Entry 5: An Elegy for Marriage
The last few weeks have been nothing if not surreal. When I opened the front door to find Michael standing on the other side, I thought the ground had been pulled out from under me. So many emotions, so many memories. There he stood: tall, handsome … dirty. Absolutely nothing had changed about him in the year he'd been gone, but so much had changed about me.
My gut instinct was to slam the door in his face, and it felt good to do just that. Then I had to go and ruin it by opening it again. Tony certainly didn't seem too impressed, and Mother can always be counted on to vocalize her honest dislike, but what could I do when Jonathan came dashing down the stairs into his father's arms?
From there, things just sort of spiraled out of control, and suddenly, all of the reasons I fell in love with him the first place came rushing back. He is so charming, conversational, and intelligent. The problem was that he couldn't appreciate those same qualities in me beyond a limited degree. In addition to everything else, Michael Bower is competitive and jealous. Oh, not overwhelmingly so, but he doesn't like to be out-paced or shown up, especially by a woman, and even more especially when said woman is his reserved and awkward wife. It was perfectly all right for me to have a career – as long as his was more successful. And my working at home was no problem – as long has he didn't have something else he wanted to do. Michael must come first, period. But I had worked way too hard on my dreams to settle for what he was comfortable with me having. I put a lot of effort into recognizing my own potential and ability. It was a slow process, and one I wasn't eager to reverse.
But that first night, all of his shortcomings drifted away, and I dreamed, as I had so many times before, that we could make it work. After all, there was enough between us to get us to the altar and keep us married for nearly ten years. Gosh, has it really been that long? It hardly seems possible, probably since half that time, Michael was living out of a tent in some primitive location. It's amazing that I never chronicled our relationship before. Not that it's all that enticing, (little in my life can ever be described as enticing), but it's something that I worked so hard for, and still failed at.
I was a rookie ad exec, and he was working on a documentary on the "urban jungle" before deciding that the real thing was more his style. I was still so shy and insecure that it wasn't hard to be swept off my feet by someone as charismatic as Michael Bower. I can still feel the hurt and disappointment when he came home one day after we'd been married all of seven months to say he was going to Peru for a month to check up on a shoot. I had found out I was pregnant three weeks earlier, and still, he left. Worse, one month turned to three, and three turned to five. He made it back for the birth of his son, but missed birthdays one, three, four and seven, as well as five of eight anniversaries, and more milestones than I can count. Early on, he tried to make it a point to be there for Christmas, sometimes flying home from halfway around the world on Dec. 23, arms laden with exotic presents, in an effort to ensure all was forgiven, but even that commitment waned these past few years, as this past Christmas can attest.
This past year was admittedly our longest uninterrupted absence, and the terms on which we parted last year were hardly amicable, but I ceased feeling married to him long ago. With the exception of a few visits here and there, I've been operating as a single woman for so long that I had almost forgotten the final divorce papers hadn't been filed. Years of explaining his absences to Jonathan, showing up for parents' events alone, and taking care of everything at home had taken their toll. I long since stopped wearing my wedding ring and finally decided to move on by dating again.
And most importantly, I liked the person I was becoming while Michael was gone. Unfortunately, he didn't. He was content as long as I was merely a junior advertising executive, but as I climbed the ranks, he spent more and more time chasing lizards. When he left last year, it was with the parting blow that the family pants weren't big enough for both of us to wear. A part of me honestly thought, and hoped, I'd never see him again, so much so that I hadn't even told Tony that I was technically still married. The other part of me was battling the ingrained belief that everything was my fault, that I had failed to keep my marriage and my family together.
And then there he was, kissing me as he had so many times before, knowing exactly what buttons to push as only a husband can know. And goodness it felt good! I let myself believe this time would be different. I let myself hope, at least for Jonathan's sake, that we could have the marriage and family I so desperately wanted. I thought I had been given the chance to erase this failure from my record.
But, as before, the blush faded quickly from the rose, beginning with Tony's dismissal. Isn't it odd that I didn't feel the same pang of loss when Michael left – a man I'd married and shared a child with – that I felt when Tony and Sam packed their bags? I felt anger certainly, and even shame, guilt and humiliation that my husband preferred sharing his bed with lizards to me. But whatever loss I felt was not so much for Michael as for everything he symbolized – marriage, family, stability, comfort, companionship, intimacy. Tony and I share only the most platonic of those elements, yet it was his voice I missed when I walked into the house. I guess that's all the proof I need that my sense of family has completely reorganized itself to exclude my husband.
And I feel so foolish now for having once again gotten caught up in Michael's charm. All I managed to do was drag my self-esteem though the wringer, send Jonathan on an emotional roller coaster, and provide Mother with a year's worth of ammunition. I also watched my newly-formed family be separated so I could vainly try to prove that I'm deserving of my husband's love and commitment. In my mind, I know that there are men who won't see me as a threat to their sense of self, and that the problem was Michael's insecurity, not my success. But still, in my heart, I wonder if I'll ever be able to trust enough to love again.