Love and Marriage

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Martin had been giving her the silent treatment all during dinner and then after dinner too. Now that Claire was asleep Sam hoped that they could talk about things, but he was still giving her the silent treatment. "Martin, come on! How much longer are you going to stay mad at me for this?"

He didn't say anything as he went into the bathroom to take his pain medication. When he came back out he still didn't say anything to her. Instead he opted to slip underneath the covers and grabbed his book.

The silent treatment was really starting to make her mad. "You know that the silent treatment is very childish, right? I mean Claire doesn't even do that anymore!"

He opened his mouth to make a smart-ass remark but then remembered that he was supposed to be ignoring her. So he closed his mouth and opened his book to start reading.

They needed to talk about this and couldn't just let it go. Leslie had helped her see that ignoring problems only made them worse. "Fine. Act like a child. We need to talk about this though. So if you won't talk to me then I'll do all the talking and you can just lie there and listen. But you're going to give me your full attention." She yanked the book out of his hands and threw it across the room.

"Hey! What…" He yelled stopping when he realized that he had just broken the silent treatment he was giving her. She had tricked him into speaking to her.

"Martin, I know you're mad at me that I didn't tell you I was looking into a transfer. But that's all I was doing. I was only looking into it. I thought that maybe I could get a job at the Albany office and then we could move to a town that's halfway between there so that we'd both have roughly the same commuting time. But that obviously didn't work out."

She looked at him and saw that he wasn't softening to her explanation. She sighed and sat on the side of the bed with her back to him. "I know it wasn't a good idea to look into it without telling you and I'm sorry. But you can't keep shutting me out. It's not going to help things. I can only guess what you're thinking and feeling, but I can't know what to do to make things better between us if you won't open up to me."

He didn't want to be mad at her. He just felt hurt that she was going around looking at transfers behind his back. It made him wonder what else she was doing without his knowledge. "It just feels like you're making an escape plan, like you're saying that our marriage is doomed and then planning for a future without me." Martin finally spoke.

"That wasn't my intention." She tried to convince him. There had to be some way to convince him that she was committed to him. He showed that he was committed to her by offering to sacrifice his job and give it to her. What could she do that would hopefully show him she meant it when she told him she was committed?

"But that's just how it seemed." He explained.

She turned around to face him. "I'm sorry if you felt that way. I just needed to know what was out there so that I would know if I was going to be stuck at that job forever or if there was hope that I could get out. This had nothing to do with you. It's about my dislike for my job."

"I want to believe that."

"Then believe it!" She told him, looking deep into his eyes. "I love you Martin and I want this marriage to work more than anything else in this world. Trust in my love for you. Please? I never want to leave you."

"And I never want to leave you." He told her, reaching out and caressing her cheek with his hand. She moved closer to him and he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her closer. Then he leaned in and placed soft kisses on the most sensitive parts on her neck. "I love you Samantha."

She snuggled closer to him and hoped that he wasn't still angry with her. But there was still one more thing she had to bring up. "I know you're probably not going to like this, but I think we need to at least think about it."

"What would that be?" He asked hesitantly.

"Well, there's the job in Houston. Would it be possible for me to take the job and then we could all move down there together?" She realized his answer would be no, but she had to at least try and convince him because she really liked this new job.

"Sam our lives are here. Our jobs and our friends are here, not to mention the fact that all of Claire's friends are here too. Do you really want to up-root her like that?" He didn't really want to move to Houston. He loved New York.

"It's not like we'd be moving in the middle of a school year." Sam countered. "And Claire could make a ton of new friends."

"She's not going to want to leave." Martin pointed out.

Sam pulled away from him and eyed him suspiciously. "She's not going to want to leave or you're not going to want to leave? Why don't you just admit it? You don't want to move there, do you?"

He sighed. "No. I don't. I like where we are now and like I said, our lives are here."

She knew that it would be hard to convince him to go with her, but she felt compelled to try and reason with him. "But we could make a new life. We could start fresh in a new place, leave all the bad stuff behind and focus on our future."

"What future?" He asked. "I know exactly why you want us to move to Houston and it's not because of your desire to start over in a new city. If we move to Houston you'll have a great new job. But what will Claire and I have? She'll have to start at a new school with a bunch of kids that she doesn't know and I won't have a job. Not to mention the fact that we'll be cut off from our friends and farther away from my family."

She tried to understand what he was getting at with his statement. "So what are you saying? That I'm selfish for even bringing this up?"

He thought about it for a moment before replying. "Yeah. Maybe I am. This move would be a great opportunity for you but would really suck for the rest of us in this family."

She tried her hardest to not be angry with him for calling her selfish. Leslie wouldn't want her to get mad and start yelling because that wouldn't help solve anything, but it was hard not to react to him. She took a few deep breaths before saying anything back to him. "Maybe you're the one being selfish Martin. All I'm asking is that you think about it for more than ten seconds but instead you just arbitrarily say no."

"I'm the one who's being selfish?" He exclaimed, not believing what he was hearing. "Excuse me? I am not the selfish one here. I'm the one who offered to switch jobs with you. That's one of the most selfless things I could do."

She couldn't believe that he was throwing that in her face. "But if you were willing to do that for me, why aren't you willing to at least consider moving to Houston?" She paused for a second before answering her own question. "Of course I can answer that for you. You were perfectly happy to offer up your job for mine because then you could play the hero. You could say 'look at what I did for you' and take pride in it. But the reason you won't move to Houston is because it wasn't your idea."

"That's not the reason!" He objected.

"Then what is the reason?" She asked, hoping that her baiting would lead him to tell her the real reason he was so hesitant.

"It's because I will be out of a job if we move there. Sure you'll have a great job but what will I be left with? Nothing! That's what I'll be left with."

She knew that his job meant a lot to him and understood that he would be upset about not having a job. "You wouldn't be left with nothing. You'd have Claire and you'd have me. Besides, I'm sure that another job in that bureau would open up. Maybe you could even have your father pull a few strings…"

"I'm not having him pull any strings for me." He interrupted harshly. "I've gotten this far without his help. I'm not about to start asking for it now."

"Ok." She sighed. "I'm just saying that I'm sure you wouldn't be without a job for long."

"No, ok?" He stated. "I don't think that moving is a good idea."

"Will you at least think about it?" She pleaded. "Van Doren needs an answer by Monday morning."

"You mean you haven't already told her no?" He asked, wondering why she hadn't done so yet.

"No. I thought there would be a chance that you would see Houston the way I see it—as a chance to start over." She explained.

"I don't think that will happen." He shook his head.

"Fine." She could understand his hesitation to move but at the same time, she really wanted this job and thought that moving could be a good thing. Emotionally and mentally exhausted, she slipped underneath the covers and turned on to her side so that her back was to Martin.

"Goodnight." He called out when he noticed that she was getting ready to go to sleep.

"Yeah, goodnight." She replied.

He hated the fact that this was causing them to be distant with each other again. They had been doing so much better and he thought that they were making really good progress with repairing their marriage. Now though, they seemed to be taking one step forward and two steps back.