162: Pizza Day unhappiness again (!)

 Not having written for quite a while, thought I would check back on my last entry - and there were my irritations on the day that I had made some pizza. Today was also such a day!!!!

So, one piece of news that should be positive is that she has started work again. Having previously always gone on and on about starting in roles 'beneath her' - as I've written before (just below 'current note') - she has taken such an administrative job at a school. She had done well there as an agency employee and so she was asked to interview and won the role. Great for her and she seems to be enjoying it. But where I had hoped that stresses would not rise, they are.

The target is to cook more than we usually on the weekend so that we don't have to cook in the evenings. Take it in turns on the Saturday or Sunday. I cooked last weekend and had offered to do so again this time.

Had a few things to do through the day and so I cooked from 9 am or so till 11 to get the task over with and done. (I am of course looking after my son's school lunches and the dinner time routine all days anyway.)

'Please don't cook in the morning from now on. It stinks the house out and I don't like waking to that.'

'Use a lower heat when cooking.'

'Don't use that spoon - I use that for pasta only.' (news to me!)

It is almost as if there is something in the DNA that has to say 'criticise' - that can show no or little appreciation. And, with our son, she veers from 'kuchi, kuchi' to really very aggressive - as ever, he appears to be able to brush things off far better than I ever could.

Previously, there was always huge tension on school mornings. He would have to set off at 7:40 am and she would not come down to make his lunch till about 7:20 and then he would be slow and the whole thing was a drama every day. Now, she leaves at 7:15 am, I do everything and all is calm.

But, as soon as she returns in the evening, it is 'do this, do that' - and all in that strident and demanding tone. The need to control and the need to criticise - where does it come from? My mother was the same, and they went to the same school - perhaps that is what they taught / teach there!!

I am tired, just so tired. I wish to God that her soul-mate / moment of blinding love walks in through her school doors and she is compelled to leave me and us.

My mother has been stuck in India because of Covid. She has become very unwell and is finally due back on 29 September 2020. My sister-in-law has flown out to bring her back and my mother is due to come and stay with us initially.

Unfortunately, I am due to be away for an annual golf weekend from 2-4 October and today my wife tells me, 'can you mother stay with your brother initially as, with work and everything, I won't be able to look after her without you.'

Somewhat ironic this, as she spends much of her time being all loud and noisy about how competent she is compared to others!!

So, I will probably end up cancelling the golf - no big deal - as my brother and sister-in-law may have other commitments. I will have done the cooking and everything, so I do not see the issue and, the other way round (ie her parents come, I'm working and she is away, I would have coped) - but, hey ho.

Just fucking tired.

161: Trying - just trying

I was doing some cooking the other day - pizzas for lunch.

Mainly our son likes margherita but, for my wife and me, I usually add some ham or something on top.

I couldn't find peperoni and so added some normal Milano.

'Why couldn't you find the peperroni? 'Near enough is good enough' does not work in cooking.' (said not in a terribly nasty way but certainly with a tone.)

Reminds me of many years ago when my cousin and her family were visiting from the US and they were due to come over to our's along with my parents. I said I would take care of all the cooking and shopping etc. for what would be about 12 people in total - she would not have to lift a finger.

For weeks or months beforehand I heard about how all of it would be an utter failure, that we should get food in or some such. I wrote about it in https://dear-confidant.blogspot.com/2015/12/what-i-really-think-but-cannot-say.html - para. 14.

And it really wasn't - all was good. And as for the pizza, once it was cooked she was happily eating up the last crumb. The whole doing-down is almost unconscious - like breathing!!

I wrote in https://dear-confidant.blogspot.com/2014/09/38-one-that-got-away.html that, 'Close to twenty years later, I know what to look for in a relationship – support, common purpose, a haven, friendship, the confidence of doing right rather than the continuous fear of doing wrong, someone to find comfort in rather than feel lonely with.'

And that is it - I grew up in that context of being fearful of being wrong and she is of the same ilk! I hope my son does not feel the same way - he may be stronger than me.

A good friend and I were discussing mid-life and the worries and sense (or loss) of purpose etc. and I shared 

https://dear-confidant.blogspot.com/2017/02/110-mid-life-another-common-story.html and the links to the external articles within.

Then I came across an article about a cricketer in England who had suffered from depression and panic attacks, Like any sportsman, he did well sometimes and not so well at other times. One of the passages in the piece said that, during a bad patch, a friend had said to him, 'this does not define you.' 'I was thinking that if I don't perform, that makes me a crappy person and they said: 'you can still be a good husband or brother or son.' I thought, 'I'd rather be a good one of them than a good cricketer.'

I think back to my counselling sessions - https://dear-confidant.blogspot.com/2016/05/97-counselling-sessions-2.html - where I felt it was only with my close friends that the above would be true. In any other environment, achievement - I have felt, rightly or wrongly - is the entry to being liked.

And, of course, my own wife said, ‘And you don’t exactly do great work. Aren’t you ashamed that you’ve not had a pay rise for five years? Anyone doing a proper job would not have so much time for friends. People go to work not for friends. Don’t kid yourself that you are in a serious job.’ https://dear-confidant.blogspot.com/2015/09/huge-row-getting-worse.html

160 - An Article to Ponder

A different stage of life but wise words in this article:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jun/18/leading-questions-i-feel-unhappy-with-my-girlfriend-but-i-fear-if-i-end-things-it-will-destroy-her

I love my girlfriend but don’t see myself with her for marriage or kids. I feel so conflicted. We’ve lived together for five years, we get on well most of the time. But I find I am losing patience with her. She’s jealous of any female colleagues, which makes me loathe to discuss work or friends with her. She will go through my Facebook friends at times and ask “Who’s [name]?” – it feels like an accusation every time.

I’m very extroverted and enjoy doing things with others, making plans at random, and she’s the opposite of this. I think it’s healthy to have outside interests and friends, and she doesn’t have any. I’m beginning to think we just aren’t right for each other, but I fear if I ever made a decision to try and end things, it would destroy her. I’ve tried talking to her before and felt I got nowhere. I feel unhappy, but wrong for feeling unhappy. *

Eleanor says: We both know that the quiet core of this question is no question: you want to leave. When we speak about our partners to other people, we should listen to what we say. The first thing you said was that you don’t see yourself with this person for marriage or kids. The second thing you said was that there’s a list of good reasons for that. So if you’d like permission to feel that way, you have it: I release you. You don’t have to stay.

But you know that, and you knew I’d say that. I’ve been in your position before, we all have; knowing enough about our desire to leave to talk about it to other people, but not quite enough to act on it. We lay out our dissatisfactions to our friends and they agree. They license leaving, and then when we don’t our friends are mystified.

So why don’t we leave? Often, as you say, it is because we fear it would destroy them. We’re afraid to leave for the same reasons that we want to: they don’t have much else going on, they’re not interested in anything else, they don’t have close friends or family. Convinced of our indispensability, we martyr ourselves because “it would be cruel to leave”.

But listen: it’s also cruel to stay. People know when you don’t love them. They can tell when you’re not excited about a future together. If this woman wants to be married or to have kids, you are wasting her time. And even if she doesn’t, you should not let her continue to be with someone who does not want her wholeheartedly. You plainly care about her and love her enough to not hurt her by leaving; let that same care guide you away from the hurt you’d do by staying.

I’m not saying it will be easy. Maybe she will fall to pieces and call you drunk at three in the morning and tell you that her life is over now. Or maybe, instead, she’ll call on resources within herself that she hasn’t had to use in years, put on some Destiny’s Child and be glad to have hit rock bottom so she has something to bounce off.

Whatever happens, you do not help her by staying. If the best thing in her life is a partner who isn’t sure they want to be there, you should not play any part in keeping her stuck this way.

Leaving partners we love and routines we know takes enormous courage and comes with enormous risk. We break away from the familiar because we hope that the unknown could be better. This takes bravery, and optimism, and most importantly hope. Have that hope for your partner as much as for yourself, because the familiar isn’t good for her, either.

159: Coronavirus 2 - getting on my tits

A very poor title I know - and, actually, the issues are not big - but irritations continue.

This morning our son asks after his underwear as he can't find any. This is just a perennial issue. Because she has this weird system of washing or procrastinates and suddenly we are without underwear!

Yes, of course, I could do it. But, no, I am not allowed. Clearly, washing clothes is a highly skilled activity. Alongside loading and unloading the dishwasher and clearing the sink or folding clothes. To be fair, she does most of this because of our history where I would find myself doing a second shift after coming home and a few years ago she decided that the kitchen work and washing was her's - though I am still allowed to cook from time to time.

During normal days, though she was not working, she would delay and we'd be clearing up the kitchen gone 9:30 pm - this I no longer participate in and that is by mutual agreement. However, the effect is that we do not sit down together to watch a film or some TV as a family as she usually huffs and puffs her way upstairs towards 10 pm. She could do this earlier.

Now, during coronavirus there is even less to do. I have gone back to working and am busy all day but, even then, a little bit of time management and there is no reason why all can't be done by 8 pm and there should be no searching for underwear.

But, no. The same old, same old. Waste all day looking at Facebook, reading articles so she can pontificate, yakking with friends and not start any work before 7 pm - therefore, not finish before 10 pm.

Of course I am not allowed to say anything. And as I am in the 'at risk' category - BAME, over 50, male - she is in her element going to the shops to 'protect' me.

As ever, wouldn't mind laziness and procrastination if the standards our son and I were held to were different / consistent and she would not be so judgemental about others. But, hey ho … not so bad really.

158: Life in the time of the Coronavirus

5 weeks now, locked into a house. My freelance contract finished on 31^st March and so I’m ‘at-home’ rather than ‘working from home’. As she and I have been getting on reasonably well over the last few years, the atmosphere has been fine. She has been going to exercise classes regularly over the last couple of years and so we go out walking every other day and all is pleasant.

In fact, before the lockdown started towards the end of March 2020, she had been working as a freelance herself for about 3 weeks. And the assignment had clearly gone well – she had enjoyed her time and her colleagues, judging by the leaving card comments, clearly appreciated her work. All good to see.

It was ironic, though, that previously she had, without telling me, thrown away cards my friends/colleagues had presented me with. Her own card she displayed proudly on a shelf in the kitchen!!!

So, all good really but …. as she herself if very fond of pontificating to friends and relations on the phone, ‘a person’s character cannot change.’

I was reading this article which has a very nice paragraph: ‘One place to start is with vigilant attention to what we allow as normal. Do not permit small expressions of contempt. Anger, frustration, sadness, blame – yes, but never contempt. Keep contempt out of your home and you’ll have a difference in the kind – not just degree – of your fights and the curdled sprawls that ruin families. Don’t just take it in your stride when people speak to you in ways you don’t like – act surprised. Surprise marks clear edges around what we expect of our relationships, and communicating that “this isn’t normal” is often an effective way of communicating “it shouldn’t be”.’


As I have always done, I do my fair share of the cooking and cleaning – now that our cleaner cannot come, I do the bathrooms, she does the kitchen floor for example. I cook decently but am always told off for not using a recipe – though the outcome is usually ok. I prepare our son’s meals eight times out of ten. She wasn’t feeling very well and so I made the pizzas one lunchtime – and was told off for not using the ‘right’ passata. I am of course not competent enough to load the dishwashes ‘correctly’. I do ‘act surprised’ and make a jokey comment or two but do not react.

(But when one has been told in the past, ‘And you don’t exactly do great work. Aren’t you ashamed that you’ve not had a pay rise for five years? Anyone doing a proper job would not have so much time for friends. People go to work not for friends. Don’t kid yourself that you are in a serious job.’ - these are minor issues! Entry 61)

I am more concerned now about her behaviour with our son. It is much improved from before but whereas he leans into for a hug with me, he shies away from her. Generally, her conversations with him are instructions – ‘you haven’t’ done this or that or the other – or, worse, harangues. That is difficult for anyone to handle, let alone a 14-year-old. Particularly annoying is she herself is a procrastinator and a half-finisher of things which leaves papers and clothes strewn all over the place – the very things she accuses him of. I try and tread the line between being a parent and being fair to both, but I fear for the effect it may have on him – as I have pointed out to her. Entry 157 and Entry 149.

Overall, though, the environment has not been so bad and I pray that that continues. I ask him, ‘ who’s my baby?’, ‘who’s my hero?’ – I am, I am. But fights will happen and possibly they will affect me more than either of them – perhaps I am just being a snowflake.

157: Partial Return to the Bad Old Days

Minutae but important.

Weekday evening. Our son (now 14) is watching some football on TV. There is nothing else on.

At some point in the last month he has taken out an Amazon Prime subscription - free for one month. His mother wants to watch a film on there and asks for the password. Not an unreasonable request.

But they have been doing this faux, play fighting for a bit, have probably niggled each other and he starts being ansty - saying that she has been aggressive and that, in any case, (i) he has told her the password before and (ii) it is very easy to set up an account and get a free month's Prime.

This just goes on and on - each one being as stubborn as the other. Neither will give in. I try to persuade him but it will not happen.

My wife then, frankly, becomes a child. She says, 'ok, if you won't do this for me then you can iron your own clothes, go to school by bus, don't expect me to have your friends over, make your own school lunch.' She is incandescent with rage.

She huffs off to bed and I send him to his room - am upset and angry with both. He is crying. I ask him one last time. 'She knows what it is - it is my birthday.' I transmit this to her but it does not work; turns out he meant that he had written it in numbers whereas we thought it was in words.

Yes, he was being unreasonable but she must have irked him previously and for her to lose it completely was bizarre. She is 47, he is 14 - the reaction is beyond words.

He and I have had issues on occasion. If I have been wrong and lost my temper, I have apologised. If he has been in the wrong - for example, once when he kept repeating '5 minutes' when I was calling him for dinner - I have explained the situation in terms of the inconvenience, rudeness and irritation and he has responded positively.

My wife's irrational behaviour has happened before - Entry 68, Entry 55, - I wrote in Entry 71:

Let us hope you do not also lose our son.
 Do you know that on those evenings you go out with your friends, we have the most lovely time? A bit of work, dinner, a game or two and then quiet reading. Unlike the stress that exists when you are around.
Our son – unlike me – is a bounce-backer and in that sense more like you. He will take your punishment and then be as cheerful as before but how long will he carry on like that?
Do you note the times he asks why you have to scold him all the time? When his shoulders slump and his face becomes small at yet another harangue? When he is afraid as you stomp up the stairs? When I have had to take him to one side and, once, out for a drive just to calm him down? When after you have had a go at me, how he comes across and gives me a spontaneous hug?
How does someone become so angry and so hurtful to those she can cause the most damage to?

How?

And in Entry 53, I wondered if, Unlike me in my youth, I suspect he  will fight back and so she is well on the way to creating a difficult relationship.

I have suggested to her that she needs to be careful Entry 149, 'so, not in front of our son, I state clearly that what I remember most about my mother was her temper and her shouting and that if that is what she wants to leave as a legacy then 'carry on what you are doing.' 'That's between you and your mother. And our son is different from you.' 

She is right about the last point - I suspect he will fight back much more than I did!

Anyway, I go to bed and I am also on the verge of tears - such a harsh moment has not happened in quite a while. I worry about what I should do the next morning.

Previously, I might have been afraid, but this time I do the right thing. I iron his school clothes and ask him to get ready. I ask her whether she wants to make his lunch or should I? I expect a violent reaction from her and a continuation of the diatribe - I remain downstairs while they potter in the kitchen. She is clearly still upset but does not say anything - there is strained civility.

In the evening, I repeat to him that my mother also used to get angry and that , like mine, his mother can be unreasonable - so he should adjust a little, and I tell him that I have brought his mum's behaviour to her attention. He nods.

A week later now and the situation is back to peaceful and even.

In the past the drama would have carried on for days with wave upon wave of anger - not so this time; a minor blessing.

156: Looking back - a moment of reflection, with help from Primo Levi and others

Tomorrow - Tuesday - I have to go to a funeral. It is of a teacher at my old school. She joined as a new member of staff, fresh out of university I would imagine, just as I was coming to the end of my school days. She never taught me but we played badminton together, were Facebook friends and caught up from time to time at school events - she became the Head later. Her husband was my PE teacher and they both came to my wedding reception in London. She passed away at 56, I am 51.

In the same town as the crematorium lives my first professional boss, D. - someone I admired very much. Fresh out of university he was my line manager. But we lost touch over the years and a mutual friend got me his number. So, I contacted him via WhatsApp and we are meeting after what must be more than a decade and a half.

I began to wonder how I might sum up my adult life for D.. Even in broad themes, there are positives and negatives.

Negatives
I had a great start to my professional career - following graduation. The details are unimportant but I gained rapid promotion, delivered sales (after a stuttering start), gained expatriate positions and worked for the CEO of a US$15b organisation by 32. Ready for the next leap!

Then my bosses were fired. I was initially offered a global role and a contract was promised 'by the end of the week' by the global head of HR. But someone apparently 'lobbied' against me and I was shafted and made redundant.

This blew my career and I had to start again. It robbed me of confidence. It robbed me of faith - that doing the right things gain their reward, which had been the case to that point.

On the personal front, I got married in 1999 at a time when things were going well professionally and I felt I was ready to share my life and grow with a partner. We moved from the UK to India and then France and life was exciting. We had a baby in 2005.

Things were never great - Entry 155 - but I did my best as a husband and father. Then, after / despite many years of taking shit, was finally told in 2015 that I was ' incompetent, weird, a tramp, uncaring, selfish, impotent, shameful, useless, callous and a pervert ' - an utter failure in every way.

So .... professionally and personally, do the right things and get shafted - or looking at it conversely, be a failure.

The third great theme in my life has been my son. He has been put upon and I often worry about the effect on him - just as I had a very angry mother in my childhood. He is my life and I try to support, apologise if I get angry ... I suspect his actions were fundamental in the dramatic turnaround of our marriage but will I fail him as well?

I should add there has been a fourth theme in my life and that is my friends and, on the same level, my cousin in the US - who have supported  me, shown me affection and chosen to see the best of me. I hope I retain that love and do nothing to destroy the bonds.

Positives

People say - in any walk of life - that it is important to 'enjoy the process' because the conclusions are open to so many variables. So, top sportspeople will opine that the result is secondary to the process - that 'the journey' is the value. I wonder and question if that is true but accept the premise that just relying on the result is to, potentially, do yourself down and that trying for the best is the real quest.

In ordinary life, the summits of 'success' are lower. And so, if, in my negatives, I have failed ultimately, have I 'succeeded' in the journey?

Well, we are all healthy but that is down to luck and genes. I have made materially useful and positive contributions to the businesses I have worked for. I have lived and negotiated in various countries and enjoyed a good proportion of my professional life. Financially, we have been sound though not at all extravagantly rich  - nice places to stay, holidays, little bar on spend, good private school.

Having been shafted early in my career, I let work take a back seat and have been very fortunate in being able to be the 'dad' that I wanted to be  while still being able to support a reasonable standard of life.

I have a valued set of friends. I enjoy sport and try to look after myself. Life has given me a lot and I am very grateful. And I would not, for the world, change the experience that I have had with my son. He is 14 now and I say to him, 'who is my love?', 'who is my hero?', 'who is my life?', 'who is my reason for living?' and he responds, 'I am', 'I am', 'I am', 'I am.' 

Conclusions

So there are a lot of positives, but am I left with the feeling - to quote a poem that my brother put up on Facebook - that I am the 'god of small things'?

She stood still behind the metal fence as he approached

As still as one made of alabaster or marble
Dusty white with a dishevelled mane
Not a muscle twitched or an ear flicked
She waited and watched with her big grey eyes.

Surely it could not be because she remembered
How on a snowy dark dawn he had wandered past and looked at her
And had regretted not having had an apple to give
He wondered on the finiteness of memory
As carefully he edged close.

‘I am tired’, he whispered, as he touched her forehead
‘Of being the god of small things.
The light bulb fixed or the zipper mended
The car serviced or the insurance paid or the passport renewed.
I am tired of not being able to deal with the mind.’

She reared her head slightly, as if to understand,
Then nuzzled closer and her warm breath sniffed his coat
As if to ask if food lay concealed. A gentle recognition among fellow beings.
‘I am tired of not knowing where giving becomes taking
Where love ends and pain begins, where more is less and the world is too fractured to understand.
I think I will give up soon. But I promise to bring you an apple before I go.’

Yes, this may be the case.

I am tired, that is clear,
Because, at a certain stage, people have to be tired.
Of what I am tired, I don't know:
It would not serve me at all to know
Since the tiredness stays just the same.
The wound hurts as it hurts
And not in function of the cause that produced it.
Yes, I am tired,

Fernando Pessoa

And, yet, I must remember:

Resonance: So many times I have had this debate with myself and with her. Entry 141, Entry 21

You who live safe

In your warm houses;
You who find on returning in the evening
Hot food and friendly faces:

Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a bit of bread
Who dies because of a yes and because of a no

Consider if this is a woman,
Without hair and without name
Without enough strength to remember
Vacant eyes and cold womb
Like a frog in the winter:

Reflect on the fact that this has happened:
These words I commend to you:
Inscribe them on your heart
When staying at home and going out,

Going to bed and rising up;
Repeat them to your children:
Or may your house fall down,
Illness bar your way,
Your loved ones turn away from you.

- Primo Levi


And be grateful for what I have received:

Resonance: Wow!! 'Kindness' as granted by friends and my son (Entry 114).

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye.

(poems courtesy of my brother and sister-in-law)