I tell Seth that we’re going to leave him. He promises to get professional help. Can I trust him this time?
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Homeless... at Home
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Things are happening faster than I can write about them.
I kind of informally polled the children about whether they would want to not have Seth around any more. We were playing with the neighbor's dog. Eli said, "Can we get a dog?" I said, laughing, "Well, as long as Abba is around, no. Would you trade Abba for a dog?" Eli said, "Yes!" I said, well, we would have to poll the rest of the children. (Still as though this is all a joke - the neighbors were standing there with us.) "Leora - would you trade Abba for a dog?" "OF COURSE!!!" "Rafi?" "For this dog?" "No - but if Abba wouldn't live with us anymore, and we would get a dog, instead ..." "Yes, I would want a dog instead of Abba."
The next day we walked by the neighbor’s house again, and Eli said, "You know, I really would trade Abba for a dog. But would Abba still go to work and earn money for us?" "No," I said, "If we lived without Abba, we would probably live in a small apartment, and we would have to be careful how we spent money." Leora said, "And you would have to work full time." "Yup! I would." Eli said, "It's not so bad living with Abba, I guess ..."
When I grew up, it never occurred to me that our family could break up. Nowadays, children hear about divorce so much, that they can discuss it calmly.
Yesterday, Rafi was talking about a boy in his class who hits. He said, "When Asher grows up, he's going to hit his children. When I'm a father, I'm going to be the kind who doesn't hit his kids!"
Three years ago, after Mim's visit, I listened to your tape, time after time, as I resolved to change the way I relate to Seth. Today I put the tape on again (of course, I brought it along!) as background to promising myself that I'm going to leave him.
I’m going to leave Seth.
Now the hard part starts, with lawyers and trying to second-guess him. I haven't told him yet. I want to get my bearings, first.
Since I decided to leave Seth, I notice all the instances when Seth is nice.
I've got to remember that I've already taken the occasional nice periods into account.
Everyone advises me to have a plan of escape so that if he goes wild I can get the children out, and we can hide until he cools down.
I'm not the kind of person who does things like this.
Love, Shlomit
On Friday I went to a seminar providing legal advice to divorcing families.
The big thing now is 'mediation'. Instead of paying two expensive lawyers, the two of you sit with a mediator and draw up an agreement.
But the speaker Friday, who is a lawyer and also a mediator, said, to this room full of women, "Before you go into mediation, consider: Of all the disagreements the two of you have had over the years, how many have gone your way?"
The reaction was a swell of derisive "Ha!"s, acknowledging grunts, pensive nods, sighs and head-shakes.
The punch line, of course, was, "Well, that's exactly how mediation between the two of you will go. He's the same guy he has been all along, and, in fact, now you are his adversary instead of his wife. If he were a reasonable person, you wouldn't be sitting here, now. If you haven't managed to assert yourself in all those years of trivial differences of opinion, don't expect to walk into a situation where the really big things are at stake, including his pride, and suddenly find yourself equipped with negotiating skills you never knew you had. If you always tend to give in for the sake of peace, and if he is always willing to get nasty if it gets him what he wants, he is going to run right over you in mediation."
I know I'll cave in. I can't let him get the children, or get unsupervised visitation, but I'm likely to let him impoverish us, if it will end the unpleasantness.
I'm so afraid I'll fumble this.
The women in that room seemed like such nice people, who now face such a nightmare. One woman gave me a pep talk. (Over the years, my best conversations have taken place in the women's rest room. Maybe, seeing that sign on the door as we go in, signals that we can let down our defenses. Like walking into an embassy.) She left her husband a month ago, and she said that she knows exactly what I'm facing. "Let me tell you this, though, to give you courage: You know that feeling you get in your chest when you hear his key in the door?" (Another woman, listening in, was nodding as hard as I was. The three of us had our hands on our chests.) "I haven't felt that feeling for A MONTH!"
Seth kicked Leora last night. She said she thinks he's slipping back.
On Friday, Seth filled the electric kettle so that it splurted all over the counter when it boiled. Eli whispered, "Don't tell him he filled it too full - next time he'll just try to put twice as much in."
I guess I've got us all under a microscope.
For years I had been wishing Seth would make the first move. Now, realizing that could mean cleaned out bank accounts and trumped up charges to get the children away from me, it's the last thing I want. I should fill my pockets with quarters and trot on up to the library with this pile of banking stuff here at my elbow, and do some major copying.
"Sara?" I knocked perfunctorily at the screen door as I pushed it open, calling again from inside her kitchen, "Sara?"
The remains of breakfast were on the table, and there was Isabelle, in the middle of everything, eating corn flakes from an abandoned bowl. "Hello, Isabelle ..." Hearing my familiar voice, she stopped feasting, came to the edge of the table, and sat up on her haunches, making eye contact as we shook hands. Isabelle, Ashley and Sparkle were definitely an impetus to the start of my friendship with Sara. When she had mentioned that she had three pet rats, I knew that we would get along.
Sara answered from the next room, "You're alive! I'll be right there! I was just getting dressed!" She appeared a moment later and gave me one of her bear hugs. Sara bemoans her extra pounds, but I find it comforting to have so much friend. "Oh, am I glad to see you! Everybody's OK? Where are the children? Did you tell him or did you chicken out? You told him. I can see it in your face. Did you run over here? You're out of breath. Here, sit! Do you want tea?" She put the kettle on, swept away the dishes from in front of me and started slicing cake. "Tell me everything!"
"The children are fine. They're just getting up now. Eli and Leora knew I was going to tell him, and they stayed out of the way. He went out, just now, to get the Sunday paper, so I dashed over here to tell you that you're not on call anymore."
Sara waved the cake knife in 'come on' circles, to prompt me.
"Well, he didn't blow up or anything. I told him, 'Seth, I want a divorce.' That was all the script I had prepared, because I had no idea how he would react to that."
"So what did he say? Here - eat your cake."
"He said he's not surprised."
"I should say he wouldn't be! How long did he think you were going to put up with his nonsense? Then what?"
"Then he said, 'I'm just not good with people, that's the whole problem. I can't help it. It's just how I am.'"
"For crying out loud, Shlomit! What is he - a political candidate trying to get your vote? Since when do you have to be able to win friends and influence people to be a decent husband and father!" Sara started slamming cereal bowls into the dishwasher.
"I told him that has nothing to do with it. That we needed him to just be a good person. I don't want to be married to some con artist who can impress me. Then he asked me to please stay with him."
"And you said 'forget it'."
"I told him he was doing the same thing he always did - putting me in a position where I have to choose between what's good for the children and what he wants. And that this time I'm siding with them."
"Good for you. What did he say to that?" Sara brought over the whistling kettle.
"It was so strange, Sara! Here he is, his wife is asking for a divorce. He knows it's because of how he has been all these years - his strange ideas and the way he treats us. But … he launched into a lecture about how in a marriage nobody should take anyone else into account when they make decisions. In his Mr. Authority-On-Everything voice, he said, 'You have a problem if you're making decisions based on what's good for somebody else - for me or for the children. In a free market society, each individual should only worry about what's right for himself. You should be basing your decisions solely on what's good for you, Shlomit, and I should only consider what's good for me.' I guess that explains his behavior toward us, but it’s certainly not a Weltanschauung I want to live with!"
"That's his idea of marriage? Who's supposed to advocate for the children? Where does the family unit come in? Wfoo! You'll be so much better off without the guy. I hope you told him to jump in the lake."
"I didn't have to - I think he saw on my face that his theory was incomprehensible to me. He asked me if there's anything he could do to convince me to stay with him."
"And you said, 'Absolutely not! We're through!'"
"No, Sara. He seemed as though he seriously wanted to know how to fix things. I didn't have to think for a second. I told him that if he could solve his problems, and stop hurting us, there would be no reason to split up. He said, 'OK, fine.' But I didn't leave it at that. I asked if he would really be willing to go into therapy. To work seriously to find out why he behaves the way he does, and to seriously try to fix it. He said he would." Sara was looking very skeptical. "I said that if I didn't see significant progress by August, when we're supposed to go back to Israel, he would be going back without us."
I looked up from the tight little cylinder I had fashioned by curling up the open-strip from the cereal box. Sara was eating her cake a crumb at a time. "You need to read Kathi's book again, Sweetie. You're still on that see-saw. You threaten, he makes a token effort, it's better for awhile, and he goes right back to normal. Unless HE would initiate treatment, it ain't gonna work."
"But the first thing he said was, 'I'm not surprised', Sara! He has never before admitted that he's out of line. He asked if the HMO has counselors. He got out the booklet and started looking for somebody right then and there!"
"He needs somebody more serious than a ‘counselor’. You’ve been to counselors,” Sara muttered. Then she sighed. “So you're giving him another chance - OK, I know - only till August. Three months."
"Sara, that would be the best! If he could really bite the bullet and get professional help. I'm sure he's not any happier than we are - causing such an uproar at home. Just think - if we could stay together, and he could be reconciled with the children, and help me raise them, and help them heal after all the abuse. That would be so much better than splitting up!"
"Sure, doll, but it ain't gonna happen. OK. I see you’re looking at the clock. You've got to get back home. Keep me posted, bye."
When Seth ageed to start therapy, he said he doesn't think it will do anything. I guess that very prediction will prove a self fulfilling prophesy.
Sixteen years ago, and several times since, Seth has said, "This is how I am. You can take it or leave it." Now I want to leave it, and suddenly he's going to try (or go through the motions of trying) to change what he is.
Leora says we're right back where we were before.
Seth phrases sentences very carefully when we talk about the 'bad times' so that he won't actually state that he ever did anything objectionable. How can he change something he won't admit?
At least now there's a deadline – the end of August. I just have to make sure he remembers that the default situation is that we don't go with him when he goes back in August. If he can show, before then, that he's a different person, then I can change my plans and we can go with him. Not the other way around.
I hate this situation of being 'one up'. I can't understand how people love to be in power, and have the other person slinking and groveling around subserviently. Every sentence he utters to me or to the children, now, sounds as though he's trying not to offend me. I know how that feels from the other side. Things were so wrong for all those years with him on top and me the underling. Now the load has shifted, but can't it ever get to where we're both just acting normal and self confident and unafraid of each other?
We've been talking. It's not really a conversation – I'm trying to determine if he is really ready to change and he's trying to persuade me that there's nothing that needs to be changed. I guess I've got my answer, huh!
I asked if he likes having the children around. (He didn't even hint that they might go with him. Not even Rafi. He just assumes they will stay with me. Phew!) He said he sees them as a responsibility, not as something to enjoy. He says he's more concerned with what they'll do when they're grown up, rather than worrying whether they're having a nice childhood. As though the two aren't related!
I went to another session with Marie at Jewish Family Services, today. She knew that yesterday was the day that I was going to tell Seth we're leaving him.
Several times over the past month Marie has predicted, "You'll wind up staying with him," and I protested vehemently each time that Seth has had all the chances that are coming to him. So I felt sheepish describing how it came about that I had agreed to give him yet another chance.
Her eyes never left the fountain pen that she held between her forefingertips at eye level, but Marie's expressive eyebrows flashed me her reaction to each thing I said, as I told her about Sunday morning.
Surprised congratulations at my actually having gotten up the gumption to tell him. Exaggerated boredom at his predictable plea that I stay with him anyway. Approval at my pointing out that his request is unfair to me and the children. Disgust and disbelief at his contention that in a 'free market marriage' it should be every man for himself. A nod to acknowledge his query about what he can do to convince me to stay with him. And Marie tensed for danger at hearing that I had told him I might reconsider if he went into therapy.
I assured her that Seth had demonstrated his seriousness by immediately looking up the phone number of our HMO's psychological services. "He's going to call today from work and make an appointment, so as soon as possible we can go and ..."
"Don't go!" Marie suddenly snatched her pen out of mid-air and switched over to verbal communication.
"We shouldn't ...?"
"He should. By all means. But don't you go with him, Shlomit! He has got to do this on his own or it's not worth anything."
"Just for the first session. So the therapist understands what ..."
"Shlomit, it's not 'just' the first session. That first session is THE important session. In fact, it's all you need, to know whether you can stay with him. If your husband can't describes his problems honestly at the first session, he's not serious.
"You need him to come home from work today and say, 'Shlomit, I couldn't concentrate on work all day, realizing that I've behaved so hatefully all these years that your patience with me has run out. Nothing is more important to me than finding out why I've hurt you and the children, and working on my problems so that you don't fear me. Thank you for shaking me up like this.'"
Now it was Marie's turn to read my nonverbal reaction.
"Gotcha. That doesn't sound like anything Seth would think or say, does it, Shlomit. If he can say that, your troubles are over. If he can't, he's never, ever going to make any real progress." Marie sat back in her chair to let that sink in.
"What about 'behavior modification’,” I offered. "Maybe even if his central feelings and philosophies don't change, he could work toward just acting nicer. Learn some techniques for keeping himself under control ..."
"No, Shlomit. Behavior modification works when the behavior is the only problem. Like ... like you with Leora when she was a two-year-old. You told me about a period when you lost your patience with her several times a day, and every evening as you watched that little sleeping angel, you kicked yourself with regret that you couldn't control yourself.’
"But then," I sighed, "the next day she would just be so … energetic and inquisitive and messy and … again, I just lost it."
"That, Shlomit, was a situation that would have lent itself to behavior modification therapy. You knew exactly what you were doing wrong. You had an image of appropriate behavior before you, you just couldn't live up to it. You didn't lack the will - you wanted with all your heart to improve your behavior. You weren't trying to blame her or anyone else for your lapses. And - fact - you did manage to improve how you dealt with your daughter."
"Oh - I didn't do it alone, though, Marie. I compared notes with my friend Ruthi when we were down at the kibbutz - she's got children the same ages as mine. And of course, I spilled it all out in letters to Kay. She's always so patient with her boys. Plus, I've got a stack of parenting books. They all have a chapter on keeping your cool during the terrible twosies. I prayed often. No, Marie, I really didn't manage anything on my own."
"Shlomit! You sought out help on your own! No one is asking us to do difficult things totally on our own. You took exactly this important first step that you're trying to protect Seth from having to take. By your own admission, Seth has never sought help for his problems."
"Well, I think he was embarrassed ..."
She listed on her fingers ... "He was embarrassed. He didn't have time. It might not have helped anyway. These shrinks rip you off. He could lose his job if his employer found out. How could an outsider understand his problems better than he does himself, etcetera, etcetera. Shlomit, I've heard all the excuses. The fact is that if a person wants to improve himself he'll do whatever is necessary, and if he doesn't want to, there's no way to force it on him. Nobody had to convince you that you needed to change how you reacted to Leora. It came from you, Shlomit.
"And there's another major difference between how Seth deals with his problems and how you dealt with the problems you had with Leora: You didn't avoid discussing the problem with other people then, and you don't mind talking about it, now. Because you know that you have changed. Seth has never been willing to talk freely about his behavior.”
Marie shook her head. "If Seth is serious, you won't need to go with him to that first meeting. He'll be able to tell the counselor enough that a skilled professional can guide him to the roots of his problems and help him solve them. But if Seth is not serious, you'll go to the meeting and you'll sit there and start describing the past two decades, and he'll disagree with a point here and a point there, and before you know it, you'll get hung up on trying to describe exactly what happened, and you'll never get around to why it happened and how to alleviate it.
"Whatever you do, don't let it turn into marriage counseling, Shlomit.
“As soon as these professionals see a married couple sitting in front of them, they start in on marriage counseling because it's easiest. Of course!" Again she responded to my quizzical look, "Of course your marriage would need massive repair if you stay with him. So does his relationship with the children, and the children need to be helped to heal. You, yourself, need to heal. But there's no point in starting to work on all of that when he's still dishing out the abuse. No point replacing the carpets until that puppy is housebroken.
"Shlomit. Don't take my word for it. You're a religious Jew. I'm Catholic ... when I'm anything. What does G-d require from us when we behave badly? You have Yom Kippur - the day of atonement. We go to Confession. You don't have the 'day of making excuses'. We don't go every week to 'behavior modification'. It has been worked out over the millennia that a person must acknowledge the error of his ways."
"Let Seth go by himself, Shlomit. To whomever he finds. It's got to be his project. Whatever he tells you when he comes home from that first meeting will tell you everything you need to know."
True to his word, Seth got an appointment with someone listed with our HMO. The children and I ate early, last night, and they were watching Sliders in the play room when he came back from his first session.
"So ... How was it?" I asked. Super casually asking for the answer that will dictate how the rest of my life goes.
"Well, I have good news!" Seth pronounced, a little breathlessly.
"Yeah? Great!" Maybe it was the kind of problem we all hope for when we go to the doctor with puzzling symptoms. The doctor will listen, take out a special meter and touch a probe to your elbow and say, 'Of course! It's Whosiwhatzit's Syndrome! You're missing vitamin Q! You just have to take one of these ugly pills and it'll disappear!' Or jog once a month. Or stop eating rutabagas.
"The guy, Peter, says I don't seem to have a problem. So ... So I guess we can just forget all this." He swirled his hand around as though indicating a pool of wastewater. Then, disgustedly, as he saw my disappointed face and shoulder slump, "I thought you would be happy. Or does this upset your little theory that I have some sort of defect."
"But Seth, if we can't find the problem, how can we find a solution? If all I have to look forward to is more years of the same kind of home-life, I'm not sticking around. We can't live as we have been. Peter didn't have any ideas about why you might ... do the things you do? Why you treat us as you do?"
"Well, that's the thing. He really couldn't understand why you want to divorce me. I told him it happens often to wives, when the guys take them along on sabbatical. The wife suddenly decides she's unhappy, and starts talking about divorce."
"But … Seth! On Sunday you said you realized why we wanted to leave you. You said you're not surprised ..."
"Oh, I'm not surprised by anything you do or say, believe me, Shlomit! I don't think I said anything like that, but if I did, I just meant that it happens to so many wives on sabbatical, that I'm not really surprised it happened to you, too."
I got a prickly feeling all over. Have I, unbeknownst to me, 'slid' into an alternate universe?
"And you told this Peter about everything that's been going on? Between you and the children? And he doesn't see that I would be worried? That I would want to get the children out of this?"
"I presented your side fairly, Shlomit. He said you could call him if you want." He spat out in a disgusted tone of voice, and turned to leave the room.
"My side? But aren't we on the same side, now, Seth?"
"Well, that depends entirely on you, Shlomit! You're the one who started all this, remember?" He stomped upstairs to watch TV in our room.
Marie is my conscience. I start to think, "OK, if it will help, I'll talk to Peter tomorrow morning." Then I think of next week at Marie - having to tell her that I did exactly what she told me not to do.
I guess I should talk to Peter, though. Maybe there's something I can contribute to get things off to a good start. We only have three months, and I don't want Peter to have to spend the whole time ferreting out information that I could give him in one phone call.
I called Peter just now.
"Yes, hello Shlomit, thank you for calling. Um ... I'm trying to understand what the problem is, that has come up between you and Seth. Seth said that you've had a good marriage for nineteen years, until suddenly last week you announced that you want a divorce. And you didn't even tell him why. All he can figure out is that it might have something to do with being here on sabbatical. But he's just guessing. Then you sent him to me to try to figure out why you're dissatisfied with the marriage. It puts me in a rather difficult position ..."
I was speechless. It flickered through my mind that maybe he had the wrong file in front of him. "That's how he described the marriage? 'Good'? Did he mention that our ten-year-old reported him for abuse a year ago? So that Seth is now on probation with Social Services in Israel? That if there's another reported incident, the children could be taken from us?"
A pause at Peter's end this time. Thinking? Writing? "No. Seth didn't mention any of that."
"Did he mention that our daughter tried to run away a few weeks ago because she wants to get away from his verbal abuse? Did he mention that our youngest child had an epileptic seizure in December ... after years of being hit on the head by his father? Was Seth any more forthcoming to you than he was to me about a previous seizure that Seth witnessed, or caused, but neglected to seek treatment for, or to tell me about?"
"We didn't talk about the children. Seth is just trying to understand what might be causing problems between the two of you ..."
"Well his treatment of the children is the main problem between us. If he can't see that … he wasted your time. And he's wasting mine."
"Would you like to come in and explain how you see things?"
"Why? Is there any point? If he doesn't want to get himself under control, I can't do it for him. And you can't do it for him."
"Well, Seth has an appointment with me in a week's time, Shlomit. I would be glad to have a session with you, beforehand, to help me know what direction to go."
It does seem a pity to have come so far and then not do this one thing that might finally get Seth to wake up to what he's doing. So I agreed to go see Peter.
"Yes," I said to the hologram of Marie that appeared before me. Her expressive eyebrows beaming: Don't go! "I'm 99% sure you're right. But for that one percent chance - I'll go talk to Peter."
I went to see Peter yesterday morning. Anything to avoid biting the bullet and actually filing for divorce. When I described these nineteen years, Peter said that Seth and I might be describing two different marriages.
Seth’s second session with Peter was yesterday evening, but he didn’t refer to it when he came home.
This morning, Peter phoned me again. I asked if he thought Seth could be helped. "I would say that he's just behaving as he thinks it's appropriate to behave. Medication would not alleviate the behaviors you find distressing. You must decide whether you can live with a person like him."
"Well, I've decided that, Peter. I can't. I could, if I were only deciding for myself, but I can't force the children to stay in this situation. So I guess that's that."
So last night I told Seth about the conversation, and said that I'll continue to investigate what I need to do to get a divorce in the state of Maryland.
Seth repeated the things he’s been saying all week. Justifying, denying, pleading for me to forget whatever has happened up until now, so we can go on the way we have been.
Then he said, "It just seems as though you're throwing out the baby with the bath water, Shlomit! You want to get away from certain things I do, and you're destroying the whole marriage in the process."
"Well, Seth, you have total control, there." Just as you always want it. "I am going to get rid of that 'bath water'. You must decide whether you can separate yourself from the way you've been, so that I can get rid of the problems without getting rid of you."
It's up to you, baby!
"You look ‘down’, Shlomit," Sara put her arm across my shoulders as we walked along the path in the park.
"Yeah. He ... seems to have stopped singing 'Woman of Valor' before dinner Friday night."
"What do you mean?" Sara stopped in her tracks.
"Last week, I thought maybe he forgot. But ... he skipped it again this week. Just casually flipped the page in the prayer book.
I sighed. "We're supposedly on a better footing, now that we're finally both working toward peace at home - then he does this distancing thing.
"Sara, I have been an Eshet Hayil, haven't I? A 'Hayal' is a soldier! I've been soldiering on for twenty years, struggling for the health of this family. Even now - I'm giving him until August to sort himself out. Another chance after all the chances. When I just want to finally say, ‘Enough! I surrender!’”
"My guess, Shlomit, is that he has spent these two weeks redefining the problem. 'The Problem' is that you want to leave. Not that he makes it impossible for you to stay. He wouldn't be pleading with you to accept him as he is, if he intended to make any changes."
Seth's sessions with the social worker seem to be having an effect on the way he thinks and talks. Seth is actually eloquent. Actually seems to have thought about things.
But … Seth and I are enacting the final page of Gone With the Wind. Just when he is ready to start over, I find I don't have energy to continue the struggle. He paints such a nice picture of how things will be from now on if I'll only give him yet another chance, with no strings attached.
I said, what if I get sick. I'm better off knowing that I'm on my own, and making appropriate arrangements, than assuming I have support that not only isn't forthcoming, but turns to demands, accusations and unpleasantness.
He said that this year, working in the US, he has realized that the way they do things at the lab in Israel isn't the only way to do things. Where people are held responsible for any failure to hold up their end. (I had understood, from things Sam has said, that Seth IS the source of pressure in the lab.) He said he was running the household like that, so being ill was no excuse for not cleaning the house.
That's more analyzing than I've ever seen evidence of. He said we will do whatever we have to, to reduce tensions.
But … he is the source of tension in the house. Is he going to get around to working on himself, or only on the peripheral things?
And … he says that he’s willing to run things differently. But he still doesn't realize that one member of a married couple shouldn’t BE ‘running things’!
It sounds so inviting. So much easier than launching off on our own. He wants me to go back to being loving and supportive and friendly to him. I don't think I'm playing hard to get, but I can't open up. I told him that these three years inside my shell have been the best years of the marriage for me.
He keeps saying to forget the past. Is that valid? If your boss wants to fire you after twenty years, you should be able to point to past accomplishments if you want to keep your job. Not say, "Just forget everything I’ve done up to this point - it'll suddenly, magically be better - trust me." I've already tried the method of trusting first, even when it's not warranted.
I'm seeing a side of him I didn't know existed. He suddenly seems to care what I think of him.
Why did I have to get to the point of absolute desperation in order for him to show me this side of himself? Or is this just another flip to 'nice Seth' precipitated by my mentioning divorce?
AAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH!!! Couldn't they have put the answers at the back of the book?
"You doing OK?" Sara asked when she called this morning. "Want to go for a walk?" Our walks in the park are our excuse for shmoosing and calling it 'getting exercise'.
We got to the fork in the walking trail and deliberated over which path to take.
“It seems to me,” Sara mused as we started down the path we had chosen, “that you face three possible futures: to keep things as they are, to split up, or for Seth to shape up so you can stay together and have it be good.
"Seth's first choice is obviously to keep everything as it has been. He customized this nonstandard marriage of yours. It's been exactly what he wanted. And he keeps pleading with you to keep everything as it is.
"For you, Shlomit, that's the last choice. You reject that. You would rather split up than have things continue as they have been. Your first choice is to fix things, second is to split up, and last - your rejected option - is to go on as things have been.
"So Seth, for a change, will not get his first choice. You refuse to accept the status quo. In fact," Sara frowned, concentrating, "… yes. Seth will get his second choice, whichever it is. If his second choice is to fix whatever it is that makes him act as he has, you'll gladly go along with that.
"But if his second choice is to split up, rather than do the hard work he needs to do to change - that's what will happen.
We had slowed to a snail's pace anyway, so we sat on the next bench we came to. Forests like this one are what I miss, back in Israel. Well, I miss all of it. There's no forest, and because I'm working, there would be no time to sit in one anyway, and no friend to sit with.
"Shlomit, you must match his scientific mind. You're conducting a three-month-long experiment. The scientific method is to define, before you perform the experiment, exactly what constitutes a positive result – that Seth is healthy - and what result means that the experiment has failed.”
I’m supposed to be planning this camping trip out west, but I don’t even know if there will be four of us going or five. I’m supposed to be deciding what to do with all of the stuff we’ve accumulated in this house, over the year. If we’re all going back to Israel, then I have to get rid of it. If the kids and I will be setting up housekeeping, then this will all come in handy.
So he really doesn’t even have until August to show some progress, but only until July when we move out of the house and head west.
Seth comes to me every couple of days with another argument for why I should “forget all this divorce stuff” so that we can all just get back to the way things have been.
I’m so indecisive. Everything’s so tentative. I hope I don’t just let my old intolerance for ambiguity push me into the less ambiguous option of staying with him.
Love, Shlomit
Well, here's that entry, announcing what I have decided to do. The trumpets playing the fanfare sound decidedly out of tune for some reason …
The night before last, I was packing for the camping trip the children and I will take out west for the month of July. Seth came down to the playroom and watched for a minute and then said, "Will you and the children be OK on your own?"
Ten words.
I was thunderstruck. For all of Seth's begging me for favors for nearly two months, this is the first indication (the first in the whole marriage, in fact) that he is worried about us at all. That one reason to stay together is that it could be better for me and for the children, not just better for him. (A movie would have had a swell of violin music just then, and they would blur the focus.) Maybe his sessions with Peter introduced him to this novel idea.
I put down the silverware I had been sorting and sat next to him on the sofa. "Seth!" I took his hand. "Seth, I don't want to leave you. But I'm afraid. Sure. I'm a little afraid to go on without you. But I'm more afraid to stay with you."
"Shlomit, I promise - as soon as we get back to Israel, I'll find professional help there, if that's what you want. And we'll talk, then. About anything you want."
"I would need safeguards, though, Seth. If I pass up this chance to get out - I need to have things in place so that if you ... I've got to have something in writing, this time. You've got to guarantee us certain aspects of a normal life. So I'll have something real. Real promises from you. You've got to write down that you really, really want to improve things, and not just 'forget the past'. We need to set deadlines. I don't just want to be in a holding pattern for an indefinite period of time. And I need access to money. In Israel, not just my money, here. In Israel I don't have relatives where we could … stay. I need … a place or … cash. In case you … so I don't feel so trapped."
"OK. OK. You'll have safeguards. We'll put half the money in your name. We'll write up an agreement. You won't have to work if you don't want to. Whatever you want. Just - give me a year. I need a year. Till next summer. To prove that I'm ... that things will be better."
"I have to ask Eli and Leora and Rafi."
Seth tisked.
"Seth, it's their life, too. They also want the bad times to be over - one way or the other. They think we're going to get out. I have to ask whether they're willing to give you another chance."
So the children and I had a pow-wow yesterday morning, and decided to give Seth the extension he has asked for. I guess I caught them with the same bait Seth used on me: that promise that I wouldn't have to work full time if I stay with Seth.
There was never a way I could do PROS and CONS with this to help me decide. If he's going to be nice for the rest of our lives, there are no cons. If he's going to continue slipping back and forth, there are no pros. What I dread - the source of this dull sad ache that has replaced the anxious agitation I've felt since March - is that he'll slip back to a point where it's not bad enough to leave, but not good enough to stay, either.
And whereas the status quo at this moment is not to be in Israel with him, that WILL be the status quo, if we go back, tending to keep us stuck.
A person can expect to go through a period of mourning after a divorce. I guess I'm mourning the 'death' of my dreams of freedom and independence and a fresh start. This is a very stale start. Seth looked happy when Leora made her announcement yesterday, that the children want us all to try to stay together. He's being very nice. It's nice to know what I'll be doing in the coming months, instead of all the IFs. I just hope I can dredge up some enthusiasm before Seth loses his.
So, that's all I've got to say about that.
I have been keeping the detailed trip log for the family, of all the places we've been and things we've done this month, but I haven't had a chance to just write down my private thoughts. It's been a great trip. Great Sand Dunes, Arches, Mesa Verde, my all time favorite - Bryce, Yellowstone. The camping has been good. And … it's the first month of the rest of my life.
Seth and I have put any serious discussion on hold - partly because Seth and I are never alone. I wish I could put my thoughts on hold, too. Not be monitoring him. Looking for signs one way or the other.
The first night of the trip we were walking around the campground and Seth said, "I think they have ice cream at the office. Let's get some." I took that as an omen that he's changing. Spontaneous offers of ice cream were never part of his repertoire. Then at Arches, he actually spent $300 on a white water rafting trip for the family.
Old habits die slowly, though. One morning, we hiked up toward Mosca Pass. And I had that twenty-year-old view of his back and his LLBean pack as I trudged along after him. It's still follow the leader. That's got to change. The most important trail we're traveling now is toward rebuilding our family life. He has got to let me lead on this one. He can't be in charge of recovery, when we're recovering from the bomb he himself dropped on us.
Maybe soon I'll be taking walks without that figure in front of me. If the year goes by without significant progress, I’ll be seeing vistas without having him in the middle of my view.
And, after a year of my doing the grocery shopping, we're back to where he shops and I just take the children around and window shop at interesting regional foods.
Breaking camp is the worst, though. I know that Seth and I have different styles. Operate at different speeds. At home it doesn't matter, because I can just fill my time with more tasks. While he's meticulously getting himself ready in the morning, I'm getting myself and the children ready and I'm not waiting for him. Here, on this trip, he insists on breaking camp on his own. Even though I love the camping aspects of camping, and Eli is dying to help. Seth insists on doing … it ... one ... thing ... after ... another. I'll have made and cleaned up breakfast, put a lunch together, made sure the children are ready, straightened up the White Elephant, written the log entry for the day before, studied the triptych. While Seth is still lining things up and folding and refolding and packing and repacking at his own pace. And the rest of us stand around. "Don't run off!" he reminds us. It can be three hours before he's ready to use the bathroom one last time and fill the canteens and rinse off the windshield and half a dozen other things that the children and I could have done, and we finally finally get into the van.
Oh, well. It just bothers me because I had been imagining this trip being free and easy without him and his presence and his OCD. Kay and I had daydreamed that the children and I would meet an eligible male traveling with his children and we would travel around together ... for the rest of our lives.
Could be worse. Seth is keeping his cool really well considering the close quarters. OK. He's giving the windshield the white glove test. Looks like we're about ready to hit the road.
Well, here we are. It's August 17th. D day. Deadline day. And I'm on this plane. This plane that we weren't going to be on with him unless he had made huge strides in the opposite direction from the way he's been headed all his life. There should have been four empty seats around him. But here we are.
Up until a month ago, I thought that if I wound up on this plane with him, today, it would mean that there had been a breakthrough. But he only wore me down into agreeing to give him more time.
We came back from the camping trip out west, to the Weber family reunion near Jeanie's house. Then Seth whisked us away to his parents, right afterwards. I would have loved to spend a last week with my parents, but instead we cooled our heels in New Jersey for ten days. He got me away from all my support systems so I wouldn't have any last minute cold feet, didn't he.
Remember how he promised that we would put half of our money in my name? I assumed we would do it while we were right there in New Jersey. But he didn't initiate anything, and when I brought it up, he just said it wasn't a good time.
And I'm anxious to write up that agreement for what our goals are, as he promised we would do. No progress there, either.
And of course, we sold the White Elephant. That old van had been part of my dream for getting settled here. "… and we've got the van ..." I told myself that as long as we had her, I hadn't done anything irrevocable. Leora and I were in tears when the used car dealer drove her away. (The dealer said he has seen that reaction many times.)
End of an era.
While we waited in the depressing Tower Air terminal for them to call our flight, the intercom in the departure lounge announced that they were looking for volunteers to be bumped. We would have gotten $500 apiece, tickets for Monday's flight, and tickets for another round trip flight, good any time during the next year.
Absolutely no reason we couldn't have spent another weekend with Seth's parents.
But old penny pinching Seth turned down a deal worth seven thousand dollars.
Leora whispered to me that Abba wants to get us on the plane so we can't get away from him.
Oh. Of course. What a dunderhead I am. Of course he wouldn't have given me back my half of the money while there was still a chance I wouldn't get on the plane, would he. Darn. He's the same old Seth, isn't he. Didn't do the work I asked for, to make us want to get on this plane, but he was willing to do any amount of work to trick us and force us. And make sure we had no choice.
He hasn't a clue what marriage is, has he.
I've been putting off writing because I hate to just sound like a sad sack. I look back at all those years and see myself just slogging along letting things happen to me, and here I am doing it again.
As Leora keeps reminding me, "We're right back to where we always were!" It's depressing to be settling in to this house - getting stuff down from the attic - when I don't even want to be here. When I'd rather be settling into something permanent. And putting the emotional energy into starting a fresh new life.
Seth is dancing around redressing small, insignificant wrongs. He hasn't forgotten the things he railroaded past me. There was a nasty episode about buying the alarm clock, half a dozen years ago. Now he says I can pick out whatever clock I want. As though it's the clock itself that was the problem. He bought kohlrabi last week.
He doesn't understand that it's irrelevant how nice he is in this good period. I need a reason to trust that the bad times won't return.
Now I have to decide about work. The one thing Seth said, to convince me to come back with him, was that I wouldn't have to work this year. But another year of puttering around the house doesn't look good, for when I do need to find a serious job.
I want to just turn off my mind. To stop analyzing and remembering and worrying and trying to predict what's going to happen.
I just feel like such a limp rag.
In a way, I'm more alone than ever, now that Seth is supposedly trying to change. If he really succeeds, he'll be my friend and confidant. But for now, there's no more intimacy than there ever was.
And I feel I owe it to him not to gossip about him, if he's trying to be a better husband. If he does fix himself up and we wind up with a real marriage, I won't want the world to know we almost split up.
It’s hard, that now, when I need my support systems the most, they’re not available to me.
As you can see, we're back in Israel. Probably a dumb thing to do, to come back here with him after everything.
Last time I talked with you was at the teachers' banquet on the last day of school. I was headed for my sister's in Cleveland that afternoon. In Cleveland I found a Jewish school near my sister's house. I felt like a real loser at the interview with the headmaster. I would be a convert and a divorcee, in need of financial consideration and special education. Not exactly a family you would run after to have in your school, but he was very nice. Plus, half of the two-family house next door to my sister was coming vacant that month. Plus, Kay's husband, at work, was looking to hire someone with just my qualifications. It seemed like everything pointed to my staying in Cleveland until the divorce came through.
Then Seth begged for one year to prove himself.
Seth seems to think everything will blow over now that we're back here. If anything, he would have been more likely to convince me to forget the past if we weren't in this same house. We sit at the dinner table, and all I can think of is all the years of awful ruined meals - all the hitting and crying and growling.
We have no car right now - we sold our old one before we left for the US. I really don't miss it. The children and I have bikes, and everything is within walking distance, and there's good public transportation. Seth and I spent two days in Tel Aviv visiting car showrooms. Seth was very nice all the while - kept asking me my opinion on everything. He kept saying things like, "We'll get our money's worth out of it over the next ten years." Kept mentioning camping trips we'll go on. After a week of these rosy scenarios, I reminded him that unless he works some miracles, there won't be any ten years. I told him I don't want to sink $50K into a van or SUV, and have to buy half of it from him with my limited resources, when we split up. He said, disgustedly, "I thought you'd forgotten about all that!"
So he's trying to wait me out. He figures that if he has won every round up till now, he can win the next one, too. Maybe he's right. Meanwhile I have an appointment with a woman who 'knows the ropes' of getting divorced in this country - legal, financial, and interpersonal.
Thank you. I feel better now. Love, Shlomit
Nora took me to talk with a woman she knows who is an expert on divorce. Lore works with the Child Welfare department and advocates for the children in divorce cases. Nora was great - she drove me out there, because we don't have a car yet, and she sat and waited for the hour+ that Lore and I talked.
Until that conversation, the divorce process here was a swirling mass of unknowns for me. My old low tolerance for ambiguity was telling me, ‘stay away from that!’
Lore gave me some invaluable advice, so I won't do anything stupid. She said that I must never hint to the rabbinate that Seth is emotionally ill. Because according to Jewish law, a woman may not abandon a sick husband and also, if he's not in his right mind, he obviously can't give me the divorce of his own free will. She said I just have to say we're 'incompatible'. That's so unfair. I would never divorce someone just because we were incompatible.
The procedure is that I go to the Rabbinate and open a file. They schedule an appearance, and the rabbinical tribunal decides whether to grant us a divorce. If we can agree on terms, between the two of us, then the Rabbinate will OK our agreement. Otherwise, they dictate terms.
If Seth doesn't agree to that, I'll have to get a lawyer and sue for divorce. The rabbis make the final decision, but they'll usually go along with an agreement imposed by the courts.
She reminded me not to leave him before taking legal steps. He could sue me for desertion and kidnapping.
You just feel so trapped. It’s so unfair. He just behaved however he wanted to, all these years, never worrying about the consequences, and now I have to walk a minefield to deal with those consequences.
I reminded Seth again of his promise to go into therapy, and of my promise to leave him if he didn't. So he met with a psychiatrist whose name I got from Batia.
When Seth came home from the meeting, he reported that Dr. K doesn't think Seth gets depressed, but 'withdrawn'. That apparently Seth's expectations and mine diverged, and we should talk about that, and work it out.
It was so much like when he came home from that first meeting with Peter, that I'm ashamed to write about it. Seth said that Dr. K wanted to talk to me. So I called him.
Dr. K said Seth didn't realize the rest of the family was suffering all those years.
Does Seth now realize it? Is this progress?
Then Dr. K said we should all go to family therapy so the children and I could impress upon Seth that his behavior was hurting us.
Why should I bother? Why do I need to do cartwheels to convince Seth of anything? I'm just sick of worrying about Seth Seth Seth Seth Seth Seth Seth Seth Seth Seth Seth Seth Seth Seth. I've been concerned with Seth, mothering him, and hoping for improvement, for all these years, and now I'm finished. Whatever I've accomplished or failed to accomplish, I just don't want to deal with it anymore! I want to be free of it all.
It would take years to understand all the complicated things that have been going on here for two decades, and probably way before that as well.
"Well," said Dr. K, when I told him I don't see any point, "even if you split up, the children need resolution. The children need closure."
Magic words. 'The children.' OK. Sigh. Family counseling. I'll get in touch with Batia. Will Seth be more cooperative than he was at Social Services two years ago?
Earlier this evening, when I was kissing Leora good night, she said, "You know, Ima, since we came back from America, our family is more like other families."
"We are? In what way?"
"Well, we go out for pizza and we eat better food at home. And ice cream. I guess Abba got used to ice cream in America. We're in more clubs. And I think you buy more stuff, Ima. And the cats and fish and gerbils we have now. Maybe we got used to having the fish and frogs in America.
"Abba lets us do more stuff. Decide more stuff. I think we scared him when we said we don’t want to live with him, so he's more careful with us."
"You're right. We're doing things that we never would have done a couple of years ago. So ... you like it better this way?"
"Well, Duh, Ima!"
She's right. It's partly because Seth is giving us more freedom. But we're also just taking more. Having gotten as far out as I did, makes me realize that if he explodes over something I have decided to do, I can just say, "That's it. Kids, pack your bags!"
The children, too. Now that they know we're not stuck, and that if we can't stand it any more we can leave, they're more relaxed and daring.
So - is this good enough? Can I just relax, now, whether or not Seth suddenly shows any inclination for self examination and 'tikun' - fixing himself? He's being nice. He's OK with the menagerie and all sorts of little things he knows I've been wanting. He bought a bush for the front of the house because I mentioned that that kind of bush reminds me of the house in which I grew up.
If it's always going to be like this, it's not so bad. He and I still don't really have a relationship, but he's letting me get together with friends, now, so he's not the only show in town.
Maybe this is good enough.
When I worked in programming, and when I was writing that games package, I did some of my most brilliant work while I was asleep – often waking up with an elegant algorithm in my head.
This morning I woke up with a dream snippet floating around in my brain. The only distinct part was that I was looking at a page in a book, and two thirds of the way down the left hand side was a title I couldn't read. You know how text in dreams can be dim and frustratingly unintelligible. But next to the title, in pencil, in my handwriting, it said, "Can't think of any."
Enigmatic.
As I woke up, I was regretting that I couldn't make out what was written on the page, until I realized that of course it had been a dream and didn't matter. That snippet wafted around my consciousness through my first few sips of coffee, though, nagging me for attention. On a hunch, I went to the shelf and got down Kathi's book, 'Battered Helpmate'. It's the only book since my college text books in which I have written notes in the margins. I flipped through, and, sure enough, there at the end of the chapter on tactics, two thirds of the way down the page, is the heading, 'Occasional Indulgences'. And next to it, my penciled note, 'Can't think of any'. Actually, down at the bottom, another annotation asks, '$45 coffee mug?'
The right side of my brain had continued to digest last night's diary entry - about all the nice-to-have little things Seth is doing, as Leora says, to make our lives more like other people's.
I had been hoping that these favors were the first step he's taking, away from being like the men Kathi describes in Battered Helpmate. But maybe they're the only step he's planning to take. My snippet reminded me that the men described in her book indulged their wives in little easy-to-give ways, precisely to avoid having to fix the really big problems.
It's surely easier to go out for pizza than to go to a psychiatrist. Easier to let Eli and Leora listen to their bee-bop on the radio than to face the music about his emotional problems. Easier to bite into a cookie Rafi helped me bake, than to bite the bullet and get serious help. Easier to give the children an evening at a luna park than to understand the roller coaster his emotions are on. Easier to give me enough perks to keep me quiet, than to open up and talk things through.
Thanks again, Kathi!
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All material quoted from the book 'Battered Helpmate' is under copyright (1990) by Kathi Whong Edwards. It is used here with the permission of the author.
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Copyright 2020 Shlomit Weber
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