120: A Quiet Phase

A long time since I wrote and 18 months from the magic turnaround. Life has continued pleasantly enough with no rows, her relationship with our son is much improved, we’ve been through many family dramas together – my mum breaking her hip, my father’s dementia and then death, her brother’s death, her mum’s stroke – and worked collaboratively through all of that with mutual support.

Professionally, I have left my permanent role in a large organisation and gone out contracting. The redundancy money is being used for a new kitchen and new bathrooms, with new flooring and decorating to come. Lots of money being spent.

Relationship wise, we have fun, we go out for meals and holidays are good. Sexually, though, nothing happens for me though I try to satisfy her, shall we say, manually. (The last time anything happened for me was August 2015 - easy to remember because it was an anniversary.)

But, you know, I cannot forget all that was said and, in the end, as she herself says of other people, it is not possible to change one’s nature. There are fewer flashes of the rather difficult-to-deal-with directness but pettiness, judgement on others, wanting something for nothing, a general neediness are all there.

I want to live my life a little free, without wondering how The Other will react. I work with other consultants now and have again realised that mine is not an uncommon story. One whom I spend a lot of time with was expressing the same sentiment – to do things for oneself rather than for the wife or wider family. That sounds selfish and I think it arises out of a feeling that I am doing things for others where I do not get an ‘equal’ reaction. The old feeling that I do the right things but the reaction is not what I would expect – like shouting down a valley and no echo returning.

And I do not, in any way, mean ‘gratitude’. Can I explain that?

I spent a couple of days with my brother and sister-in-law while my wife was away. And my sister-in-law and I had some conversations. She asked me who or what did I love? Of course my son, but what about others? She gave her own of example of going on holiday, staring at art was something she absolutely loved as she could lose herself.

I replied that, if I were being brutally honest then that list would be restricted to my son and my friends. Both are people who demand nothing and I am just ‘me’ – liked for who I am while not being taken for granted. A close cousin could be added to that list but even in stating that I knew I would come in for some teasing – so, I didn’t. And that is what I mean I suppose, a few paragraphs up. I feel as if I have worked and done things because I have had to and not for the greater purpose of ‘living a good life’ which surely must be the aim of privileged people like us who have won the lottery of birth.

‘You see yourself as a Provider,’ my sister-in-law said. And I suppose I am but that is not the person I want to be. That is the role I have had to assume as there is a great Want in the Other. I would have loved an adult relationship where we are ‘happy’ and know how to enjoy without so much need. But, disappointingly, what I have is an unequal relationship where I have been forcibly criticised for not being good enough as a provider with no attempt or desire to build a partnership or to help. And that does not necessarily mean being employed – it means a oneness, an acceptance of being good, of being forgiving towards making mistakes but also living up to each other and being, as the cliche goes, the best version of ourselves and having the support to be so.

And let me not be disingenuous. I like living in the house we live in now rather than the one we lived in for five years previously, which was fine but I felt was less than what I ‘should’ have. And so, if each of us has an in-built measure of ‘success’ then why do I criticise another’s view of what ‘should’ be? I suppose because there is only the Need there and not the attitude that – while there is always a huge amount of luck (starting with birth) – there has to be Work too. Birth, intelligence, qualifications are critical and can provide a head start but unless these are of exceptionally high levels still form only the foundations - the rest has to be worked for. So much can go right and so much can go wrong but the only thing in our hands is our effort and attitude - the rest is uncontrollable and we have to be lucky.

With my son and, as a child, things can be different.

He is now 12. A few weeks ago he was not very well and he went to sleep with his head on my chest and his arm around my waist. Last night he came to my room as he could not get to sleep and stayed with me – my wife is away. A year or so ago, I had fallen asleep – or so he thought – and he came and gave me a little hug before going to bed himself. He is not doing that because we are sending him to a fee-paying school or buying him gifts but something far simpler and deeper. And, I have truly learnt ‘love’ from him, the oneness that fills me with warmth. And, it turns out, I have written before on this - Dear Son.

And I try to role-model the behaviours I am trying to inculcate – openness, conscientiousness but, also, something that was significantly lacking in my growing up, and I am probably being very unfair here, a feeling of being loved. I am not sure I had that even though my parents no doubt felt it. It was a feeling of not being good enough, about being controlled and having to 'do' things to be liked. Some of that will always be felt and, yes, I do say to my son that there is very little for free and work is what gives us the freedom for other things – but that, at its best, work does not feel like work and actually is part of who you are and what you want to be.


But I also ask him (and he knows the answers) as  I tuck him in, 'who is my most favourite soul in the universe?' 'I am.' 'Who is my life?' 'Me' 'Who is my reason for living?' 'Me.'

In the end, I would like him to be a gentle person, with good friends, fulfilled at work and the ability to be content. Might take him a while – as it takes all of us, and he will have his own journey – but hope he gets there.