How he felt…

He fell in love with the way I made him feel.

I realized this somewhere along the path of our second marriage (yes, we married, had one child, we divorced, remarried and had one more child.) Ultimately divorced again. He was a decent guy after all.

The truth was he only fell in love with the way I made him feel. Coming to this realization was shocking, disappointing, and it all finally made sense.

I used to ask myself how could he say he loves me, yet constantly criticize me and every single thing I did? I couldn’t understand.

He said that he loved coming home to me, yet nothing I did was ever good enough. Even the simple things. One day, he came from work, he said ‘hey’ as he walked by, and went upstairs to change. I sat, feeding our infant daughter and had made an early dinner for our amazing 7 year old daughter. I felt accomplished that day (the baby finally slept) laundry was clean, folded and neatly tucked away, a yummy stew was simmering along in the crock pot, I’d bought fresh crusty bread at the market, and ? I washed the kitchen and bathroom floors. Tah Dah! I knew he would notice. He noticed everything.

He came back downstairs, and without saying more, he pulled out the mop and bucket, filled it with sudsy water and methodically began washing the kitchen floor as I sat there with my mouth open.

For context, we used Murphy’s oil soap on our floors. There was an unmistakeable clean smell it has when used. I had finished my mopping only 30 minutes or so before he got home. There’s no way he hadn’t noticed. He noticed everything.

After he was done, I sat with him on our couch, he sipped a beer, and I asked, why did you rewash the kitchen floor? His answer was “because it was dirty”. I was speechless, and left the room. There was no yummy dinner that night. Only quiet.

He was a low level officer in submarines. The Senior military officers loved their dinner parties and cocktail soirées when they were in port. He was so proud walking in with me on his arm. I was okay looking, very well educated, unintimidated by the admirals, elegantly raised so I’d know how to “eat dinner with the Queen” (as my English grandmother would say) and I knew how to socialize like a pro. I was a class act. And quite frankly, still am.

Every single time we went out, to one of these parties, to the movies, over to friends for dinner, to the beach with a group etc, there would be at least one moment during the outing when he would tell me to “settle down”, or “quiet down” or “don’t laugh so loudly” or the most unkind “you’re embarrassing me.”

He never seemed to care about who heard him in his attempts (and back then successes) at humiliating me. The angry stage whispers were meant to hurt me, to shut me up and make me small. For many years, I tried to comply. I questioned myself ad nauseum. Was I really embarrassing? I thought he loved my uninhibited snort laugh. I thought he loved me. Me, all of me, with my spontaneous songs, funny voices for the kiddos, (I had the Grover voice down pat), the Me that told new made up stories each night along with my oldest.. She would say a line, then I’d follow with a paragraph. We’d laugh, then continue our story.

In the end, I reached a breaking point. (Am I hearing a collective sigh of relief?) it was so very difficult because my family loved him too. He was a decent guy after all.

We had moved to the PAC NW, and I wanted to add to my world. I auditioned and was invited to join the cast of “The Music Man”. Being in the chorus was perfect for me. We rehearsed most nights for three months (the chorus is in 90% of the scenes you might recall). After rehearsals three or four of us would go out for a beer… there was the large nosed, married, gangly insurance salesman who played Professor Higgins, a young chorus member in her 20’s, and a buxom older woman who played one of the old biddies in the, “One Grecian Urn” scene. A unique bunch for sure, but we laughed so hard, and I felt seen. This unusual band of misfits simply got each other.

He attended a couple performances with our oldest daughter, and reservedly said it was fun. But it was one evening when we went to bed, long after the show was finished, that I realized I hadn’t laughed in days. I lost touch with all the cast members. There were no cell phones back then. He asked me a mundane question, something along the lines of “did you always enjoy musicals?”

In that question I heard all my answers to everything I was wrestling with. My unhappiness, his moodiness, his constant criticism, his lack of attention, him shushing me in public, and the fact that people who I’d interacted with for only three months knew me better than this man I had spent the better part of 17 years with. I had been in every single musical and summer stock show our town performed.

Am I outing his unkind behavior to the world? (I can hear Anne Lamont’s words here, reminding me (in case he ever reads this) that “they should have behaved better”.) I slightly digress… yet the concern is real…. It isn’t my nature to be mean. Then again, I’ve counseled clients for 30+ years that the truth is never mean. It is simply true.

The following week he told me that he “knew” I must be having an affair (not true) and claimed that I talk in my sleep (which I do, mostly mumbling). I was shocked that he would accuse me of this, let alone use my sleep mumbles as his evidence.

I asked him to move to the guest room in the house we were renting. So many things fell apart after that. All of it eventually would.

He was in love with how I made him feel. He was never in love with me.

In the years that followed, with therapy and loving friends, I understood.

All was not lost, since my chosen path then led me to this: