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Clinging to the air,
the stale pungency of alcohol invaded her senses. Pausing for a
moment, she half-heartedly withdrew her hand and rolled over on her
side, propping her arm under chest with hands in prayer beneath her
head. Moving slowly as not to awaken him, she drew her knees toward
her chest, balancing carefully on the edge of the bed. Wistfully
she sighed, her mind drifting back to their youth.
Seventeen years, her
mother was right; time became a footnote with each year that past.
Back then, before the kids, the responsibilities, the pressure,
before the fun went away--back then marriage and living in
California felt blissful, easy and free. Sex ruled their free
time. Any reason to engage, places and positions all begged for
experimentation, each circumstance provided an opportunity for
lascivious intent. Sex with John, how their love life shined! At
least once a day, more often if possible, together intoxicated by
feelings, romping and cavorting, making love in ways the authors of
the Kama Sutra may hesitate in disclosing.
Softly, a smile edge
her mouth as she recalled their early days, the carnal sex,
hitchhiking through Europe in 1980 as college juniors. She
remembered the dirt-cheap, flea infested bed and breakfast in Paris
with a view of the Eiffel Tower, if they stood on a hutch in the
nook of their room on tip toes and looked out the tiny window. Flea
bites, the stench of the sewage from the alley below, it made little
difference. Even the itch of each manifesting bite paled once lost
within their consummate passion. This was Paris and they were in
love. Nothing could change that or dampen their enthusiasm.
Back then, they
seemed incapable of getting enough of each other; the pain of those
years insignificant, for it was not that of loneliness, but of
longing. During breaks with the obligatory treks to their respective
family homes, she to San Francisco and he to Boston, they couldn't
wait to see each other again. Absence did not make their hearts
grow fonder. It made them desperate to see each other.
Reflecting, it seemed she remembered a life other than her own.
What happened?
Now Jane looked
forward to John's working late, even though she complained it was
bad for the children. Secretly she found relief in the fact his
return often occurred once all were asleep, granting her solace
between the rock of her children and the hard place increasingly
representing John. Should his schedule grant dinner with the
family, more often than not dread circumvented anticipation as the
hour of his arrival approached. In consolation she rationalized,
dinner for the children's sake, no matter how interminable for her,
served their best interests, though the house seemed more peaceful
without him.
This bliss and
longing for each other, the limerence of love, carefree in lust with
a needing to be near, how did it all slip away? Stolen
surreptitiously over time, it simply vanished and Jane, though
craving it, could think of no way to reclaim it. Lamenting, she
attempted to recall, relive the experiences of happiness and
feelings of endearment once overwhelming yet now absent. The events
transforming her feelings toward him required time to reach
fruition. The beginning of the end, the best she could pinpoint,
surfaced gradually from innocent play. Throughout the years, he
often used her as the source of entertainment between family and
friends, baiting, teasing and passively chastising her. As those in
attendance, whether colleagues, friends or relatives laughed, her
silent rage grew.
Though frustrated
with John, anger rarely resided in comfort. It was an emotion to
which she never grew accustom; so foreign to her nature, though like
a friend she both longed for and feared, it dwelled in quite chaos,
ever present beneath the surface. Strange how at times the only
thing she hated more than John was the fact that she hated him.
From weeks to
months, months to years over the course of the marriage a pattern
emerged. Each time he minimized her feelings, degrading her in jest
by making her tribulations the entertainment of many, memories
clinging to the good times ebbed further from her conscience. In
the beginning, those of love returned quickly. Of late, with each
regaling, positive emotions returned with less haste. Soon
ambivalence replaced passion, then ambivalence with disgust. That
disgust now felt like hate.
Though days shared
similarity in their ending, they did not begin with a conscious
effort to discover reasons to despise him. Throughout the normal
course, new reasons simply emerged, though she did try, truly try to
discover any trace that would allow her to love him again. Generally
she searched in vain. Warm feelings evaporated quickly each time she
confronted yet another of his once quirky habits; cute and character
in the beginning, now each served to annoy her. This internal
struggle, between feelings of loathing and aspirations of love, left
her marriage seeming more as an arrangement than the marriage
idealized in Hallmark® commercials or even an episode of Rosanne.
Beneath the weight
of her body, her arm began to tingle. Turning over onto her back,
she repositioned herself, jumpstarting the circulation. Staring at
the ceiling her eyes glazed over as tears quietly flowed. Closing
her eyes to halt their formation, she felt the blood flowing back
into her arm, yet inside her anxiety grew. Edward Munch's "The
Scream", yes, such a sound beyond words, this is how she felt and it
frightened her. Within marriage she now knew, a pain exists so
overpowering that pride, retribution and marital standoffs suffice
as makeshift intimacy, making confrontation love's intimacy. Only
one living in this trap could possibly understand the pain and
yearning for that which is lost and that which may be gained. The
harshest prison seemed tame to the brutality of that constructed
within her head.
Earlier that day,
during yet another conversation turned adversarial, she wanted,
needed to touch his shoulder, to impart some sentiment toward a
rebuilding of bridges. But as quickly as the need made its
appearance, he turned on her, accusing her of lecturing, nagging and
an endless parade of pettiness. The conversation disintegrated,
leaving her with renewed feelings of abhorrence. Exhaling heavily,
with eyes again open, she dreaded this was now her life. Glancing
at the clock, the time read 1:00 AM. Soon a new day would dawn and
the hell would start again.
Her mind flashed
back to a radio interview from a previous day. Santa Monica
psychiatrist Ben Wyman spoke of the loneliness marriage often
becomes. As she drove down the crowded streets of West Los Angeles
toward her thirteen-year-old daughter's school, her ears focused
intently. Around her the cars ceased to exist. Dr. Wyman spoke of
the memory our skin keeps, those of a lover's touch, soft caress and
comforting glance. He elaborated on the difference of our skin's
memory versus that of our mind. How it recalls all touch, good,
bad, loving or hateful. How skin emphasizes through loneliness the
absent of any, leaving in its wake an aching unequaled by any other
pain. Now laying here beside John, this pain of touch's absence
fueled a silent Munchian scream. If only she could reach out to
him, if only the love they once had could be reborn, if only….
In segment three we will complete
this chapter and tell you what to do if you are feeling and
experiencing a similar situation. Do not lose hope; this can
be fixed and we'll tell you how.
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