postcards from nowhere

Greetings!

This one is going to be tough to write.  I can tell, because it's 
almost midnight and my screen is still empty.  All day long, every 
time I sat down at the keyboard I was overcome with a sudden and 
uncontrollable urge to take a nap, or do the dishes, or locate a 
long lost household item, or alphabetize my assortment of herbal teas.  
And now I've run out of projects, but I'm not sleepy since I had 
quite a few naps today.  So, here we go.

Today, March 13th, is kind of a weird day for me.  It's the third 
anniversary of my ex-husband's remarriage.  I'm not normally big 
on observing personal or cultural holidays, but this one has seeped 
its way into my consciousness.  I know this because I told almost 
everyone I talked to about it today.  My partner, my friend at yoga, 
my kids, and now you!

We've been divorced almost 5 years now.  We were college sweethearts -- 
met on a blind date sophomore year, got married the week after 
graduation, and moved immediately to Colorado to start our new 
life together.  We were so incredibly happy.  I don't remember us 
ever arguing during our eleven years together.  

I used to think this was a good thing -- that we were so well-matched 
that we truly wanted and believed the same things all the time.  But 
when I look back with that infamous 20/20 hindsight, I'm not so sure 
anymore.  Maybe we were too compatible.

Because in the spring of year eleven, something changed.  Something 
dormant in me woke up.  And it caused some serious problems between us.  
But even worse than my awakening was the fact that we had no coping 
skills, no tolerance for conflict, no tools to help us communicate 
about painful issues.

Our marriage was like a tall plant raised in the shelter of a greenhouse. 
It broke in half when it got taken outside and encountered a gust of 
wind.  For us, that wind was anger.

Somewhere along the line I picked up the belief that anger and conflict 
are a threat to love.  If there was a picture of this dynamic in my 
mind's eye, it would look like a big monster stepping on a little 
fragile rose bush.  As if love is so much weaker and smaller than 
anger that it needs to be protected.  Maybe a nice white picket fence 
around it would do the trick?  

During that tumultuous spring, emotions ran high and our compatibility 
faced its first real challenge.  When he would get intense or angry, 
I would panic.  I'd start crying, shaking, and become extremely 
defensive.  I refused to acknowledge his feelings or even allow them.  
It was kind of like a black and white world for me -- if there was anger 
it meant there couldn't be love.  And so anger could not be allowed to 
exist.

I'd run all kinds of tactics designed to talk him out of feeling angry --
I tried to reason him out of it, belittle him out of it, guilt him out 
of it, or just plain deny that his feelings had any validity.  We tried 
counseling, but even there I couldn't acknowledge his feelings. The 
anger had nowhere to go, and started building up on the walls of the 
channel between our hearts. 

I imagined that simply the presence of anger signaled doom for our 
relationship.  It seemed obvious to me that it would be easier to 
divorce than face the prospect of meeting and taming the Angermonster, 
who had grown pretty fat after eleven years of dining on tiny tidbits of 
unspoken resentments.  So divorce we did, with me in such denial the 
whole time that I actually thought it was a friendly divorce, despite 
the fact that he has not looked me in the eye or smiled at me in over 
four years.  

(And no, of course the cause of our divorce wasn't that simple. There 
were other factors.  I believe that all events happen as part of a 
larger picture, and the ending of our marriage was no exception.  But 
I still want to examine it and learn what I can -- as grist for the mill,
like Ram Dass says.) 

Anyway, all this research and writing about anger lately -- it's been 
pretty enlightening for me.  Turns out that my theories at that time 
were pretty much exactly the opposite of the truth as I see it today.  
So here's my big revelation:  unexpressed anger and resentment restrict 
the flow of love like fat clogging your arteries. (I know, that's gross...
but it does make for a good visual!)  

Did everyone in the world already know this but me? 

I came face to face with this awareness when I finally noticed that the 
same thing that happened in my marriage was recurring in my current 
relationship:  I get angry about something. I give myself a very 
effective little pep talk about how things aren't perfect but 
That's Life, and there's no reason to be angry because he's just 
being himself and doesn't intend to upset me. I succeed in talking 
myself out of my feelings, or so it seems, and I go for a walk or 
go to sleep until I forget why I was upset.  See?  What a relief ... 
no conflict necessary!  Love prevails, built on the solid foundation 
of a short attention span and a blissfully poor memory.

My partner does his own version of this dance when he gets angry.  But 
the anger never really clears, it lurks just under the surface.  And 
we don't fight, but we don't spend much time together either, because 
it's too risky and the anger might slip out.  When we are together, 
some areas of discussion are off limits, because they are filled with 
mines and could blow up at the smallest misstep.  We soon get tired of 
navigating each other's mine fields.  And little by little, our 
connection withers away.

The antidote, as I'm sure you can guess, is to express all of it, even 
the unreasonable stuff, even the crazy stuff, even the stuff with no 
basis in reality.  Maybe not always to your partner, but somewhere, 
some way, it has to be let out.  

If you do choose to hear each other's anger, there are some basic ground 
rules that help to ensure that it is an offering to your love rather 
than an attack on it.  The book Passage to Intimacy by Lori H. Gordon 
contains a gold mine of useful exercises and teaching on this topic.  
It's been so inspiring that I'll probably go deeper into it in the next 
postcard. 

But of course five years ago I didn't know any of this stuff.  And this 
anniversary reminds me that the anger we got divorced to avoid facing 
has not gone away. 

I thought that when he remarried those blocked arteries would be cleared,
and we'd be able to resume the friendship portion of our relationship 
again.  But I underestimated the power of compartmentalization.  Three 
years into his marriage, it appears that his heart is indeed open to his
wife, family, and friends, but still not to me.  

Our rare interactions are purely business.  He leaves messages on my 
voice mail so he doesn't have to ring my phone and actually have a 
conversation with me.  I overheard him laughing at our son's basketball 
game the other day and realized that I had completely forgotten what 
that sounded like.  He's become a stranger.

I suppose the truth is that we may never again be friends.  The anger 
may have totally blocked the artery that connected our hearts, so that 
it shriveled up and disappeared.  We've both developed collateral 
circulation; other avenues for giving and receiving love.  I'm glad 
that we both have loving relationships again.

But I may need to grieve the loss of my husband and best friend as if 
he had died.  Because in a way, he is dead to me.  The joy and respect 
and affection that made up our love for each other have no bridge to 
travel between us.  

The optimist in me refuses to believe that.  It thinks that maybe basic 
human compassion is waiting patiently like a seed in the earth, and 
someday the tears of forgiveness and the light of laughter will find 
it, and the bridge will grow again. 

But I better not hold my breath waiting.  So I'll learn what I can, 
and move on.  And I'll keep reminding myself that love is bigger and 
stronger than anything else, and that even anger pales in the light 
of it.  I think I'll call it the Lovemonster, and it'll eat anger for 
breakfast like Wheaties, and thrive on it.

Which reminds me, this took forever to write and now it's time for dinner. 
So I guess I'll see you next time.

Take care,

karen