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And the Winner is….

Posted on August 6, 2015 by familyrulesbyplainjane
Image credit here.

Image credit here.

September, 2012

I’m still trying to comprehend how “We’d love to have you visit but we have certain guidelines,” came to be viewed as “For years, I smiled and told you what you wanted to hear so that once you had emptied your bank account and arrived on our doorstep feeling warm and fuzzy; I could turn on you, my captive audience, and exorcise my pent up rage against you at my leisure.”

By Day 3, the trust between us had been grievously compromised. A few of us complained that stress was causing hair loss. No, this is not an attempt at humor.

Hanna and Niko said it wasn’t so much that I had refused Niko my laptop; it was that I hadn’t told him ahead of time, and now they were stuck without options. It wasn’t just that I hadn’t told him beforehand; it was that my failure to do so had caused Niko to lose face. It wasn’t only that I had caused Niko to lose face; it was that, in maintaining through the years that all was well between us, I had lied.

Three days down and 28 more to go.

No two ways about it. They had been tricked. They had spent thousands of dollars to pass their summer in jail. Jail being our basement apartment without a computer. They began to sequester themselves, eventually reversing their days and nights, in part–I believe–to avoid us. They surmised they had become persona non grata (personae non gratae??) and were the last fools on earth to learn it. This was not the case. At least not yet.

We experienced good moments. We shared some laughs. We had some conversations memorable for reasons other than distress. Even so, trouble was always lurking stage right.

Everything I did and said was now suspect. Things I had said and done in the past came under suspicion as well—as though past behaviors had taken on new meanings given this epiphany about my character.

I’ve seen this response in couples counseling many, many times.

Spouse A admits to an affair long past. Spouse B, who is learning of it for the first time, responds as if the infidelity had ended just yesterday. As the initial catharsis begins to settle, the reality of the affair sinks in. Spouse B will now spend months to years poring over reel after reel of old footage, looking for missed clues. Forgiveness and reconciliation may or may not follow.

It goes something like this:

“Three years ago, you canceled our dinner plans on Valentine’s Day because of a crisis at your work. I bet you weren’t working at all. You were probably fucking your mistress!”

Hanna and Niko were looking for confirmation of my infidelity, and they found it.

In times of extreme stress, I shut down. If you do not know me well, you might not even notice. I will continue to walk, talk, smile, listen, and laugh. I will perform my roles as mother, wife, and hostess. But I will do so with clinical remove. I become prodigious in my cooking and cleaning while the person behind my eyes goes dormant.

I did not intend to vacate during that 2011 visit. My psyche made the decision of its own accord. My soul balled itself up and locked itself away deep in my belly until such time as it felt safe to emerge and expose its tears, fears, and thrashing limbs.

My demeanor was evidence of malice, or, at minimum, indifference to their feelings. Hanna had seen me this way twice previously: immediately following a brutal semester of undergraduate studies and in the weeks following a trauma within my family. I believed she would understand my absence and hold a place in her heart for me until I was able to return.

I felt misunderstood, and I was in good company. My household found itself engaged in a protracted competition for the coveted title, Most Misunderstood and Maligned. Niko, Hanna, and I were the front runners but our daughters threw their hats in the ring as well. They were much quieter in their bid but I felt them jostling.

“Uncle Niko is being a baby, and you know it. He’s got the whole household revolving around him, and I can’t take it any more! You won’t speak up but if I do, I get in trouble because he’s The Guest. Gaaaaah!”

“Mom, why are you being so hard on Uncle Niko? I’ve been talking to Aunt Hanna, and I think the problem might be that you aren’t trying hard enough to understand him. Why are you looking at me that way? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Aunt Hanna and Uncle Niko aren’t fun any more. And you aren’t either. There’s nothing good to do around here. Are you even listening?”

Henry was the only one who didn’t enter the pageant.

In the end, Niko won. Hanna stuffed the ballot box.

Some days I wonder if I am seeing matters clearly or just positioning myself for a grab at Niko’s tiara.

This is part of The Story of Hanna. The episodes to date can be found under the tab of the same name. The previous installment is here.

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Infidelity III

Posted on July 8, 2015 by familyrulesbyplainjane
Photo credit here.

Photo credit here.

Sept. 30, 2012

This is how I broke the rules.*

Until Hanna and Niko announced their intention to come for an extended visit last summer, I didn’t realize how much peace the distance between us had accorded me. Though I missed them both, Hanna terribly, we had done well with snail mail, Skype, and email.

My knee-jerk reaction was one of dread. It was quickly followed by guilt. BIG, FAT, UGLY GUILT.

I appalled myself. My superego roiled. I had to ask myself what was really going on here. In my typically obsessive fashion, I drilled myself.

It went something like this–on and on and on:

  • Was I insincere when I called Hanna my best friend? No.
  • Was I insincere when I professed to love them both? No.
  • Was I insincere when I said I missed them? No.
  • Was I insincere when I stated that I had enjoyed their last visit? No.
  • Was I insincere when I assured Niko that we did not harbor resentment against him for his psychotic break during their last visit? No. It was not his fault he had become ill, and he need not feel shame nor fear our censure. I assured him that no lasting harm had been done.

So why was I having trouble sleeping?

I was just coming into conscious—and reluctant—contact with the reality that my giddy naiveté had been stripped away. My husband Henry had been living in reality all along, and it appeared that our children had bounced back nicely from the last visit. In fact, the kids were all for a repeat performance. They couldn’t wait to see their fun-loving Aunt and Uncle!

The real change had taken place within me. Now I KNEW what could go wrong. I KNEW what a repeat of 2006 might cost my family, my friends, the friendship itself. The feeling I had was similar to the feeling I had after my first cross country race as a high school sophomore. I hadn’t known what I was getting myself into when the gun went off. I ran like a demon and finished much faster than expected. Wobbly and green, I nearly puked my guts out. Having only begun to run two weeks prior, I limped away with a roaring case of tendonitis which made it difficult for me to train–let alone walk–for weeks. Stepping onto the starting line was much harder after that. I knew what lay ahead.

Henry and I talked. It was clear now that successfully orchestrating a lengthy visit involving a person with special needs would require more than, “Y’all come!” We weren’t sure we had the resources.

On the other hand, we loved Hanna and Niko; and we missed them. We knew what this vacation would mean to them and how they had scrimped and saved to make it possible. They continued to try to keep Niko’s illness under wraps but had not been able to avoid negative reactions. Though they lived in the heart of a city, they led isolated lives. They had often told us how loved they felt in our home, and by the time 2011 rolled around, they had named us as their only real friends. We appreciated what we understood as a sacred trust.

Saying yes was impossible. Saying no was impossible.

So, we said yes.

Unlike 2006, Henry and I worked together. We shared our concerns with one another and discussed what we believed would have to be put into place in order for the visit to be enjoyable and “safe” for everyone involved.

Working things out with Henry in this way was an important step in my consciously choosing the welfare of my family over my intimacy with Hanna. I believed this to be a healthy step. I had learned in the intervening years that it is possible to have rewarding intimate friendships without crawling directly into another person’s skin. Reducing my enmeshment with Hanna would undoubtedly result in healthier relationships all the way around. Right? Unfortunately my private discussions and teamwork with Henry were later viewed as the cornerstone of my betrayal.

Henry and I attempted to come up with some boundaries which we hoped would serve us all, and I discussed them with our friends via Skype.

Our invitation:

  1. You are welcome to come visit!
  2. You are welcome to use one of our cars whenever we are not using it.
  3. You are welcome eat all your meals with us.

Our requests:

  1. Limit your visit with us to 4 weeks duration. Spend half of those nights away on outside travel. You can use our house as home base. I’ll take any week off work to hang out with you. Just tell me which week.

This request was huge and very, very difficult for me to voice. I felt tremendous loss at limiting our contact. And I was extremely worried that I would hurt Hanna’s feelings. Still, I firmly believed this request would serve us all.

This request was made to protect Hanna and Niko. Though we had set up a reasonably private apartment (sans running water) in our walk-out basement, he had become overwhelmed by the noise and non-stop activity in our home during their last visit, and it had contributed to his crisis. Hanna, who works an hourly-wage job, is their sole breadwinner and Niko’s sole caregiver.

It was made to protect Henry and his fragile employment status as we prepared to send two children off to college the following year. The economy was still rough, and Henry was still recovering from workplace trauma he had experienced at his previous job. He had just taken a new sales job which required him to work from home. We were concerned that the noise and disruption might prove problematic while Henry was mending and trying to make a professional transition requiring his complete focus. (Henry’s office was in the basement next to the apartment our friends would be using. We knew our success in limiting our daughters’ urge to thunder up and down the stairs for visits would go only so far. Plus, the visit would take place during summer vacation, and it didn’t seem fair to require monastic silence.)

It was made to protect me. I was both stay-at-home Mom and part-time counselor now. Due to my availability and German skill, I would be the go-to person for parenting, household duties, and hospitality until about 6 or 7 each night. I had been a homemaker for many years, and I wanted to adjust our friends’ expectations to make sure I would get to enjoy this visit without becoming overwhelmed and exhausted. I wasn’t too worried on this account, as our daughters would help if asked; and Hanna had always pitched in without waiting to be asked.

It was made to protect our daughters. I was determined to give our children sufficient attention, something I had failed to do during the last visit.

  1. Obtain travel health insurance. It just seemed like a good idea given Niko’s history.
  1. Purchase tickets with a flexible return date in case Niko shows signs of distress OR Henry’s work situation proves too stressful for us to continue to host you.

We believed these were fair and straightforward requests. That didn’t make them any easier to speak. Any limit, any “no” was new to me when it came to Hanna, and I was very, very anxious. I was relieved when Hanna and Niko received our words in the spirit in which they were intended. Spending some time out of the house would be in line with their plans, they said, since they had wanted to do some sight seeing anyway. They agreed that if Niko showed signs of instability, it would be best to return home immediately; and they asked us to let them know if we needed them to leave the house. They indicated their willingness on all accounts and said they were planning to rent a car so as not to inconvenience us!

I felt relieved and reassured.

We were going to have a great visit!

This post is the ninth part of The Story of Hanna. Infidelity, Infidelity II and other installments of the story can be found under the Hanna tab.

*I broke this Family Rule! You can find other family rules and some family-related essays under the Family Rules tab.

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Infidelity II

Posted on July 1, 2015 by familyrulesbyplainjane
Photo credit here.

Photo credit here.

Summmer and Fall of 2012

There are many kinds of unfaithfulness.

As I examine my failed relationship with Hanna, I can trace the beginnings of my own infidelity to a time long before things between us reached a crisis point. I hadn’t wanted to see this. I felt too ashamed.

I can explain it simply: I pushed and shoved until I got my way. I didn’t appreciate what my agenda might cost my husband and children. In some ways, I think it cost Hanna and Niko as well.

She was my oldest friend, my first soul mate. She had the prior claim. When it came to Hanna, I just couldn’t say no. I didn’t want to say no. We saw each other so seldom that I wanted to spend every moment with her. I would have done just about anything to please her. Fortunately, Hanna was modest and demanded little. It was I who offered. My husband Henry knew this when he married me. He knew it would be easier to dig his way to China than tell me no when it came to Hanna. When she visited, he played host from a safe distance while Hanna and I ruled the roost.

Whenever Hanna stayed, Henry trudged off to work while Hanna and I shopped together. We cooked together. We cleaned together. In time, we tended the children together. Our daughters adored Aunt Hanna, and the feeling was mutual. Life was a vacation when Hanna was around! Occasionally we went visiting or sightseeing. Mostly, though, we talked, and talked, and talked. We started when we got up in the morning and finished in the wee hours over a glass of wine. This worked fabulously for many years.

My husband was a real trooper. Henry is good natured and generous, and he loves Hanna. He managed these finite periods of neglect with good humor–not that we gave him much choice since all of our conversations took place in German.

Hanna and Niko married in 2004 after several years of togetherness. When they asked to come from Germany in June of 2006, it was with the intention of permanently relocating to the U.S. I know now that both parties suffered from a case of Wishful Thinking.

Our friends hadn’t properly researched what was necessary for success and were ill prepared when they pulled up stakes (and burned some bridges) to come live in our basement with their cat Schnurzel. They didn’t have the proper visas, and Hanna was unable to work. I hadn’t considered the negative potentials should their bid fail. More to the point: I hadn’t been willing to consider anything beyond the delicious promise of a visit–indefinite in length–from my best friend and her husband. Who cared how long it might take them to get established? I was all in.

Henry had examined the situation levelly and made his concerns known. This is not to say that he had attempted to bar the way. He saw how much Hanna struggled to provide, and it was clear to him that they both felt isolated and stigmatized because of Niko’s mental illness. They complained about their lack of opportunity and the poor treatment they received in Germany. They were certain life would be better here.

Henry was all for lending them a hand or two or four. They were his friends too. All he asked was that I come down from Cloud 9 long enough to participate in an adult conversation. He wanted to discuss how best to help them, to consider the pros and cons of open-ended cohabitation, and to partner in some advance planning. I refused. I bullied and stomped: Why all the catastrophizing? You’re always so negative!

As it turned out, Henry had predicted the outcomes nearly perfectly. I imagine he felt quite alone as they unfolded, one by one, before his eyes: Within a few weeks, Niko relapsed into psychosis and ended up in the state hospital hours away; and Hanna began dividing her nights between our house and the parking lot of the state park nearest the hospital. We got her a phone, loaned her a car, and helped with the cat. She mastered station wagon camping, perfected the art of bathing at McDonald’s, and tried to make the best of her unscheduled “vacation.”

I feel weepy when I remember Hanna’s loyalty, patience, advocacy, and tenderness for Niko. She was a rock. She remained cheerful and determined even when her visa ran out and she was forced to leave Niko here while she returned to Europe for a period to straighten things out.

All of these happenings were predictable and manageable.

What was predictable but not manageable was my absence during this period. It tore at the security of my family. I gave my smiling best to Hanna and Niko. I denied them nothing. I gave Henry and the girls whatever I had left over. And not always gladly.

This went on for months.

I can see this now, and I am sad. I paid lip service to my marriage, and I shooed and shushed my children when they sought me. I set myself up as the perfect friend, and I set up Hanna and Niko to expect a level of availability and care which no healthy friend could sustain. I think I did harm.

My neglect of my family was easy to justify. I was being a good hostess. I deserved to spend time with my best friend. Our friends needed help, i.e., they needed my help. Mine, mine, mine. Me, me, me. Henry and the girls could wait until after Hanna and Niko were gone.

This is how I kept the family rule—”Friends Before Family”*—and betrayed my husband and children.

Both Hanna and Niko said many times throughout the years leading up to our painful parting in 2011, that their 2006 visit had been an incredibly positive experience. They said they had felt so safe and loved and welcomed. Inclusion in the hum and rhythms of family life had warmed them. At first, I wholeheartedly agreed: The visit had been a smashing success despite the complications. It was true. I wasn’t lying. There were many beautiful things about that summer and fall. But it is also true that my mind did what had to be done in the moment. If it had allowed me to feel my stress and fear, I would have fallen apart.

Once Hanna and Niko were able to return to Germany that November, the dust began to settle. The protective anesthesia wore off. In no time, Henry and I were at each other’s throats. It became clear, too, that the girls needed help to process Niko’s frightening descent into psychosis and the fruition of our family dysfunction. We required therapy and several months to recover.

Well being was restored but something was shifting. My skyrocketing panic when our friends asked to visit exactly five years later told me we could not afford a repeat. The cost to all of us was just too high. Henry and I wanted them to come but we decided we had to approach this visit differently. Do you hear the we in this?

I’m not sure I communicated this shift to them as well as I should have, and as the politicians in D.C. are wont to say, “Mistakes were made.”

This is the eighth installment of The Story of Hanna. Please see the tab of the same name to read the others. Installment seven is here. Installment nine is here.
You can find Infidelity I, a very silly post, here.

*You can find this Family Rule here. Please see the Family Rules tab for more rules.

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Infidelity

Posted on May 18, 2015 by familyrulesbyplainjane
Image credit here.

Image credit here.

Summer, 2013

“Are you getting enough?”

“Well…”

“I know we haven’t made much time for each other lately.”

“I’ve been getting by.”

“Because if you aren’t getting your needs met here, I want to know where you are getting them met.”

No, no no, this is not a conversation about sex! This conversation occurred in my women’s group. We were discussing our friendship needs.

My Ladies and I have been fast friends since chance (read: God) threw us together in the Spring of 1999 when we attended the same church retreat.

When we first started getting together, we met weekly. Each time we told new stories, learned more about one another, and laughed so hard it’s a wonder nobody ever threw up. Once each summer we went to great lengths to escape our children so that we could go off somewhere and behave like children. Please don’t ask me about specifics. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.

We had established the perfect blend of personalities, interests, and abilities. We did serious; we did spiritual; we did raucous; we did clueless. This was the life! We would go on like this forever! Nothing could ever come between us. We all but took vows and exchanged rings.

Slowly the passion cooled. We were on our way to becoming an old married couple. Getting together was enjoyable, but it wasn’t always the peak experience we had come to expect. As our children’s lives became more complicated and our work demands changed, making time for one another dropped further and further down our list of priorities. To be fair, perhaps I should also add that it dropped further and further down our list of possibilities. We were exhausted! Sometimes making the effort to coordinate four schedules became just one more thing—one more box to check on an already long list. And let’s face it. Who needs that?

As we began to coast, each of us began to explore other friendships. This felt good! We were getting our friendship needs met! But the enjoyment was also tinged with the guilty pleasure of “the affair.” Shouldn’t we be trying harder to make our schedules work? Shouldn’t we be pushing harder to create excitement in the perfectly good relationships we had? Could we be authentically happy that our intimate friends had found ways to get what we could not provide? Occasionally things between us became awkward as we wondered where we stood. Were we headed for divorce, however amicable? We had gone through infatuation and a lengthy honeymoon before the glow wore off and we found ourselves in the power struggle trying to assert our own agendas. Are you familiar with Imago Therapy? The theory behind it holds that if you make it successfully through this rough patch, you enter into a more mature and stable love.

Well….

We all agreed that the group needed an injection of something to keep things fresh. Without acknowledging it to one another, we more or less ended up in two camps.

Camp Edify wanted our times together to focus more on the study of Scripture in order to produce spiritual growth and maturity. This was a worthy aim. Camp Bite Me shrewdly figured that Bible Study = homework = one more thing. Seeing how frazzled we had all become, the Bite Mes didn’t want our times to have any agenda other than relaxation and fun. This aim was worthy as well.

When Edify touched on spiritual themes, Bite Me listened with patient smiles while it silently screamed, “Squish the damned camel through the needle already so we can get to the fun part! Can’t we just keep it light?!” Edify listened to Bite Me with Christian tolerance, plotting all the while how to manipulate the talk back to loftier fare. As the power struggle intensified, so did the tactics. Since neither camp had actually declared itself or its agenda, each volley had to take the form of a finely crafted segue lest the other camp come to suspect its motives. Fortunately, we are all very subtle and refined individuals.

I recall one van ride last summer in which the volleys sailed flew back and forth for the better part of two hours. As the Edifys became more earnest, the Bite Mes became more, uh, entertaining. In the end, it was Pollyanna versus Jersey Shore in an epic smackdown. I bet you can’t guess who ended up crying “Uncle.”

I’m willing to share the conversation with you in its condensed form but only if you promise not to tell anyone. I think it appropriate, in this day of Twitter and speed dating, to collapse it to its bare essentials. This may also help to insure that I will still have friends and a job in the event that someone I know actually reads this.

“Ten Commandments.”

“Ten inches.”

“Seek ye first.”

“Knockwurst.”

“End times.”

“Ten times.”

“Grace.”

“Mercy!”

“Forgive us our debts.”

“Cigarette.”

For several months after this wrestling match, I wasn’t sure where we’d end up. For a while we went our own ways and almost seemed to forget about one another. A sort of continental drift or benign neglect had become the norm. Certainly nobody was going out of their way to organize anything.

I prepared myself for disappointment by trying to imagine I was ok with these developments: These women were nice but a lot of people are nice. And I was very busy. And both camps were starting to get on my last nerve. To gird myself against possible hurt, I practiced my Steel Magnolia Hug (lean in, brittle embrace, pat, pat, pat, I-don’t-need-you, release) and my International Air kisses (Mwa! I-am-above-zees. Mwa!) in the mirror, and said, “Screw it. I am just fine.”

Except that I wasn’t. I wasn’t fine at all. Hanna had dumped me, and I was high and dry. I didn’t realize how depressed I had become until I ran into one Lady unexpectedly and felt the tears spring into my eyes. I lurched into in a hug and didn’t want to let go. I needed my Ladies! I sent out an SOS, oblivious to the snot which threatened to short out my phone. Hell froze over, pigs flew, and before too long, we were seated cozily together enjoying a meal. We had a wonderful time.

We are older. We are wiser. We are still intact. Some things have shifted and some have stayed the same but we are still faithful to one another. Furthermore, I believe we are entering a good place in our odd little union.

This is the fourth installment in The Story of Hanna. Click here to read installment three. Click here for installment five.

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