All It's Cracked Up To

I think my doctor sometimes wants to be me.

He's a good guy and we always have great conversations when I go in. That's only once or twice a year so it surprises me to realize that our aggregation of great conversations have attended many years of mutual aging. It seems like just a few months ago I was his healthiest forty nine year old. Now I'm his healthiest (I suppose) fifty two year old. Next thing you know we'll both be pushing sixty and STILL not met for a drink.

He admired my decision to move out of my marital home. Said it was a brave thing to do. I'm not so sure it was brave. Staying might have been braver. But he's heard me talk about the situation over the years. My visits have never needed to be heavy on the medical stuff, so we'd take the time to talk. He's gathered enough to know I had to do something. I like to think I already tried the other things I could have done. That's probably not true, but I like to think it. From his perspective, though, it seemed clear.

As it did to a number of my bloggy friends, come to think of it. Just enough information, and just enough distance, to see the picture clearly.

But there's another element. He might be a little envious. My capacity as a good listener sort of turned the tables last visit and he spent some time talking about his own situation. I gathered he doesn't like his wife much anymore. Actually, from what he was saying it sounded like the classic situation wherein one loves the other parent of one's children but dislikes the person. He sounded very frustrated with the sort of person his wife has turned out to be. Very intelligent, but kind of mean (my words), and not really interested in being a mother (his). However, they are from central Mexico and are very Catholic and very traditional, and separation or divorce is simply not an option. And he's fine with that, and will spend his life finding joy in what he can, particularly his kids.

Makes me feel kind of like a quitter. But then I remember that no one really came down from on high and told me it was my job to be unhappy so I could role-model misery to the next generation. I don't know what I'm now role-modeling, exactly, but misery isn't it.

Misery is a harsh word. As I've gotten to know people through talking about their struggles with marriage, I've come to realize mine was actually pretty good. Not miserable at all. I don't regret opening the new doors I've opened, but I'll never be able to justify it with convincing tales of horror and abuse, as some do. I don't need to be able to, either. Two people can change their circumstances and still love each other. I believe that because we -- or I -- have done that, and we still love each other. That's obvious every time we meet.

In fact, talking about that, or rather about the fact that I still just want her to be happy, I had to stifle an impulse to cry about it. No one cries at the doctor's office, right? And men don't cry at all. I know, everyone calls bullshit on that but in truth I still get messages in one form or another sometimes, including from women, that men shouldn't cry. I don't let these mixed messages get to me. But crying is embarrassing, so there.

Do I really think he wants to be me? No, of course not. My vague references to romantic entanglements, whether from Burning Man or elsewhere, probably aren't overwhelmingly compelling. But there's a vague element of longing in his comments sometimes, as in those of another friend of mine whose thirty-year marriage likewise has lost most of its quality. I know these longings, and they don't tell the whole story. These men still love their wives, and something more than ennui keeps them at home. Fear of poverty, for one thing.