The 1000th time

I’m sitting across from her in a restaurant.

It's not a date, but for the 1000th time, a never-married single woman asks me what it is that I have against marriage.

It isn't that she asks the question. It is an indisputably fair one.

What’s bugged me every time is the condescending way she asks it. It's the unverbalized (yet written all over her face) belief that no matter WHAT my experience has been I have no right to say that I don’t WANT another wife.

It’s the odor of her thought that there can be no legitimate rationale for my lack of desire to have again what she wants so desperately to experience just once.


It’s the tangible tentacle of her naive "wisdom" about me and what I "really" feel or can’t possibly understand about my thoughts. It’s my prejudice about her prejudice toward me and my perception that she perceives me to be unworthy of having a different view because I AM, after all ... just a man.

Sadly, because I believe every honestly posed question deserves a reasoned answer ... I give one just about every time. Worse, its never the whole truth. I don’t believe I’ve ever talked about the day I quit believing, until now.

I suspect that the rote answer I’ve memorized leads many of the "hers" to believe it happened when my own seven-year struggle ended. A painful experience no doubt; but if relationships were people, that one was born handicapped, and became a crime-destined orphan at a very young age.

Nor is it related to the oft-quoted "50% of all marriages end in divorce." That’s a sad statistic, but I’ve never been prone to assuming I’m just a integer or that every odd will opt for the chance to go against me.

It isn’t even that I don’t know any "happily-marrieds." I actually count among my friends a couple of couples who aren’t planning their divorce parties as I type this blog entry.

The simplest answer goes back to a specific day, and a very precise moment in time.

It involved "Mike" and "Laura"–and the day their decision changed my life.

I’ve anonymized them because they are very real people, living a very real life.

The internet isn’t an anonymous place, and I’ve never asked their permission to publicly discuss what I’m sure is one of the least-favorite events in their lives.

I still consider them both to be my friends, and will until the day one of them calls me and says it isn’t true anymore. That will also be a day I anesthesize myself with very cheap vodka and cry very real tears until I lose sobriety ... and then consciousness.

I love them and their brood and always will.

I’ve lost them. I can’t find them. Google won’t give ‘em up, and the white pages remain strangely silent about their whereabouts.

Now, I’m just stalling ... and that’s not fair. You’re reading this for the answer, and I’ve moved no closer to giving it up.

I met Mike in Panama. It must’ve been 1995, maybe six.

He was a co-worker. He was always in a hurry to get home.

Mike wasn’t just a nice guy, he was the nicest.

Funny, polite, shy, and not liked very much by any of our bosses. They didn’t like that he was always in a hurry to go home. Hell, none of us liked it. We worked hard, and even though he always finished his work, the news business never stops. There’s no such thing as overtime, and some stories take you away from home. There’s no quitting, and the deadline tells you when the day is over.

Mike never wanted to stay longer than his duty hours demanded. He balked at every assignment that threatened to make him miss dinner. He never seemed to put everything he had into our task. He never drank with us after a successful day. He never commiserated with us after a shitty one.

His heart wasn’t in it.

In time ... I befriended him. That’s what I do.

He was happily married.

I was married, and "geographically separated." Mine was in Washington, D.C.

Turned out, his was pregnant and having a very difficult time being away from HER mother and family as her firstborn was evolving in her womb.

He hated the Army for dragging him away from home to as hot, humid, and in her eyes inhospitable a place as tropical Panama City. There wasn’t room in base housing for them, so they were renting a gorgeous but stiflingly hot apartment in El Dorado.

Laura was hormonal and miserable, and hated the fact that Mike worked in air conditioning all day while she sat under a ceiling fan thinking thoughts of snowfall and icicles.

When it rained ... every morning, and every afternoon ... she hated the sound of how the drops hit the windows and steamed everything up.

But she’d signed up for "better or worse" and figured this was somewhere distant from the prior, and close to the latter.

She wasn’t "complaining" just sharing her feelings about Panama. She felt fat (even though she was skinny and gorgeous with a pregnant belly), but loved him dearly, and wanted to be where he was.

She was just having trouble adjusting to the tropics and hormones, and ceiling fans, and spending all day alone.

He’d made Laura a promise.

He told me
that he’d told her
that he’d spend as much time where she was as he could, every day of his life.

He told her that he’d do everything in his power to be as hot and humid as she was for as much time as he could every day of that tropical summer.

He’d promised to sit and eat ice with her, talk to her, and tell her jokes that made her feel skinny until she laughed herself to sleep.

Keeping that promise meant never staying longer than his duty hours demanded.

It meant balking at every assignment that threatened to make him miss dinner.

It meant never putting his heart into "our" task.

It meant never drinking with us after a successful day.

It meant never commiserating with us after a shitty one.

It meant his heart was somewhere else.

When he told me, I thought it was the very coolest thing I’d ever heard.

What I mean to say is ...

I thought it was the very coolest thing I’d ever heard.
That’s not quite it, either.

IT WAS THE VERY COOLEST THING I’D EVER HEARD.

(I’m nowhere close to you understanding what this has to do with the woman at the restaurant, but if I don’t give you this context my non-answer probably won’t make a whole lot of sense. I beg your indulgence.)

My wife came to visit. That wasn’t uncommon ... we had tons of good times. But it was a vacation for her. She’d sit in my hot apartment and watch Spanish soap operas, or hop in the car and get lost and go shopping and do touristy things until my deadline passed and we could share them.

I believe the phone call came on a Thursday. I was standing near Mike when he took it. It was Laura. Something was wrong with the baby. She needed a doctor. He needed to come home and take her to the hospital.

The jackass "petty" officer we worked for didn’t see the crisis. In his mind, Mike could simply finish editing the story for the night’s news, then calmly drive to ensure that the ambulance had in fact taken his wife to the right hospital.

Today, I would advise Mike to punch the jackass’s left eye. I’d punch the jackass’s right eye. We’d hop in my car and hightail it to his house, then the hospital. Problem solved.

But I was younger and calmer back then. I told him not to worry, that I’d have my wife pick up Laura, take her to the hospital, and wait with her until Mike could get there. No problem. The cool thing about Spanish soap operas is that when you don’t speak Spanish, you never worry about missing an episode. The people are just as gorgeous when you come back.

The women hit it off like sisters. I don’t think I ever found out what the medical part of the crisis was, but my wife made a friendship with Laura that somehow automatically extended to me even though we’d never technically met.

Danita eventually returned to D.C.

Mike and Laura’s beautiful baby daughter was eventually born.
I loved her.
She was chubby and cute. She smiled without prompting.
If you poked her belly just right, she giggled just like the Pillsbury doughboy.
In time she learned to walk and talk.
The way she lisped "Stewwwwwwwwwww" melted my heart.

And she was brilliant.

She knew letters and numbers within a year. And Mike taught her the sound of every animal in the universe. She once taught me the sound an ant makes. I’ve forgotten how to make it, but I remember the moment.

I want to type her name ... it was angelic. But she too has the right to be anonymous ... I’ll call her, "Michelle." Her picture still sits on my mantle.

I read her stories, she read them back. I still loved Mike and Laura ... but Michelle absolutely stole my heart.

I wasn’t a cynic back then. She wouldn’t allow it. She said such simple and profound things. She laughed just because I came for dinner, which by now was every night.

They were in an air-conditioned base house by now. I had a space on the couch that I slept in as often as my bed.

Laura always made enough soup and baked enough bread for Uncle Stewwwwwwwwwww.

It was a "Christian" home, in the finest sense of that term. Mike was a P.K. and Laura had been raised in a devout home. Over time, we talked about the things that they felt made their marriage work. They credited their faith, and their upbringing. They abhorred the prevalence of divorce and infidelity in our society. They made the whole thing seem real, and I grew to believe. Not in their religion, I was already way past that, but in the substance of their faith. I watched them weave a universe for Michelle out of that substance. I watched her thrive and grow.

We got a new boss. He was a family guy. He let Mike transfer to a position with a more stable schedule. Laura felt beautiful again, she had an all-day companion at her air-conditioned house in Michelle.

Things were good.

In time, Laura’s belly started to fatten up again. Baby number two was on the way.

By now, I think I even had chores at their place.

We were a cobbled together family of sorts, and I loved them like my own brother and sister.

My wife’s visits were a virtual family reunion for all of us. We laughed, and ate, and talked, and laughed, and shared drams, and discussed religions, and talked about futures and laughed.

Laura wanted me to experience as much of her pregnancy as possible in preparation for my own first child. Mike just beamed every time we all went for a sonogram. I remember the three of us staring in amazement at the virtually irrefutable proof of the baby’s gender. I practiced diaper-changing with Michelle as my tutor. The calendar was against us, as an assignment to Japan loomed in my near future. But it was going to be close, and all of us wanted me to meet the new addition.

It came down to the final weeks. I’d delayed my departure as long as I could. I had ten days left ... and the baby was to be born a week to ten days after I left.

There was talk of inducing labor early so I could meet my new nephew, but practicality won the day.

I kissed Michelle, hugged Laura and Mike ... and boarded the plane that promised to take me to a new future. Bright with the opportunity of FINALLY living in the same city as my wife ... Tokyo.

I laughed as Laura waddled to the door to wave good bye to me. I misted up as I heard Michelle yell "Bye Stewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I love yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" through the screen door.

Bye Michelle. I love yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu too.

There was an e-mail waiting for me in Tokyo. It said that "Noel" had been born strong, healthy, and happy.

It was good.

A couple of months later ... another pregnancy. Mike and Laura were getting close to finishing up the family they’d always dreamed of.

They were heading back to the States ... finally, Laura could have her snowfalls and icicles again.
There are three children in all. I love them all like my very own.
But this story isn’t about them ... its about what happened next.

I got a terse e-mail from Mike one day at work.
"Stew. I need to talk to you. -Mike."

I phoned.

"Stew, I don’t know how to tell you this. Laura and I are getting a divorce." ...

...

...

What?

...

...

...

Who is this? Where’s Michelle?
"She’s fine. We’re all fine. But Laura and I have decided to get divorced."
Why?

"I don’t know, really. It’s more Laura’s decision than mine, and I’m not even sure what it’s all about, but I wanted you to hear about it from me."
How’s Laura?
"She’s ... ok. Things are a bit strange right now, but everything will be fine. God will continue to bless us."

Did you cheat on her?

"No, I would NEVER do anything like that. Besides, you know that I save all the lust in my heart for muscle cars in magazines."

How are you?

"Ummmm...I don’t know how to answer that. I love Laura, I love my kids, I love you, I love my marriage. I don’t know how I’m going to survive, but I am."

Is there anything I can do?
"No. Just remember us the way we were."
Mike. I love you guys. I don’t understand.
"I know. Laura says hi. I have to go to work now."
Bye Mike. Call me if you need me.
"I will. Good bye."

Those moments broke something in ME that snapped again as I watched my own marriage dissolve.

I wasn’t nearly as good a husband as Mike, although I gave it everything I had. Hell, I’m not as good a PERSON as Mike was, so the husband thing is almost a given.

I stopped believing in marriage that day. I wanted to prove myself wrong by making mine work, but somehow I guess my heart didn’t have enough elasticity to snap all the way back.

Now, you can keep your marriage concept. You can keep your empty promises. You can keep your dreams of wedded bliss. They are yours. I don’t have them. Give me a companion, and leave us alone. We’ll survive as long as we can, maybe forever ... then we’ll go our separate ways.

I know it won't be long before I find myself sitting across from her in a restaurant, again.


It won’t be a date, but for the 1001st time, a never-married single woman will ask me what it is that I have against marriage.

It won’t be that she asks the question. It is an indisputably fair one. What will bug me THIS time time will be the condescending way she’ll ask it. It will be the unverbalized (yet written all over her face) belief that no matter WHAT my experience has been I have no right to say that I don’t WANT another wife. It’ll be the odor of her thought that there can be no legitimate rationale for my lack of desire to have again what she wants so desperately to experience just once. It will be the annoyingly tangible tentacle of her naive "wisdom" about how much she knows about "divorced" men like me and what we’ve been through and how many dumb-assed books she’s read about what I "really" feel and how I'm simply not informed enough to possibly understand about my own thoughts.

It will be MY prejudice about her prejudice toward me and MY perception that she perceives me to be unworthy of having a different view because I AM, after all ... just a man.

(originally posted 6 Jan 06)