Train Wreck

I'm sitting here somewhat confused, with a gnawing sensation inside that something just isn't right. I can't articulate it really, but it's there still eating at me. Sometimes you just know when something is off. Right?

I'm not making sense, let me explain. I just went to my wife's office to drop off her phone that she left at the house. No I didn't see some text from someone she's having an affair with or anything like that. It's not that simple. One of her employees was looking at me funny but wouldn't make eye contact. Kind of like she was avoiding looking at me while still looking at me if that makes any sense. I don't know what that was about but her expression stuck with me.

I think her expression was pity.

Maybe I should start at the beginning to bring you up to where we are right now since I don't really understand myself. If I don't none of this will really make sense. I promise to keep it short.

My wife Denise and I met at a university on the East Coast in the early 90's. My name is Joel. I'm 40 and she is 41. We live one the West Coast now and have for 17 years. We've been married for 17 years as well but we've been together since I was 19. We married at 23. So that is over half my life with this woman. We were kids really when we married. You know - young, naive, hopeful...all of those wonderful things that come with youth. We have two girls Gemma and Sophie. Ages 12 and 10. Denise is an Architect and runs her own firm a few blocks from our house. I left that career 16 years ago for another more lucrative one with computers and entertainment.

We were right in the middle of all of that happening in the 90's out in Silicone Valley. Well, let's just say I've done al-right for myself. We aren't wealthy, but very well off by most American's standards. Funny though how those big salaries really don't get you far out here in California with the high price of living. With the schools being so literally poor and taxes so high you end up shelling out quite a lot every year to fund their public educations.

I digress. We had our first daughter at age 28. I didn't know a damn thing about parenting but we pushed our way through it. Hopefully I didn't screw it up as badly as my father did. I'll just have to wait and see.

Denise spent years working for big firms. She was a great designer, still is. We had talked many times that I'd have been happy to take time off when we had children and not leave it to just her responsibility. Funny how that doesn't work out so well when you're the one making 90% of the family's income. You become a slave to providing for your new responsibilities at home. I envied her freedom, she envied my career.

After about 5 years of this and the birth of our second daughter we decided our house was too small so we built a bigger one. Shortly after that, finances dictated that Tracy needed to go back to work to help with the expenses.

After a short time back in the workforce and with her being constantly unhappy with having to work for others I pushed her into venturing out on her own. Little did I know that this would be the single most anxiety causing decision I'd have ever made in my life up to that point. I also didn't know that it very well would determine the outcome of what now appears to be our inevitable divorce.

I'm a jealous person. I have been all my life. It has to do with being a bit insecure. Why am I insecure? My Father mostly.

Watching your siblings and pets get abused on a regular basis both physically and verbally kind of has that effect on your psyche.

Like the time I watched my Father when I was 8 take a 2x4 to my Labrador's head. Except the board had a nail in it and it had put her eye out. She would later get hit by a car crossing the road at night on her blind side. She probably never saw it coming...poor thing. I had really loved her.

Or the time I saw him go after my Sister with the end of a screwdriver. He never went after me though. Probably because he knew I could hurt him. I had that much anger inside. I had stopped some of the beatings when I could, but I couldn't stop them all. In the end you blame yourself for all of it. I did.

I blamed myself for not being perfect enough for him to love me. And I blamed my Sister for causing him to be so angry all of the time. My Sister and I haven't talked for years. I guess I always resented her, blamed her for ruining our family. It wasn't her fault though but it took me a quarter of my life to figure that out. But that is another story.

It has taken 6 years of therapy to accept that as an 8 year old child, you just can't protect your Sister from a 200lb man who was acting out hatred for his mother on her every week. His mother used to hit him over the head with an iron skillet. One of the only times I met my Grandmother she called my younger Brother a transvestite for wearing women's shoes. And she called my Sister a tramp for the way she was dressed. My brother was 4, he was playing with my Mother's slippers. My sister was 8, and the tramp outfit my Grandmother was referring to was her posing in her dance recital leotard. What a hateful woman.

So Denise started a firm. It was just her for a while. Her partner had a nervous breakdown and we had to end that professional relationship. I called him up and asked him what the #&CK he was doing. He had stopped his meds. Some serious anti depressants and he stopped cold turkey without doctor's help. Some of that stuff you can't do that with. He was holed up in his apartment doing everything he could trying to NOT kill himself. Needless to say that relationship was over. Can't have an unstable business partner and all.

Denise and I started having issues a few years into our marriage. They started before she went back to work.

I felt it was time our problems needed to be dealt with so I took us to counseling. We were in counselling together for 5 years as a couple. We've been in counselling with a child therapist to learn to communicate with our oldest daughter. We've both been in individual therapy. She only lasted for a year but this is year 6 for me.

I went to see my Doctor first because I was having panic attacks. I stayed because I got an education in human psychology and it was helping in my career and home life.

I managed a lot of people at work. I became a very good listener.

Like the one time my friend's ageing mother at the nursing home was angry about the food they served. Angry to the point of throwing it on the floor and calling it crap whenever my friend went to visit. After talking with him for a few minutes I learned his mother had been a great cook when he was a kid. I thought about it and suggested that perhaps she was upset that she could no longer take care of herself like she used to take care of him. Maybe she was angry because she would prepare these wonderful meals for the children and wasn't physically able to do it any more. Maybe it was even humiliating for her to have her Son see her that way.

I'd have been angry too. I suggested the next time he visited and she acted out that he remind her of all of the meals she made for his family over the years. Talk to her about sitting as a family at the dinner table and all of the happy memories he could recall. Thank her for providing that part of their life for them. Tell her 'of course those nursing home meals could never measure up' to what she did for their family. He did just that.

I wasn't trying to be a therapist, I'm not qualified for that, but as a manager that becomes a lot of the daily job description.

Guess what, I was right and nailed the problem on the first try. He just kept reminding his mother every time he visited of her cooking. I could have never given that advice if I hadn't learned some of that insight from my Doctor.

I was having anxiety attacks after my father died. He died of heart attack complications at age 63. My anxiety? Something about all that pent up emotion coming out from within me now that it was safe to express it. I'd been carrying that crap around for 20 years or more and it all just poured out.

My wife had to clean up a bunch of the mess I made. I loved her for that. Grateful for being there and sticking beside me.

I went on antidepressants, mainly to regulate my mood swings. Mostly though to stop the suicidal thoughts. Those had scared me the most.

Once I even walked straight into an intersection without ever looking up to see where traffic was. It was a busy intersection in down town Berkeley and I didn't cross at the cross walks or during any sort of light change. I was hoping I'd get hit.

That would have been the easy solution to my pain.

Then there was this other time on the Golden Gate bridge on Father's Day while walking across it with my children. I was thinking how easy it would have been to simply jump over the side.

Strangely though, I'm a very competent and successful person at my business. I manage 25 creative individuals and on the outside I look rock solid. I manage with great success millions of dollars of intellectual properties each year and am respected in the company.

One of my staff once mailed out as a joke asking why I had so many brightly coloured shirts and such. I responded in email that the bolder the colour of the shirt, the greater the inner trauma I was trying to conceal that day.

You see people can get easily distracted by your appearance and not actually see you.

It was a funny but sadly honest answer.

So my marriage had some challenges. My wife and I didn't have that connection I so desperately needed but damn if I wasn't trying.

I started to work on it. Date nights, romantic notes...you know all the stuff to win her over.

Since she had gone back to work I took over the family's cooking. I had previously taken a number of gourmet classes and found it easy, and stress relieving, to provide that for my family each night. It really has been a lot of work. but worth it when they appreciate it. I do the cooking at our parties as well since it keeps me busy and limits the amount of time I'd have to talk with people.

You see I've been uncomfortable in my own skin my whole life. That is until I took back my life recently.

Now don't get me wrong, my wife and I have had some great times. Quite a lot actually.

We have had amazing vacations dating all the way back to our honeymoon.

Like those camping trips when the girls were younger or the trips to Europe and Hawaii. We always found a way to reconnect as a family when we needed it the most.

We had picked up and moved across the country together straight out of college. We started our careers together, our lives, everything together. You can't live with someone for half your life and not have some amazing things go on between both of you.

An amazing time like that first time I saw that lake we stayed at on our first anniversary. I knew then we'd buy a place there some day. 16 years later that was true.

Denise and I have always agreed on the major decisions in life. Decisions like building a house, moving across the country, career changes, having children, buying a second home.

It was actually scary at what both of us could accomplish when we both agreed on one of those major goals.

Like when we found out we were pregnant, a week later we owned a house. When we talked about buying a second home, a week later we were in escrow.

When we disagreed though, that was another matter.

Neither one of us grew up learning how to fight fair and some damaging things were said on both sides.

Denise has lots of good qualities too.

She's been a wonderful mother, a lover, an architect, and a friend. It's just that life gets in the way sometimes. And sometimes you're just not strong enough to deal with some of the curves this process of growing older throws at you.

Denise was stressed and overwhelmed all of the time. She took on too many clients and promised them things that couldn't be done. Promising unrealistic deadlines, low fees, you name it. She would take on new work the moment one of the existing projects hit a difficult spot in the process. Often with either the home owner or contractor getting upset at her. The moment that conflict happened, she took on more work. Most likely because the new relationships felt good and her projects were easier to manage in the honeymoon phase. Certainly easier than sitting together and solving difficult problems.

This was a cycle that wouldn't end. It was self reinforcing too because at the end of the projects she usually won some award for the design and the clients were thrilled with the results.

I could see the problem yet it was all the justification she needed to take on more and more work.

I've told her how proud of her I am and what a great example she sets for the girls hoping that she feel some feeling of accomplishment, but it was never enough for her though.

Our home life had become difficult. I was managing just about everything at home and still working full time in the days.

I developed a routine. I did the grocery shopping, the cooking, laundry, pretty much everything. We agreed I would do this to help her get a kick start with starting her firm. I mean she took 5 years off to have children and be with them so what was the three years of me doing all the house work in comparison?

But, I haven't been able to get her to slow down and help at home to relieve me of some of the burden. We also stopped counselling two years ago to focus on the relationship and date each other again. Sometimes that dating did help.

She has always had night terrors but lately they had become frequent from the stress of the day. By night terrors I mean Denise would wake up screaming at me like I was a stranger in the room trying to attack her. It took everything I had to calm her down mentally and emotionally.

Then she'd go back to sleep.

It took me a few years to realize she didn't remember any of it while it was happening. I'd lay there feeling like I was going to have a heart attack being woken up from a deep sleep by her screaming at me. You kind of take that stuff personally.

Denise was clearly troubled. Perhaps this was the price for our modern busy lives with such unrealistic expectations we put on ourselves?

Sad if that was true.

Our sex life was really non existent some years. Once every month or so and always with me initiating.

We had talked about causes.

Medical maybe, perhaps hormones, or hormones from her IUD?

She maintains the reason is because she doesn't feel close to me. She didn't want to have sex with someone she didn't like.

So many times I'd been rejected by her that at some point I kind of stopped trying. It's humiliating to be rejected by your wife on a repeating basis. It hits your self esteem.

I had tried to spice things up. It worked sometimes but not others. I had tried dating her. I lost weight and got in shape. I focused on myself and my family, not her.

It was just too painful to keep seeking her approval...it was constant hurt.

I decided at one point I'd probably divorce her after the girls left for college in a few years. I could hold out until then, right? She actually said this idea in couples therapy to me once. That was certainly a great confidence booster.

I deserved a chance with someone who would really love me. First though I had to start loving myself so I tried to stop focusing on her and I focused on me.

Easier said than done.

I started letting my guard down at work. Connecting with people and listening, talking, socializing.

I think that was my way of not letting all of the dysfunction at home wreck me emotionally.

I was giving myself an escape clause in the future. I wouldn't have to endure it forever I told myself. I could leave. Or she could.

Why didn't I just leave? I loved her. The kind of needy love that wasn't so helpful or healthy and I didn't realize that until much later in our marriage.

One lady at work who's husband also worked there became my partner in the department. She was administrative and I was creative head. She had been burned in a previous group with incompetent staff so when we started working together she was floored at how well I ran things.

She gushed, and I mean gushed, constantly about how great I was and how much I had everything under control. She gushed about how she loved working with me.

I mean comparing competence to incompetence isn't really a fair comparison.

At some point she began sharing personal information about her life and such. She was my work wife. We became good friends but I knew she was crossing a line I wasn't comfortable with so I kept a barrier up. She brought her husband by twice to meet me and he avoided me like I was diseased. He wouldn't look at me in the eye. I didn't know what the hell was going on really.

Later I figured that if she was complimenting me that much during the day at work she probably did the same thing it at night too with her husband.

No wonder he seemed uncomfortable around me.

I certainly wouldn't appreciate it if my wife came home talking about a guy at work and how great he is all of the time. I'd probably really resent him.

Imagine my surprise when that is exactly what happened.

Things came to a head with Denise's business a few months ago.

Clients were angry. Denise was panicked. Our home life was not good.

It reached the point where Denise finally accepted that she was doing too much and we started talking about the causes and how to fix it. We fired her business consultant. The advice was terrible.

I began helping her structure her office. How to schedule, who does what, job descriptions, office equipment maintenance, the whole thing.

I'm not a business major, but I've spent 17 years managing millions in production process and staff. This really wasn't that hard to me.

I took immediate action and we saw immediate results.

Denise was set up as the head of the firm as we hired an office manager and three designers. Four 40 year old women and one 26 year old man.

Denise was relaxed for the first time in ages. And we started having sex again.

It didn't last though.

I had set up the interviews. Jared was intelligent, bright, full of energy, and had some experience. He was eager to please. He came in working only three days a week and quickly that went to four as it was clear he was a solid contributor.

I started noticing things maybe a month after he was hired.

Little harmless things.

Denise would come home and talk about how great he was. I listened. One weekend he made a gift for the office and gave it to her. She was so excited. She couldn't stop talking about him. Denise asked me if she should give him a thank you present. I told her I thought it was unprofessional since she was the boss and a sincere thank you would suffice.

It went on like this for some time...I mean her talking about him constantly.

One morning she texted him at 7 am that she was taking him to a client meeting at 9. She asked him to have breakfast with her. I thought this odd. I know this information because I read her text.

I know I said at the beginning that I hadn't read any sexting texts and I haven't.

This was just an odd text.

First, she had no business taking him to this meeting. Let me explain. It was with a prospective client that she didn't have a contract with. Since he was junior in the office he shouldn't be paid almost a full day to go and observe.

We had talked in her business plan that stuff like this couldn't happen if she wanted to be profitable. The designers needed to design and she needed to be the liaison to the clients and the creative head of the firm. Second, this meeting invitation seemed like a last minute thing. She hadn't communicated anything to him about going in the days prior and suddenly at 7 in the morning she wants him to go with her? I know this information because the day before she told me she was going alone.