A Cup of Comfort for Couples (26 page)

—
Cathi LaMarche

The Piece of Paper That Almost Blinded Me

I
was feeling particularly organized that Friday afternoon. The kids were safely tucked into daycare, and I was plodding along with my daily companion — my To Do list. It was a tattered piece of notebook paper, and in those days, a newly scribbled one accompanied me everywhere I went. With a family wedding in Manhattan in a couple months, I attacked the project of finding the best airfare possible. When satisfied, I proudly e-mailed my husband, David, to let him know what I'd come up with. Surely he'd be happy with my efforts to not take him away from his clients for any longer than necessary.

His response came swiftly and dealt a life-altering message. “We won't make it that long.”

Grasping for a reason for my husband's uncharacteristic cruelty, my first thought was that somehow his computer had been taken over by an office prankster. Then I had no choice but to take a long, hard look at my marriage and how we had come to this point in just under seven years.

To be honest, David's e-proclamation shouldn't have come as any big surprise to me. I knew that he and I had drifted apart. Many days, we didn't even feel like friends, let alone lovers. But it was easier for me to chalk it up to the fact that we had two young children, a puppy, a stressful new job for him in a new city, and a new identity (or lack thereof) for me after having worked for sixteen years in an office and now trying to freelance from home and do laundry at the same time. No, we weren't very close these days, but I still had high hopes that things would get better in the future. The problem is, he had no way of knowing that.

He also had no way of knowing that when I feel the first slap of crisp air in the fall, I look forward to watching him watch football. He couldn't know that the mere sound of distant rumblings of a thunderstorm make me wish he was near so we could enjoy whatever comes, together. He didn't know that when I fold his faded yellow, paperthin, Batman T-shirt, a grin comes over my face simply because I know how much he loves wearing that thing. He never caught me looking out the window while he cuts the grass or read my mind thinking how handsome he still is.

That day, I was flooded with images I simply could not bear — the images of a divorced mother. I tried to imagine unpacking the boxes of Christmas decorations without him. Suddenly, the warm, family ritual seemed like a mere chore to me. I tried to think about coloring Easter eggs without his yearly tradition of pouring all the colors together at the end and brewing up a black one. Still harder to imagine was the early morning ritual of hiding the eggs in the grass, soggy slippers and all, without him by my side. I imagined that the heartache would continue throughout the year. How could packing up the van and eating junk food at the drive-in on the hottest night of the summer be any fun without him to find the perfect parking spot? His passion for Halloween and all things scary made me want to cry at the thought of an October without him.

I tortured myself further and looked around the house at our treasures. Who would take what? We've been married long enough that nearly everything my eyes fell upon didn't say “David” or “Julie,” but rather “us.” The wedding china with the journal that I use to record every special family meal. The picture of our beloved, late Dalmatian and the matching snow dog that David built next to him in front of our first home together. The house we have now is nice enough, but we've yet to take a drive where we don't pick out a favorite and refer to it as our dream house. It was something I always just assumed we'd end up in.

David travels a lot on business, and I don't think I've ever told him that when he's gone, I don't feel like we're much of a family. We're two kids, a puppy, and a crazed mom who play, eat, take baths, and go to bed. When he's home, we play, eat, take baths, and go to bed, but it's somehow more meaningful when we're doing it all together.

In the flurry of doctors' appointments, vet appointments, swim lessons, tennis lessons, ballet lessons, I'd failed to notice something. In my insistence that we visit amusement parks, take extended family vacations, line up sitters for parties with our friends, and host an array of dinners, I failed to notice something. Picking up his dry cleaning and making sure we always have stadium mustard and Entenmann's raspberry crumb cake is not enough. Loving David's devilish grin on my daughter's face and unending curiosity in my son are not enough. I need to love David with the same amount of enthusiasm that I do everything else.

I'm not ignorant. I catch
Oprah
on occasion and read articles in women's magazines. I'm aware that marriages often fall apart under the guise of family life. I've read how taking care of yourself is the best thing you can do for your family. In fact, last year for my birthday, we all laughed as I declared it “The Year of Julie.” After five years of either being pregnant or nursing, I shed my motherhood hormones and tried to find a glimmer of my old self under the antibacterial haze. I gouged out time for walking again. I stacked books about anything but mothering high on my bedside table. I attacked my writing with energy I didn't even know I still had. Only now do I see that, along the way, I'd expected my marriage to survive on fumes.

The phrase “reconnecting with your partner” is everywhere, and suddenly I know what it means.

I dug out my favorite old picture of David and me when we first started dating and put it in a new frame on our dresser. I remember so clearly the day it was taken. I knew that he was the perfect mate for me; it's written all over my wrinkle-free face. How could I have let that awareness become so hidden over the years? I'm wearing his shirts around the house again as a Lagerfeld-scented reminder to myself that my man — not my kids' daddy — sleeps next to me at night. We traded vehicles this past weekend because mine gave him more room for the guys' annual camping trip. Just driving his SUV even made me feel closer to him. And I'm just getting started.

Although I'd have appreciated a little warning along the way, I know that David handled his frustration the best way he could. He silently, then not so silently, brooded about his lack of presence in my life until he couldn't take it. He simply couldn't feel like the last thing on my To Do list any longer. It was shocking to me because in my mind, he never was at the bottom. He's always right up there at the top. Sadly, though, I'm not sure I realized that until I was forced to look at it. When I did, I was happy to discover that every daydream I have involves David and me, in some far-away land, exploring together. My dream companion wasn't necessarily my friends or my family, the people with whom I share my daily thoughts, nor even my kids, who get every ounce of my love day in and day out; it was my husband, David.

I heard somewhere that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. The TV must've been on at the time, and I probably said, “Aw, that's nice,” and kept on with my list-making. After my wake-up call and resulting mental inventory, though, I now realize that not only is loving David the best thing I can do for my children, it's also the best thing I can do for myself. And even if his name is not always scribbled on that piece of paper I carry around with me, he's always at the top of my list.

—
Julie Clark Robinson

Lime Green and Not Deep

I
dated Jim for six months. The relationship was comfortable, probably because deep down I knew it wasn't going anywhere. There was no chemistry and, therefore, no risk. When we finally slept together, it was exactly as expected — nice, pleasant, fine. That is, until two weeks later when he trotted out the video. Okay — I admit to being just a tad stupid. I mean, I knew he was a private investigator and I saw the camera pointed at the bed. It simply never occurred to me that it was on.

So once the video was safely overwritten by
Peggy
Sue Got Married
, it was back to the drawing board — going to singles parties and experimenting with personal ads. It wasn't long before I met another guy named, you guessed it, Jim. He told me he had never, ever had a second date. Without going into great detail, let's just say that I discovered, firsthand on our first date, myriad reasons why this may, in fact, have been true. I suspect he eventually purchased a Russian bride, who no doubt dumped him as soon as her papers were in order. And he undoubtedly had it coming.

I finally surrendered to destiny and gave the dating thing a much-needed rest.

I joined an upscale health club with my friend Donna and settled into my new role as a old-spinster-in-the-making. Donna started casually dating a guy she'd met at the club, and after a while I began to secretly hope lightning might strike for me and I'd meet someone extraordinary. But one thing was certain: I would never date another Jim.

So there we were at the club on St. Patrick's Day, 1988. We worked out hard, showered, and headed for the hot tub — I half blind without my glasses and Donna acting as my seeing-eye friend. I remember the water was hot, hot enough to be unpleasant. The place smelled of sweat and chlorine, and it made me vaguely nauseated. Someone slid into the seat across from us — to me, nothing more than a blur. But Donna said, “Hey. I know you. You're . . .”

At this point she cast me a quick sideways glance, then directed her attention back to the guy easing into the hot tub. “You're Gary's roommate.”

Gary was the fellow she was dating. Donna had an extensive list of qualifications in future husband material, and Gary met many of her requirements. He had graduated from an Ivy League school, which was high on her list. He also had thick hair. Thick hair was important to Donna because hers was fine and soft, and she figured if she married someone with similar hair, her children would be bald. Because she was short and un-athletic, she wanted to meet someone tall and lanky, with runner's or gymnast's muscles or even football-player muscles. Gary had none of these. He had Pillsbury Doughboy muscles, and this would not do. Hence, the casual relationship.

I was not nearly as picky. I wanted someone who had a job; I didn't care what kind of job. My parents had given significant amounts of cash to both my ex-husband and my subsequent live-in boyfriend, and to my mom's immense relief, I was finally done with rescue missions. Aside from some form of gainful employment, I wanted someone who understood my jokes — someone with a ready smile and a quick wit. And I wanted someone who did not hit, because I had been hit enough.

Gary's roommate looked sweet . . . well, in as much as I could make out his face.

I leaned across the bubbling water, smiled, and offered my hand. “Hi, I'm Nancy.”

“Nice to meet you. I'm Jim.”

I scurried back to my side of the hot tub.
No
bleeping way. Uh-uh. Stay the bleep over there, Jim
. At least, that's what every fiber of my being screamed. Aloud I said, “Pleased to meet you,” or something equally polite and noncommittal.

Jim, also without his glasses, squinted nearsightedly at me through the steam, and I think he may have smiled.

My memory of the rest of the evening is vague. Mostly, I remember laughing. Jim was hands-down the funniest guy I had ever met. I was choking with mirth, holding my sides, nearly passing out and drowning in that hot tub. And still the jokes kept coming. Donna was Irish, and it was, as I mentioned, St. Patrick's Day, so we all went to the Ninety Nine restaurant. I laughed so much my stomach was sore for a week. It was as if I'd done a thousand stomach crunches without taking a break. It dawned on me that if I dated Jim I could have magnificent abs while saving a bundle on gym memberships. I gave him my phone number.

And so it began. Every Friday we went to Cambridge to see a comedy show at Catch a Rising Star. Every Tuesday we had dinner with a group of Jim's friends. We watched stupid B movies, and I fell asleep with my head on his shoulder while the silver screen ingénues in
Barbarella
or
The Perils of Gwendolyn in
the Land of the Yik Yak
jiggled their way across the screen.