FILE UNDER “THINGS I WISH I’D KNOWN”
It is possible to start a conversation with “this doesn’t feel right” or “something is wrong and
I don’t really know how to talk about it.”
I wonder what might have happened if Sean and I had known that it was okay to just say that one of us was unhappy or unsettled or scared or ‘off.’ I wonder how we might have learned and taught each other to move through discomfort and uncertainty, or how we might have learned to do it together, if we had only known.
We both knew something wasn’t right for a long time, and neither of us knew how to say it, that it was okay to name it without having a solution or even a clear picture of where the problem was. How does one talk about a problem without knowing what it is?
Little did I know that those things I felt strongly in my body that didn’t make it to my throat were the most profound things to bring up. I didn’t know that “Help” is a complete sentence, that I didn’t have to be able to articulate anything beyond that in order to have someone come sit with me. There was this obligation to explain myself, justify what I was feeling, be able to tell someone else exactly what I needed in order to feel better, but I didn’t know then that there isn’t always language that connects to the deepest wounds. I also didn’t know that finding people who could resist fixing or seeking answers was
important.
My stepmother, who first taught me about feminism and finding my own voice, was doing so from the soft, warm lap of patriarchy, even if neither of us realized it. She did the lion’s share of the cooking – unless it was grilling, because that was man’s work. She did most of the cleaning and grocery shopping, tended to me and my siblings when we were injured or sad, even though we weren’t her biological kids. To be certain, she never backed down from a challenge – whether it was unloading and placing boulders in the yard or helping dig post-holes for a new fence – and for most of my life, that’s what I thought feminism was; the insertion of girls and women into male spaces. I believed that it was about proving to men that we could do what they could, that they needn’t coddle us or keep us from certain spaces.
My father wanted sons. He got one, but then he got me. In the beginning, I was compliant with the plan that had Chris playing soccer while I went to ballet class. Over time, it occurred to me that because Dad coached Chris’s soccer team, my brother was getting way more of his attention than I was. Every Saturday, we packed a cooler and a blanket and headed out as a family to watch Chris and his teammates run around on the field and Dad stand on the sideline, hollering instructions. I wanted to do that, too. I wasn’t content sitting on a damp blanket sucking orange wedges.
I lobbied. I fought. I pled. I batted my eyelashes. I drove my parents nuts and finally Dad decided that the only way to shut me up was to put me on the team. The following Saturday, I donned my very own black-and-white striped polyester jersey, slid on a pair of Chris’s old cleats, and Dad sent me in. I was the goalie in a game of soccer between two teams of boys older than me – many of them three or four years older. This was the ace up Dad’s sleeve. He figured I’d quit as soon as I saw those huge boys hurtling toward me, launching the soccer ball in my direction. He thought I’d run screaming off the field before the end of the first quarter.
I played the whole first half. I gave up at least ten goals and Dad was furious. I was bruised and sore, grass-stained from cheeks to ankles, and a little sad to have done so poorly, but nothing would wipe the grin off my face. I had just proven to myself that I could rise to the challenge. I thought I could improve, if Dad would let me try. But that had been my one and only shot. I didn’t realize for decades that that kind of feminism was a trap. It was a ploy to humiliate me and make me quit. It wasn’t an honoring of equal opportunities, it was a joke and the joke was on me. To Dad and the other players, this was one Saturday of indulgence of a foolish girl’s desire as a down payment against having to ever really include me in the future in some tangible way. I didn’t get another chance.
I had a big déjà vu moment thirty years later as I watched Sheryl Sandberg talk about her newly published book, Lean In. It occurred to me that I’d been trying to assimilate pretty much my entire life. All I could think about was that Sandberg had managed the Great Assimilation. Her book basically acknowledged that the rules were written by men and the way women could get ahead in the corporate world was to become more like men. I decided I wasn’t interested in inserting myself into male spaces anymore. I wanted to root out the places where I’d done that and find a different way. It was harder than I thought.
For most of my life, I had loudly, proudly, stringently identified as a feminist. I was a stay-at-home mom by choice, but some of the collateral work that accompanied that choice took me by surprise. Somehow, I'd agreed to an unwritten contract that said I would not only assume the primary responsibilities for our children (including, but not limited to feeding, educating, safeguarding their emotional and physical health, transporting them to and from all activities unless otherwise arranged, and waking up with them in the middle of the night), but the vast majority of household duties as well. That contract was drafted by the patriarchy and toxic masculinity for its own benefit. I had accepted it without understanding.
Meanwhile, Sean was adhering to his own invisible contract. He was the sole earner, assuming all responsibility for an ever-increasing wage that would keep pace with the needs of a growing family, including the emotional weight that came along with making employment decisions that would result in financial stability whether he was happy at work or not.
We had both been raised in this world of toxic masculinity. My dad was a Marine, my brother was the prized child, there were strict gender roles in my household. Sean was raised on a farm with a wage-earning father and a mother who stayed home to take care of the kids and cook all the meals and do all the emotional labor. We had each made tentative strides toward change, with an egalitarian marriage throughout the six years before we had children, but the pull of patriarchy is strong.
After we had kids, when Sean was traveling extensively for work and I was often at home for a week or more at a time by myself, I prided myself on doing the traditionally “male” things. I mowed our two-acre lawn, handled the insurance claim and managed the contractors when the septic tank failed, fixed the broken railing on the stairway. I was happy to show our daughters that their mother was familiar with a screwdriver, used power tools, could advocate with people in power when she needed something. But I wasn’t forcing my way out of the box of patriarchy, even if it was seen as impressive or “feisty” when I did inhabit those male spaces or performed masculine-seeming tasks. I was only pumping my fist outside the box while the rest of me was firmly, safely ensconced inside.
I also wasn’t asking Sean to even poke a finger outside that box, much less thrust his entire fist out. He wasn’t expected to phone the insurance company when they declined to pay a bill, make a meal plan for the family and execute it, help our daughter process an emotional challenge with a friend or take her shopping for a new dress or shoes to wear to her piano recital. When his parents decided we should all go on a family vacation, I was tapped to do the research and make the arrangements because I was the one who “didn’t work.” Most of this didn’t occur to me until I was no longer married, but once it did occur to me, it was nearly impossible not to see what a huge part it played in our relationship.
For weeks after he emailed me to say he was unhappy, we lived in a strange kind of limbo. For the most part, we went about our days as we had before, especially in front of the girls, but at night we lay at the extreme edges of the bed with years of tension lying between us. He wasn’t interested in therapy, but he couldn’t tell me what would make him happier and I couldn’t seem to understand.
I had proposed hosting a pre-formal-dance pizza party for our oldest daughter and her friends in our newly remodeled basement and it was a hit. The kids and their parents all came, dressed up and posing for picture after picture, devouring a dozen pizzas and filling the house with laughter. It made me so happy, and I kept hoping somehow this would remind Sean of what we’d built, the foundation we’d created together.
When everyone left and I stayed downstairs to tidy up, he turned and went upstairs. Tucking empty pizza boxes under one arm, I plugged my fingers into the tops of root beer bottles to carry eight at a time into the laundry room to rinse them. I heard my phone ping in my back pocket and dumped the bottles into the utility sink, thinking one of the kids was texting to say they’d left their phone or dance tickets behind, but instead I saw a message from Sean.
“I want to move out”
The pizza boxes clattered to the floor, dumping crumbs in all directions and I slowly walked up the stairs to find Sean curled up in the recliner in the family room. I stood in the doorway and cocked my head at him as he lowered his eyes and refused to look at me.
“I just need some space,” he finally spoke as I sat down on the edge of the couch next to his chair. I was finding it hard to breathe, between the feeling of being gut-punched by another electronic message like this and my rage at his words. I forced myself to fill my lungs and hissed at him through clenched teeth, knowing Lauren was just upstairs in her bedroom.
“Space? How is your whole fucking LIFE not space? You’re never here. You are traveling all the time. How do you not have SPACE in your fancy hotel rooms in Toronto and London and Buenos Aires? And why do you feel the need to text me to tell me things like that? Move out?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he whispered, his forehead resting on his knees. I was speechless. How could he think that it wouldn’t hurt me to text me and say he was moving out when I was one floor below him; after he’d refused to go to therapy and try to work on our marriage; after he’d blindsided me like that? He started crying and rocking back and forth and I moved toward him and put my hand on his back. Even now, I realized I was comforting him, taking care of him, when he was the one who was creating the problem, but it was instinctual.
Later, I was able to confront him and let him know that I saw what he was doing. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to hurt me or the girls (although I truly believe he didn’t), it was that he didn’t want to witness the hurt he was causing. He didn’t know how to say what he needed or wanted and watch the impact it had on me. He hadn’t ever been taught how to hold both of those things at once, and that was part of the problem.
Sean moved out on a Sunday which made Monday both surreal and exquisitely, sharply painful. Every time I walked into a different room and discovered the absence of things – his shoes, his workout clothes, his laptop charger, his sunglasses, his jacket missing from the coat rack inside the front door – I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. Over and over again. All day long.
I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to make it through the day. I don’t really know what that means, exactly. It’s not like I was going to kill myself; it’s just that there was so much pain in such critical spaces in my body that I wasn’t sure I could survive it. I had to keep reminding myself to breathe. I felt like I was underwater because every single movement took such effort and concentration.
I knew he’d been squirreling things away all weekend, driving them over to his new apartment somewhere and depositing them. I knew it even though he tried to hide it and only leave when I was out at the grocery store or taking one of the kids to a friend’s house. I just didn’t realize how thorough or efficient he’d been about it. I wasn’t sure he would actually do it. I was still holding out for something to stop him, make him realize that this was insane, that 25 years together was a strong enough base to hang onto and work on. But he left, without even a goodbye or a “see you ____” or “let’s talk later.” He was just gone.
Without even really knowing I was doing it (because I would have stopped myself if I had), I opened the medicine cabinet to find it half empty. There was just space where his razor and toothpaste and deodorant and shaving cream had been. I opened the cupboard and the boxes of contact lenses were gone. I walked out past the bed to the closet and saw space and empty hangers on his side. A few
too-big shirts remained, but the rest of it was gone. Stumbling back out into the bedroom, I noticed his Bluetooth speaker was missing from the top of the dresser and my brain finally caught up with my body: Don’t open the fucking dresser drawers. It won’t be good. I didn’t.
I shuffled back into the bathroom and heaved and heaved and heaved into the toilet and that’s when the tears came. I always cry when I throw up. Every single time.
I rinsed my face and slowly made my way downstairs to the front door. I put my forehead against the leaded glass and peered out to where he normally parked. I was expecting the whole world to look different – like an eclipse or something. But everything was the same outside. It was only in here that things were broken.
I sat down on the hardwood floor in the entry, legs splayed out to the side and sobbed great, hiccupping sobs. He had done it. He really left us. He planned it meticulously and accomplished it so easily – a few quiet trips over the weekend and he was gone without a backward glance. I sobbed and sobbed until the effort knocked me back and I lay on the floor, puddles of tears collecting in my ears and dripping, dripping, dripping. At some point, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get up without help, so I fumbled around in my back pocket and called Jodie. I couldn’t speak, but she knew it was me.
“I’m turning around right now. I’m on my way to work but I’m turning around.”
Right before she hung up I managed to breathe out, “He’s gone.”
“I know, honey. I’m so sorry. I’ll be right there. Hang on.”
He says he’s never been alone. He went from his parents’ home to a dorm room to a frat house to
his sister’s futon after graduation. From there, he moved in with me and we got married nine months later. But he moved out of our family home 22 years later to an apartment with a view of downtown. He’s not there very often because he’s still traveling for work. He tells me that when he’s there it feels lonely and quiet and he thinks it’s important for him to feel that, but it’s sad.
I wonder if he thinks I’ve never been alone, either. I went from a dorm room to an apartment with my brother to our shared apartment after graduation. But I’ve been alone plenty.
When we bought our first house, friends came to help us unpack the U-Haul and he left early the next morning on a business trip to Dallas. I unpacked the boxes and filled the cupboards, arranged the furniture and crawled beneath the house to hook up the dryer vent. For years, I spent every evening alone after work, occasionally meeting friends for dinner, but mostly watching TV or reading alone while he was traveling for work.
After we had kids, he started traveling internationally and the trips stretched across weekends. My friend Sarah and I became “sister-wives,” spending our days watching the four kids we had between us and chatting while they were at gymnastics, but I still spent nearly every evening alone, struggling to get kids bathed and to bed for hours on end and then finally collapsing on the couch with a glass of wine before I went to sleep. Sometimes, after Sarah moved to England with her kids, I stretched out the kids’ bedtime stories later and later so I’d have company.
By the time Sean left, I was spending increasing amounts of time alone. The girls were teens and they were busy after school with friends and homework and sports. Most of my friends had kids and partners and spent evenings and weekends with them so while I generally hung around in case the girls needed a ride somewhere or wanted to host their friends at our place, I was often the only adult around.
I always imagined he was alone a lot as he traveled, but maybe not. He spends days with colleagues, evenings out to dinners and other events. He sleeps alone (I think), but otherwise, he is unaccompanied. So I guess he needs to be alone now. I’m tired of being alone.
I used to have a list in my head of all the things that made for a good marriage, a strong partnership, but I never really fleshed it out, confronted it, looked closely enough to determine whether those were things that I was actually committed to. That list was actually made up of shadows, things I was afraid not to do, not necessarily things I wanted to do. It was a list of things I thought I was doing Right, that I knew I could accomplish, that gave me clear direction. But toward the end, it became a runaway train and I got lost in it, in the momentum, and I began to wonder if I was doing something just because of
the movement. The movement gave me the illusion of being busy, productive, important.
I was used to being alone, but this was a new kind of aloneness. This was a deep loneliness that came from having lost someone with whom I shared everything – the small, everyday amusements and my profound fears and the sad things in my life. This was the loss of someone in whom I rested, the loss of myself as I gradually let myself become absorbed by him and the list I created, and when it turned out it was populated with things I wasn’t even sure were important, I was alone and undefined. I had no edges, no lines, nothing to say who I was.
As a young adult, before Sean and I had kids, I sometimes had the sense of being untethered – as if I could float away and not be part of the world around me. Before then, when I was caring for my sister, and later when I had my own children to care for, I was grounded, attached to something I thought “needed” me to stay.
I didn’t think the separation would help us. It might help Sean, but it wasn’t going to help us. This was not “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” This was “out of sight, out of mind.” This was, “when you’re not here, I imagine what you might be doing”. While I’m dragging a rake through piles of wet leaves and pruning and weeding and filling the yard waste container, I think he is probably out having lunch with his best friend Michael and laughing. While I unclog the toilet for the third time this week and contemplate grocery shopping again, I imagine him putting his feet up, pouring a glass of bourbon, watching Jimmy Kimmel. When I sit on the couch helping Lauren with a homework assignment or spend an hour in traffic driving her to hang out with a friend, I know he is at work, feeling important and necessary and making money.
I didn’t know if any of those things were true, but I did know that he left and I was still there, managing the house, paying the bills, doing all the things I’d always done alone. The difference this time was that I wasn’t sure if he was ever coming back. Before, I always had an itinerary. I knew where he was going and how long he’d be there. This time, I imagined he had an itinerary, but he wasn’t sharing it with me.
I am not sure if it matters what I wanted. I don’t know if wanting is a force strong enough to penetrate years of wall-building, indifference, independence. I didn’t know what this was. I spent days certain that I would move on alone with the girls – a mother for as long as they needed me. I spent other days in sadness, certain that what we were giving up was precious and so full of possibility. Those days were spent mostly looking back. The other days were spent mostly looking forward. Does that matter? Does it mean something – the sadness looking back versus the resolution looking forward?
Looking back, I felt overwhelmed with sadness and I was paralyzed. Looking forward, I was aware of my value and determined to grow. That seems like an important distinction.