Hello. Let me introduce myself. I am one of Smiley's people. Like Smiley himself, I married above my pay-grade, and, like Smiley, I am now paying the price. For those who don't know him, Smiley is a spymaster. I will quote from "A Brief History of George Smiley," written by Smiley's biographer, Mr. John Le Carre:
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When Lady Ann Sercomb married George Smiley towards the end of the war she described him to her astonished Mayfair friends as breathakingly ordinary. When she left him two years later in favour of a Cuban motor racing driver, she announced enigmatically that if she hadn't left him then, she never could have done....Was he rich or poor, peasant or priest? Where had she got him from? The incongruity of the match was emphasised by Lady Ann's undoubted beauty, its mystery stimulated by the disproportion between the man and his bride.
We are much alike, Smiley and me, though he is short and rather rotund, we are both given to the kinds of clothes that you notice only when you realize you haven't noticed them. When we are with our wives, it is they you notice, and not us.
I live in Coastal City. My wife and I have been married for nearly 19 years, together 22; when we met we were in our 20s. I am now 47, she 44. We have 2 kids, both under the age of 10. Of we two, W is far more career-oriented and, as a result, far more successful.
It has always been thus; she worked extra to carry me through school, she worked extra to carry herself through school, she pursued the most ambitious assignments, the most prestigious specialty. I, by contrast, have never defined myself through my work and pursued the specialty that gave me joy. The hours are long in my specialty, but fortunately the pay is low.
However, we have known one thing nearly from our first date. If it came to children, I would be the primary care-giver. I love children. I love the world of children. I am at home in it (though I am no Peter Pan) as my real interests are not unlike those of children -- I love literature, art, and music. Where a single round of Candyland exhausts W's reservoir of maternal tolerance, I can spend hours with both kids drawing with chalk on the driveway.
So that was the understanding -- she would drive, I would sit in the back and play the license-plate-game.
Like so man of Smiley's people, I have (or had, at any rate) 2 lives. In one, I was the fellow you saw here and there. In the other, I was a reserve Soldier, and that life took me in early 2003 to the sands of Iraq, where I lived until the summer of 2004, doing my bit to topple Saddam and then stand around like a dope while the Iraqis, impatient for all the goodies that democracy is supposed to bring, decided instead to start blowing things up around me and my fellow troops.
That little journey was the beginning of the end of my marriage. I hesitate to say that I "returned" from it. My body returned, but my mind didn't. And in the first 2 years, W went through a number of life-altering experiences, including two family deaths, for which I was useless in terms of emotional support. She asked me to go to IC -- "real" Army guys don't do that. She asked me, time and again, to go to MC -- I didn't have any problems.
But of course, we had a problem. I simply didn't (or wouldn't) see it. In retrospect, I was afraid of MC. Afraid that I would learn she didn't love me. So I avoided it.
During that time, we slept mostly apart. I was working with a group of colleagues on the other side of the globe, and to meet their working hours I would go to bed around 8:30 or 9 and get up at 2:30 or 3. The sleeping apart began as a courtesy -- I didn't want to wake her with my (very loud) alarm clock. It became a death sentence.
She would complain, I would ignore. From time-to-time we would fight. Neither of us fought fair. She was sexually unsatisfied; I was sexually unsatisfied. We had a Sex-Starved Marriage.
And, over time, as MWD writes in chapter 1 of DR:
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After months or years of negative interaction, women finally give up. They tell themselves, "I've tried everything. Divorce has got to be better than this. I'll find somebody who cares about me. Even if I don't, I'm so alone in this marriage, I can't take it anymore. I know I'll be happier without him." And with that they plan their escape.
And so she did.
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In the months or years that follow her decision, the wife is no longer trying to fix the marriage. She stops complaining. To her, this surrender to the inevitable is definitely a bad thing. To him, well you don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what the husband thinks. He's thrilled!...She must be happy again, or so he thinks and he proceeds with business as usual. Business as usual, that is, until "D Day" -- the day his wife turns to him and says, "I want a divorce," to which her absolutely devastated husband replied, "I had no idea you were unhappy! Why didn't you tell me?" With that response, the marital coffin is nailed shut.
So that was me, on 13 February 2009. I had just returned from an overseas business trip; she'd made the decision to drop the bomb as a New Year's Resolution.
In late October 2008, however, I had a wake-up call. I knew I had to go to counseling. And so I went. And over the next 2 months I saw serious improvements in my happiness, my coping skills, and so forth. After a number of tests to eliminate the depression with which I had been MIS-diagnosed after the war, a team of psychiatrists and psychologists and I determined that I likely have Adult ADD. I scoffed, initially, but after research and medication I'm fairly convinced that this was correct.
There's a very good book about Adult ADD called You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy?! It describes the problems "ADD'ers" have in relationships. Surprise, surprise, they describe my interactions with W to a T.
During the time I was working with ICs, I came to the realization that W was correct -- we needed MC. But I found it hard to admit after all this time. So I hoped to tell her after the holiday craziness ended. But what I didn't realize was that, on January 1, she'd more or less made her decision. So she was cold and unapproachable. I didn't think I could just blurt it out -- hey we need marriage counseling! -- but in retrospect, of course, what harm could it have done?
Then she went overseas with her sister on a trip; she got back the day before my trip. So I planned to tell her the day I got back, which was February 13. She beat me to the punch. She loves me but isn't in love with me. She's done. She's got a wall. She's angry. She can't ever be vulnerable again. Etc. (Now some of that has since been modified, mind you.)
Now I'm not all victim in this. I earned my D-bomb. I was not the husband she deserved, and was not the man I ought to have been. I was checked-out. I didn't listen. I didn't validate her feelings -- instead, I argued with them. I spoke the wrong Love Language to her; she "hears" Quality Time, I spoke "Acts of Service" because (I think) that was what my mother heard and did not get from my father, so I assumed that was what men were supposed to do. When she needed me most, the death of her parent just after I left the war, I was thousands of miles away. Was that my fault? No -- it was the war's fault. Did it do irreparable damage nevertheless? Yes, absolutely.
Yes, I had grievances in the M. I did not get the respect I felt I deserved. I did not have as satisfying a sex life as I would have wanted -- we were deep in Mars/Venus territory, with me needing sex to feel intimate, and with her needing intimacy to lead to sex.
But my grievances were not so overpowering that they led me, as hers did her, to thinking D. I thought of them as the normal valleys in a long marriage.
I still don't know which of us was correct. By her own admission, she doesn't tell people The Story (as I have done to those I have told, and as I am doing here) because from her POV none of the incidents of which she would complain is all that meaningful or significant -- she believes people would say, "Is that all?" It is, she says, their cumulative weight that sank the marriage, and I am willing to believe that this is correct.
After 2 weeks of foundering around helplessly, I somehow stumbled on the DB book and read it. Then I saw the DR book, and it worked better for me. I starting DB'ing at that point.
In the interim, she started an EA with Signore Schmuckatelli, a true Peter Pan, 48 years old, independently wealthy, who lives in Upstate City and whom she knew vaguely from childhood. His M.O. is to pick out vulnerable married women. W is powerfully social -- she loves to be liked. Signore Schmuckatelli had dinner with her in Coastal (Home) City in January, after the New Year's Resolution. He said the right things. He was, she says, "funny and light." 'Twas ever thus.
With respect to MLC vs. A vs. "done" -- she's doing many of the things one associates with MLC. But perhaps those are also the things one does when one is preparing to move on. What she's not doing are the things MWD suggests are characteristic of "done-ness." She's awfully concerned with my opinion, for example, although this might reflect the Cognitive Dissonance (that's for you, robx!) between her done-ness and her intense psychological need to be liked and approved of.
We are living in separate rooms in the same house. We have not told the children and, fortunately as it happens, her hours are such that even in "normal" times we're seldom together with the kids, so they don't observe any fighting or tension between us.
There is a lot of tension, and very very little fighting.
She is buying a new home a couple miles away. It is her intention to move out in mid-June, after the school year ends, when we will drop the Bomb on the children. It is her (expressed) intention to file D papers at that time -- "there's no reason not to, it's going to take long enough as it is without going through the hassle of a legal separation."
Because of the differences in our salaries -- her specialty commanding far higher wages than mine -- she is very concerned that I will take her to the cleaners on spousal support. This has been the subject of several heated conversations, though lately it has dropped off the radar a bit. I suspect she's resigned to expect the worst (of me).
And this is where I am today.
So, GFI, that's a very long answer to a very short question, but now you know "why" -- at least, that is, as much as I know "why."
@GFI: Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. Manifests itself in ways that are different from the childhood disorder in many ways.
Work: Because mine is less demanding and pays less, it isn't "real.". But then she meets people I've worked w/ or mentored (like yesterday), and she's all enthusiastic about how "inspiring" I am to people.
Nah, it's mostly about being totally discombobulated all the time. Which I was. And about being somewhat socially inept. Which I was/am. (Another WAW beef, BTW).
Be sure to also read "Delivered From Distraction" by Edward "Ned" Hallowell M.D. There is a lot of information about relationships throughout the book, but ch 38 and 40 deal issues in depth.
Hallowell also a writes a very good Marriage and ADD blog in conjunction with Melissa Orlov http://www.adhdmarriage.com/
It's ESSENTIAL for anyone who knows or even suspects they may live with ADD to know how it effects their relationships. (If only my WAW and me had read this stuff years ago...sigh...)
Lastly take a look at ADDITUDE http://www.additudemag.com/ is a great reference and news site for all things ADD.
"My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand." Thich Nhat Hanh
@orange -- great post. "If only my WAW and me ahd read this stuff years ago...sigh...)" I hear you, brother.
@mind -- I posted a response, but the computer seems to have eaten it. W's already heard everything that I put in my response to GFI. She's also read it -- when my mother sent a truly nasty e-mail to me about WAW, and WAW found it on my computer, it precipitated a bit of a blow-up between mother and me. I wrote her a long email explaining my POV of the situation, and setting forth pretty much everything you saw there in the GFI response.
So there's no mystery here. W still believes D is the only way out for her.
It's official -- she's tormenting me sexually. (See the discussion re: stretching during The Outing.)
Kids were going to do their easter egg hunt and W wanted a photograph taken of D and her to use on her fundraising for the charity run. So she's wearing a perfectly fine green cotton shirt and says she just wants to change quickly. Okay, we wait; the kids and I go outside to get ready for the hunt.
W comes out in yoga wear -- capri pants that hug the hips and a thin lycra shirt with spaghetti straps.
Of course the photograph is just going to be a closeup, so it really doesn't matter what kind of top she's wearing.
