Seth has made no progress in a year. He just tries to forget everything that has happened, and demands that we do the same. The children still want to leave, so I go to the Rabbinate to file for divorce. Again, Seth says he wants Shalom Bayit, so again I give him more time.
Navigate to other chapters of Homeless... at Home by Shlomit Weber
Homeless... at Home
Table of contents
Prev: Chapter 11 - Three Paths
Next: Chapter 13 - Agreements
Dear Diary,
This my 20th wedding anniversary.
We had been married four years when we went to the first marriage counselor, and I skipped out of there thinking everything had been fixed up. Eli was born four years later, and Rafi four years after that. The next four years I watched the children being hurt, and rode the roller coaster of Seth's moods, and then, four years ago, on my sixteenth anniversary, I decided to insulate myself. By siding with my children in Seth's war against them.
Now we're entering a new era one way or another. Either to repair all the damage and start fresh with a healthy husband / father / marriage, or to start fresh with 'just us'. I wish I knew which way, but, with him or without him, it's got to be better than the worst eras. The end of this four year period will be the year 2000!
We bought a new car this week. We were happy with the Uno for nine years, till we sold it to go on sabbatical, so it made sense to get another Fiat.
And Seth pointed out that it makes sense to use the money from my professional education fund to pay for it. Since we have had children, I haven't done any work-related traveling, so my fund has been building up. If we're going to stay married, it makes perfect sense to use the money in my fund on a major expense like a car. If we're going to split up, it makes perfect sense for Seth to want to use my money to buy something that we'll divide fifty-fifty if we divorce.
Another benefit Israelis get from their employer is a car allowance, even though most employers provide transportation to and from work. But Seth doesn't drive, because of his eyesight. No license - no car allowance.
Last week, Seth informed me, "I talked to the car allowance clerk at work and asked if I would be able to get a car allowance if I have a car registered in my name alone."
"Oh, neat. Can you?"
"Well, he didn't say for sure, but I think it would be a good idea to have the car just in my name instead of in both our names. Then I can argue that obviously, I own a car, so I should get the allowance."
"Ah. I see ... So the clerk thought that maybe ..."
"Well, it's worth a try," Seth declared with an edge of impatience that I was giving him the third degree.
"Yeah, I guess."
So as of this afternoon, we're the proud owners of $24,000 worth of station wagon that was paid for wholly out of my assets, and is registered only in Seth’s name.
In a healthy marriage, that wouldn't matter at all.
This lump in my stomach is the same one that was there at his parents' house in August when he told me it wasn't a good time to put half of our money - or even my own money - under my jurisdiction.
I can just hear Perry Mason: "You let him do WHAT???? Della! Come listen to this!"
I set up an appointment with Batia for family counseling. Seth and I went without the children for the first meeting. Sigh. I’m just so weary of all of it.
"I understand that you two saw a counselor four years ago," Batia started out.
"Yes, but all that talking at Sandy didn't cause any improvement," Seth declared.
"You didn’t change anything at home?” Batia asked.
"No," Seth answered, "I haven’t seen any changes at all."
"No, I meant did you, yourself, change as a result of those sessions, Seth? In how you run the household, or in how you relate to the children?"
Seth looked at Batia as though she were crazy. "No, I didn't change! But neither did Shlomit."
"In what way did you want her to change?"
"Well, to be more accepting. Forgiving. Nicer to me." Seth looked puzzled at the question.
Seth leaned back in his chair, feet stretched out in front. "Batia, let me tell you something about Shlomit. This isn't the first time she has done this."
"Done what?" Batia wondered.
"I'll tell what the typical pattern is, around our house," Seth explained in that swaggering, condescending tone I haven't heard since we sat at Sandy. "Things will be going along just fine and all of a sudden she drops a bombshell. This time it was, 'I want a divorce!' It just ruins things between us."
"So what do you do, Seth, when Shlomit comes to you with ... I assume you mean she tells you she wants changes made in how you conduct your household."
"It can be any sort of wild unfounded complaint or criticism. What do I do? I just wait it out. But things will be very strained for awhile. Unnatural. I feel as though I'm walking on eggs. This seems to make her happy. She gets all cheerful. Like self satisfied, I guess, with the power she has. It's disgusting. Gradually things get back to normal. But it can take awhile."
Batia jotted something down. "Do you, Seth, ever make permanent changes based on things Shlomit points out?"
"No! Why should I?" He looked at her as though she'd suggested he moon his boss. "Her comments just degrade the relationship until I can forget about them."
As I was digesting this, Batia invited Seth to describe our marriage and family life as he sees it. Seth shook his head in disgust. "I couldn't remember every little thing that happened, even if I wanted to."
OK. That's a factor, too, of course, not wanting to ...
When Batia turned to me and I gave a brief description of what the children and I have been through with him over the years, Seth seemed to be hearing it all for the first time.
"You know ..." said Seth, as though in a daze, "When Shlomit talks like this, I feel that we've been living on two different planets."
Yup! That's the feeling I get, too.
When I described my pregnancy with Rafi, Seth looked skeptical, "Well, I had no idea she was in such pain." Sarcastically. As though he still doesn't believe I was.
Seth still denies that that whole horrible winter, when Eli was five, ever happened. He said, in his swaggering resonant movie star voice, "Well, anyone can get into a bad mood, Batia, but I'm sure it never would have lasted for more than a few hours."
"Seth," I pointed out, "whether you remember it or not, there are in fact other indications that you're … not always in control when you deal with the children. They've said things. You've noticed, yourself, that Eli and Leora can't seem to warm ..."
"Batia, those kids are the ones who aren't under control!" he exploded. "It's impossible to have any normal life when they're around."
"Seth!" I interrupted, "Our children aren't ..."
"Shlomit, they're obviously a blind spot for you. They're totally wild. Remember at Sam's that time ..."
"Sam's? We haven't been to Sam and Nora's since we got back from the US." I was confused.
"Right. OK. It was before the sabbatical. Those kids were totally out of control. And you didn't do anything. You never do. Somebody has to keep order!"
"You mean when Sam's children and ours were goofing around?"
"If that's what you want to call total … hooliganism, yes. That time. And nobody did anything. Is that what you want at home? Just total chaos?"
That evening at Nora's was so much fun! So much nicer than the grumping and scolding (and – back then – hitting) that goes on at our house. That evening felt more like the conversation and singing and laughing and relaxing that characterizes our Shabbat meals when Seth is away on a trip. When he’s not there to ‘keep order’.
I guess we do inhabit different planets. What I remember as one of our best evenings, he remembers as the worst.
"So,” Batia said, "These sessions are to be a forum - an information exchange between Seth and the children. OK. Then what?"
She looked at me. "Do you want to stay with Seth, Shlomit?”
"Which Seth?" I asked, curiously.
Batia looked at me, puzzled. "What do you mean, 'which Seth?'"
"The good Seth or the bad Seth? All the years of the marriage, there have been two Seths, Batia, who swap off like soldiers on guard duty.
"If he were usually good-mood Seth, we could stay with him. But if you're asking whether I want to stay with the Seth we’ve been living with most of the time, then no. So the answer to your question, Batia, depends on Seth."
"How about you, Seth?” Batia asked. “Do you want to stay with Shlomit and the children even thought they have indicated that they want to leave?"
"Yes,” he pronounced, stretching his head up like a turtle’s, and pointing his nose up into the air self righteously, “I don't believe in divorce," he intoned - the emphasis on the ‘I’.
"Seth, Shlomit doesn't strike me as someone who takes marriage lightly."
Seth shook his head. "It's well known in academic circles that sabbatical years produce a large number of divorces."
After more double talk on Seth’s part, when Batia started flipping through her appointment book to set up the next session, I said, "So - the children come to the next meeting, right?"
"Oh!" Batia looked up, surprised. "No, not just yet. No. I don't think that would be helpful at this point. No. Let's have another session with just the three of us."
"But it's not going to be marriage counseling, right? The goal for now is to help Eli and Leora and Rafi."
"Of course!" Batia agreed. "Just ... let's not rush things."
I do some of my best musing as I sort laundry.
Mom and Dad have such a good marriage, that I sometimes imagine how interactions would go between them, to help me remember what normal behavior is. If Mom had come to Dad saying she was uncomfortable with the way he treated us, even if Dad thought he was doing fine - which he was! – he wouldn't have gotten defensive. Especially if he was doing his best and wanted genuinely to do better, he would listen to her seriously and would seriously consider whether he needed to make changes. And he would be distressed to learn that she was distressed.
Seth came upstairs just then, to take his shower.
"Seth, even if you don't remember getting into frightening moods, the fact that we're afraid of you should concern you, shouldn't it?"
"No, Shlomit, if you are afraid of your own husband, then you need to get professional help to banish these irrational fears. It's not normal for a woman to fear her own husband. You're obviously the one who needs therapy, not I."
Last night as we were getting ready for bed, Seth said, "I could probably tell you why you might have thought I might not have cooperated as much as you would have liked, while you were - you know - pregnant with Rafi."
My children's English is very good. For awhile they had trouble with the subjunctive mood, though now they correct themselves or each other before I even get a chance.
Seth, on the other hand, whenever he speaks of anything he 'did', is able to construct whole subjunctive paragraphs, flawlessly, on the fly.
"OK," I said, sitting down to listen, a little afraid, from his serious tone, of what I was going to hear, "Why?"
"Well, because knowing you, you would have wanted four or five or who knows how many children. And I knew that if I encouraged you too much with the third one, you would just want to go on and on and have another and another until who knows when you would stop. So I just decided not to make it too easy on you."
"That's all," he added, when he saw that I was still staring at him. Listening for the next sentence where he would admit that he now sees that that was a totally unacceptable way to behave. Totally terrible and illogical and childish and selfish and rotten and inhuman and ... everything!
"But we … we had talked about having a third child,” I reminded him, a little shakily. "You … you had agreed, right?"
"OK, but that doesn't mean I agreed to having more than three."
"So ... we could have talked about a forth, if it came to that, no? I mean … Rafi … Rafi … already … existed." I unconsciously put my hand on my abdomen. "It's a strange point at which to ... I mean ...” But I was talking to the back cover of 'Patriot Games'.
I looked around the room. I was sitting on the same bed where I had lain, exhausted and aching at the end of each day during that pregnancy, reviewing all the things I had done that day that were too strenuous for my baby. This was where I lay after the bleeding started, waiting for the ambulance, petrified that Rafi was dying inside of me. And after he was born, and we were home, and I thought things were going to start getting better, this was where I lay when the DVT returned. With my legs up on the bolsters Dad brought from Leora's room, again waiting for the ambulance to take me back to the hospital. Back away from my children. From three children, this time.
And the perpetrator of all this suffering just calmly lets me know, seven years later, that it was all just part of his vast eternal plan. Now I can relax, I guess, knowing that he had a perfectly good reason for pushing me to exhaustion during that guarded pregnancy. For nearly killing both of us.
I've got to get the children in to these sessions with Batia as soon as she agrees, so Seth can help them resolve the way he treated them. And then I will get my children away from this person whose logic is so illogical.
Last night Seth repeated his comment that it was foolish for me to take the children into account when I made decisions. That a family should operate like a free market society.
Batia nodded thoughtfully as he propounded his philosophies on interpersonal relationships. "Seth?" She pondered a moment longer, frowning. "What about love? Do you love Shlomit and the children?"
Seth shook his head pityingly. "Shlomit and I subscribe to Ayn Rand's philosophy - that a person must earn your love, not just expect it for nothing." Batia glanced at me. I guess the look on my face showed her that I did not subscribe to any such thing, and she didn't pursue it.
If this is the philosophy he lives by, where's any evidence that he's trying to earn our love?
When Batia asked specifically whether Seth loves the children, he said, "Well, I can't say I like all of the children equally." Batia is right. It's a good thing the children didn't come to this meeting.
When I got up this morning, I took Seth's four Ayn Rand books off the shelves. I'll sell them back to the used book shop. Inside the back cover of one, I found this description of her philosophy: "… selfishness is a virtue, altruism a vice. Her reversal of the traditional Judeo-Christian ethic ..."
Shudder!
That shudder was the same one you would shudder if you found out that your husband is really a robot. The children and I would be better off living with a well-programmed robot. At least the first law of robotics prevents them from harming humans.
Yesterday evening Seth explained why he has been better able to control himself lately:
One, he was shaken by the suicide of his thesis adviser from the university, over business worries. This caused Seth to put work into perspective, he said, and to vow not to let work-related stress spill over into his personal life.
Two, around the same time, he took a swat at one of Eli's friends who was being annoying, and realized that if he has started hitting other people's children, he has got to get hold of himself.
Hey, Seth, your children are also someone else's. They're mine! Why is he so surprised when this parent also expects to protect her children from him?
A couple of funny patterns have emerged, with regard to Seth's years of controlling me.
One is when he will say, "No, I never tried to indicate she had to … (whatever)! But I do think that ..." and then he proceeds to explain his very firm notions that 'whatever' is the only sane course of action. (Logical reasons that, till now, of course, I have never heard aloud, in words, but have received loud and clear in hints.) If I tell my neighbor, "I really didn't mean to kill your cat, though I think all cats should be killed, and I'm glad yours is dead!" that won't exactly allay the neighbor's suspicions!
The other pattern is that, when I point to an instance where he controls me, he says one of two things: Either, "She would have done pretty much the same thing, anyway, even if I hadn't forced her to," or else, "If I hadn't prevented it, she would have really gone too far in the other direction." Both, I guess, supposedly justifying his control. To me, of course, the first justifies minding his own business, and the second calls for compromise between what I would do, and what he would have me do. (If it's something that legitimately concerns him in the first place.)
He remembers me as actually DOING the extreme things he thought I would have done, if allowed. He said I went to bed at 8:00 every night, and worked overtime every evening, and that gave us no time for a relationship.
"Seth," Batia addressed him, "Why do you feel you have to control Shlomit at all? If you control yourself and she controls herself, it seems that it would work out better for everybody. Why take on this extra job?"
Seth looked down at his hands. He looked uncomfortable. Regretful. "It has been suggested ..." he squirmed a little in his seat.
Batia and I leaned forward.
"It has been suggested that Shlomit might be ..." another pause. Only a second or two, but long enough for several possibilities to flash through my head. I 'might be' what ... gay? loony? contagious? a Martian?
"… passive aggressive."
"What?" I asked, "Suggested? When? I remember once at Sandy ..."
"Yes. It was at Sandy."
"But we talked about it then, Seth. The three of us. Sandy concluded that it wasn't the case. Far from it. Passive aggressive behavior is used ..." I looked at Batia for confirmation, "when you find yourself in a powerless situation where you can't legitimately challenge another person's authority. So you do what you want to do, instead of what the other person told you to do, and then your excuse is some form of 'I couldn't help it.' But at Sandy, we concluded that I was playing it straight."
"Seth," Batia asked, "In what situations do you notice that Shlomit uses passive aggressive tactics?"
"How would I know? I'm just stating a fact. That it's a possibility. I thought we were supposed to be open, here, and not hesitate to discuss things, so I thought it should be brought up, that's all."
"Well, let's consider it, then, by all means, Seth, if this bothers you," Batia invited. "Are there, indeed, cases where you ask Shlomit to do something and she seems to agree, but then ... doesn't do it, or does what she wants to do, instead? And then her explanation is, 'I couldn't,' or 'I forgot,' or 'It just happened.' Does that sound familiar, Seth?"
"Not specifically," Seth admitted, "But it could be that she's doing things behind my back ..."
"Well, no, passive aggressive behavior is more out in the open, Seth. If someone is keeping their actions secret, there's no need for excuses. OK. If you think of anything during the week, Seth ..."
The session was over. Seth didn't actually refuse to discuss his control freakiness, did he. He just happened to think of the passive aggressive accusation, and we just happened to get sidetracked again. It wasn't his fault. He couldn't help it. It just happened.
Batia is right that Seth and I will need to communicate even if we split up, but I'm so tired of trying.
Seth told Batia, "Talking about communication, Shlomit has her own little ways of 'communicating'. Thursday nights had always been the night we ... had sex. When she decided to clean the house instead, I knew she was trying to tell me something."
"Seth, that's ridiculous!" I exploded, "I'm sure I would have noticed if there were any night of the week that it was more likely. If anything, weekends, including Thursday night, are less likely, because you always watch TV until later if you don't have work the next day.
"And I don't send oblique hinting messages. Which is why I never catch on to yours. When I said I wanted to clean on Thursday so there would be time on Friday to do things with the children - that's exactly what I meant.”
It's been a month and a half, and we still haven't brought the children in to these sessions.
This evening, after a half hour of blah-blah that sounded like all of the other aimless sessions we've been to over the years, Batia asked, "Where do we go from here?"
That was the point at which I should have said, "Tomorrow I'm going to the Rabbinate."
As though reading my mind, Seth taunted me, "The year's not up yet, Shlomit. You promised to give me a year to show I can keep from doing any of the things you say I've done in the past."
"That's not what I ..." I started, but a frown from Batia silenced me.
"Batia?” I asked wearily, “What about Eli, Leora and Rafi? This was supposed to be family counseling. Is that still what we're aiming toward?"
"You two need a two-front attack on the problems in your family. I can work with Seth on communication, and on understanding things that have happened between him and the children over the years, so that he will be ready to talk with them. Between the two of you, I suggest weekly meetings at which you just allow free communication. No topics barred. All the talking that has gotten bottled up over the decades - let it out!
"Because even if you do divorce, you'll still need to communicate about the children."
So Seth will keep going to Batia and he and I will talk. And in three months, when the time limit is up, the three of us will review Seth's progress.
And then ... and then ... will I really have the courage to leave him, if he hasn't shown appropriate insight and honesty and effort and change in attitude?
Seth had a complaisant look on his face. He assumes that he has won another round? That this is another indefinite extension? Is that his plan? To just keep begging for one extension after another? Is this, for him, 'staying married'?
Do I disillusion him? And start all the denial and protestations? No. If he's still illusioned at this point, he's doing it to himself.
Maybe his impending eighth birthday is making Rafi introspective. He came to me today with a question: "Ima, Why does Abba love me and he doesn't love Eli and Leora?"
I looked up to see if he had that little self-satisfied grin on his face. The one he gets when Seth buys something only for him and tells him not to let Eli and Leora get their grubby hands on it. The one he gets when he pesters Eli or Leora (or me!) to the point of anger and Seth crashes in to his defense. The one he gets when he stubs a toe or hits a funny bone, and flings himself down and yells what Leora calls his 'fake cry' until Seth comes storming over and blasts the rest of us out of the way. Then you see that victorious little grin creep over Rafi's face, peeking out from under the arm he puts up to cover it.
I looked, but I didn't see that grin, today. Rafi was serious. Troubled.
"That's a good question," I replied. "What do you think?"
Rafi paused to consider. Then: "I guess it's because I need alot of help."
"You do???" I acted more surprised than I felt at this view of his self-image. He does always seem to want help, but I don't think it's good for a eight year old to see himself that way. When Eli was this age, he was helping the rest of us. Rafi was already calling Eli his 'little Abba'.
"Yeah, you know ..." Rafi continued, "I'm little and weak. I can't do stuff. I need somebody to do things for me. To help me. And ... I don't know very much. I need somebody to tell me stuff. To tell me what to do."
"And Eli and Leora don't need help?" I queried.
"No! They're big! Abba likes me because I'm still little!"
I also tend to clump Eli and Leora as 'the big children' and think of the age gap between Leora and Rafi as bigger than it is. There are just under two years between Eli and Leora, and just over two years between Leora and Rafi.
"But soon you won't need so much help, right? As time goes by you're able to do more and more for yourself. You're pretty big already! You're almost eight!"
Rafi looked worried, and murmured, "I know."
Is that why he asked? I thought that Rafi would feel secure because he has two parents to love him. But … once you see a parent's love as something that can be bestowed or not, then even if you're the lucky recipient at the moment, you have to figure out why you're entitled, so you can make sure to keep it coming.
Oh, Seth. Can't you just be a normal Dad?
Seth rarely mentions anything about his sessions with Batia. That's OK. I want him to be doing this for himself, and not just because I made it a condition for staying with him. But I'm impatient for results.
Then last night, as we were getting ready for bed, Seth said, "Batia asked if I think you have a boyfriend."
"She did?"
What's this, now? He finally comes out with something he and Batia talked about, and it's about me instead of about him. Is this his manipulative way of trying to ask me the question? Well, if he wants to ask, let him ask.
I'm supposed to assume that Batia said, "Well, Seth, you've been a model husband and father all these years. There must be some reason, unrelated to you, that Shlomit wants to leave you. She’s probably having an affair, or a brick fell on her head."
More likely, she said, "Seth, you really don't see that your behavior would make Shlomit want to leave you??? So what's your explanation? You think she has a boyfriend? You think she won the Irish sweepstakes and wants it all for herself?"
"Yeah," Seth said. "Whether that might be the reason you're ... doing all this."
"Oh."
If he wants to ask, let him ask.
Seth and I have been having weekly talk sessions on Fridays on the beautiful lawn of the local college campus. (Seth has finally found a way to get me to spend Friday mornings with him instead of working, hasn't he. I don't know when I'm going to make up the time, but if this saves my marriage, or helps the children, of course it's worth it.)
Seth sometimes mentions things he and Batia chat about at their sessions. Family travel plans, recipes, the political situation, places to shop for bargains.
This week I asked Seth if there's anything he and Batia have achieved over the past month.
He shrugged. As though puzzled at why there would be anything at these sessions that would interest me.
"Batia is basically teaching me how to get what I want from people without having to yell or hit."
"What's that?” I laughed, “Some sort of freak Dale Carnegie course? ‘How to Lose Friends and Manipulate People?’”
"I'm not looking to manipulate anybody!" Seth protested.
"Well, what's your definition of manipulation, then, if it's not applying techniques designed to make people do what you want them to, without just coming out and honestly explaining what you want. To be avoided at all cost, I suppose, because the person might say, 'no,' or he might give you reasons why your idea isn't the best. The other person might be able to decide, based on all the facts, whether he wants to go along with you or not."
"Well, you seem to be an expert on the subject, Shlomit. Not all of us are so lucky. It doesn't come naturally for all of us. I'm learning techniques to get along with people, OK?"
"But - that was never what was missing, Seth. You were nice to me before we were married. You're nice to people at work. You're patient with other people's children. You're nice to anyone you want to or need to be nice to. Maybe you just need to figure out why you often don't bother to be nice to your own family."
If Seth is not a master at manipulation, I should be feeling greatly insulted, shouldn’t I. To have been successfully manipulated for two decades by someone who is no good at it.
I tried to ignore the self-satisfied tone of voice when Seth announced, last night, "Batia said she thinks you don't really want to divorce me."
"Well, of course I don't, Seth!" What does he think all these extensions are all about? All these talk sessions that go nowhere? If not to try and avoid a divorce?
"Then, why are you doing all this, Shlomit? It defies logic! Why not just drop the whole business? If you don't want a divorce and I don't either, let's just forget it! What kind of pleasure do you get from stirring up all this fuss if you don't want to divorce me? I just don't get it!"
So he still refuses to consider the possibility of staying together but making major changes. Sounds like 'take it or leave it' to me.
I guess I'm to assume Batia said, "Seth, I suspect that Shlomit doesn't really want to divorce you; she's just playing some sick game with you."
Or was it more like, "Seth, you know Shlomit doesn't want to divorce you. She has given you every vote of confidence possible. She is trying her darndest not to be in an adversarial position with you. Why not just stop being so defensive, and do the work that needs to be done."
I'm making good progress with the Passover preparations. I love this time of year - going through the house, room by room, sorting through drawers, organizing and deep cleaning.
Two days ago I took all the books off the living room shelves to slather them in teak oil, and Rafi sat among the piles of books on the carpet and occupied himself by looking at the covers of Seth's paperbacks. Well, THE paperbacks. The only books I have acquired during the marriage are self help books on raising children and getting a marriage to work out and dealing with difficult people. I heard Rafi making his war noises - sounds of artillery and bombs falling and exploding. His hands were zooming through the air dog-fighting each other. "Zhoooom! Zhoooom! Te-te-te-te-teh! Pch-ch-ch! Zeeewww!"
Then yesterday, as I was putting the books back on the shelves, I took a look at these covers that had enthralled Rafi. And I was struck by the violent content of each and every one of the books Seth devours.
As I knelt there on the floor, I felt ill at ease just looking at cover after cover, and realizing that my husband has been ingesting a steady diet of these books that he chose precisely because of the picture on the cover. Grimacing, muscle bound half-naked men holding machine guns aloft. Explosions involving motor vehicles, buildings, boats, planes. Tanks locked in close combat. A helicopter beaming destruction at a watch tower. Men with different colored skin and uniforms shooting each other to bits at close range, with grimaces of hatred on their faces that I never want to see in real life. But that are chillingly reminiscent of the hate-look Seth flashes at us all too often. I picked up book after book. Struggle, conflict, killing, violence, hatred, revenge, destruction, noise, mayhem.
Aren't these all the elements we try to keep out of our lives? Why is my husband spoon-feeding it in?
And what are they teaching him? No message that will help him relate to us in a healthy way.
I haven't read these books, but I have seen enough of the movies and computer games Seth loves, to imagine the message: might makes right. That's certainly the modus operandi around here. Attack your 'opponent' before s/he could attack you. We're the good guys, so anything goes, against 'them'.
I've seen the look on Seth's face when he hits the space bar to shoot death rays at a spaceship full of aliens. And the gleeful satisfaction, when the robot voice intones, "Alien ship and two hundred alien passengers successfully destroyed." And two more bars light up on the kill-meter.
It's ludicrous, but there must have been evenings when we were sitting side by side in bed, reading. My self help books were teaching me how to live in harmony with others and how to raise children who can do so, too. He was learning that a real man doesn't let anybody get away with anything.
On BBC, there's a documentary series about weapons of W.W.II. Educational, right? Factual, right? Well, that's how it is packaged, but more than once, when Seth has had the show on, my attention has been attracted by the tone of the narrator's voice. It runs the gamut - seductive when he's describing a new plane's capabilities. Dripping with loathing when describing tactics of the enemy that necessitated the development of a more effective weapon. Ringing with self righteousness as he announces how effective our new toy was. Boastful when we have the big guns, despairing when the bad guys do. And Seth's face, as he sits on the edge of his chair, inches from the set, is reflecting the same sentiments. Eating it up. Seth doesn't watch sports. He goes for the real battles.
I reminded myself, kneeling there surrounded by towers of Seth's self-hindrance books, that this kind of book / movie / game are produced and consumed by the millions. Obviously it is normal to enjoy this stuff.
But maybe, like a roulette wheel to a person with a gambling addiction, like a bottle to an alcoholic, or a tub of Bryers to a weight watcher, Seth's personality just can't handle injections of violence that would be safe for most people.
It's been nearly a year since I told Seth I want a divorce. One reason I agreed to stay with him was that he said we would put financial safeguards into effect. I have brought up the subject every few months, but nothing has happened. Tonight I tried again.
"Seth, remember, we were going to rearrange our finances so that I have access to our savings in the US, and so that I have some money here?"
"What do you mean?" Suspicious. This is not going to be a pleasant talk.
"What we talked about. Your parents control all of our investments. That's lopsided."
Seth folded his arms across his chest and got a hurt, righteously indignant look on his face. "How dare you talk about my parents that way, Shlomit! They've always been good to you! Now you're making out that they're trying to steal your money?"
"No, I'm just ..."
"Then why are you so upset that they're managing our money? My father does a great deal of running around for us, I'll have you know. We couldn't manage everything from way over here. And now you start accusing them!"
"I'm not accusing! But you have to admit ..."
"I don't have to do anything, Shlomit!"
"Seth, what I mean is ... if you called your mother right now and asked her to transfer twenty thousand dollars from our joint account to your personal account, would she call me to check that I knew about the transfer?"
"Of course not. Why would she do that?"
"OK, and if I called and asked her to transfer twenty thousand to Kay out in Ohio … you don't think she would call you at work and make sure you knew about it?"
"Is that why you're so anxious to get control of those accounts, Shlomit? So you can start transferring money out?"
"I'm not saying ..."
"It sounds as though you've got it all planned!"
"Seth ... at least ... tell me what we have ... and where ... and how I could get to it ..."
"It's all right there, Shlomit. I'm not hiding anything from you. It's all in the file cabinet."
"OK, thanks ..." I murmured after him as he strode off to bed.
I got “Art of Loving” from the library. Parts of it sound familiar. Maybe I read it years ago and forgot, but it sank into my philosophy of life.
The book describes Seth's behavior over the years (commanding, exploiting, hurting, humiliating) and calls it sadism. Fromm sees this as a form of love. An attempt at union.
Fromm also gave me some insight into something Leora does. She is sometimes cruisin' for a bruisin' - pointlessly naughty till she gets yelled at. Fromm describes that as a typical reaction in girls whose parents don't love each other, and yet never quarrel. They try to force an expression of feelings to dispel the ambiguity of being surrounded by strong feelings that are not expressed.
Fromm defines love as care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.
I'm convinced that marriage should be a series of five-year renewable contracts. Where else do you get tenure with no trial period?
It's hard to be fighting for peace. Like the Jews during the British mandate – fighting the White Paper as if there is no war, and fighting the war as if there is no White Paper. It's difficult and exhausting to aim for a successful divorce, while I'm trying to leave open the possibility that if a miracle happens, and the marriage continues, I'm not ruining that.
Seth is escalating his favoritism to Rafi. He took Rafi to work with him at Passover, and now, every chance he gets, Seth talks shop talk with him: "Our laser is working fine, Rafi!"
Both Eli and Rafi have outgrown their bikes, so Seth bought Rafi a new one bigger than Eli's, and told Eli to raise his handlebars. He often calls Eli a jerk. He told me Eli is a jerk - why shouldn't he call him one.
He took Rafi downtown with him last week, and made it clear that the others were excluded from the invitation. I don't expect him to do everything with all three of them, but he so pointedly excludes the other two. "I'm only taking Rafi!" Rubbing it in.
I find myself cataloging all my weaknesses - what Seth might dredge up to try and prove me an unfit mother. And any failures or imperfections in the children - for which he can disclaim responsibility, as having had virtually no input to their upbringing.
My policy of 'loyalty' - keeping his problems and behavior within the family - might come back to haunt me. Leora pointed out that we have no proof that he ever gets into these wild moods. It will be his word against ours. At Batia, when I described him during these periods, he got an incredulous look on his face, as though I'm raving mad.
I lied. Seth quite often comes home from Batia with recommendations she has made. Her opinion about the high school where we might send Leora, good or bad books she has read, or must-see movies. He'll bring home a tidbit of gossip about someone in the community, or an anecdote about one of Batia's children. Conjectures about the ultimate fate of the bypass road being built, in fits and starts, near us.
I remember from when I went to Batia that you have to keep her on track. Her opening, "So, how have things been?" can extend for half the session if you don't steer her toward what you're paying her to deal with.
Last night Seth reported that Batia had recommended a good place to buy wine.
"Seth, you've got to direct these sessions to some extent, or they can turn into a gab fest, and you won't accomplish anything."
"Shlomit, you don't seem to understand that Batia and I are friends. Friends enjoy talking to each other."
I cold green wave of jealousy hit my chest. Seth has never chatted with me as he seems to with Batia. But he dispelled that feeling with his next statement.
"I can talk freely to Batia because we don't have a history together."
Wait – is that how it goes? I inventoried the people I talk with most easily and they’re the ones with whom I do share a past. I see Jane maybe three hours a year, and those conversations are deep and rich – very different from what we gabbed about when we were twelve, but just as rewarding.
But - poor Seth! Does he really think that Batia chats with him for an hour a week because she likes him? Is he able to forget that she is a paid professional talker and listener and that we're buying her time at a dollar a minute?
I hit Rafi today.
I had sent him upstairs to get his arithmetic workbook, and when I went up to see why he hadn't come down with it, I saw that he had gotten sidetracked with Lego. I yelled, "Why can't you get yourself under control!" and I thunked him in the chest. His little face puckered up with surprise and heartbreak.
I went into my room, and furiously started sorting laundry, but realized that my lashing out really had nothing to do with poor Rafi, but just with this frustrating situation with Seth. Not being able to jolt him to action. He just seems to hope all the ruckus will fade away again.
I went back in to Rafi's room and told him I was sorry I had hit him. "I'm not really mad at you, Rafi, I'm mad at Abba." I shouldn't have said that either. Bad to worse.
"You hit me because you're mad at Abba?"
I hugged him and kissed the top of his head. "Yeah. That's not fair, is it? I'm sorry, honey. I wish I could un-hit you." Rafi smiled at that. "I'm really sorry. You're such a good boy, Sweety. Come. Let’s get your math finished so you can play.”
So at Friday's talk session I told Seth I need a progress report.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, in your sessions with Batia, are you any closer to understanding why you get ... 'withdrawn'... or whatever? Do you know what we can do to prevent the next recurrence, or how I should deal with the next one when it does come? Can you give me any reason to feel confident in staying with you?"
Seth clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes. "There's nothing definite I can say in so many words, no. Shlomit, you're just going to have to trust me."
'Just trust me!' Where had I heard him ask that, not too long ago. A windy Sunday last winter. We had gone in to Washington DC to go to a museum. Seth was charging ahead, and I caught up to tell him that according to the map, the museum we wanted was a few blocks in the other direction. "Just trust me, Shlomit." The same clenched jaw and the same narrowed eyes that I was shrinking back from now.
I love my name. Hey - why shouldn't I! I chose it myself when I converted. But any time Seth calls me by my name, he makes it sound like a nasty epithet. "Trust me, numskull!"
And, sure enough, after marching us blocks out of the way, in that freezing wind, he had to admit that the map had been correct after all. Seth growled an accusative excuse, snatched the map out of my hand, examined it, shoved it back at me disgustedly, and we started marching in the other direction. And, I just realize now the incongruity of the fact that I was feeling guilty for having somehow caused him to feel badly about being wrong.
"But I ... don't trust you, Seth."
"OK, Shlomit. Then you're the one who needs to do some work. Not I. You need to work on trust. I don't see how we can have a good relationship without basic trust."
"Seth, you told us at Batia that the principles that you apply to problems at work are also applicable at home. If there were a supplier who had been selling you defective parts for twenty years, and you wanted to cancel the contract because of all the problems, and if they pleaded with you to sign another contract, just based on trust, wouldn't you expect more? For them to say they had changed something ... their technology or their manufacturing methods or their QA operation ... something? Something real? To let you know that you don't have to worry about having the same problems in the future? If they refused to answer your questions, you would trust them even less. Especially if they tried to deny there had even been problems."
"Oh, come on Shlomit, just because something goes a certain way at work, with strangers, that doesn't mean you should apply those same principles to your own family."
Seth wants me to trust him.
Can you will yourself to trust someone? Should I be using my willpower - over my common sense, over my statistical book learnin', over my gut feelings?
Do you get more brownie points for trusting a person who is hard to trust? Who is untrustworthy? Who has betrayed your trust again and again?
A person might be more suspicious than is warranted, and not trust anybody. Am I like that? No, I do trust most people to behave decently. But it's not because I'm using my willpower - it's because my experience with most people has earned my trust.
Well, it's just over a year since Seth and I sat at the kitchen table in the US and I told him that I'm afraid to stay with him. He promised to work on his problems, so I gave him three months – and then another nine months - to become more self aware.
This evening I went with Seth to his weekly meeting with Batia. The three of us sat down, and Batia started the session off as she always does, with pleasantries.
"So, Shlomit!" smiling her warm smile, "How have things been at home?"
"Fine, how have you been, Batia? How are the children?"
"Fine! We’re all fine! So ... are you pleased with Seth's progress?"
Progress? "Oh ... Well, I can't really say. He doesn't talk much. That's why I came along to see you."
"But ... you just said things have been fine at home ..."
"There have been no major upsets, but I need to know if he has ... if you two have gained any understanding of the depressions and rages."
"Oh ... well ... we haven't specifically ..." she pondered a moment. Why is this a new query for her? Isn't this THE query? "I think ... perhaps Seth would now be better able to ... deal with his mood shifts …"
"You do?" I had slid to the front of my chair, staring at Batia's face. Wanting to draw forth the words I needed, to tell me that my husband is no longer the typical abusive man described in 'Battered Helpmate'.
"Well ... I hope so ..." She looked at Seth critically, and Seth looked angry. It did not seem as though he and I were going to leave this session hand in hand with little pink hearts radiating from our bosoms.
"So ... Batia ... um … Seth has been coming to you every week for half a year. I came tonight because he said that you could explain why I can trust that the children and I are in a less vulnerable position than we were a year ago."
"I'm sorry, Shlomit. Seth is my client. I obviously can't reveal to a third party what goes on at our sessions together."
I looked at Seth, who was nodding, relief on his face.
Where's the part where he says, 'Oh, no, but Batia! Shlomit is anything but a 'third party'! Of course I want her to understand the progress I have made.'
“Batia,” I sighed, “Seth comes here every week and you try to guess what the children and I need from him. He goes home and takes us out for pizza or smiles more or buys flowers for Shabbat … but that’s window dressing.”
I looked down at my lap as I thought of the mood shifts we fear, and I realized that I visualize a sort of a phase diagram of Seth's emotional state when I think about our life with Seth. There's always a red YOU ARE HERE arrow somewhere on the map.
"You see, Batia, Seth, as I think of him, can be, at any point in time, in one of several different states." I started to describe what I visualize when I think of Seth and his moods, by marking off areas on my lap with my hands.
"Wait a minute," I said, digging out my pad and a pen. "See, down here, at the bottom, are all the theories and philosophies on which his actions are based." I filled the bottom half of the sheet with larger and smaller egg shaped boulders. "We all have them, but I think Seth's are better defined and more … resilient than most people's."
"So, these boulders are firmly in place, but Seth ..." I divided the page into three vertical sections, "can be in any one of three modes. This over here represents his deep impenetrable depressions." I filled the right-most section of the diagram with swirls of blue ink. My heart sank as some of the helpless feelings from Seth's bad times washed over me.
"Then this middle section," I put lighter pen swirls in the center panel that took up about half of the page, "This is where Seth is most of the time. Not depressed, but gloomy. Easily angered. There were about three years there where he just shuttled back and forth." I sewed the two inky sections together with zigzags of ink.
"Then over here, the white area that's left, this is where he seems to be, now. It's where most people are all the time, and as far as I know, most people don't even have areas like the other two. It's where he was when I married him, and I assumed that was who he always was.
"He has been here in this calm area a few different times over the years, usually after something happens to scare him into this mode. And each time he’s over here, I convince myself that maybe all the problems are over. But … he always swings back over to this middle area or even to this part here.
"And of course, even this calm period is chock full of boulders. I knew about them when I married Seth, but didn't know they were so large or so numerous or so indestructible. Even during the best times, like the past year when Seth seems like a normal person, our lifestyle is ruled by them. The children and I step carefully around some, and bark our shins on others. Many are invisible till we run into them."
"I hope you realize I have no idea what she’s talking about," Seth contributed. Well, I was, by now, getting my metaphors hopelessly mixed.
"I mean your philosophies and theories ..."
"I don't have them anymore, OK?"
"No?" Wouldn't I have realized it if he'd abandoned his ground rules?
"No. I have no 'philosophies' as you call them, and no 'theories' that I know of, outside of the lab."
"Do you know which ones I'm talking about?"
"Not a clue, Shlomit."
I drew around the edges of the rocks and named each one. "Like, 'controlling everything', 'discouraging talking', 'outlawing pleasantries, 'shunning closeness', 'the money stuff', and of course, the biggie, now," I drew a new boulder in the white area, labeling it 'R', “this thing, now, with Rafi."
"Rafi???” Batia sounded surprised. “I understood that Seth and Rafi get along very well."
"Yes, Seth's relationship with Rafi is wonderful. But Seth is so antagonistic toward Eli and Leora that it's tearing the family apart. I don't mean that he should distance himself from Rafi. Just… be closer to - or even neutral toward - Eli and Leora.
"And then, of course," I started studding the whole page with stars, "There are the outbursts. There are more in the darker areas, but we're never totally free of them. I guess the difference is that the ones over here, in the good panel, are usually caused by things the rest of us can see. Somebody drops something, or Seth stubs his toe. The ones over at the right here just seem to come from nowhere. Seth just erupts.
"Anyway, as you know, my problem is that I don’t understand what makes Seth slide over to the right here. It can happen any time, and actually, I guess, the map is more like this." I tore the page out of my notebook and rolled it so that it formed a cylinder. "Because he can slide straight from a good mood into a depression without even going through the in-between state.
"Batia, remember two years ago when I came to you, so worried and unsure of things, because I didn't understand Seth's mood swings? Just because he has stayed over here for awhile,” I poked my pen at the white area, "doesn’t mean I understand it all any better. The reason I came to you, then, was to ask if the months of relative calm were to be trusted. You said that without understand things better, six months didn't indicate anything. Does two years? I have no idea. Because I still don't understand anything. Do you?"
Batia looked up at the clock. "Well, time's up. I guess ... Seth, I'll see you next week as usual?"
Seth nodded and wrote the check. I closed my notebook on the map of Seth's heretofore uncharted territory, and started to put it into my pack. "I would like to have your diagram if I might, Shlomit," Batia said as Seth and I stood. I took it out and looked at it. It was so ink-scribbled that nothing was even decipherable, but I handed it to Batia and she put it between the pages of her notebook.
Seth said, from the hall, "I'll get the elevator."
"Shlomit,” Batia said, in a low voice, "If I were you, I wouldn't be tempted to think that divorcing Seth would solve my problems with him. If you divorce, he could be even more dangerous to you and the children than he is now. While you're living with him, you at least know which of these states he's in." She waved her notebook at me. "If you're separated, and he has access to the children, you won't be there, and you won't know what he's likely to do. I would just ... well, don't rush into anything, is all."
I nodded, and left to join Seth in the hallway. Aware, for some reason, of a tightening in my breasts. It almost felt like the let-down reflex, when I was nursing. My body was telling me, now, to take care of these dear children of mine.
My mind was swirling as we walked home. That last warning was a zinger.
My phase diagram seems more distinct to me now that I've actually drawn it. But - it's not like the phase diagrams we studied in chemistry class, is it. Where for each temperature and pressure you know whether the material will be a solid, liquid or a gas. That's predictable. No surprises in mother nature. Seth's diagram has no axes. Just vast areas, with the movement between them seemingly ruled by random Brownian motion.
So. Twenty four hours ago I promised myself that if our meeting with Batia indicated no progress, I would do it. I would go to the rabbinate and file for divorce.
But - what about Batia's warning? That he might be more dangerous if we were apart.
That was pretty much what she said two years ago when I told her I had to get the children away from Seth before Social Services took them away from both of us. Batia said that however dangerous it was to stay with such a volatile person, it might be more dangerous to leave him. Leaving would surely anger him, and he tends to take out his anger on them.
That thought, two years ago, gave me the cowardliness I needed to stay.
But ... two years have passed. The children are bigger. There's less likelihood that he could kidnap them or beat them up.
And ... maybe because they're bigger ... he hasn't gone back to the physical stuff. The abuse now is psychological. This favoritism. The put-downs and rejection and the general hateful mood.
But all of that affects us only if we're living with him. Even if the children visit him, an evening or a weekend of trying to grind their self esteem into the ground won't have as much impact, if their home-life with me is pleasant and supportive. All it will do is to make them avoid being with him. Even if he would take an occasional smack at them ... even if he would break a bone or leave a bruise ... if they can just come home so it can heal, it doesn't matter in the long run.
Even if Social Services hears of an incident, all they can do is to prevent unsupervised visitation. I wouldn't lose my children just because Seth loses his temper.
Only if one of his rages would injure one of them permanently. But that's way more likely to happen if they're living with him.
We had an agreement – I would give him time and he would get himself sorted out and give me financial and contractual safeguards. He has focused on holding me to my part of the bargain and has ignored his own part.
I search for some excuse to give myself. "Well ... I should probably wait for … " Nope. I can't come up with anything.
So. All systems go.
As soon as I turn off the computer I'm going to stand up and get on my bike and go to the Rabbinate and ... do it!
I remember when we left our apartment in the Graduate Living Center to make the move to come to Israel. Till then, we had talked, planned, packed, speculated, told people of our plans. But that day, when we shipped off all of our worldly goods, and loaded my little Vega to the gills for the drive to New Jersey, as we pulled out of the GLC parking lot, I said, "Seth, this is the first real step. Now we're 'making aliyah'. Now we're 'going to live in Israel'."
Well, today I filed for divorce at the Rabbinate. I’ve taken the first real step.
Last night when I sat looking Seth and Batia in the eye, I was actually praying to G-d that one of them would say something that I could take as an indication of progress. But neither of them had anything to say.
I think back to my conversations with Sara, a year ago, as we walked around the jogging loop in the park. I had just told Seth that I was going to divorce him, and Seth had just promised that he would go into therapy for his emotional problems, so that we could get rid of the anger, hatred and fear in the house, without getting rid of him.
Back then, Sara distilled my future into three diverging paths. Since then I've imagined us standing at a crossroads with signposts pointing in three directions.
One, where I want to go, leads upward to the sunny hilltop of a healthy intact family. It will require some effort to get up there, but will be well worth the climb.
Another, to which Seth keeps trying to retreat, leads downhill, back to where we have come from. Where we will stumble over the same boulders and get bogged down in the same bogs. Where my poor scraped up children will continue to be scratched by the same brambles. I refuse to go back there. It was never really a path, anyway, but more of a maze. Where we staggered aimlessly, at cross-purposes. Where we lost him for months at a time. Where we couldn't hear each other for all the wailing and confusion.
The third way leads around a bend, and I can't really see what is up ahead there. Its signpost says DIVORCE. This path splits into two, a little way along it. One road is labeled 'Seth'. The other, 'Shlomit'. And I hope with all my heart that the line of writing under my name, which I can't make out from here, says 'and Eli and Leora and Rafi'. The fragrant, balmy breezes, pleasant sounds, and gentle rays of rainbow colors wafting from that direction, hint that it leads to a nice place to raise children - not as nice as the happy hilltop, but nowhere nearly as bad as the rutty dangerous fire-swamp through which we have come, and from which we have finally found an exit.
After a year of tugging at his hand, I haven't gotten Seth to take a single step toward the hilltop. So today I took my first step along the unknown path whose signpost proclaims the D-word.
This morning before work I went to the Rabbinical court here in town to file for divorce. To file for divorce. Me. I must be talking about someone else. Divorce isn't for people like me. As hard as it is to imagine myself staying married to Seth, it's harder to believe that I'm divorcing him. I'll be one of those divorced people. Who couldn't manage to make their marriage work out.
Whenever we are in a new place or a new situation, Seth advises me, in a sharp whisper out of the side of his mouth, to pretend that I'm cool. Pretend that I know the ropes. Pretend that I've been there before. Done it all before.
Well, I certainly didn't put on a good performance today at the rabbinate. I could hardly find my voice as I told the clerk – a bearded old rabbi - that I had come to file for divorce. Even though he must hand out dozens of those forms each week, the clerk looked into my eyes with an expression of sorrow. He handed over the form with reluctance. I had to slide it out from between his fingers.
I felt unreal as I filled in our names. Date and place of marriage. Eli, Leora and Rafi's names and ID numbers and Hebrew birth dates. For me and Seth, that magic number that needs to be filled in on every form. 'Years of education:' Mine is eighteen and Seth's is twenty-two. All that book learnin’ and we can't even hold a marriage together. Sigh.
Finally, I handed the form back to the clerk. He pointed to the big empty rectangle on the back. "You have to put a reason," he said softly.
On the one hand, that rectangle couldn't begin to hold it all. On the other hand, "I don't want to hurt him," I told the clerk, "I just want to leave him."
"You have to put a reason. You have to put something." He handed the form back to me. I had been so happy to hand it over to him. To get rid of it. To get the deed done.
I sat back down at the little table. Maybe in English I could have been more eloquent. As it was, I distilled the twenty-year-long marriage into six words in Hebrew: "He's not a good father and husband."
So, that's it. The clerk said we'll get an invitation for an audience. It could be months from now. I got on my bike to come to work. Buzzing all over. Breathing shallowly. I stopped to scribble this before going up the stairs to sit down at my desk and pretend it's just a regular day. But it's not. It's the day I officially started to divorce my husband. To divorce Seth.
Remember that slogan from the sixties - 'Today is the first day of the rest of your life'? I guess they were talking about today.
I keep seeing situations - Seth grumpy or snubbing Eli or Leora - and I say to myself, "Soon we won't have to put up with this."
Today I found myself, as I often do when he is home, just standing in the middle of the living room trying to think what to do next. Asking myself what I would be doing if he weren't here. Because when he is not home, I have plenty to do and just flow from one thing to the next, or, usually, like most women, have half a dozen things going on simultaneously.
Seth had told me it's 'too early' to set the table. But of course it was too close to supper to start anything else, either, and as soon as I would have gone upstairs, he would have announced that it was time to set the table.
If he hadn't been here, and I found myself with a ten minute gap for some reason, I could have spent it with my guitar, perfecting Mr. Bo Jangles, or reading a book. But he doesn't approve of my music, and he tisks every time I pick up 'Women who Run with the Wolves'.
I need to wash the animal dishes, but the animals are a sore point between us. I'm reading a book together with Leora, but he's always looking for an excuse to say I'm too involved with Eli and Leora. I want to start beans soaking so I can make refried beans tomorrow, but he doesn't like to share the kitchen. Rafi has a math workbook he's supposed to finish by the end of the week, but I don't seem to be able to convince Rafi to do any schoolwork when Seth is around.
I so often do this. My mind thrashes to a dozen different things I might do, but I reject each one because it might rock Seth's emotional boat. I do all of my living when Seth isn't here. Gee. In a few months I'll be alive all day every day.
There were two pale green government envelopes in the mail today. One addressed to each of us. We have an appointment to go before the rabbinical tribunal in October. So there will be three months of being not here and not there. If I give Seth his letter now, it'll be really uncomfortable being with him all summer.
Or, maybe he'll finally realize that the situation is serious. That I'm not just going to forget it all and drift back to how things were. Like with that first miscarriage, and the guarded pregnancy with Rafi - words alone didn't seem to convince Seth that we were in an emergency situation. He had to see evidence with his own eyes - the blob on the Ultra Sound, or the blood all over the bed sheet. Only then was he able to get ahold of himself and shape up.
It was the same with his physical violence against the children. Their crying and flinching didn't impinge on him and my warnings didn't either. Only when Rafi had a seizure did Seth realize that the damage he was doing to his children was real. Psychological damage wasn't real to him. Damage to the home environment wasn't real to him.
So I'll give him his envelope and plead with him to really work seriously all summer so that we can cancel this appointment.
Now. To find a good time to give it to him.
This morning, Seth actually initiated a conversation.
"Shlomit, can’t we just forget all this?" He saw my disturbed face, "At least for the summer? So we can have a nice summer."
"And … then what?"
"Well, maybe by then you'll see that I really can be nice. I just can't ... relax when I know this divorce thing is hanging over my head."
Then we're better off when he can't relax. "Instead, Seth, why don't we work more seriously, so that by the end of the summer we can forget it all for good. Not just use willpower to put problems out of our minds, but really fix things." He looked annoyed. I sighed.
"Shlomit, I just want a couple of months' rest from dealing with this divorce thing. Then we can resume our attempts to get things back to the way they were before you ... started with all this."
He always calls it the ‘divorce thing’. Why not the ‘mood swing thing’ or the ‘child abuse thing’ or the 'fugue state thing’ or the ‘favoritism thing’ or the ‘control freak thing’?
"But that's exactly what I don't want, Seth."
“Well that's obviously the first step. To get back to the point where we've put the past behind us so we can go from there."
“Why go backward before we go forward?
Seth was getting dressed, with his back to me. Probably trying to listen to the radio and ignore me.
"It's late." He said, and went downstairs.
He's right. It is. But better late than never.
But … he’s given me a good excuse not to tell him until after the summer about our hearing at the rabbinical beit din. Phew!
It will be nice, once the four of us are on our own, to stop all the pretending.
Jessica and Yehuda were here Friday night, so we had more lights on in the living room than we do when we're alone. After they had left, I saw Seth standing by the light switches, looking at his watch. When I asked what he was doing, he said that at exactly 11:00 he was going to turn off all the extra lights so 'they' would think they're on a timer. So the neighbors wouldn't know he was flipping light switches on Shabbat.
The big pretenses, of course, are pretending I'm JFB - Jewish From Birth, and pretending that we're a happy family.
Seth is always telling me, "Don't let them think we've never been here before!" (When we haven't!) "Make it seem as though we're members." (When we aren't.) "Pretend that we know who the artist is." (When we don't.)
He rehearses little things to say before we enter a situation.
It'll be so nice just to be myself.
What is insulting is that, with all of this wanting to earn the respect and admiration and good opinion of outsiders, he never seems to care about the impression he is making on his own family.
Seth has claimed that it wasn't fair of me to jump up with 'this divorce thing' a year ago with absolutely no warning. The decent thing would have been for me to tell him if I was dissatisfied with something he was doing, and give him a chance to mend his ways.
This evening I shared some gossip from work. "Sidney has been let go. 'Made redundant' as he puts it."
"Made redundant! From what you've said, he has been redundant from day one."
"Sid was really surprised, poor guy ..."
"Surprised! So he's not only an obnox and a gold bricker, he's also a fool?"
"Yeah - nobody else was surprised, of course, but Sid was. I had told our manager months ago that he should warn Sidney. Let him know that he wasn’t pulling his weight in the group."
"Oh, come on! Like he didn't know? You said he spent half the day playing minesweeper and the other half surfing the web. What did he think was going to happen?"
"I guess he thought he was fooling everybody," I concluded.
"He's lucky he didn't work for me!" Seth bragged. "He'd have been out on his ear before the ink was dry on his contract."
"Well, you know, they actually wanted to fire him after a couple of months, but then he got sick. Then a year ago the boss finally made up his mind to sack him, and was dithering over how to tell him, and Sid came in and announced that his wife was pregnant. So that didn't seem a good time ..."
"Look," Seth reasoned, "If he's got health problems or a pregnant wife - a reason that it's difficult for him to do his job well, or a reason it's especially important that he not be fired - then HE should be the one to bend over backwards to ensure his job security. Not expect everyone else to."
I smiled grimly. "Sid’s wife called our manager yesterday and called him a creep for firing Sid just because he has health problems, and for not taking into consideration that they have a small baby at home."
"He's just lucky he didn't work for me," Seth repeated.
So the summer went by. I didn't mention the envelopes to Seth. Partly because he had said he wanted time off from thinking about the ‘divorce thing’. Partly from cowardliness. He didn't go to Batia. We didn't have our pointless weekly talk sessions.
We all spent two weeks in Scotland. Seth and I were in Scotland fourteen years ago - right after Seth had come out of that first bad depression. I saw that trip to Scotland as a fresh start.
Now, after fourteen years of struggling to keep things nice, this trip will have been the last family vacation, I guess, because as soon as we got back here, I gave him the envelope inviting us to the Rabbinical court.
Seth was surprised.
Seth wants me to assume, based on no evidence, that he has changed. And yet, contrary to all evidence that I have finally changed, and will no longer put up with his nonsense, he still believes that I will keep on caving in as I always have.
He said I had agreed at the beginning of the summer to forget it all.
"And what about that meeting with Batia?" He asked. "Didn't she reassure you?"
"It was the next day that I went to the rabbinate, Seth."
He looked disgusted. Annoyed. "So, what now?"
"Well, it's either mediation or lawyers. To work out the terms."
Seth said that if it's to be divorce, he doesn't want mediation. Just wants to get a lawyer and find out what his rights are. I'm so afraid of officially being his adversary. I've unofficially been his enemy for twenty years.
I went back to Lore - the divorce expert Nora took me to see a year ago. I caught her up on the events of the year. A whole year! She said not to feel embarrassed that I let him mess me around for a whole year. Many women stay at the end of that fishing line for way longer. Letting the guy reel them part way in (never all the way) and then play out the line. Just keeping them dangling.
I told her Seth wants a lawyer instead of mediation, and she said that was a good idea in this case.
So she gave me the name of Dina, a lawyer in town. I made an appointment to see her.
And of course there was no singing of Woman of Valor on Friday night.
Leora noticed, and cried out, "Abba! You're forgetting Eshet Chayil!"
"I'm not forgetting anything," he spat out.
Why does this childish dig bother me so much? He’s not justified in cutting it out - especially since I'm trying as valiantly as I know how, to be a good wife without letting down on my duties to be a good mother.
As I sat waiting for my first appointment with the lawyer, a woman breezed through the waiting room with a grin as huge and happy as the bunch of flowers she carried. She called out, with a laugh in her voice, "Dina?" and went right through to an office off the waiting room and held out the bouquet wordlessly.
My first view of Dina was when she came from behind her desk with a cry of "You did it! It's final? It's over? Mazal Tov!!!!!" She hugged the woman, flowers and all, in a bear hug. There were tears streaming down the woman's smiling face as they came back into the waiting room to be joined by the receptionist and Dina's partner. Everybody beaming. They all chattered awhile about how the appearance before the rabbinical tribunal had gone. The woman thanked Dina over and over. Before she left, Dina took her by the shoulders and gazed solemnly into her eyes and said, "Now you can go start your life!"
I watched, wide-eyed as a kid at a candy shop window. Will that be me, a few months from now?
I felt, acutely, the difference between that bouncy, effervescent, self-assured woman and my Chuchundra self as I scuttled in and sat across from Dina. And the contrast between myself and Dina – so capable, on top of things. Gazing at me with her level gaze. I felt so mousy and hesitant. My mouth was dry as I gave her a summary of the marriage and what I had done so far. I worried that she wasn't going to be gentle enough with poor Seth.
Dina said, "That's not my job, Shlomit. My job is to protect you against any funny business he or his lawyer might pull. You've given him the benefit of the doubt, and it hasn't gotten you anywhere. He could have avoided all of this by changing course at any point. To me he doesn't seem very trustworthy. My job is to protect you from him.”
Dina looked at me with an amused grin. A little nod. Raise of the eyebrows. Appraising me.
“Did you see Gila - who just brought me these?" She indicated the vase of flowers the receptionist had placed on her desk. "A year and a half ago she was just like you. Worried and quiet and hesitant and afraid. And her husband wasn't nearly the creep this Seth of yours sounds like."
I grinned, too, as I saw it from Dina's standpoint. Finish getting one woman to the point where she can be free and happy, and in comes the next nervous wreck needing help.
But... a year and a half? I hope it doesn't really take another year and a half.
Once, years ago, Seth had a day off work, and I came home to find the bathrooms painted. We had bought the pretty blue paint months before, but just never got around to the painting. When I told him how nice it looked, he said, "Yeah! The hardest part was opening the cans!"
That is so often the case - that things you have to do, seem much more manageable once you just start them. Once you start the job, it pulls you along from one task to the next. You were imagining all the things that might pose a problem, and your mind feared that all of them might happen simultaneously.
Eli and I have learned to 'thunk' our projects around the house. We say, "Well, we won't put up the shelf just yet, but we'll get all the stuff together in the red tub." Then we fill the big plastic tub with the drill and transformer and drill bits and the right sized screws and anchors and the level and a pencil and whisk broom and tape measure. And once it's all sitting there, it seems that the hard part is done. The part that tires you out mentally. So that actually doing the job is a cinch.
A month ago the queries were swirling around in my head. Where will I find a lawyer and what will he be like and what do I do and where do I go and what-if this and what-if that ...
Now, having talked with Dina - and having seen her former client Gila so well on her way - I just can't wait to finish this up. All of it is so routine for Dina. She has an answer for every question or worry. There's a procedure to follow to eliminate every fear. I'm not the first one to do this.
I haven't started house hunting, but every For Sale sign jumps out at me. At book club, I haven't told anyone yet, but I look at Nan and Deb and Lynn who are divorced, and they seem perfectly happy. Much happier than I have been most of the time. They all seem so lighthearted. Their lives didn't fall apart when their marriages did.
Dina says it's a good thing Seth has Zed for a lawyer and not some slick wheeler dealer.
"Shlomit, Zed said that instead of actually going through with the divorce now, we could just write up a Shalom Bayit agreement," Seth said last night.
"What's that?"
"Well, each of us would define what we want from the other. Define what constitutes 'peace at home' for us. Then if one of us doesn't live up to it, we can go through with the divorce.”
"So if I wait, and you get bad again, I would have to do all the divorce negotiations when you’re … you know ..."
"That's the point. You wouldn't have to. Because we also sign the divorce agreement now. Exactly what happens if we split up. Who gets what and everything. So that if we divorce at some time in the future, we just go to the court house and activate it and they take a signed divorce agreement out of our file and it's all done already."
"Custody and everything?"
"Yeah, everything!"
"You already know what my main ingredient for Shalom Bayit is, Seth - that you deal with your problems. How is it going to help to write it out?"
“I’ll deal with my … with things. I'll go to somebody other than Batia. Somebody more serious. Just … let’s not do anything irrevocable now before I’ve had a chance!”
"OK. I'll suggest it to Dina at our next meeting."
But - to have more of this limbo? Don't we deserve better?
Dina was skeptical when I told her Seth's lawyer’s idea for a dual agreement, to give Seth more time. But she said we can try it.
"So, wait. So I would be contractually bound to stay with him unless I can prove he's in breach of this contract?" Is there any hope that I could prove to a judge that Slippery Seth is saying or doing abusive things in the privacy of our home, with only the children as witnesses?
“Oh, no,” Dina reassured me, “We'll make sure that the agreement states that you can proceed with the divorce without needing to prove anything.”
Woman of Valor was reinstated on Friday, so I guess I'm not a persona non grata anymore.
You asked whether things are resolving themselves on the marriage front. I guess they are. Seth didn't seem to be making any progress toward self examination, so at the beginning of the summer I filed for divorce.
It sounds stupid, but I might compromise yet again.
Instead of divorcing now, we're drawing up a divorce agreement that will specify exactly what will happen if I decide I can't stay with him anymore.
He'll already have to sign that I'll get custody of Eli, Leora, and Rafi. We'll split our savings now so I won't be affected by his whims or cruelty or suspicions. He won't be able to charge me with desertion if I take the children and move out. Our two lawyers would take over the sale of the house, so I won't have to depend on him for any cooperation if he's in no condition to cooperate, or if he turns mean and wants to punish us for leaving.
So, now that I'll be protected legally, I'll be better off than I was all those frightening years. Daily life is better because he knows that he has to be careful. But I still wake up in the night with a feeling of cold dread - feeling trapped. Wishing I had just gotten us all out. Should I be listening to that feeling, or fighting it?
It'll be so nice to see you at Eli's Bar Mitzvah. Love, Shlomit
We hear that you're coming over this summer for Risa's Bat Mitzvah. Already? I remember when Eli and Risa were both bumps on our tummies.
We're in the midst of preparations for Eli's Bar Mitzvah, too. He has started studying his Haftarah. It's such a pleasure to hear him singing, up there in his room, or in the kitchen. Then we'll do a Nature Society weekend for family and friends.
With me and Seth there's been progress, of a sort. He has agreed to give me the safeguards that he promised me nearly two years ago, so that if he slips back into his mean personality, the children and I won't be trapped again.
It's such a comfort to have a lawyer! Like the rich people in movies. To have someone to tell you that you do have power in the world. To tell you what it's safe to do, and to warn you when you could be getting yourself into trouble.
But isn't the whole point of being a family that you can trust? Feel at home? Relax? Trust in your spouse – not in a legal document in a file cabinet at the courthouse.
When we were renting out this house to go on sabbatical three years ago, the tenants asked whether I had made a detailed list of the contents of the house. I told him that if there's good will between us, we don't need a list, and if one side is out to cheat the other, they'll be able to, list or no list.
In a good marriage you don't need a contract, and in a bad one, you can't cover all the possible dangers, anyway.
I admit I don't have the energy to deal with this.
OK. Be well. Love, Shlomit
Seth and I were sitting on the lawn at the local college having our weekly talk. The discussion had gone round and round the same old circular track before bogging down at one of its favorite points. After a pause, Seth switched to his pronouncement tone of voice and intoned, “Batia says …”
What was it going to be this time? Where to buy left handed smoke shifters? How to get soy sauce stains off of chopsticks?
Except for a couple of times when Batia seems to have had a revelation about my motives in stirring up all this trouble, most of what Seth brings home from Batia is the type of helpful hint that Marketing with Martha used to write about in the Jerusalem Post.
"Batia says that when Baruch does something she doesn’t like, she yells and screams until he stops."
"She does?" I can see it, actually. Batia is not a person who would ever meekly accept something she didn't agree to.
"Yeah," Seth smiled at the thought, "There was a sofa, I guess, early in the marriage, that he bought without consulting her. She actually threw things and made his life hell until he returned it." Admiration shone from Seth's eyes.
"So ... what does that have to do ..."
"Well, she was just saying that it's strange for you to all of a sudden, now, come and say you don't like the way I behaved all these years. It seems as though you could have let me know as each thing came up." He shrugged.
I visualized Seth swatting little Leora away from in front of the TV, and myself - some sort of Batia-Shlomit hybrid - shrieking, "Seth, you leave that child alone!" The word 'alone' punctuated by his getting hit with whatever I could lay my hands on, to throw at him. One of those little plastic roller-skates maybe.
And my imaginary scene continues without my bidding. Seth gets smacked in the back by the skate and rears up and comes toward Batia-Shlomit, hate look flashing, clenched teeth displayed in the sneering mouth, neck chords bulging. Like that creature on StarTrek who absorbs any energy you aim at. You only make it stronger by attacking it, not weaker. This monster-Seth in my mind comes relentlessly toward Batia-Shlomit. Or – more likely - he would expend that energy on little Leora.
But - maybe that would have been like the ginger-ale Mom used to give us when we had upset tummies. She said it would help, one way or the other. Either the ginger would settle the upset, or the bubbles would make us throw up and we would feel better in either case. If I had let my anger flare, I would either have settled him or made things so bad that I would HAVE to have gotten us out.
The course I did take, forgive-and-forget, was what let things stay bad and get worse.
OK. This talk session wasn’t totally redundant after all. I got a useful message from Batia. I should have been much tougher on him all along. I should have stood my ground.
As I am, finally, now.
Because the children are young, part of the divorce process is to meet with the Department of Child Welfare so that they can be certain that the children are being treated fairly.
Dalia started to explain what a tragedy it is for the children when parents decide they don't want to live with each other any more. I told her that we weren't in that situation. That the problems between Seth and the children have made them as anxious to get out as I am.
Seth interrupted, "The trouble with Shlomit is that she is never willing to forgive and forget."
"Seth!" I spluttered, "But what about ... what about having children with you? Wasn't that a huge indication that I was ready to forget that I had seen you being depressed and irrational and cruel?
“Even after your strange, scary reaction to that first miscarriage. Did I ever bring that up again?
“And then after Rafi was born. Seth, I was so, so anxious to forget about how strange and crazy and mean you were when I was carrying that baby. I just wanted to pretend that it hadn’t happened.
“But a year later… all hell broke loose again, and the children and I lived through four rotten horrible years with you. Then when you stopped hitting them – again I tried to convince myself that it would be permanent this time.
Then when I found out about Rafi's first seizure, and when Leora wanted to run away, I realized that I had to take the children's safety and reactions into account. But still! I came back here with you after the sabbatical year, because you promised to get serious help so that this time would be different from all the others.
"And even now, Seth! I'm agreeing to try this Shalom Bayit. Seth, this whole marriage has been a series of new starts. But each one finishes like all the ones before."
Seth muttered, "Anyway, most of the things I did are just in her mind. I never really did half of it."
"But you can't claim that, Seth," I reminded him. Not only because he promised me just weeks ago that he wouldn't. "It's all on record." I looked at the social worker, assuming that she had seen the file from four years ago when Eli documented Seth's abuse. "There's a file ..."
"There's a file?" Dalia asked.
I frowned. "Yes … here. At Family Services."
She made a note on the page in front of her. "Well, I'm afraid I wouldn't have access to it," she said. "It contains confidential information about the family. You would both need to sign a confidentiality waiver."
"Of course, I'll sign!” I cried, "How else can you understand ..."
"Well, Seth would also need to sign, if it involves him." Seth was wearing his stubborn look.
"So - how is that file useful if it's only available if Seth releases it?"
"Oh, it could be released if there were, for instance, a court order, but not to just anyone."
It seems as though the person who is responsible for deciding if Seth is stable enough to have free access to the children isn't 'just anyone'.
Seth had to leave to catch the late bus to work. Before I left, Dalia shook her head, "This is off the record, Shlomit, but - please think twice before you stay with a man who has been rough with your children. You haven't seen the cases I have seen."
-------------------------------------------
Copyright 2020 by Shlomit Weber
--------------------------------------------
