I was saying that I felt some relief when my husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Why would I have such a feeling? It doesn't feel good to feel that. I had underlying guilt. That I felt that was understandable for someone who knew the details of my life with him. It still didn't take away the gnawing sense of guilt. Human but not humane.
So, if it was understandable, was it okay? Given the totality of our years together and the ongoing betrayals, was it okay? I can forgive if behavior stops. Remorse, repentance, sincere apologies go a long way with me. I can forgive. I can forget (believe it or not). Despite my steel-trap memory, I can do that. But when the behavior keeps returning, I can't. I used to love it when Bill went into his depressions because all the things he did during his manic episodes that I said he shouldn't do, he would agree with me and apologize for. But in time he would do them again. And the cycle would repeat itself. My thinking, and this is where my religion worked against me, was that if I showed enough love, if I modeled the right behavior, if I acted as my faith tells me I need to act, then he would 'get it'. He would see how his behavior, his lack of ethics, his low morals, were hurting the two people he loved most. And he would act in love, through love, with love, and stop being an Asshole. A huge asshole. But I was an asshole to think that way. I should have either accepted what I had or thrown in the towel years ago. To have stayed on as I did was not right. It only changed temporarily. He wasn't capable of acting out of love consistently. He isn't hard-wired that way.
This was a topic in my counseling this week and it is where the title of this entry comes in. If I had come to my senses, if I had opened my eyes and finally said to myself, "This is not going to get any better than it is. I don't like this. I'm outta here!" I would have been making the best choice for me. Maybe it would have been the best choice for Laura too. To have believed he could change through love and my examples was an exercise in futility. I was in denial. It ain't just a river in Egypt, it's also flowing through my brain. In this time of reflection, this time of getting my thought patterns onto a healthier track, I have got to think of denial and the part it plays in my life. Am I unable to see when something is a loser? Can I get to the point where I see when something is just not ever going to be right? I denied what was really Bill and then, instead of realizing what was, I deflected his nasty comments to me and detached from him------while all the while playing the role of the loving wife. My bad. Can't do that again. Can't near that point again. It will be interesting to see how I deal with any instincts I have towards denial.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
New Year
The new year began, and it seems to be barreling ahead without me. Am I lost in the dust? I don't know. I seem to have everything under control. My lesson plans are written, the classroom is fairly clean, my little sunglasses breakers are staying after school to help me every day, I have my paperwork done. Or do I? I get this weird feeling that there's something important I've forgotten. Today we took down the Christmas decorations, and now the house looks oddly bare as if it were crying out for some ornamentation. I'll miss the color the various holiday accessories brought.
#1:
I was ruminating over 2010. I was barely scratching the surface. I ran out of energy right before I got to the part where I was going to write what I did wrong. This is very hard for me. I don't like to admit my shortcomings. Will it overwhelm me to do that? Will I shrivel in shame if I dare to write it in this blog?
It was, okay here I go being brutally honest, a relief when Bill was diagnosed with cancer. It had been such a tough marriage and I was so tired of his poor money management, the way he was beginning to treat my father, his sloppiness, his bad behavior, his betrayals. The cancer was a signal to me that this would end in the foreseeable future. I didn't want to admit that to myself. How could a woman be almost glad that her husband was given this death sentence?
But I felt that I wanted to be with him through it all. I had made a commitment to him, I still loved him in many ways, we had always been good company, and I knew I was the only person in his life at that time. He was relying heavily on me to be his rock. I thought that with the limited time we had, I would stay by his side while his time on this earth ended. I wasn't looking forward to watching him die; I didn't even want to see him in pain. But we had been together 26 years, and I am a loyal person.
#2:
I resented him. I resented the gambling, the bipolar mood swings, the way he copped out of the Bar Exam God-knows-how-many times, didn't help support our family,gambled away his inheritance, had stolen money from me, embarrassed me socially and with my family, the holidays he had ruined, the way his word was no good, the two-faced way he disciplined our daughter. I would have been able to 'forgive and forget' if he had just stopped. If I had been more true to myself, what would have done about these betrayals? My resentments?
#3:
I was seeking support from outside our home. I was readying myself for his death. I was gathering people to support me. Is that bad? I don't know. But somehow I was drifting away from him. Part of it was a coping mechanism for me to 'ready' myself for his death. Part of it was wanting to push myself away from him because he was being unkind to my father after he was the one who had invited my dad to live with us. But I was feeling separate from him. And he felt it. And I felt bad that he felt it. It seemed like a phenomenon over which I couldn't get any control.
#1:
I was ruminating over 2010. I was barely scratching the surface. I ran out of energy right before I got to the part where I was going to write what I did wrong. This is very hard for me. I don't like to admit my shortcomings. Will it overwhelm me to do that? Will I shrivel in shame if I dare to write it in this blog?
It was, okay here I go being brutally honest, a relief when Bill was diagnosed with cancer. It had been such a tough marriage and I was so tired of his poor money management, the way he was beginning to treat my father, his sloppiness, his bad behavior, his betrayals. The cancer was a signal to me that this would end in the foreseeable future. I didn't want to admit that to myself. How could a woman be almost glad that her husband was given this death sentence?
But I felt that I wanted to be with him through it all. I had made a commitment to him, I still loved him in many ways, we had always been good company, and I knew I was the only person in his life at that time. He was relying heavily on me to be his rock. I thought that with the limited time we had, I would stay by his side while his time on this earth ended. I wasn't looking forward to watching him die; I didn't even want to see him in pain. But we had been together 26 years, and I am a loyal person.
#2:
I resented him. I resented the gambling, the bipolar mood swings, the way he copped out of the Bar Exam God-knows-how-many times, didn't help support our family,gambled away his inheritance, had stolen money from me, embarrassed me socially and with my family, the holidays he had ruined, the way his word was no good, the two-faced way he disciplined our daughter. I would have been able to 'forgive and forget' if he had just stopped. If I had been more true to myself, what would have done about these betrayals? My resentments?
#3:
I was seeking support from outside our home. I was readying myself for his death. I was gathering people to support me. Is that bad? I don't know. But somehow I was drifting away from him. Part of it was a coping mechanism for me to 'ready' myself for his death. Part of it was wanting to push myself away from him because he was being unkind to my father after he was the one who had invited my dad to live with us. But I was feeling separate from him. And he felt it. And I felt bad that he felt it. It seemed like a phenomenon over which I couldn't get any control.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Ruminations on 2010 Part 2
Topic: What Is My Part?
I spent the first five months of 2010 writing a blog entitled "Saying Goodbye to You". In it I was preparing myself for the horrors of losing my husband to pancreatic cancer and just plain old losing my husband of 22 years. Prior to getting married, we had dated off and on for four years, so really our relationship had lasted 26 years. Most of the time we had been together as a couple but we had had a few break-ups during which I would try my hand at dating, not exactly a favorite pasttime. I have never enjoyed dating, especially first dates, and am clumsy at it at best.
I would be duplicitious if I omitted the part about my biological clock. It was ticking loudly back then. I wanted to have a child. I couldn't imagine ending my life without offspring. Like most women, I felt I had strong maternal instincts. I also wanted a family. I wanted togetherness, I wanted to feel loved, I wanted the unity, commitment and dedication that come with having a family. At the end of my first marriage we had started trying to conceive. That attempt had opened my eyes to the fact that I didn't see a future as a family with my first husband, that he had a horrible chip on his shoulder and felt comfortable with it---he loved his chip. After all, he had inherited it from his father with pride. There was no way I wanted any child of mine to grow up thinking all people were out to get him or put him down. That was just crazy. By the time 1988 rolled around, changing husbands had become a time-consuming effort. And I felt my time was running out. What this amounted to was me being in a hurry to find a new mate and have a family. I didn't feel like I was in a position to be too picky, and I thought I loved Bill. In fact, I thought he was the love of my life. At the time, I didn't think I was 'settling'. Where the truth is-----I don't know. But this I know has to happen now: I have to discover what it is I have done wrong, what it is I want for myself, what I will tolerate, and what are 'deal-breakers'. I have been told to make a list.
Before I can make that list, I must understand myself. What is it about me that has contributed to the demise of two marriages? If I blame it all on my exes, if I absolve myself of all responsibility, I will not improve. I will make the same mistakes over again. I vow to dig and to dig deep.
What are the commonalities between the two marriages? In both cases there was some emotional imbalance. What attracted me to two men with mental/emotional problems? Did I mistake depression for introspection? Did I think these were guys with the ability to be in touch with their feelings when in fact they were suffering from depression? Check! I think it would be in my best interest to say 'yes' to that.
Next, and extemely importantly, assertiveness. Mom taught me never to ask/demand anything from a man. When I was a little girl she said that when I grew up, men would be beating down the door for me. I thought it was a sweet comment but I didn't believe her. She, my aunt and my grandmother, the backbones of their families, all said we women just needed to be loved and taken care of. My aunt and my grandmother were taken care of by their spouses. My grandfather met my grandmother's every whim. My aunt's husband adored her, made a lot of money, and took extremely good care of her until the day she died. But while saying I would be taken care of out of one side of her mouth, out of the other side Mom was saying to take whatever a man dished out. My mom was the antitheses of the American woman everyone says marries a man and then sets out to change him. She was more of the variety that married a man, took his friends as hers, his interests as hers, then realized what she got was not working out for her, and instead of trying to change her man, she became resentful of his shortcomings. She felt unempowered to change her circumstances to be more acceptable to her. She would make unflattering comments about her husband but never when he was around. It was as if she was hopeless to change whatever dissatisfied her in her marriages, so she saw resentment as her only recourse. I went through a terribly awkwardly unattractive period from eighth to tenth grades. During that time there was no one knocking on the door let alone beating it down. After the metamorphosis of getting my braces off, getting contact lenses, and discovering hair-straightening products, I came into my own, and I became attractive to boys. When I would get angry or demanding of a boyfriend, Mom would tell me I was wrong, that the boy was too nice for me, and that I didn't deserve him. Put this all together and what message did I get? When you marry, take what is dished out. If you don't like it, you are in no position to change him, so you can be resentful and backbite. That kind of betrayal was permissable. I entered both marriages believing that my husband would take care of me, support a family, 'provide' for me. I thought we shared those common values. In both instances, I was willing to work and help support us on a temporary basis while they finished school or did whatever was needed to establish themselves so that I could later quit my job and raise a family while he 'took care' of us. When my husband made a request, a rule, a comment, I took it in. I acquiesced. I wanted to be that wife my mother had led me to believe I should be. It worked for a while, but then things started to deteriorate. I would realize I couldn't handle what was being dished out and I withdrew. Things weren't going according to plan and I both times I was looking at being the major financial family support. I got resentful and felt powerless. I started seeing my husband as strange, unacceptable, and a social embarrassment. As I withdrew, both times my husbands made power plays. They sensed the distance I had created and tried to get me under their control again: We couldn't do one thing, we couldn't socialize with so-and-so, this or that thing had to be changed. Or,as in this most recent case,there was passive/aggressive behavior that resulted in damage that couldn't be undone. Bill would go out and gamble on the sly. Money that was lost could not be retrieved. You can't go knocking on a casino door and explain to them that the money that your husband lost was a 'mistake' and they should give it back to you. Then, in the final days, I would detach. I saw myself as a completely separate entity, and at times I lived an unrelated and parallel lif: go to work, take care of your business, have your own friends, take your own vacations, eat meals separately. That's how I coped with the unravelling relationship. From my mother's messages, I saw this as the only way I could resolve marital problems and my unhappiness. It was survival mode for me. So here's my part: put up with things that become incrementally more unacceptable, can't feel I can express my own wishes, withdraw from my spouse who begins to look more and more odd and demanding all the time, detach and live a parallel life, and finally throw in the towel.
I have spent much of my life looking for others who had successful marriages. And, sadly, I have found few. I recently asked a friend if he knew anyone who had a successful marriage, and he came up with a whole list. I have never been able to, and I wonder if I ever really had criteria for determining what constitutes a happy marriage. This topic leaves me in a complete fog.
When Bill was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I was already out of love with him. However,I was committed to him. I honored my vows to be a devoted wife to him. But in my heart I felt he had betrayed me too many times to love him the way I had loved him on our wedding day. He wasn't a team player, he had bipolar disorder, he had not only NOT passed the Bar exam and become a lawyer but had spent months out of work 'studying' for the Bar only to go to the first day of the exam and skip the next two because he felt he just wasn't going to pass. This and many other times when we had made big family sacrifices for an endeavor of his, were examples of him not really trying in the marriage. When Laura was a baby we had decided to get life insurance policies on ourselves. It was at that time we discovered that Bill had dangerously high cholesterol. Life insurance for him was prohibitive. We paid for one for a while, but later only I carried a policy. He later developed clogged arteries followed by an angioplasty and, in time, a triple bypass. He had plantar fascitis, type 2 diabetes and, of course, cancer. His health didn't help him be a teamplayer in supporting our household. Then there was the chronic 'sacroiliac' complaints. He couldn't help out with one thing or another because of his sacroiliac. But he could somehow sit at a poker table for hours on end or go out in the mountains and the desert in all kinds of weather with the dogs. But when someone else needed help, his 'sacroiliac' would make him unable to pitch in. And so it went. The theme in the family became one of Bill doing whatever he wanted and me feeling like I had to fill in all the gaps and pick up all the slack. If I hadn't been my mother's daughter maybe I would have seen the points at which I should have said, "Do your share! You will need to get and a job and give X dollars a month to me to run this household. No, you may not buy this or that." Maybe Bill needed a ball-breaking, no-nonsense type of woman to set him straight. Whatever it was he needed, I wasn't it. I was a pushover. I was no match for his cunning and his will.
So far, I have hurried choice and lack of assertiveness. Then poor communication and withdrawing. That's four things. That's a lot to work on. I'm sure there are more.
I spent the first five months of 2010 writing a blog entitled "Saying Goodbye to You". In it I was preparing myself for the horrors of losing my husband to pancreatic cancer and just plain old losing my husband of 22 years. Prior to getting married, we had dated off and on for four years, so really our relationship had lasted 26 years. Most of the time we had been together as a couple but we had had a few break-ups during which I would try my hand at dating, not exactly a favorite pasttime. I have never enjoyed dating, especially first dates, and am clumsy at it at best.
I would be duplicitious if I omitted the part about my biological clock. It was ticking loudly back then. I wanted to have a child. I couldn't imagine ending my life without offspring. Like most women, I felt I had strong maternal instincts. I also wanted a family. I wanted togetherness, I wanted to feel loved, I wanted the unity, commitment and dedication that come with having a family. At the end of my first marriage we had started trying to conceive. That attempt had opened my eyes to the fact that I didn't see a future as a family with my first husband, that he had a horrible chip on his shoulder and felt comfortable with it---he loved his chip. After all, he had inherited it from his father with pride. There was no way I wanted any child of mine to grow up thinking all people were out to get him or put him down. That was just crazy. By the time 1988 rolled around, changing husbands had become a time-consuming effort. And I felt my time was running out. What this amounted to was me being in a hurry to find a new mate and have a family. I didn't feel like I was in a position to be too picky, and I thought I loved Bill. In fact, I thought he was the love of my life. At the time, I didn't think I was 'settling'. Where the truth is-----I don't know. But this I know has to happen now: I have to discover what it is I have done wrong, what it is I want for myself, what I will tolerate, and what are 'deal-breakers'. I have been told to make a list.
Before I can make that list, I must understand myself. What is it about me that has contributed to the demise of two marriages? If I blame it all on my exes, if I absolve myself of all responsibility, I will not improve. I will make the same mistakes over again. I vow to dig and to dig deep.
What are the commonalities between the two marriages? In both cases there was some emotional imbalance. What attracted me to two men with mental/emotional problems? Did I mistake depression for introspection? Did I think these were guys with the ability to be in touch with their feelings when in fact they were suffering from depression? Check! I think it would be in my best interest to say 'yes' to that.
Next, and extemely importantly, assertiveness. Mom taught me never to ask/demand anything from a man. When I was a little girl she said that when I grew up, men would be beating down the door for me. I thought it was a sweet comment but I didn't believe her. She, my aunt and my grandmother, the backbones of their families, all said we women just needed to be loved and taken care of. My aunt and my grandmother were taken care of by their spouses. My grandfather met my grandmother's every whim. My aunt's husband adored her, made a lot of money, and took extremely good care of her until the day she died. But while saying I would be taken care of out of one side of her mouth, out of the other side Mom was saying to take whatever a man dished out. My mom was the antitheses of the American woman everyone says marries a man and then sets out to change him. She was more of the variety that married a man, took his friends as hers, his interests as hers, then realized what she got was not working out for her, and instead of trying to change her man, she became resentful of his shortcomings. She felt unempowered to change her circumstances to be more acceptable to her. She would make unflattering comments about her husband but never when he was around. It was as if she was hopeless to change whatever dissatisfied her in her marriages, so she saw resentment as her only recourse. I went through a terribly awkwardly unattractive period from eighth to tenth grades. During that time there was no one knocking on the door let alone beating it down. After the metamorphosis of getting my braces off, getting contact lenses, and discovering hair-straightening products, I came into my own, and I became attractive to boys. When I would get angry or demanding of a boyfriend, Mom would tell me I was wrong, that the boy was too nice for me, and that I didn't deserve him. Put this all together and what message did I get? When you marry, take what is dished out. If you don't like it, you are in no position to change him, so you can be resentful and backbite. That kind of betrayal was permissable. I entered both marriages believing that my husband would take care of me, support a family, 'provide' for me. I thought we shared those common values. In both instances, I was willing to work and help support us on a temporary basis while they finished school or did whatever was needed to establish themselves so that I could later quit my job and raise a family while he 'took care' of us. When my husband made a request, a rule, a comment, I took it in. I acquiesced. I wanted to be that wife my mother had led me to believe I should be. It worked for a while, but then things started to deteriorate. I would realize I couldn't handle what was being dished out and I withdrew. Things weren't going according to plan and I both times I was looking at being the major financial family support. I got resentful and felt powerless. I started seeing my husband as strange, unacceptable, and a social embarrassment. As I withdrew, both times my husbands made power plays. They sensed the distance I had created and tried to get me under their control again: We couldn't do one thing, we couldn't socialize with so-and-so, this or that thing had to be changed. Or,as in this most recent case,there was passive/aggressive behavior that resulted in damage that couldn't be undone. Bill would go out and gamble on the sly. Money that was lost could not be retrieved. You can't go knocking on a casino door and explain to them that the money that your husband lost was a 'mistake' and they should give it back to you. Then, in the final days, I would detach. I saw myself as a completely separate entity, and at times I lived an unrelated and parallel lif: go to work, take care of your business, have your own friends, take your own vacations, eat meals separately. That's how I coped with the unravelling relationship. From my mother's messages, I saw this as the only way I could resolve marital problems and my unhappiness. It was survival mode for me. So here's my part: put up with things that become incrementally more unacceptable, can't feel I can express my own wishes, withdraw from my spouse who begins to look more and more odd and demanding all the time, detach and live a parallel life, and finally throw in the towel.
I have spent much of my life looking for others who had successful marriages. And, sadly, I have found few. I recently asked a friend if he knew anyone who had a successful marriage, and he came up with a whole list. I have never been able to, and I wonder if I ever really had criteria for determining what constitutes a happy marriage. This topic leaves me in a complete fog.
When Bill was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I was already out of love with him. However,I was committed to him. I honored my vows to be a devoted wife to him. But in my heart I felt he had betrayed me too many times to love him the way I had loved him on our wedding day. He wasn't a team player, he had bipolar disorder, he had not only NOT passed the Bar exam and become a lawyer but had spent months out of work 'studying' for the Bar only to go to the first day of the exam and skip the next two because he felt he just wasn't going to pass. This and many other times when we had made big family sacrifices for an endeavor of his, were examples of him not really trying in the marriage. When Laura was a baby we had decided to get life insurance policies on ourselves. It was at that time we discovered that Bill had dangerously high cholesterol. Life insurance for him was prohibitive. We paid for one for a while, but later only I carried a policy. He later developed clogged arteries followed by an angioplasty and, in time, a triple bypass. He had plantar fascitis, type 2 diabetes and, of course, cancer. His health didn't help him be a teamplayer in supporting our household. Then there was the chronic 'sacroiliac' complaints. He couldn't help out with one thing or another because of his sacroiliac. But he could somehow sit at a poker table for hours on end or go out in the mountains and the desert in all kinds of weather with the dogs. But when someone else needed help, his 'sacroiliac' would make him unable to pitch in. And so it went. The theme in the family became one of Bill doing whatever he wanted and me feeling like I had to fill in all the gaps and pick up all the slack. If I hadn't been my mother's daughter maybe I would have seen the points at which I should have said, "Do your share! You will need to get and a job and give X dollars a month to me to run this household. No, you may not buy this or that." Maybe Bill needed a ball-breaking, no-nonsense type of woman to set him straight. Whatever it was he needed, I wasn't it. I was a pushover. I was no match for his cunning and his will.
So far, I have hurried choice and lack of assertiveness. Then poor communication and withdrawing. That's four things. That's a lot to work on. I'm sure there are more.
Ruminations on 2010 Part 3
Topic: My Relationships with Others
Since my teens, I have had an excellent relationship with my father. He never liked children and had little patience for them. When I was in kindergarten, I didn't like going to school. My mother would let me stay home whenever I wanted. One day I told my father I wasn't going to school because I didn't want to. He asked me what I thought would happen if he didn't go to work because he didn't want to. That didn't register with me. He was trying to use logic with a five-year-old. Five-year-olds don't understand logic of that sort. My father didn't like me as a child---or anyone else for that matter----because he couldn't control me with his quiet logic. In fact, my memories of my dad when he was married to my mother, are those of a very critical man. There was virtually nothing Mom could do to please him. I remember one evening she was wearing nothing but an apron to try to initiate some kind of romance with him. But their relationship was unsalvageable. His interests had gone in another direction; he was playing for the other team. My mother was never able to regain his affections or his passion. The naked apron was an exercise in futility. He was in love with a man. They divorced by the time I was in third grade, and my dad picked up me and my sister every Thursday afternoon after school and took us out every other Saturday.
Later my mother and her new husband moved us to Northern California and our visits to our dad became less predictable. But when we visited him in Los Angeles or he visited us in Marin, our time was action-packed. We could always count on a great time with him. We never visited him and had a dull time. For this, I was always grateful because our mother had two small children at home, and life was hum-drum.
I can remember the day my father started liking me. I had to explain something to him. I did it in a very logical and matter-of-fact manner. And I saw a new appreciation for me in his eyes. I had finally become a person with whom he could relate. From that moment on, he and I could always talk. Even when I was a stupid college student, calling him during office hours to complain about my stupid boyfriend, he would sit and talk to me. Even though he undoubtedly had patients waiting for him in those little exam rooms, he would talk to me until I had let out all my adolescent angst. For the next several decades, we talked as friends. When I felt like a complete failure, he was my biggest supporter. I can remember him telling me time after time that he believed I could learn anything I put my mind to. The vote of confidence was huge in getting me through the 'difficult' years, the years when I didn't know who I was or what I would become----or what I was capable of becoming. We had classical music and quiet logical thinking in common. He excused my poor taste in men and husbands. I was, in his eyes, brilliant and capable of anything.
The man who had been so unhappy with my mother had disappeared. In his place was a man who lived life the way he liked, who worked hard, valued education,kept an impeccably clean home, watched his weight---and everyone else's---with an eagle eye, and took careful charge of his money. His choice in men wasn't much better than mine. During his forties, fifties and sixties---and even into his seventies----my dad was a happy and supportive part of my life. On the QT, I heard that he thought my first husband was an excellent choice and my second an overgrown surfer. He and I had time together at the opera and 'visits' on occasion. On our 'visits' we would talk about virtually anything. He was enormously proud that I was bilingual and that I had chosen to put my professional efforts into working with underprivileged children. For years I taught in bilingual programs, believing in the philosophy that if you taught a child in his primary language, the second language would come more easily, a concept based on theories of basic interpersonal communication versus conceptually academic language proficiency. It was a type of education that had plenty of foes, especially people who were knee-jerk reacting to the term 'bilingual education' without any knowledge of the body of research supporting it.
The time came when my dad really wasn't safe to live by himself. In the decade preceding this time, my husband's parents had both become infirmed and died, first his mom and then his dad. Upon realizing that we had been terribly naive in letting his father take care of his mother, Bill and I had been much more attentive to his dad during his last two years. Bill spent a few days a week at his dad's, arranged for care for him, even got a grad student to live in the house with him. Even though he had tremendous issues with his dad, Bill did the 'right thing', and I was proud of him. It was Bill who recognized that my dad's ability to take care of himself and live alone was waning. He had a caregiver come in during the days at first. Then he made sure that either he or I, or both of us, joined Dad for dinner every evening and stayed at his townhouse until he was safely in bed. Bill was right; Dad shouldn't have been alone. It was during this time, in the late spring of 2008, that Dad's walking reminded me of someone on the moving floors of a funhouse. His balance was shot. He was falling and it was only a matter of time until he took a header down the stairs, even though we had installed a stairlift. Dad was truly an accident waiting to happen.
In July we moved Dad to an assisted living facility down at the beach. Bill and I were completely in love with it. We couldn't wait to get old and move in ourselves. But Dad didn't like it, not from day 1. He didn't like being with all those 'old people'. "But Dad," I said, "you're one of them!" It didn't matter. Some people don't see themselves as old, and resent the constant reminders they see in the faces around them. Some people need the companionship of people of many ages. And Dad is apparently one of those people.
Within a couple of weeks we noticed two things: 1) Dad wasn't going to be staying there and 2)there was something terribly wrong with his health. He balanced was horrible, he was having memory and reality problems, and he felt like he had to go to the bathroom every ten minutes. We decided to move him in with us. He was delighted. In order to free us up from having to be Dad's companion at the assisted living facility and have time to get our house ready for him, we hired a caregiver to take care of him. Her name was Carmelita.
Dad had been committing malpractice on himself; he was seeing only a cardiologist for his care. He needed to see a urologist, a neurologist, a gerontologist, and a primary care physician. We started making appointments for him. Oh, my God!! Was he ever angry! How could we interfere with his medical care! He was a professional for God's sake! Wow, his back was really up. His boxers were bunched up. He had a cow. He was pissed. Too bad, we said. You're not taking care of yourself. He had a special kind of water on the brain, it turns out. He needed a shunt to relieve the pressure. This water on the brain mimics alzheimers. But before we could take care of that, he developed a huge infection and became septic. He had stopped using his prostate medication and his prostate had grown so that it blocked off his ureter. He had two liters of urine in him. No wonder he felt like he had to go to the bathroom all the time! It was in there; it couldn't get out. He was in the hospital for over a month. The night he came home, his first night living in our house, Bill barbecued steak. Dad choked on it and Bill had to use the Heimlich. Flying steak pieces......
Dad's first couple of months in our house were very sweet. We all paid lots of attention to him and he was sweet and appreciative. He had a catheter. Carmelita was here 24/7. It was a good time. A couple of months later Dad had a laser procedure done on his prostate and it fixed the enlarged prostate problem for good. He now has the bladder of a 30-year-old.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
Since my teens, I have had an excellent relationship with my father. He never liked children and had little patience for them. When I was in kindergarten, I didn't like going to school. My mother would let me stay home whenever I wanted. One day I told my father I wasn't going to school because I didn't want to. He asked me what I thought would happen if he didn't go to work because he didn't want to. That didn't register with me. He was trying to use logic with a five-year-old. Five-year-olds don't understand logic of that sort. My father didn't like me as a child---or anyone else for that matter----because he couldn't control me with his quiet logic. In fact, my memories of my dad when he was married to my mother, are those of a very critical man. There was virtually nothing Mom could do to please him. I remember one evening she was wearing nothing but an apron to try to initiate some kind of romance with him. But their relationship was unsalvageable. His interests had gone in another direction; he was playing for the other team. My mother was never able to regain his affections or his passion. The naked apron was an exercise in futility. He was in love with a man. They divorced by the time I was in third grade, and my dad picked up me and my sister every Thursday afternoon after school and took us out every other Saturday.
Later my mother and her new husband moved us to Northern California and our visits to our dad became less predictable. But when we visited him in Los Angeles or he visited us in Marin, our time was action-packed. We could always count on a great time with him. We never visited him and had a dull time. For this, I was always grateful because our mother had two small children at home, and life was hum-drum.
I can remember the day my father started liking me. I had to explain something to him. I did it in a very logical and matter-of-fact manner. And I saw a new appreciation for me in his eyes. I had finally become a person with whom he could relate. From that moment on, he and I could always talk. Even when I was a stupid college student, calling him during office hours to complain about my stupid boyfriend, he would sit and talk to me. Even though he undoubtedly had patients waiting for him in those little exam rooms, he would talk to me until I had let out all my adolescent angst. For the next several decades, we talked as friends. When I felt like a complete failure, he was my biggest supporter. I can remember him telling me time after time that he believed I could learn anything I put my mind to. The vote of confidence was huge in getting me through the 'difficult' years, the years when I didn't know who I was or what I would become----or what I was capable of becoming. We had classical music and quiet logical thinking in common. He excused my poor taste in men and husbands. I was, in his eyes, brilliant and capable of anything.
The man who had been so unhappy with my mother had disappeared. In his place was a man who lived life the way he liked, who worked hard, valued education,kept an impeccably clean home, watched his weight---and everyone else's---with an eagle eye, and took careful charge of his money. His choice in men wasn't much better than mine. During his forties, fifties and sixties---and even into his seventies----my dad was a happy and supportive part of my life. On the QT, I heard that he thought my first husband was an excellent choice and my second an overgrown surfer. He and I had time together at the opera and 'visits' on occasion. On our 'visits' we would talk about virtually anything. He was enormously proud that I was bilingual and that I had chosen to put my professional efforts into working with underprivileged children. For years I taught in bilingual programs, believing in the philosophy that if you taught a child in his primary language, the second language would come more easily, a concept based on theories of basic interpersonal communication versus conceptually academic language proficiency. It was a type of education that had plenty of foes, especially people who were knee-jerk reacting to the term 'bilingual education' without any knowledge of the body of research supporting it.
The time came when my dad really wasn't safe to live by himself. In the decade preceding this time, my husband's parents had both become infirmed and died, first his mom and then his dad. Upon realizing that we had been terribly naive in letting his father take care of his mother, Bill and I had been much more attentive to his dad during his last two years. Bill spent a few days a week at his dad's, arranged for care for him, even got a grad student to live in the house with him. Even though he had tremendous issues with his dad, Bill did the 'right thing', and I was proud of him. It was Bill who recognized that my dad's ability to take care of himself and live alone was waning. He had a caregiver come in during the days at first. Then he made sure that either he or I, or both of us, joined Dad for dinner every evening and stayed at his townhouse until he was safely in bed. Bill was right; Dad shouldn't have been alone. It was during this time, in the late spring of 2008, that Dad's walking reminded me of someone on the moving floors of a funhouse. His balance was shot. He was falling and it was only a matter of time until he took a header down the stairs, even though we had installed a stairlift. Dad was truly an accident waiting to happen.
In July we moved Dad to an assisted living facility down at the beach. Bill and I were completely in love with it. We couldn't wait to get old and move in ourselves. But Dad didn't like it, not from day 1. He didn't like being with all those 'old people'. "But Dad," I said, "you're one of them!" It didn't matter. Some people don't see themselves as old, and resent the constant reminders they see in the faces around them. Some people need the companionship of people of many ages. And Dad is apparently one of those people.
Within a couple of weeks we noticed two things: 1) Dad wasn't going to be staying there and 2)there was something terribly wrong with his health. He balanced was horrible, he was having memory and reality problems, and he felt like he had to go to the bathroom every ten minutes. We decided to move him in with us. He was delighted. In order to free us up from having to be Dad's companion at the assisted living facility and have time to get our house ready for him, we hired a caregiver to take care of him. Her name was Carmelita.
Dad had been committing malpractice on himself; he was seeing only a cardiologist for his care. He needed to see a urologist, a neurologist, a gerontologist, and a primary care physician. We started making appointments for him. Oh, my God!! Was he ever angry! How could we interfere with his medical care! He was a professional for God's sake! Wow, his back was really up. His boxers were bunched up. He had a cow. He was pissed. Too bad, we said. You're not taking care of yourself. He had a special kind of water on the brain, it turns out. He needed a shunt to relieve the pressure. This water on the brain mimics alzheimers. But before we could take care of that, he developed a huge infection and became septic. He had stopped using his prostate medication and his prostate had grown so that it blocked off his ureter. He had two liters of urine in him. No wonder he felt like he had to go to the bathroom all the time! It was in there; it couldn't get out. He was in the hospital for over a month. The night he came home, his first night living in our house, Bill barbecued steak. Dad choked on it and Bill had to use the Heimlich. Flying steak pieces......
Dad's first couple of months in our house were very sweet. We all paid lots of attention to him and he was sweet and appreciative. He had a catheter. Carmelita was here 24/7. It was a good time. A couple of months later Dad had a laser procedure done on his prostate and it fixed the enlarged prostate problem for good. He now has the bladder of a 30-year-old.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
Ruminations on 2010 Part 1
It seems fitting, as I sit here looking at the snow-covered Selkirks or Purcells of northern Idaho (we still aren't sure what they're called), the exact place I did last year at this time, that I reflect on 2010. It was a year to be remembered, no doubt. These ruminations will be posted in several installments, sort of topically but interrelated.
This year has been painful and tragic. It has broken my heart and I have faced challenges I never thought I would. I am in the midst of a divorce that I still don't understand. I have had lies lobbed at me in court documents. I have had to spend thousands and thousands of dollars defending myself, and I face the possibility of never being able to enjoy the retirement for which I have worked for the past thirty five years. I can do a 'phoenix rising from the ashes' thing. It's important. In that myth, the phoenix dies, becomes ashes and then returns from those ashes as it was before. The phoenix is a survivor. I have done it before; I am a survivor. I appreciate this quality in myself, it is a blessing for which I feel grateful. May it never be said that I am not a grateful person. But if I return from this year as the person I was before, will I be the same? Will I make the same mistakes? Will I have the same frailties? Will I move forward, improve my life, become a better version of the person I was before? And, most importantly, will I become more pleasing in God's eyes? I believe God is NOT unhappy with me. I know He loves me. That's not my point. God loves me and accepts me for who I am. But if He is my Lord, he is also my leader. If He is my leader, what am I doing to better follow Him? Hence my previous statement: Will I become more pleasing in God's eyes? Will the person who emerges from this marriage, this divorce, be a better one? Will she give more of herself to others? Will she do her job in a more giving way than before? Will she work to the betterment of her community (any of the communities of which she is a member)? Will she turn her cheek in the face of insults, stow her ego, be the example God wants her to be in the face of adversity, fatigue, greed, temptation? This brings me to the topic of this paragraph----sorry Mr. Cunningham for not starting this paragraph with it. (Welcome to my world. They don't call me 'Sidetrack Sally' for nothin'. But I do eventually get around to it.) How will I be better after this 'trial' is over?
My life has been driven lately by Proverbs 16:7 "When a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even his enemies live at peace with him." What I like about this is the lack of capital letters on the words 'he'. It isn't God who makes the enemies live at peace with the man, it's the man himself. It represents to me the power and change that happens when someone internalizes God's ways. For if a person is truly led by God, if one is led by Christian principles, his behaviors transcend those of this world and separate from the realm of basic human interactions. Is this divorce my opportunity to see how I am being led by my faith? Will I stoop to dirty tricks, deceit, greed? Will I behave by God's standards and obey Caesar's law at the same time? Will my priorities be in sync with God's?
This year has been painful and tragic. It has broken my heart and I have faced challenges I never thought I would. I am in the midst of a divorce that I still don't understand. I have had lies lobbed at me in court documents. I have had to spend thousands and thousands of dollars defending myself, and I face the possibility of never being able to enjoy the retirement for which I have worked for the past thirty five years. I can do a 'phoenix rising from the ashes' thing. It's important. In that myth, the phoenix dies, becomes ashes and then returns from those ashes as it was before. The phoenix is a survivor. I have done it before; I am a survivor. I appreciate this quality in myself, it is a blessing for which I feel grateful. May it never be said that I am not a grateful person. But if I return from this year as the person I was before, will I be the same? Will I make the same mistakes? Will I have the same frailties? Will I move forward, improve my life, become a better version of the person I was before? And, most importantly, will I become more pleasing in God's eyes? I believe God is NOT unhappy with me. I know He loves me. That's not my point. God loves me and accepts me for who I am. But if He is my Lord, he is also my leader. If He is my leader, what am I doing to better follow Him? Hence my previous statement: Will I become more pleasing in God's eyes? Will the person who emerges from this marriage, this divorce, be a better one? Will she give more of herself to others? Will she do her job in a more giving way than before? Will she work to the betterment of her community (any of the communities of which she is a member)? Will she turn her cheek in the face of insults, stow her ego, be the example God wants her to be in the face of adversity, fatigue, greed, temptation? This brings me to the topic of this paragraph----sorry Mr. Cunningham for not starting this paragraph with it. (Welcome to my world. They don't call me 'Sidetrack Sally' for nothin'. But I do eventually get around to it.) How will I be better after this 'trial' is over?
My life has been driven lately by Proverbs 16:7 "When a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even his enemies live at peace with him." What I like about this is the lack of capital letters on the words 'he'. It isn't God who makes the enemies live at peace with the man, it's the man himself. It represents to me the power and change that happens when someone internalizes God's ways. For if a person is truly led by God, if one is led by Christian principles, his behaviors transcend those of this world and separate from the realm of basic human interactions. Is this divorce my opportunity to see how I am being led by my faith? Will I stoop to dirty tricks, deceit, greed? Will I behave by God's standards and obey Caesar's law at the same time? Will my priorities be in sync with God's?
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Didya Know????
Did ya know it costs about $35 to get married at City Hall, $350 to file for divorce and $35,000 to pay attorneys to get a settlement? What's wrong with this picture? I contend that our society has blinders on when it comes to marriage and its dissolution. We live in an age---if not a society as a whole-----where marriage suffers greatly from the 'Disney Effect'. Now there's a good title for a book.
What's the Disney Effect (besides a term I just made up)? It's the notion that weddings are grand events and magical moments. And no matter how difficult it was for that couple to get to the point where they walked down the aisle and said their 'I do's', they will, once those 'I do's' are said, live happily ever after. End of movie. No more to discuss. Maybe Walt Disney should have had a Dr. Phil consulting during his movie productions. I contend it was almost reckless of Disney to turn off the cameras (I know these were animated films but how can I describe this?) when he did. Take your vows, and THEN life begins. That is the point when life yells, "Action!" Not, "Cut and print!"
We get our marriage licenses with stars in our eyes. We think we are going to live happily ever after. In so many instances, we don't. I, for one, am a good example of that. I have been married twice. Both times I walked down the aisle as a woman who was incredibly in love. Both times I had stars in my eyes and absolutely no inkling the marriage wouldn't last the rest of my life. Both times I thought I was marrying my soulmate, my best friend, my partner for life. There are absolutely volumes on wedding planning. There are TV shows about sumptuous weddings, bridal gowns costing well into the five figures, destination weddings, and brides competing to see who throws the 'best' wedding bash. Where is the movie that tells you how hard marriage can be? Where is the book that illustrates the beauty of sticking it out, and when to bail out? Where is the handbook that tells us to be flexible? I don't discount the Bible; it's by far the best book ever written. It's God's big instruction book on life. But what it lacks (should I be so bold as to say the Bible LACKS something?) is the specificity on dealing with things like husbands who go into deep depressions and refuse to seek help. [I would bet large sums of money (which, unfortunately, I wouldn't actually be able to pay since I am going through a divorce) that my first husband still hasn't sought professional help for his ongoing and pernicious depressions.] Where is the tome that a starry-eyed spouse can consult when hisorher partner develops a condition that renders that partner unable to fully participate in a healthy marriage? What can a person consult when their spouse is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and she has a 3-year-old to raise? There were a smattering of books, and I read them, but no lifeline, no good answers.
What I am thinking now is that we have more-than-ample resources for planning a great wedding. Our resources for undoing the resulting marriage are limited to, basically, attorneys. Divorce is long, arduous, expensive, and foreign. The language, the approach, the paradigm is not something the average person is ready to tackle. At this point I think only a fool would try to undo a marriage without an attorney. A fancy wedding can cost more than a divorce. Is there a correlation between the cost of the wedding and the cost of that marriage's divorce? I don't think so. My last wedding was almost free of cost. My divorce isn't. And a word to the wise: Even if you think the marriage will last forever, you aren't necessarily the one who makes that decision. Your spouse can divorce you. Hang onto your paperwork. Remember how much you and your properties were worth when you said your 'I do's' because you get to subtract that from the grand total when you ---or your partner----decide to end it all.
What's the Disney Effect (besides a term I just made up)? It's the notion that weddings are grand events and magical moments. And no matter how difficult it was for that couple to get to the point where they walked down the aisle and said their 'I do's', they will, once those 'I do's' are said, live happily ever after. End of movie. No more to discuss. Maybe Walt Disney should have had a Dr. Phil consulting during his movie productions. I contend it was almost reckless of Disney to turn off the cameras (I know these were animated films but how can I describe this?) when he did. Take your vows, and THEN life begins. That is the point when life yells, "Action!" Not, "Cut and print!"
We get our marriage licenses with stars in our eyes. We think we are going to live happily ever after. In so many instances, we don't. I, for one, am a good example of that. I have been married twice. Both times I walked down the aisle as a woman who was incredibly in love. Both times I had stars in my eyes and absolutely no inkling the marriage wouldn't last the rest of my life. Both times I thought I was marrying my soulmate, my best friend, my partner for life. There are absolutely volumes on wedding planning. There are TV shows about sumptuous weddings, bridal gowns costing well into the five figures, destination weddings, and brides competing to see who throws the 'best' wedding bash. Where is the movie that tells you how hard marriage can be? Where is the book that illustrates the beauty of sticking it out, and when to bail out? Where is the handbook that tells us to be flexible? I don't discount the Bible; it's by far the best book ever written. It's God's big instruction book on life. But what it lacks (should I be so bold as to say the Bible LACKS something?) is the specificity on dealing with things like husbands who go into deep depressions and refuse to seek help. [I would bet large sums of money (which, unfortunately, I wouldn't actually be able to pay since I am going through a divorce) that my first husband still hasn't sought professional help for his ongoing and pernicious depressions.] Where is the tome that a starry-eyed spouse can consult when hisorher partner develops a condition that renders that partner unable to fully participate in a healthy marriage? What can a person consult when their spouse is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and she has a 3-year-old to raise? There were a smattering of books, and I read them, but no lifeline, no good answers.
What I am thinking now is that we have more-than-ample resources for planning a great wedding. Our resources for undoing the resulting marriage are limited to, basically, attorneys. Divorce is long, arduous, expensive, and foreign. The language, the approach, the paradigm is not something the average person is ready to tackle. At this point I think only a fool would try to undo a marriage without an attorney. A fancy wedding can cost more than a divorce. Is there a correlation between the cost of the wedding and the cost of that marriage's divorce? I don't think so. My last wedding was almost free of cost. My divorce isn't. And a word to the wise: Even if you think the marriage will last forever, you aren't necessarily the one who makes that decision. Your spouse can divorce you. Hang onto your paperwork. Remember how much you and your properties were worth when you said your 'I do's' because you get to subtract that from the grand total when you ---or your partner----decide to end it all.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Driving Me Home
The other night a friend offered me a ride home from Bible study. She is also my nutritionist. I think she's very, very good at what she does. When I have sat with her in her office while she talks about nutrition, I have enjoyed watching her face light up. She gets so excited about her work. The morning after Bill was diagnosed with cancer, he asked me if we could go see her. She spent the usual two hours or so with him, and talked and talked about what she knew. She does a lot of work with cancer patients, she's a friend of mine, and she wanted to help Bill. She also wanted to be a good witness to him.
As we were driving the short two blocks to my house, we shared our plans for Thanksgiving. Then I started talking about Christmas, I told her how excited Laura and I were about not having to be 'closet' Christmas freaks this year. I told her how Bill used to deride me for getting all excited about baking and decorating, singing carols and whatnot. I told her he had been the Scrinch. That's right, take Grinch and Scrooge, put them together, and 'Voila!', you have the Scrinch, aka my ex-husband. Then she said something that caught me off-guard. She said, "He was abusive to everybody." "How did you know?" I asked. She said, "Because he was abusive to me too. He knows my policy about cancellations but he would miss appointments and expect me not to charge him. And he bombarded me with emails." In some ways that is abuse, especially when it goes on repeatedly. I call it taking advantage, which pretty much sums up a lot of our marriage.
As we were driving the short two blocks to my house, we shared our plans for Thanksgiving. Then I started talking about Christmas, I told her how excited Laura and I were about not having to be 'closet' Christmas freaks this year. I told her how Bill used to deride me for getting all excited about baking and decorating, singing carols and whatnot. I told her he had been the Scrinch. That's right, take Grinch and Scrooge, put them together, and 'Voila!', you have the Scrinch, aka my ex-husband. Then she said something that caught me off-guard. She said, "He was abusive to everybody." "How did you know?" I asked. She said, "Because he was abusive to me too. He knows my policy about cancellations but he would miss appointments and expect me not to charge him. And he bombarded me with emails." In some ways that is abuse, especially when it goes on repeatedly. I call it taking advantage, which pretty much sums up a lot of our marriage.
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