one day I didnt cook, I didn’t pick up after anyone, I didn’t referee fights. In other words, I took a break from being a mom, and for one day it was lovely. Husband saw the error of his ways and has been an MD pamperer in subsequent years but I’ve made sure the Boys know the story and made them promise to never use that dreadful phrasing with heir own wives. Also, your honesty is epic and admirable.
Thank you for the update and, if Paul is reading this, I just want to say,
“Paul: You messed up and hurt your wife’s feelings pretty badly. Don’t ask for her to make YOU feel better. Make HER feel better. FIX. IT. Don’t make this her job. It’s YOUR job. It’s YOUR job to tell your kids how you messed up and how they messed up and to brainstorm on ways to make it better going forward. It’s YOUR job to pick up the slack, to open your ears, and to actually be present. You are making a habit of not listening to your wife, of not paying attention to her needs, and of not modeling good parenting and husbanding to your kids. FIX. ALL. THIS.”
I love your honesty! It’s so true that it helps tremendously to read or hear of other people going through the same situations one is personally facing. I’m a pastor’s wife but I have always tried to purposefully present myself as someone who DOESN’T have it all together. I don’t want anyone to think that just because my husband is a pastor that our life is perfect, or that we have God or parenting or marriage all figured out, because that’s not helpful to anyone AND it’s not true AT ALL.
It seems from what you write that Paul may not be much of a talker, and you are such a good writer; have you considered writing out how you feel about this particular situation, or about his recent baffling actions in general, and then letting him read it? That would give you time to say exactly what you want without getting flustered (or interrupted), and it would give him time to read it in private and think things through before reacting. I do this sometimes; my husband is much better at thinking on his feet than I am, and I get flustered quickly, so if something is important to me I will write it out and let him read it (away from me; I don’t stand over his shoulder or watch his reactions). This often results in a better, calmer, more reasonable discussion than when I just yell “WHY DO YOU ALWAYS DO THAT?!!” which is much less productive.
I wish you all the best in working through your highs and lows. Marriage is hard sometimes, and it’s WORK, which is something Pinterest and Instagram don’t tell you. I’ll end with something I read last week on Twitter: “Marriage is spending the rest of your life with someone you’d like to kill except you’d miss them too much if you did.”
I am wondering if a bit of marriage counseling might help. This is a big, weighty thing, to wonder if the man you’ve been with for two decades has changed in ways that impact your happiness and the stability of your marriage. That sounds really stressful.
I would say my wife and I have an above-average relationship in general, but I took her along to one of my individual therapy sessions once for a non-marriage-conflict-related reason and was pleasantly shocked that the conversation revealed new things about her and our relationship that I hadn’t known before. So I think there can be real value in talking things through in that kind of setting, even if you talk privately as a couple all the time. Marriage counseling definitely isn’t just for people who are on the verge of divorce.
I am going to comment again to say that I’m also a big proponent of counselling. I went for three years and, for the first six months, I was thinking, “What am I doing here? This is not for people like me. This is pointless.” But, in the end, it literally changed my life (for the better of course). I do find, though, that a lot of people (dare I say men?) seem to act like counselling is a horrible shameful thing. I suggested it to my brother once during a crisis he was having, and he stopped speaking to me for a while (like, by suggesting counselling, I was suggesting he was mentally ill? or incapable in life? I don’t know). I have a friend who is divorcing now who asked her husband to go to couples counselling and he said no. That is was all in her head. (And he’s surprised he’s getting divorced!) So, if nothing else, I would say maybe you start with individual counselling for you. I know you have your friends and this sounding board, but I found the therapist really knew how to get me thinking about stuff in a new way. I did all the work; she just facilitated it. I know you’ve tried counselling before, but maybe you haven’t found the right counsellor/therapist. Something to consider at least. Thanks for being honest so the rest of us can feel normal.
My husband and I went to about a year of counseling early in our marriage precisely because things were so fabulous, and we wanted to make sure we learned how to KEEP it that way. I’d gone to therapy before, but my husband never had, and it turned out to be a really worthwhile endeavor.
Thank you for the update. I find that when my husband does stupid stuff recently, I am MUCH more often imagining driving off into the sunset than ever before, and not in a panicky feeling, rather a feeling of relief. I am not sure if it is because I am 40 and over a lot of it, or because, like you, we already fixed this stuff why after 17 years together did you all of a sudden start leaving the toilet seat up? (Literally, never an issue in 17 years about now my two daughters and I are falling in all over the place. It’s maddening). Or if so much is crappy and easy to feel hopeless about current events, that it is hard to summon up my ability to once again teach an adult male how to be a decent husband and father.
Or perhaps we all need a vacation.
Thanks for talking about this stuff and sharing.
Hi. I’m a long time lurker and almost never comment but I’ve been reading your blog for years and years now. It’s the only non name related blog that I read regularly. I love your written voice and your perspective and your honesty and your humor. I’m sorry you are going through such a rough patch. It sucks. I just went through a divorce and I wholly understand where you are coming from on many of your points. I don’t have much in the way of advice other than to maybe write out your key points before talking to Paul. Kinda like a doctors appointment. That way you can make sure everything gets covered the way you want it to be. If I knew you in rea life and you do hugs I would give you one. I hope you are able to move through whatever is ahead of you with the same spunk and wry insights that have made you a pleasure to hear from these many years. :)
I do this too, for any hard conversation where I’m worried I’ll get flustered. I make a bullet list and take it with me because I tend to get nervous and blank out. Wishing you all the best, Swistle.
I’m so glad to hear an update from you, even on this very tough topic. I, probably like many readers, wondered if there could be Something Bigger going on, but felt very out of place suggesting that or marriage counseling. I will say that in just my nine year marriage, my husband and I have been to counseling which helped us work through things that was difficult for us to talk about without help, and we’ve gone through periods where I’ve thought seriously about divorce. Marriage is certainly a roller coaster, anyone who says otherwise simply isn’t honest. Things are much better now but it took work – a willingness on both sides to change behaviors, and a commitment that yes we both still wanted to do this. I hope you guys find a way to communicate with each other; you the strength to ask the hard questions that need asking and him the strength to answer honestly. Thank you for sharing with us.
So my experience which perhaps a little parallel to yours: I also have been married for almost 20 years. I am also in a quite low point in my marriage. Not like I want to leave…but more like I’m not sure I want to stay. Make sense?
Anyway, this whole feeling of going back to the beginning is very very familiar to me. And after some convos with friends, I think it’s me. Or more accurately, I think it’s me realizing that things I thought were settled were actually not settled so much as managed by me as a matter of course and also, that I have reached my limits of pretending to myself that I’m not managing it. Which is not to say that my husband is a jerk (he is not) nor that I am a martyr (I am not), but that I think i’m kind of good at pretending that things don’t bother me when they do. I’m left feeling like “Why am I putting away your mayonnaise every day like you are a child” and he’s wondering “she doesn’t like it when I leave the mayo out?” Because I guess I’ve been putting it away regularly for 20 years and just sort of stifled it. HEALTHY! And still, he’s a 47 year old man who should know to put the mayo away for crying out loud. So it’s not like I’m wrong! But my reaction might be a little more intense than the situation actually requires.
Anyway, maintenance communication. It’s good for a marriage but it feels like absolute shit when I am doing it.
The mayo piece. YES. Why am I constantly wiping up bread/toast crumbs? I don’t enjoy it, you are an adult and you KNOW I don’t enjoy it. About a year ago I started with some solid “Maintenance Communication” and I feel so much better, though he has informed me he doesn’t so much like it. Well suck it up buddy. If I come across a fixable situation, I will now ADDRESS it in the moment vs stifling it.
Have you read this article? It really resonated with me – I wish our husbands would understand this sooner rather than later…
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-fray/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink_b_9055288.html
WOW. Wish I could post on FB for him to see and read and absorb.
I liked the first part: it sounded like he really got it, and I was taking mental notes for future conversations with Paul.
But at the end it took a turn. “If he KNEW that — if he fully understood this secret she has never explained to him in a way that doesn’t make her sound crazy to him…” This “SECRET”? This secret she has never explained without “sounding crazy”? And if she is attempting again and again to carefully explain something to another person, it is very odd to call it a secret.
And: “Telling a man something that doesn’t make sense to him once, or a million times, doesn’t make him ‘know’ something. Right or wrong, he would never feel hurt if the same situation were reversed so he doesn’t think his wife SHOULD hurt. ‘I never get upset with you about things you do that I don’t like!,’ men reason…”
Gentle, easy-going, reasonable men, never offended, never upset, nothing their WIVES do ever bothers them or makes them mad. They’re like big old teddy bears: you can explain your crazy secret a million times to your gentle teddy bear but he will never understand something that doesn’t make sense no matter how hard he tries, and he would never be mad at YOU so he can’t understand in his gentle furry little brain how YOU could ever be mad with HIM. Poor men! They try so hard, but they’re just not able to understand these crazy secrets!
It’s like he GOT it, kind of, in the end, without REALLY GETTING IT. He still thinks it’s some huge mysterious inexplicable crazy thing about Women. And this sort of thing can then be a problem only in hetero relationships, because it is always the man who can’t understand and the woman who has crazy secrets that don’t make sense.
So, like, if we don’t want to have sex with you, that’s just a thing that is, and it wouldn’t bother them? I mean, if having sex isn’t something we feel like doing, that’s just not a problem because it’s not a problem for us?
Right! If only they could find a way to describe this secret in a way that didn’t make them sound crazy! But, sadly, even if they explained it a million times, it would be impossible for us to understand something that doesn’t make sense.
This made me cry. It is exactly the thing I’ve thought so often when re-doing the laundry after my husband dumped it on a table to get so wrinkled it’s no longer presentable enough to wear outside the house let alone to my professional office. He doesn’t care for my or the kids’ clothes because he doesn’t respect us. He resents having to do our laundry. We aren’t important enough for him to care whether we look like we pulled our shirt out of the dirty clothes hamper. That’s how I feel, but I’m sure he just thinks, “Ugh, I hate laundry. I’ll fold it later.” I’ve said for years that if we divorce, it will be over “laundry.”
OMG, I have also often said that if we divorce, it will be over laundry. I my case, I don’t even care if it wrinkles (and I hang my own work clothes to dry anyway). So I was making sure that the laundry was washed and dried and leaving it on the sofa for him to sort and put away. It is a job that is not time sensitive and you literally don’t get your hands dirty. And yet many, many a morning, I was fishing through a week’s worth of laundry looking for socks for the three children I was dressing. At one point, his mother even emailed him because she had nowhere to sit when she came to babysit three times a week.
I don’t have anything helpful to add. Ditto to everyone on the outrage about your Mother’s Day and Paul’s subsequent attempt to get you to comfort him. Makes me stabby.
I also struggle with how much of a marriage to share with anyone else. I look at my friends who complain and wonder why they even stay married if they’re so unhappy. And I look at my friends who only gush over their spouses and how wonderful they are, and I wonder whether it’s all true, and if it is, what planet are they living on where nothing is ever wrong?
My husband is awesome at a lot of stuff – he’s a wonderful, hands-on parent, he remembers to mow the lawn and take out the trash all by himself, he does pretty much ALL of our dishes and almost all of the cooking, meal-planning, and grocery shopping… he’s great. He even gets up with our preschooler on the weekends so I can sleep in even though he ALSO gets her ready every morning during the week. But I have this lurking fear that in 6 months, or 3 years, or 5 years, it’s all going to come crashing down and he’s going to divorce me for not doing enough to help with all that stuff. That I’m being a bad wife by not contributing more to those tasks myself. Then I try to tell myself I do OTHER important household things – kids laundry, cleaning bathrooms, paying bills, maintaining family relationships (including with his side of the family), setting play dates, keeping track of special days at kids school where they have to bring in/wear certain things, reading articles about parenting and kid safety and kid nutrition etc…
And this feeling of “I don’t do enough because he does so much” also makes me feel like I’m not allowed to be upset when he does something stupid, or when he commits those casual, trivial annoyances that drive me crazy (like leaving the dishwasher open, cabinets open, etc).
And then I don’t want to complain about that little stuff (or any big stuff) to friends, because really, overall, he IS great. And I DO think we have a pretty healthy marriage (besides me being terrified that he will one day “wake up” and realize he doesn’t need me). But… ugh.
Anyway, I’m only 5 years into it and I think marriage is pretty complicated and hard to navigate even when it’s good/easy, which feels like a contradiction but I don’t think it is?
Bahhhhhh
I feel very, very similar. For six years after our first kid was born, my husband and I both worked and shared childcare and household duties to the point that I felt like I’d won the lottery. He didn’t even seem resentful about it, even though, because I worked from home as a contractor, he had to spend most of his weekends looking after the kids at the expense of his hobbies or the work he’d prefer to be doing (like yard work). If I took some time to screw around on the Internet or read a book, well, he knew how hard I worked otherwise and how demanding the kids were when I wasn’t working. I deserved a break! This year I lost my contract, and my husband is in a higher-paying but much more demanding job, and suddenly, if I leave any of the housework for him, I feel like it’s just another rock in the backpack of resentment he must surely be carrying around, especially when he sees me spending an hour over my lunch, coffee, and a book, while he slaves away in his home office, increasingly stressed out. Plus the kids seem less demanding now (they aren’t, they’re just demanding in different, less personal ways, where I don’t have to read to them and play with them all day, but drop offs, pick ups, and extra-curriculars suck hours of my life away). I feel like we’ve entered some choppy waters, and think we could really benefit from counseling, but of course I’ve lost my job, so now there’s no money for that.
Anyway, if it helps you, because it helped me a little, I play the “if I were hospitalized” game – if you were hospitalized, what would you have to tell your husband to do that he has no idea needs to get done? I realized that if I were hospitalized, my kids would never get to go on field trips because permission slips wouldn’t be signed, they’d never turn in homework, because I’m the one who helps with and checks it, and makes sure it gets in the backpacks (they’re still little, we’re working on this becoming their responsibility), they’d probably be booted out of their school, because registration/transfer paperwork wouldn’t be completed, etc., etc. I also know all the log-in information for the banking, bill-paying, and budgeting, I register the kids for after school activities, I have detailed systems for storing and organizing toys, hand-me-downs, food in the refrigerator, what we pack for vacation, I help with all the school fundraising, and buy the yearbook, and donate when they do drives, I know when all their important activities are – on and on, basically. And you obviously do a bunch of that “invisible” work, too. I totally understand the feeling that it might all come crashing down, but I think one of the things that makes it work right now is that my husband and I both try to acknowledge all the work the other does, regularly. But we’re only 10 years in, so who knows :)
Thanks so much for sharing. I too have trouble talking about things with my family/friends, and tend not to if I think it’s something that will make them think the issue is More Serious than I’m trying to make it sound. It’s also hard when the spouse is overall a good person and good spouse, but does–or doesn’t do– certain things that any normal, kind, helpful person would do (at least according to me). It also sucks when everyone tells you how great your spouse is so you definitely feel weird saying anything. Like, we have a baby and he’s apparently Parent of the Year doing the minimum-medium amount of work and I’m told how lucky I am that he “helps.” My hope is that things are just hard now and will get better instead of my resentment growing to a level where there’s no going back.
You are my favorite blogger and the way your thoughts come out make sense to me so anyway, I appreciate your honesty in talking about this.
I too love your blog, and while I am grateful it’s not commercialized I’d be happy to support some ads popping up if it helped you. I too have experienced lately some actions from my husband that seem to be pushing my limits, and my reaction is that I wish if he wanted out that he would be the one to leave. But, I doubt he will put forth the effort. Just like all the vacation, meal, holiday, gift, kids activity and childcare planning I’ll have to organize the divorce too. Also, I think your tweet yesterday about healthcare is so true. Just as people get married for that reason, I think many stay married for the same reason.
I’m sorry you are having a rough time.
Swistle, you are a treasure. I don’t know how long I’ve been reading, but I’m so, so, so glad I found your blog. You have such a wonderful, thoughtful way of approaching situations. It’s like you just get it. Not only that, but you discuss it. It is nice to know you’re not alone. You’re blog is a nice reminder that the internet isn’t all trolls and disgusting people saying horrible things for no reason.
I mentioned on another post that a little over a month ago I had a blow up with my husband. It was partially a case of him being oblivious and disengaged. But I felt there was more even though he thought it was a non-issue. During the blow up, I laid bare all my fears and frustrations, told him what I wanted and needed from him. All seemed fine for a few days, then I got a clear sign that the “more” that he thought was a non-issue was very much still an issue. He thought just telling me I shouldn’t be upset was enough to close the matter without him changing any behaviors that made me upset in the first place.
After another emotional conversation (I might have thrown up in my mouth a little. Dang anxiety.), we are clearer on boundaries and expectations. It’s not back to where we were; that will take time. As my friend told me, I had to have it out with him, as hard as it was, in order to find out if we would get stronger or were wasting our time together. Have it out with Paul. I hope you come out stronger.
We have had three blow up fights in our 26 year relationship and I can tell you that he reverts to “everything is fine now” within days of said fight. Even when I have laid bare all of my needs and concerns. I often wonder how he can sleep at night knowing I continue to be quite unhappy, he has NOT met my partnership needs, and KNOWS I would be 100% able to handle myself and the kids post-divorce. You think that would spark action vs complacency. It does not.
I’ve been reading your blog for years and it seems like the big change has been that your kids are growing up. I think Paul has just gotten lazy as the job of parenting has lightened. I remember you saying that Paul doesn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day and even though you don’t want a big thing, you’d like a card or chocolate. This isn’t important to him but it’s important to you, therefore it needs to be more important to him. It sounds like he’s gotten lazy about giving emotionally in ways that don’t come naturally. Someone up thread suggested counseling and it does really help to have a third party tell the person tuning out that to be a good partner they need to tune back in. I really don’t think it’s a tumor or he wants a divorce but just that he knows you love him and you aren’t going anywhere, the kids don’t need him like they used to and that he thinks that means he doesn’t need to try.
I like this explanation.
I wonder also if he felt like he screwed up the stove so bad so why bother trying here as he was sure to get it wrong also. Did he take ownership at all of that mess or was he resentful that it happened and you called him on it? Does this make sense at all?
Thank you swistle for your blog in general and and these last couple of entries in particular.
I’d like to recommend a podcast called Where Should We Begin? It’s (edited, anonymous) recordings of marriage counseling sessions conducted by Esther Perel. It’s given me amazing insights and clarity into themes and issues in my own marriage, and made me consider counseling for the first time in my life.
Oh man, that show makes me cry every time! In a good way.
Swistle, I’m so glad you updated and your commenters were able to help you feel at least a little bit better about the whole situation.
I understand the tendency to jump straight to “he wants a divorce/he has dementia” (I have been known to diagnose myself with MS/ALS if a muscle so much as twitches the slightest amount), but could it just be a case of pure laziness? Relationships are hard work and you have to work at them every single day. Perhaps divorce or “falling out of love” or any of that isn’t on his mind, but has simply lost his need or desire to put in the daily effort. One could interpret the loss of a desire to put in effort as not loving you enough, but I think it happens to the best of us. When people get comfortable and don’t feel like anything is at stake, they stop trying so hard. I believe it’s just human nature – not anything out of the ordinary. Now, if you point this out to him and he still refuses to at least attempt to make changes or doesn’t even acknowledge what you are saying to him, then I think it could be an “out of the ordinary” problem.
I think the first step would be to tell him how you have been feeling, not just regarding this particular incident, but about the marriage in general . Ask him how he’s feeling about things. Identify any root causes that you think could be underlying some of the issues you’ve been having. Come up with actions to eliminate these issues together. Perhaps counseling, as others have suggested, is the way to go, but I have an inclination that the marriage is just sightly worn out and needs its fire rekindled!
Good luck Swistle!
This sounds like it could be a great situation for marriage counseling. I feel like people think counseling is only when you get to a crisis point of thinking of divorce or affairs or something, but it can be really helpful for times when you’re just not on the same page as your spouse. It’s nice to have a neutral third party to listen and identify issues and solutions. And it is also sometimes easier for spouses to listen and actually hear each other when they are forced to sit down and talk in a different environment.
I wonder if this might be a good book for either you or Paul? I haven’t read it, but I loved Jonathan Rauch’s earlier book about (gay) marriage.
https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Curve-Life-Better-After/dp/1250078806/ref=sr_1_1?s=arts-crafts&ie=UTF8&qid=1526506986&sr=8-1&keywords=jonathan+rauch&dpID=414q838B54L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch
Woops! Should have read the earlier comments. But yes, definitely read Jonathan Rauch. His book about marriage really gets you thinking about what’s essential and what’s not, and his book about his own process of coming out is actually kind of Swistle-esque in its introspection and honesty.
Swistle, while I’m still outraged on your behalf, you know as well as I do that marriage is HARD. Most men, do not look at these things the way we do. I know that after almost (looks at calendar; counts on fingers) 27 and a half years, my husband continues to unexpectedly surprise me (and not in a good way) and I have to correct – or remind him – how I feel about certain situations/issues. Not that it necessarily changes the way he thinks about things but it does remind him that my feelings are valid.
I totally understand your reluctance about posting “too” much about your marriage – for the most part, that is a private thing between you and your partner. And, I find that those that are “gushing” about their “love/life” are usually “posing for the camera” so to speak – so I generally discount those out of hand.
Sending more hugs and wine.
I have a similar story about my husband of 34 years, ironically also named Paul. We are at the airport, leaving to visit our son for the long weekend. He does not want to go and does not like to fly. Tomorrow is my 60th birthday. He wanted to get a drink so we stopped at an airport restaurant near our gate. The restaurant is crowded and he asks a man at a table for two if he would mind sharing and proceeds to sit down. Leaving me to…..find someone to sit with? I elected to go back to the gate to wait. the thing is that he depends on me to tell him where to go and when it’s time to line up. He doesn’t listen to the announcements. I am leaving on this plane with or without him – I am not going to remind him, I am not going to save him a window seat. Sadly, this is the story of our marriage, nothing has changed, it never got better, just worse. I am pretty sad about this.
I am so sorry. Husbands dealing with weird travel anxiety are the worst.
Travel poutiness? I don’t even really know what it is. I just know you get trapped in an airport, not wanting to make a scene or ruin the trip, and completely stuck.
UG I AM SO MAD-SAD FOR YOU!
So… did he make the flight?
(Honestly hoping for an update!)
Here’s what I know about men: they don’t morph in their thinking the way women do. You are saying he has known for 20 years what to do, but, actually, things have changed. He isn’t to do the things he did 20 years ago, or even 10. Or 5. The kids are older and the rules have changed. So when asked what to do, he said he didn’t know, because he really didn’t know. Your kids are old enough to take on the responsibility of Mother’s Day themselves (which, we haven’t even talked about how your kids also screwed up. I’m sorry if saying that adds to your hurt). So what was Paul supposed to do? Make suggestions to people big enough to come up with ideas themselves?
I’m not letting him off the hook. He could have made suggestions, or offered the car for a shopping trip. Given them money. Whatever. And he should have done something special for you on Mother’s Day. But when he said he has been feeling sad, believe him. He knows he let you down, but he isn’t sure what he was supposed to do. You have to teach him all over again, because the rules have changed and he doesn’t know what they are.
I suggest you talk to him about your feelings. And make suggestions about what he could have done. And then ask him to go to the kids and say “We messed up. What are we going to do about it?” And let them figure out together how to make amends. We all need to learn how to repair relationships. This is a good time for them all to practice doing that.
My two cents. Sending lots of love your way.
Oh hellllllllllll no. I am about to light into what you just said, and so first I want you to know that I am happy you are here, and you have been here a long time and I respect you and appreciate you and value your input, and I am particularly glad of your input in this particular case because it gives me a chance to say what I absolutely 100% am not willing to go along with. I hope I will succeed in my attempt to make this an rejection of concepts rather than a smack-down of YOU, a task that reminds me of that video I saw of a tree-cutter getting a tree to fall WHOOSH into the tiny gap between two structures without hitting either one. Let’s see how we do, shall we? *starts sawing* *structures exchange an uneasy look*
We HAVE discussed here that the kids screwed up, and how I am going to approach that; it has not been ignored, but my impression is that we are all going a little easy on them in public out of respect for how difficult it is for a mother to criticize her children publicly or hear them criticized publicly.
We are concentrating mostly on Paul because Paul is a grown adult, and is no longer in the Childhood Training portion of life, and is not and has never been under my Parental Jurisdiction, and can figure things out as well as I can. “Being a man” doesn’t make that impossible for him. This is not a life where only women know how to do things, and any man without a woman is lost, completely without the ability to live in society because there is no woman to teach him.
It is absolutely not my responsibility to “teach him all over again, because the rules have changed.” HELL. NO. SISTER. FRIEND. Even when things are gradually changing, as they are, they have not changed completely from one single year to the next. I too am experiencing the gradual change of things, and yet I am managing to keep up with giving Paul licorice, and then t-shirts, and then beer on Father’s Day as his preferences changed, and I am able to dish out the age-appropriate assistance each year to the children as they figure out what they should give him (which, yes, I DO absolutely expect him to do with them on Mother’s Day, ranging from a little speech about what Mother’s Day is about + “And what do you think you would like to do for Mother’s Day?” for the youngest up to “You all set for Mother’s Day? Need anything from me?” for the oldest). It is not my job to also guide and teach Paul. It was not really my job to teach him the FIRST time around, but I took it on because there was no other choice unless I wanted to divorce him and start over with someone pre-trained. I am not his permanent Life Coach, here to guide him through life as he leans on my innate womanly wisdom and womanly understanding of change.
I can tell you mean so well, and I hear the love and gentleness and mercy and relationship-building/repairing you intend and I want you to know I do feel that part it as you intended, but I also need to say back to you that this is some messed-up stuff right here. Honestly, if you are right—and you could be right, maybe that’s why I am having so much trouble—then I am out of this: I will either find an adult (i.e., woman) to marry or I will be single. I am not willing to go along with the idea that it is women’s job to coach men through life. I am not willing to go along with the situation that as the rules change, men get to be passively sad and hopeless and wait for women to tell them the new way things are so that men will know what to do—the poor helpless things.
I will work on teaching the kids, as I’ve already said I would and as IS my actual job (though it was Paul’s job to teach them about Mother’s Day, and apparently I will now need to take on that as well). And I will deal with Paul as if he is a grown and capable adult who has failed to do a simple thing he is completely capable of doing. And if it turns out he is instead unable to deal with change unless I constantly coach and teach him, like he’s some eternal child for me to parent long after my actual children have grown and left, then that is the sign I need that this is not working and it is time to live a different way.
There. Did I manage to miss the structures, or has there been some scraping?
Thank you for modeling how it is possible to understand and appreciate the intention while still rejecting the message in its entirety. It’s not your job to teach me any more than it is to teach Paul, but I learn so much from you and what you choose to share and I really appreciate it.
BURN.THIS.SHIT.UP.SWISTLE.
Swistle. You are so wise. Even when things are shitty and hard, you are so wise.
I too am puzzled by the 19 years of Good Mother’s Days and this one Awful Horrendous Mother’s Day. I too am wondering if there are brain changes or something going on behind the scenes/in his head/in his life. Slightly less dramatic than a brain tumor (and I have a coworker whose husband recently had personality changes and then motor planning problems and does unfortunately have a brain tumor, so please DO keep an eye out for significant changes), perhaps he has a mental health issue. Then the response of him feeling SAD about it and wanting YOU to comfort him/make it better, it just seems like something is going on, and I’m leaning more towards mental health or irritability for some reason (someone else suggested hearing loss as a cause of irritability in middle aged men, that’s an interesting point).
Anyway, all that to say, I 100% see your point of view here.
I’m sorry. I hope you get to the bottom of it, and I hope it’s the best possible outcome for you, whatever outcome that may be.
PS: My husband is in therapy for anxiety and stress coping after being anti-therapy for years, and it’s been a very good thing. I never would have thought he would go, but it took us almost getting separated for him (or, more precisely, me threatening to leave and planning to actually follow through) to get it together and get some help.
My husband suffers from mild depression – it manifests itself in a quick temper and laziness (I know it’s not really laziness but it’s how it looks from the outside). When he is low dishes pile up in the sink even though I’ve emptied the dishwasher, his clothes get worn from the hamper, he’d serve canned olives and bread for dinner (actually happened). He goes to work and might find the energy for a project that really interests him, but bills will go unpaid for months if I don’t catch it. Just wondering if Paul has depression? As men age hormonal changes can lead to depression. A mild antidepressant can work wonders
I am not threading to avoid any appearance of piling on, but upthread Swistle you said “ I will either find an adult (i.e., woman) to marry or I will be single. I am not willing to go along with the idea it is women’s job to coach men through life.”
My mom and dad married and divorced twice, and at this point in my life there is no flipping mystery why my mom has chosen to remain single for the last 15 years.
OK, I have a thought that may be totally out of left field but it just occurred to me. I think you have lost a significant amount of weight in the past year? Like, 20+ pounds? Not to pry, but could Paul be feeling insecure about his own body image and/or about your interest in him, because you have become much thinner??
Maybe this has nothing to do with anything. But it does seem like a big recent change and I would think Paul would have some reaction? I would HOPE Paul would be very happy for you! Cheer you on! I’m not sure of Paul’s health/fitness level but maybe he would decide to join you! But if he is feeling like “Swistle is so much thinner, maybe she could find somebody else, she doesn’t need me anymore” that could come out in weird ways.
Just a thought!!
Swistle, I’m sorry you had a shitty day. It infuriates me to hear of men behaving in such a selfish toward their wives. Because it IS selfish – he remembered it was Mother’s Day, he knew what kinds of things would make you happy, and he chose not to do them.
And I’m sorry that Paul isn’t doing a better job of modeling kindness and consideration and respect for you in front of your children. That can have such a strong effect on how your sons treat their future wives, and how Elizabeth expects to be treated by her future husband.
So much of what you say about your relationship reminds me of a friend’s marriage. Her husband was finally diagnosed as autistic in mid-life, when his inability to function in their relationship was getting worse and worse. It brought them to the brink of divorce. Figuring out the root cause of his relationship deficiencies and working with a psychologist saved their marriage,
It almost makes one wish for such a diagnosis because it’s far more forgivable than terminal asshole-ishness.
I listened to this book on Overdrive, and I really enjoyed it (although it has its critics):
https://www.npr.org/2012/02/03/146342668/best-practices-learning-to-live-with-aspergers
And a NYT column from Kristen Finch, wife of the autistic guy who wrote The Journal of Best Practices.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/style/modern-love-aspergers-diagnosis.html
I wanted to ask if Paul might be on the spectrum too.
Man, I love you. You’re right of course that none of us is perfect — but your “reasonable fairness” and thoughtfulness in the true sense of the word has really been an example to me, and is no small part of the reason that intellectual rigor is basically the love language of my marriage. So far, that’s been pretty consistent KNOCK WOOD, but I would feel completely at sea if it suddenly stopped and would absolutely be wondering if perhaps it is a brain tumor (though I also find all the less-severe possibilities suggested here comforting and more likely). Like, WE HAD A DEAL, MAN. If Paul cannot find his way back to holding up his end of the bargain, well, then, I am also not threading but may I say HELL YES to your reply above. But I hope he can.
Brain dump point the first: When you were talking about songs that annoy you, I wanted to comment that Paramore’s “Still Into You” works my last nerve because (A) it is one of those “I love you ever more, every day” songs that has me thinking “Huh. I still love my husband but I’m not giddy-can’t-eat about it. Is that WRONG?” and (B) she is congratulating herself on feeling this way about a relationship that is only a few years old. Schadenfreude: she married the guy and they separated the next year.
Second point: I am running through the things this could be like it’s a NY Times medical mystery column: Lyme disease? Undiagnosed ADHD? Is he on the spectrum? And who’s responsible for getting it diagnosed and treated?
Final, ranty point: I am also finding myself irritated by “People who are logical are confused by emotions.” Puh-leeeease. I once took a personality/work style test that pegged me as fast-based and detail oriented, and this assessment came with the warning that my fixation on facts will be alienating to people who are wrapped up in their emotions. OK, fine, I can accommodate that, but why can’t Feelona empathize with my need to have evidence behind decisions? Because my irritation is an emotion, too. My happiness when I get my way? AN EMOTION.
I don’t think it’s that logical people CAN’T understand emotions; I think they are VERY in touch with their own emotions and find it inconvenient (hence, irritating) to accommodate other people’s feelings. It’s not as though they make choices based only on the most economically or socially rational outcomes. They’re just self-absorbed. And I can work with that, to an extent — I would rather write a check to cover unpaid taxes, my spouse would rather receive a refund even though he knows, thanks to math, that this makes less sense, so we try to arrange things so we get a small refund or make a small payment — but don’t pretend that one person’s emotions are baffling to their partner who is a cross between the Dalai Lama and Data.