I started this entry on January 1, at which point I was resolved --or so I thought-- to stop pretending that this marriage was working, that it was a source of happiness, that it was a source of anything good other than children. That night, after yelling viciously at my eldest son for complaining about being hungry (details below), I retreated to a hot shower and angrily and hopelessly m'ed through a full, Three Act dream scenario with my Tina Louise-alike leading lust object in the Hotel Monaco, then went alone to the movies. I sat through Inception and something involving Bruce Willis and the CIA, emerging around midnight still angry and feeling probably as close as I've come in recent memory to calling it quits. But rather than saying something I may have regretted back home, I largely avoided my wife for 48 hours while I worked through my thoughts. On Monday the 3rd, I wrote her the following, to which she responded surprisingly understandingly and productively, as a result of which things have improved dramatically around here:
I’m writing this because that tends to work best to get info “on the table,” and we can follow up later, if/whenever you feel like it.
Executive Summary
I’ve spun stuff around in my head at length, and have figured out that I’ve been angry at you because your ongoing complaints about the laptop and cell phone, combined with your disbelief/disgust/whatever-it-is about my reluctance to spend another $1,000 on [multi-level marketing product], make me feel like you are, after all is said and done, ungrateful for my efforts as a provider, which, in turn, makes me feel like a failure in yet another way as a husband -- ironically in the ONE area of husbandly responsibilities (i.e., breadwinner) that I’ve thought would be bulletproof/irrefutable by virtually any reasonable third-party standard.
Unabridged Version
As you're aware, I've had some muddled and confused thoughts and feelings for the last week or so that boiled over onto sweet [#2] Saturday evening. I've made what I think is some great progress sorting through things in the last 48 hours. My time on the hill with him helped in the sorting/clarifying department. It was a perfect ski afternoon - the sky was clear, the air clean and the snow fresh, and he did great. We had a lot of fun. But he’d managed to get out of the house without eating lunch, I didn't pack any snacks, the warming hut closed at 3, and by the time we were on the lift for what ended up being our second to last run, the combination of his hunger and cold toes (mine were cold, too) started taking over, which is why we didn't stay for a few runs at the start of night skiing. It was when I stopped for nacho gear at [the neighborhood market] that he started crying. But by that time, I wasn't mad at him, as you're also aware – but he got the brunt of the burst.
You’ll remember that, in trying to figure out what the heck was going on with my feelings about you (why I was feeling angry, even resentful, preferring distance, etc. – I honestly struggled to make sense of it, even as I was aware that it was going on), I brainstormed a lot of ideas on the fly. Some of them, now in retrospect, were so far off the mark as to have been stupid (“I wonder if maybe technology is the New Humanities.”), and others (“Is some sense of entitlement kicking in?”), while perhaps not entirely accurate, might have been within the general solar system.
I’ll explain:
I work hard to provide for our family. I know we can discuss whether I’m the one “earning the money” (since I’m the one who actually physically shows up at a workplace, types things, calls people, makes decisions, etc., all of which magically results in money appearing in our bank account) or whether “we” are earning the money (since your efforts at home enable me to leave the house and come to a workplace), but, at the end of the day, I studied my butt off in school and then applied myself pretty diligently in my early career to put myself in the best position to monetize whatever life would come to throw at me. What I do now is what life has thrown at me, and I work hard to do it as best as I reasonably can, and that hard work allows me to "provid[e] the necessities of life and protection,” as well as a fair amount of “other stuff,” for our family. It’s debatable whether I succeed at many of my other responsibilities as a father; in this area, however, at least for the last decade or so, things have, through works and grace, gone decently by almost any reasonable standard.
With that as a [characteristically] long-winded backdrop, I arrive at last at why on earth I’d become increasingly irritated at you in the week since Christmas.
We could debate whether you “need” a laptop until the cows come home. But that’s not the point. The point is that it became clear that this is something you really wanted, that you saw would have significant benefit to your life at home and, hopefully, a remunerative business application. You wanted a MacBook, but understood (which I appreciate) why that might not be the most prudent step for now. So I did a lot of research and took the time of knowledgeable colleagues & friends, to find something that would work well for you and not ding the budget too hard. This process arrived at the Asus. Nobody will argue that it’s cutting edge for today’s technology. But nobody will argue that it’s not at least a tenfold improvement over the Dell, or that it has vastly more firepower than you (or I, for that matter) could possibly use based on y/our skills and applications, although it may take a little “skill-freshening” for you to make Windows 7 become “intuitive” to you. Hundreds of millions of people somehow manage to cope with Windows 7 – while it may not be Apple, it may not be the direct equivalent of The Pear or the Iron Maiden. But the running theme of your experience with the laptop thus far comes across to me loud and clear as Dissatisfaction.
I wasn’t in the market for a new phone. I knew there’s all kinds of neat stuff out there, but my other phone was fine. You wanted a new phone. Which is understandable. Similarly, your old phone seemed fine to me but I don’t begrudge you that desire, although [my boss] loved the news almost as much as he loved word of your concealed weapons permit. So I did a lot of research and took the time of knowledgeable colleagues & friends, to find something that would work well for us, in conjunction with my employer’s parameters, and not ding the budget too hard. This process arrived at the what is arguably one of the very best data plans (our ONLY limitation is 1,500 minutes to land lines during business hours each month – literally everything else is unlimited), on the fastest network, on what many argue are two of the 4 or 5 very best phones out there (I learned the other day that our phones are categorized as “superphones,” not just “smartphones”), plus an outstanding third phone for the kids, all for (fill in cash register noise here) about $50 a month out of pocket when it’s all said and done. But the running theme of your experience with your phone thus far (this, to my knowledge, without having read the instructions or checked things online or speaking to your very tech-savvy brother who also has an Android-based superphone and could probably give you some good tips) comes across to me loud and clear as Dissatisfaction.
Take these complaints (that’s what they are), stir in $1,000 worth of newfound [multi-level marketing firm] guilt, bake it in the oven of recent trips to Europe and Cancun, let it cool on the rack of a reasonable outlay for Christmas, serve it with a side of the fact my employer (and I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that this MAY have had something to do with my efforts at work; see previous paragraph for the long and whiney tale of woe) just made a couple of adjustments that significantly improve our already-decent financial position, and I sit down to a meal of INGRATITUDE.
It’s not about how you navigate your “unintuitive” laptop or whether the color scheme of the texting screen on your “unintuitive” phone matches[that of your sister] . It’s that your emotional emphasis on these and other points claws back the scab on some sensitive tissue of ingratitude and inadequacy. So while I’m chewing on this entrée (back to the baking metaphor for a moment), I start to wonder:
- “When was the last time I truly felt appreciated by [my wife], much less admired? She says she appreciates what I do, that she’s grateful for warm running water, that she’s grateful that she can simply go to the store and buy food without really thinking twice about it, but…but she’s always assumed that this would be ‘givens’ in her life, so no matter what I do as a provider, I’m at best meeting the expectation, and sometimes falling far short of it. How can she appreciate –much less, admire-- something that’s ultimately either a C or an F, but never an A?”
which leads to stuff like
- “When was the last time I felt really accepted by her, as myself? Not my worst, lazy “self” – I don’t expect her to accept that. But just my normal self?”
which leads to really funkola stuff like
- “Man, I put an irrational amount of effort into that [annual family] newsletter. Was I driven in large by an effort to paint a picture with which I’d convince myself that we're truly happy as a family, as a couple, whether I AM truly happy, that this is the life I want to be living? I can think of all kinds of things that have been enjoyable or gratifying about our marriage and our family, some things in fact that have been deeply satisfying – satisfying beyond my wildest notions, in some cases. But from a purely selfish perspective, it’s harder to think of periods or even the last time that I felt lasting happiness, whatever ‘lasting happiness’ means.”
That’s what I’ve been mulling through for the last little bit. Thanks for only mildly begrudging me some of the space I’ve sought. My late arrival tonight isn’t for “space” purposes – it’s so that I can write you this without interruptions…I know you understand the value of “without interruptions.” I also know that you can relate to much of what I say here, and it saddens me, really, to know that you carry similar weights, although tech gadgets are obviously not the thought provokers in your case. It’s when I show indifference to the Church (and the Gospel as promulgated by it), when my physical dissatisfactions are apparent, when I fail to recognize the much good (and much amazing) that is in you, and maybe one or two other hot buttons, all of which are too often. So I know you can relate.
For those elements that you can’t relate to (like, “Hey, it’s about a stupid phone, not your Masculinity As We Know It”), you may think I'm being acting “emotionally unintelligent” (as you like to say), unreasonable, or, based on your most often-accessed models of manliness ("[Oft-referenced husband of couple with whom we're friends] good would never think this way about [wife]'s less-than-effusive response to something he gave her," or "[Another oft-referenced husband of another couple with whom we're friends] would never spiral down this path based on [wife]’s stinking cell phone. It's a CELL PHONE for crying out loud! Who the hell have I married??!?! [signature [in-law family] groan] Uuuooooooouuurrrrgggphhh!!"), even unmanly. But the fact of the matter is that these are my feelings, so, while you can certainly choose to dismiss them, you can't refute them.
Conclusion
Is whatever you make it.
BTW I’m not angry any more. I’m sobered, and there are some deep, central themes at play, but, for what it’s worth, I can think about you and smile, which I haven’t been able to do for a couple of days.
Hug,
Me
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