232: Let it go ...

 I have been working abroad these last couple of months. Not on a continuous basis as the assignment is in Ireland but have been away quite a bit in the weeks, and coming back on the weekends. That's been a blessing I think and very fortunate - to have an assignment come through at all and that too one that keeps me way from the house for a bit.

We have agreed to go to counselling as a couple - starting on 22/11. Let's see how that goes.

The title of the post comes from a couple of comments made through the week.

She was incandescent with rage on Wednesday about a topic too convoluted to explain - but it was an inadvertent mistake and I was not the one making it! (She later apologised but said that she was 'allowed' under the present circumstances. I, of course, let it go.)

'I have had two jobs previously that I enjoyed and I gave them both up for you - I like my current job and can't have this shit going on. The first was at the American Consulate and the second was at the UN Development Programme.'

Other than making the point that 'this shit' was not down to me, I made no further comment.

We had had an arranged marriage. In the sense that we had been introduced and then left to our own devices - I was 30 at the time and she was 26. She was working at the US Consulate in Kolkata and I remember specifically asking her why she wanted to get married at 26 instead of enjoying her job and starting to build a career. There was no pressure from her parents.

The fact, probably, was that she was desperate to get out of Kolkata and marrying an Indian abroad was a good route. Regardless of the motivation, though, she left the role - not for me but because she chose to get married. I let it go.

We returned within a year (2000) on a cushy expat. package but then had to leave again in 2001 and move to Paris. She was working at the UNDP in Delhi at the time.

This was, for sure, a forced choice as I (probably 'we') did not consider moving to an Indian company as a 'local' as being viable. (Her contract at the UNDP was not going to be renewed, but that is another matter.) 

I did feel guilty about this, it was a constant stress - though she raves about Paris now - and I went to my CEO within a year and asked to move back to India or the UK. She, in the meantime, found a job and moved to London in 2003. Ultimately, I had to take redundancy and move back to the UK in 2004. So, yes, on this one occasion she had to give up something for me but I took action at significant risk to my career and our life and had to start again in the UK. 

So, it was effectively only one and a half years - and, even then, my company managed to find a paid assignment for her for a while. She then decided that we / she wanted a baby, and then did not go back to work for a long time. I would have been happy without a baby because I had married her and not some future child. But, hey, why let facts get in the way of a good story of sacrifice?

(I did not take an expatriate role in South Africa in 2005 as we were expecting a baby and I did not take a more senior role outside London in 2008 as we would have had to move as a family. Neither of these do I consider as 'giving up' something - just what you do as a partner and a family.)

I have, in the past, said that one of her cruellest cuts was to suggest that I would leave her and disown our son. She says to me, 'you say that my anger is inherited (her father actually told me that) and so I thought that perhaps your uncle's infidelity could also be passed down - and the effect that that had on your cousin / his daughter.' (She also said that I would leave and attempt to disinherit her and our son by starting a new family. We are in the process of writing out a formal will – which is sensible enough. But, of all her accusations, that I would disadvantage my son was the harshest cut. Even if she does not think that I have done much for her, can she say that I have neglected our son?) (Confidant: 155: History - when will she burp again?)

To think that I would do anything to harm our son remains, in my view, the cruellest cut. But maybe I am harming him now by separating? However, infidelity as a DNA gene ... I let it go.