Entry 33: The Return

The usual 'away during the summer' is coming to an end. Things have been ok on the phone but with the occasional spark which I have combatted.

Been a reasonable summer for me. With friends and time at the gym. But I have also spent a lot of time alone and I cannot work out whether I have enjoyed those periods. Possibly I have struggled as I am no longer used to being alone. But ....

Robin Williams died recently - well, took his own life - and one of his quotes apparently was, 'I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.' How true those words are. Self-pitying, yes, but how I long to just let go, to melt into another, to be unconditional. 

The day after they get back is a landmark anniversary. I had thought we might not go out as it was just the day after but I am on holiday next week and so we could pick a day and go out then. I only mentioned that we could go somewhere local and immediately she got riled. But, the new me, decided to lay out my position and suddenly on mention of theatre, a diamond and fancy dinner, I am in good books again!!

I'm generally regarded as grumpy at work and indeed at home but the 'wrong things' frankly annoy me. I cannot accept unreasonable behaviour and it affects me adversely. Amongst my friends, however, quality people all, I believe I am different. The conclusion I have come to is that I tend to reflect my surroundings - I cannot bend the surroundings to my will. Some can through sheer confidence; I lack the energy. 

In every thing I do, I do try to do the right thing as I see it but 'right' is subjective and not rational. 

Take this landmark anniversary or indeed any occasion. I am perfectly ok whether I receive a present or not. For her, spend has a good correlation with happiness and reward. We are all healthy when all around us people and things are falling apart. We can afford a great house, we lack for nothing, we have an amazing son. And, yet, that is not enough. Yes I can be grumpy in certain circumstances but I believe I have the ability to be content and grateful - I am not sure she does. 

But, in a way I suppose that is unfair. I suppose I crave emotional rewards. Do my friends still like me? Does my child love me? Am I a good enough friend/dad? (The lack of 'husband' - well I have tried but been taken for granted for too long and treated with disdain while with from the other two I have received unconditional love.) With friends and son I am continually searching for positive reinforcement. With wife, I am happy enough not to receive negative feedback!!

Lol

32: A Good Phase

'Radio silence' - I suppose - means all is calm and silent.

And, indeed, things are ok. At least from her side. We have been for a two week holiday in February, another long week-end at Easter - both abroad. We have sold our house and are about to move to a bigger one - something I am excited about as well.

The irritations on my side continue - it is just that I care less about them. The late or non-existent time management, the constant instructions, the focus on minutae.

Some weeks ago she was going out and I, of course, was happy to come home. She had been in all day but the kitchen was an utter mess, nothing had been cooked, the dishwasher uncleared, homework not done. I steadily worked my way through all of that without complaint. The sink is always a mess, clothes cover every surface but I try my best to keep calm. The lack of work does not stop her criticising others but, again, I am used to it.

Things have remained calm because I still have time to myself, retort occassionally and her mood is generally ok.

Steady as she goes?

Entry 30: a very Merry Christmas

And so another year winds to an end.

Things seem to be back to some form of low tension .... until the next time. Went out with some of the dads from school and we came to the conclusion that marriage was essentially 'different degrees of misery' - unless you are very lucky and I have several friends and relations who have been.

One dad saw us as the 'perfect marriage' and wanted to know how we did it. But, in the end, we all had the same issues of decisions being taken by them but us getting the brunt of the consequences. Was certainly a cathartic evening!

I came across a review of a book called Stoner by John Williams - an American author and the book was written in the early 60s. link

It tells of an academic in an American university but it may be speaking about any middle aged man looking back and looking forward. A very sad book perhaps but - to me - a warning. As in any good novel, you see yourself reflected and causes you to think.

As Barnes writes, 'many will be reminded of their own lectoral epiphanies, of those moments when the magic of literature first made some kind of distant sense, first suggested that this might be the best way of understanding life. And readers are also aware of this sacred inner space, in which reading and ruminating and being onesefl happen....'

The book writes of the main character, 'at 42 he could see nothing before him that he wished to enjoy and little behind him that he cared to remember.'

The author, though, did not consider the character a failure. 'I think he is a real hero. A lot of people who have read the novel think that Stoner had such a sad and bad life. I think he had a very good life. He had a better life than most people do, certainly. He was doing what he wanted to do, he had some feeling for what he was doing, he had some sense of the importance of the job he was doing .... the important thing in the novel to me is Stoner's sense of a job .... a job in the good and honourable sense of the word. His job gave him a particular kind of identity and made him what he was.'

If I reflect on myself, I am not quite down there(!) but understand many of the themes.

'Good things do happen in Stoner's life, but they all end badly. He relishes teaching students, but his career is stymied by a malevolent head of department; he falls in love and marries, but knows within a month that the relationship is a failure; he adores his daughter, but she is turned against him; he is given sudden new life by an affair, but finds love vulnerable to outside interference, just as the academy is vulnerable to the world.'

For me, yes, work is interesting and I find genuine value in learning and doing and working for and with my team and seeing them grow but - as much - my child and my friends define me. It is a disappointment to me that I have felt a disappointment to my family.

But the point is not to spiral in to the bad stuff. As I turn 45 so I need to try and step out and step up. I have served my apprenticeship, now to build on that foundation.

Happy New Year to those that read this and may 2014 be fabulous.

xx

Entry 29: Now, let's see....

Now, let's see.

The week-end and Monday just gone - now that I am in trouble again.

Saturday, I go to the gym for an hour and, of course, am not allowed to interfere in the homework being done when I get back.

No food at home and so I am despatched to the supermarket and prepare lunch. At the last minute.

My son and I are forced to accompany her to the shops - why can't that be done in the week - and then I am told off for not chatting to her in the kitchen when I look for some time on my own. I react but do not argue.

Sunday, I supervise our son's breakfast, shower and getting ready before going to the gym and before she has deigned to get out of bed. We are supposed to be going out for lunch at a friend's and have promised to arrive for 1230. She is not ready though she had nothing to do and we leave at 1220 - arriving an hour late.

Come home, we are too full to eat but prepare dinner for our son, clear up, read and put to bed. Then do ironing which has piled up while she primarily does Facebook or whatever. Though makes a great drama about arranging books and kits for son's school on the Monday.

Monday she takes our son to a party in the evening and so I come home and clear the dishwasher and get the dinner ready for our son. Oh - in the meantime - she and I have met up in town and gone out for a meal at an expensive restaurant.

Do I get any thanks at any point all the way through?

So who is taking whom for granted? I am always criticised for not paying enough attention to what I wear but she spends the whole day in her pyjamas and not showered. So, I could argue, everything is aimed at external and she is callous towards her own. All surface and what others think.

I give up - this time I genuinely do. There is no logic, there is rationale - it is all about the moment and what she is feeling at that moment.

The other day, our son said that he would not share his sweets with her. But I said that your mum takes you everywhere, does everything for you, surely you should share? 'She takes you here and she takes you there.' To which he responds, 'she scolds me here, scolds me there....'

Nuff said.

My big fear is that her only job becomes - or becomes even more - controlling us.

Too tired, just too tired.

xx

Entry 28: 'Thanks?' Got to be kidding

So, our son is home this week because if school being closed; it was also closed last week and we went on holiday.

They were late home and so I thought - fair enough - I should contribute more as her days are not her own for a week.

Cleared the dishwasher, brought in the clothes, loaded the dishwasher - any thanks? You have got to be kidding.

Entry 27: Oh dear...

So... we've just come back from a very nice holiday in a very nice hotel in a very nice part of the world. We have eaten at two posh restaurants lately. All should be well.

Yesterday evening I mention that I am going out for an evening with some work colleagues - which I do about once a month I guess. Initially I am met with a reasonable reaction but then, it is, 'you always go out with your friends, never with me. When your parents get back we are going out to the cinema or the theatre.' Clearly she is angry.

I, on the other hand, am just fed up.

I would have thought that my credit rating would be reasonably high right now. And going out when my parents are around is always a possibility.

But there is a bigger picture here.

She is the one who wanted to live as far as possible from my parents as possible - without leaving the city. She is the one who has never wanted to use a childminder/babysitter despite several encouragements from me. She is the one who does not make the time to go to classes or groups or whatever to create a circle of friends other than school - though I have suggested this several times. And she is the one who has decided not to work.

The rest of the nonsense continues. Typically the housework - clearing the dishwasher, replacing with the dirty dishes, organising the washing - is never done during the day. The week before last, for example, none of the above was done, then came cooking for the evening and, instead of clearing up while I put our son to bed, she went on to Facebook/e-mail; resulting in not finishing the work until 1 am.

Happened again yesterday and I offered to clear up but was rebuffed.

A couple of weeks ago, yes, while supervising piano practice, I did leave my (empty) coffee cup upstairs. Her comment was, 'HOW COULD you do that?' The irony of her leaving the cordless phone in the same room the next day and missing a call was lost on her.

The gas fire was on low simmer and she left it on when taking off the rice - something I had done also and been reprimanded for quite rightly. The fact that she did it also was 'just one of those things' and, indeed, her initial reaction was to suggest that I had been at fault again.

I know I should let this just wash over me. I know that I must not be disturbed by it all. But I can't. I care. I try to do the right things but all I get is a set of harsh returns.

Am very tired and do not know what to do. I have tried explanation, have tried logic, have tried acceptance and ignoring but nothing works.

Very, very tired.....

Entry 26: A Maudling Post

All been pretty samey since my wife and son returned from holiday. We are now in the swing and routine of school and work.

The irritations continue. One Sunday she and the boy were due to leave the house at 10:30/10:45. I woke up, got breakfast, ensure he was showered and ready for a quarter to ten. Then I had to leave for the gym - something I try to do on a regular basis. All she had to to do was get ready herself and they did not leave till 1130.

Suitcases were left all around the sitting room for more than a month after their return from holiday.

Some positive feedback. On the day they went out, I did a bunch of ironing and cooking and was actually thanked.

Then, yesterday, I came home from the gym at 1230 and neither had showered though she had said we would be going out in the afternoon. Homework had been completed, however. She was on the phone ordering some jeans and 1230 turned to 1.

'Shall I get the spaghetti going?'

'No, I will.'

1 turns to 1:15 and she is still in front of the PC.

I finally turn on the water and go to shower and change out of my gym clothes.

I come down and she is still on the effing PC - doing nothing that could not be done in the week. 'Will you do the spaghetti?' she finally says.

Sounds small and petty as I write this but - really - the complete lack of time management is irritating in the extreme. Once more, she took the ironing to my parents' place and I did suggest that she could do that work in the week rather than stressing out on the week-end. 'The week is when I rest,' was the response. Really? When I take almost all the load on the weekends and in the evenings ... and usually do all the ironing anyway because the spaghetti scenario is repeated time and again?

I was reading an article in the newspaper last week-end where a writer called Hanif Khureishi was writing about a film of his called Le Week End. It is about age and marriage.

I can recall a student of mine, a woman in her mid-40s, telling me a long, moving story about being 'awakened' emotionally, sexually and intellectually, when she fell in love with a friend of her husband.

What the adulterer usually wants is better relationships, conversation, support, attention, pleasure. Her question is: how can we get what we want while behaving well, which means, at least, not being asjamed of ourselves?

My student didn't wish for anything like 'total liberation' - a revolution, a new social set-up - just for a satisfying marriage. And it is worth noting about the classic heroines of literature, Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary, or even the characters in the David Lean's Brief Encounter, that they are not compulsive transgressors. They are asking for very little, and for everything, which, for them, is a fuller, more satisfying love. Complete happiness is a fiction,  but some happiness is possible; indeed, it is essential. There are some people you can 'realise' yourself in relation to, and they are worth searching out.

The above encapsulates what I tried to describe in one of my earlier posts. Home is where each of us - partner, husband, wife, son and daughter - has the right to find the greatest support; the springboard to deal with the world outside. And yet, too often, home is where we are judged the most and taken most advantage of. When will we grow up?

Of course I have not had an affair but there are friends around me who give me the value and comfort that I need - and I am grateful for that.