89 - Something in the Newspaper

This was in the newspaper last week March 2016 - The Guardian - husband whom I can't leave and while the gender is opposite and the issues are not exactly parallel, some bits struck a chord.


'Your work has always come first. In times of distress, I have been left feeling unloved and unworthy.' In my case, work has absolutely not come first. Support at home has come first and I/we have been fortunate that this has been possible while maintaining a very decent lifestyle.


'We don’t have blazing rows, neither of us is violent and we co-parent well enough. So, it doesn’t feel as if I have a good enough reason to tear their lives apart other than my own inner torment and, I admit, your complete frustration with me.' An echo.


'What compelled me to write this letter was a cold. Yes, a pathetic cold. I have been sneezing and coughing all weekend, while trying to ensure that the kids are fed and watered and the household runs smoothly. Not once have you asked if I’m OK or offered to do the kids’ bedtime routine, or even suggested I might have a Sunday lie-in instead of you, God forbid.' Makes me laugh - have always been on hand and week-end lie-ins for her were standard until maybe two years ago. I look back recently to 79 - Now Let's See and 47 - A Typical Saturday


Nowhere in that article does the lady say, 'you did not buy me gifts.' In the fundamentals, I believe I did ok.

88 - Random Fillers

Our son is still away skiing - a whole week away for a 10 year old - and the conquering heroes return tomorrow.


Today is Easter Friday and I have come in to the office - partly because I genuinely have work but also because what would I do at home?


In a normal couples' world, I can imagine two people would discuss what they might do - might laze around - go out for a walk - watch a film - do some cooking.


Even in our normal state, I would have been worrying about what would be 'good enough' for her given that her only interests that I have known are shopping and eating. A restaurant - expensive, not expensive? Lunch or dinner? Dishwasher to load and start, ironing to do. Now, I just walk out and go to work. Bliss.


We did actually go to a film together yesterday evening - her suggestion and I acquiesced. Nice enough film but a main protagonist is a middle-aged husband who has had / is having an affair with a female colleague. At one point - before a car accident kills him - he says, 'look, I've been all confused. Do you think we can go back to what we were?'


Did she know some or all of this when suggesting the movie? Don't know, don't care. I have not had an affair, in any case.


Our son has just passed his Grade 1 Violin exam - which we are very pleased about - and he also learns the piano. We almost bought a proper piano but, in the end, she decided not to go ahead.


'Anyway,' she says, 'a piano would have made putting down under-floor difficult. Which is my plan.'


I did not react but 'my plan'? Really? Lovely you have a plan my dear but the money for this? You will contribute in some material fashion?


And under-floor heating because? Her friends have it?


Bollocks to it all.

87 - Minutae - what sort of a brain is this?

I’ve written before about incidents which suggest a very strange mind set.

So, our shower head was leaking drop by drop. Our plumber could not find a reason and nor could he fix it. Each drop was spraying around the shower floor and surrounding glass – marking the latter. I always placed the head on the floor after a shower – no drops, no spray. I requested her to do the same over a period of many months. No dice. A year and a half down the road, mould has started to grow and, finally, she also now places the head on the floor.

She dropped some ethnic snacks on the floor some years ago and as these little balls are sticky, they picked up dust. I suggested throwing them away. No. They went back into the container with the remaining clean ones (making it all unusable) and this container has been with us – on her bedside table – since 2011 or 2012. It even moved house in 2014 and is still on the bedside table in 2016.

When grilling something in the oven, I always use some foil so that the oil and herbs or whatever do not mark the dish; this makes subsequent cleaning very easy in that you can throw away the foil. She prefers to scrub away for a considerable time rather than use my suggestion of using a foil.

Exaggerating you say?

We moved into our current house in summer 2014. The previous owner’s parents live literally across the road from us. Some Christmas cards arrived in December 2015 for our predecessor. We do not have a forwarding address for them. ‘Should I drop them over the road?’ I ask. ‘No, I will.’

Christmas Day passes, January – still on our mantelpiece.

‘A bit late now,’ I say, ‘I’ll throw them away.’

They are brought back into the house, remain on our mantelpiece and it is now March 24^th 2016.

Tiring, far too tiring.

86 - Anger again - deprivation

Am planning a trip over to Ireland to visit some close friends of mine; potentially her’s as well as this group I have known for more than twenty years. But – though she thinks she is – she is not a ‘people’ person and, while she likes them, feels no resonance with them and considers them ever so slightly beneath her. So I generally go over in the summer when she is not around or meet them over in the UK.

 

She had previously said that she had some air miles which I would be welcome to use.

 

‘Will you let me know how I can access your air miles? I will need to book the tickets to Ireland.’

 

‘But you might want to use them,’ I continue, ‘to visit your cousin in Denmark for example.’

 

‘No. You don’t know how stressful it is not to have gone anywhere for a year. At least you have been for your golf week-end and are going to Ireland – you will be sleeping under another roof.’

 

‘You have the miles. You could go.’

 

‘I don’t have the money.’

 

‘Yes, we do. We could go to Rome in the autumn as we have been saying for a while. Or you could go somewhere on your own.’

 

‘Our son (P.) really needs a long holiday. I can cope without a holiday. We have been to most places in Europe. You only visit people.

(P. is away with his school for a skiing holiday which has cost close to a £1000). 'I hope he enjoys skiing because at least he will have a holiday then.’

 

‘Well, ok, we could book somewhere for December,’ I say.

 

‘I am going to India in the summer (to spend time with her parents) but that is not a holiday as I have to look after P. there as usual.’

 

‘Which is why I am saying you could go somewhere.’ No response.

 

So, she wants to go on holiday, complains that she has to look after our son when she is away for the summer, but does not want to go away on her own for a break..

 

Then, as I am booking the tickets.

 

‘You better be careful of the spend as you are buying your tickets – though they will be free because you are using my airmiles.’ (said in a significantly aggressive way)

 

‘I suggested £600 as a budget for your Christmas and birthday. I have said that I will spend about £350 for golf and £150 for cricket – that still leaves me some for this trip if we are being equal.’

 

‘Ok – so long as it is less than £600 overall.’ I book my tickets without using her fucking, precious air-miles.

 

Her own trip to India, of course, does not count as that is ‘not a holiday.’

 

I remember back to 2014 when we had two trips to India, Greece and the US. I cannot remember previous years but we routinely went on holiday 3 times a year – one year of not going and there is huge deprivation. (though we went to Prague in the summer of 2015)

 

The real issue, of course, is that I am appearing to have fun. And she is not. (I would add, because she is incapable, except at a surface level.)

 

Previously, I would have felt guilty – well, I still do actually. But, frankly, if you have been in one country for more than ten years and have not built up any warm friendships and, in addition, feel my friends or even neighbours to be not worth your while, then I am sorry.

I did not lose my temper, I answered in measured tones and did not rise to any bait. In the past I might have worried about what would please or displease her and what would not. Now I work on the assumption that everything is wrong … and I do not care. She is 43 years old, intelligent and with no constraints – up to her to take advantage and not make others miserable just because she is.

85- Emptiness and Irony

We dropped our son off at school at 2:30 am this morning as he went away with his friends and teachers for a week of skiing.


Came back home, went to our separate rooms and respective beds.


I am exaggerating I am sure but I felt convinced that, with our son not in the house, I felt a hole, a lack, an emptiness. Seemed to bring home that he is the only thing we have that keeps us together. Should not be a surprise but felt quite stark.


The irony bit is that we both went to drop him off and she suggested to some of the other parents - admittedly, jokingly - that we should all go to a night club. Ironic because one of her past rants has been that it is idiotic of me to think that, at my age (47), I should consider 'having fun'. Apparently, I did not when I was the appropriate age and now I am somehow past it and should just knuckle down to be a father and husband.


That is a valid point of view but then why even suggest the opposite with others? Or is it that she should have fun and I should just provide?


Anyway, thankfully, I had a bunch of office work to do and so headed into town. We have not spoken about whether we should speak to family and close friends about our situation. I'll wait for instinct to guide me with regard to whether I should broach or not.

84 - Little Things that Amuse and Sadden

We are coming back from somewhere and we are talking about this and that - very peaceable.

 

She talks about some members of my family. 'I should have more in common with them but I would much rather spend time with my friends (mothers from school) who are so much more positive, outgoing and fun.'

 

And that's fine, of course. One doesn't have to get on with one's family or in-laws.

 

So, she says to our son, 'don't be a grumpy person. Grumpy people are not liked.'

 

He responds, 'So people will not like you.'

 

'You think I am grumpy?'

 

Another example of her being completely oblivious to the fact that what she is with others is different to who she is with us.

 

This goes with at least two other incidents I may have written about.

 

1. There was a storm some months ago which was big enough to be given a name. 'If you don't behave, Storm Desmond will blow you away,' she says one evening to our son. 'No, it will blow you away and dad and I will live happily every after.'
2. In an English homework, making up dialogue, he attributes some immodest words to a very self-effacing woman. The teacher asks, 'Would she really say those words, a quiet woman like that?' My wife asks him the same question. 'You would,' he responds.

Many years ago, she burnt some rice and we still ate it but it did have a burnt smell. 'It is only social conditioning that says rice should not smell burnt.' If I had burnt it ...?


She spills milk over her yoga mat in the trunk of the car. No problem. If I had done it ...? The consequences do not bear thinking about.


I know I am being petty but the consistent inconsistencies are mind boggling.

83 - The End of Stasis ... I give her an 'out' but make a discovery

So .. this is the week-end after Now Let's See - the weekend of Mothering Sunday 6 March 2016.


Yes, things have been going well and peaceably but we are still separate. Yes, we went out to a restaurant last week - just the two of us. But I am still doing my own cleaning, cooking, ironing etc.


Our son participates in Scouts and had to go to a Church service. We came back and she was incandescent with rage. She had expected that I would have booked a restaurant for Mothering Sunday. I did get a card which our son signed and I suppose I could have booked somewhere. But would that not have been hypocritical in our current condition?


As a self-confident woman, could she not have said, 'Mothering Sunday, we are going out.' I would have had no objection.


And, if it comes to appreciation, I can't ever remember doing anything for Father's Day - or receiving a phone call if I was away. And, I don't need it. I do not need a restaurant to know that my son appreciates me.


But, then, embarrassingly, I get myself into a trouble.


I have been away recently. I have also been working out over a considerable time and my body shape is far better that it has probably ever been. Anyway, I take a mirror selfie of myself after having had a shower - not wearing anything. I delete it immediately but, back home, I leave my phone lying around.  She goes into Photos, presumably to check out whether I had any with other women, goes into Deleted Photos - a folder I did not even know existed - and finds it.


The rage, then, is all about how she is living with a pervert. The real anger, though, is about the lack of going out because she discovered the photo on the Saturday and said nothing. This is Sunday. And she had said to our son, 'You should have arranged something - I will not buy you pizza on Wednesday.'


(I now realise how she found the Christmas lunch photo that led to the call for the divorce 69 - Things Have Reached a Head - am broken. I was convinced I had deleted it and now I know I must have - I had left the phone at home and she must have gone in and to the Deleted Photos folder.)


I appreciate that I should not have taken the photo. It was a moment of vanity, idiocy and I immediately deleted it. But, it was a private moment, just me, and I got rid of it - or so I thought.


Stalking phones, receipts, bills, continually wanting things, violent jealousy of others, obsessive need for control, behaving like an angel outside the house and an harridan inside. Pervert is added to the list of impotent, shameful, useless, callous, uncaring, incompetent, weird ... and much more.


I am actually writing this the w/e of 12 March and things have again calmed down. She even  mentioned going to someone's 40th in May.


What do I do? Do I persuade her to come out to family and friends and say we are separated? Our son is away skiing for a week in a week's time - do I broach it then?

82 - A Sort of Stasis

(originally written end-January 2016)

Separate rooms continue and my independent cooking, washing and ironing continue. No fights. No harsh words for a few weeks now. Even though we have a cleaner and I’m looking after myself, ‘housework is too much’; I still clean the toilets and bathrooms every week-end.

We are even having some conversations now and again but, really, I am beginning to lack the energy for them as well. Our son has done a great piece of art-work – he and I did this together. We wanted him to take it to school.

‘No,’ he said. But she insisted. He dug in more. But then offered a compromise. ‘You could send a photograph to the teacher.’ ‘No, I won’t do that. I think you should take it in. You might get a star from the teacher. Don’t come complaining to me later to tell me that someone else has received a star for something less impressive.’ This to and fro went on for a while.

All very stressful and high pitched and so I suggested that I would send in a photograph and if the teacher wanted our son to take it in, would he agree. ‘Yes,’ he said.

And then the conversation went really weird.

She came into my room later in the evening and said, ‘I wanted him to take it in, so he would get the credit. This is a lesson in life as well. I’ve been hearing about your mother’s First Class degree in Philosophy for 16 years. My mother stood first in her whole region / district and she studied Maths – a real subject. But she doesn’t go on about that. Modesty gets you nowhere.’

How did a child’s piece of extra-curricular craft work get to our mothers’ qualifications? I have never said anything about my mother’s academic achievements. She is what she is, I am what I am. What my parents may have achieved or not has absolutely nothing to do with me. They gave me a great start in life – as all parents try to do.

You may say I am over-reacting. ‘I only knew one CEO and now he’s been fired,’ I say one evening. ‘How old is he?’ ‘Nearing 60 I think.’ ‘What will he do?’ ‘I don’t know but I am sure he’ll cope – not as if he needs the money.’

‘Yes, but what about a standard of living? The prestige, the people he associated with. Just look at you, working where you are (a public sector, domestic organisation); the people have hardly been anywhere. The ones who came to our house last year – I have nothing to talk to them about. Previously, (a multi-national), you were with the right people, travelling, nice hotels. I am sure he wants to remain at that level.’

All consistent with: choosing a gym based on social class, judging teachers by what clothes they wear and which school they went to … and all, mind you, based on no contribution of her own but the accident of birth and marriage.

81 - The Glimpses that mean a Lot

(Entry originally written by hand on 7th January 2016)


So, it’s been a pretty peaceful Christmas and New Year break and I’m going back to work tomorrow. No rows, separate rooms, doing my own cooking, washing etc.. Yesterday was her birthday but today was our son’s return to school. So, some months ago, before the latest episodes, I had booked a fancy restaurant in the middle of London for lunch. I said I was ok to go, she said she was fine with that too.

But we also went out for a birthday day day dinner at a local restaurant. At the restaurant she wanted to take a selfie with her and our son. Like most 10 year olds, he was unwilling. ‘You have to do what I want.’ ‘No more iPad or phone for a week if you don’t.’ And all in a harsh and not joking voice. Who is 43, who  is 10? (He finally agreed but only if I took the picture.)

She wants to join a running club. ‘I think I will like this club because it is women from the good neighbourhood. I can hardly be expected to go to a sports centre where the women would not be middle class like me.’

One teacher at school often wears joggers or shorts – she is also the netball coach. ‘You can tell Mrs T. went to a private school; always impeccably turned out, designer handbags. Mrs P. must be from a state school. You can always tell.’

Chat about the mother of a new kid who has joined the school. ‘Her son was going to a state school – albeit in a good neighbourhood. But, even then, all state school kids have a chip on their shoulders.’

At the restaurant, I guess I had booked the brasserie as the menu was more varied. Having arrived, she insisted on going to the restaurant area as it would be more exclusive.

If it weren’t so serious, it would be laughable.