Inside the mind of a workaholic
I am sleeping in the downstairs bedroom. Alone. Or sometimes with the dog.
I hate writing this story because I want to be a person you admire, but I also hate not writing it. Because I want to be a person I admire. I want to be a person known for honesty.
Which means I need to tell you that I wish I cared more that I’m not talking to the Farmer.
I hate that I have stories I don’t want to tell. Because I have found that almost always, the secrets we keep matter a lot to us, but they don’t matter to other people.
For example, I emailed to Melissa one day. “I have a secret: I drank wine at breakfast today and I haven’t stopped.”
I thought Melissa would email back that I’m an idiot and I’ll be in rehab.
But she emailed back, “I forgot to get a refill for Lexapro and today is the first time in a year that I’ve initiated sex.”
Secrets are fun. That’s what I try to tell myself. It’s fun to not have to have a secret anymore, really.
It’s very hard to tell which of our secrets are huge and which are small. Like, I did not think it was a big deal when I said I was having a miscarriage, but that was a huge deal to a huge number of people. And I thought it was a huge deal when I said I was trying anti-anxiety meds, but no one really cared. What is a huge secret to you and what is a huge secret to everyone else is so different.
Which makes me feel unsure about secrets.
But I read a piece in the Wall St. Journal about a safari guide in Zimbabwe. He is one of the most famous safari guides in the world, and he says he tells people to “never run away from an animal. Always go slowly. Unless I tell you to run. Then run.”
And there was one time when he was guiding a man and woman through some elephants, and a mother elephant started chasing them. So they had to run. They ran for about half a mile, and they still hadn’t gotten away. And the woman said, “I can’t go anymore. I can’t run anymore. I just can’t.”
And the guide said, “Okay. I’ll have to shoot the elephant.”
Then she said, “No. I’ll keep running.” And she did.
I think we are like that. That if the alternative is terrible, we can keep running. But first we have to really believe the alternative is terrible.
I wish I felt more fulfilled being in a marriage with the Farmer. I love retreating to my work. I read that men who have stay-at-home wives treat women at work like their wives. That might be nice. I should go get an office job.
I should set new, really high traffic goals for my blog, and meet them. Web stats are like crack: I could be obsessed and look at them every day and not care about my personal life.
But I don’t want another divorce. And the kids really love the Farmer. So I guess we are doing a trade right now. I cook and clean. And he lets me raise my kids on the farm. And the kids love him. We have not exactly discussed this trade. In fact, I have not spoken more than a few words to him in weeks.
And there was a fight. Of course. The fight was: I say something. He gets pissed off that I said it. I get hurt that he’s pissed off. I can’t remember the fight. The topic or anything.
I remember what the kids saw, though: He kicked me out of the house in front of the kids.
The kids left with me.
The next day, my seven-year-old said, “Dad. I’m sorry you had such a bad day yesterday. I’m sorry you kicked Mom out of the house.”
The Farmer said, “I didn’t kick her out of the house I….” (I can’t remember what else he said.)
And my son said, “Well you told her to get out of the house twice. And you put her stuff on the porch.”
The Farmer said, “I lost my temper. That was wrong. I should not lose my temper.”
Later. Days later. When I had already stopped talking to the Farmer, I checked in with my seven-year-old while we were driving.
“How are you feeling about the divorce?”
He asked if I was talking about divorce between me and the Farmer.
I said, no, I’m talking about the divorce that actually happened, between me and my Ex.
My son said, “I am worried that Dad is going to throw you out of the house and then I will just live with him on the farm with him and I’m worried you won’t have a place to live.”
That killed me. So many different ways it killed me.
It is well known that as a rational act of self-preservation kids will often identify with the aggressor in the marriage. And that’s what happening at my house. So I can’t let the kids see us have a fight again because our fights are not safe for them to see.
I reviewed my options. Couples therapy has been totally useless. The therapist told us he thought we were hopeless. And divorce is out of the question because I think it’s completely selfish with kids. So I decided it’s my job to figure out how to be in this house without ever having another fight with the Farmer again. Because the fights are too costly emotionally to the kids.
Which means I’m retreating to my work. My work is always there for me. And I’m so good at work. And my work is interesting and fun and I meet such cool people. So for now, that’s my best solution.
That’s the end of the post. There.
But I thought it sounded like my life is going to hell. So I did some searches about being a workaholic. I thought it would be good to write about the virtues of having a great career to turn to if your personal life sucks. I wanted to give you links to research about how people with great careers can use them as tools to create resilience.
But there were no links. There were only links about how people gain resilience from intimate relationships. And, frankly, all the research about workaholics is that they are neurotic, delusional and lonely.
I love retreating to work so much. But I didn’t want to have to tell you that because it’s so lame. So last night, I did my webinar at 8pm. And at 9pm I walked up to the Farmer, after two months of not talking to him, and I said, “I want you to hug me.”
I think he was surprised to see me even walk into his bedroom which two months ago was our shared bedroom.
He looked at me.
He said, “You must be really happy after that call. It sounded like you guys were having lots of fun.”
I said, “No. I’m sad actually. I’m sad that we are not trying hard enough at the relationship. I’m sad that work is so much more fun than my personal life.”
He hugged me.
And that is why, I think, that stories have so much power. We so much want a happy ending.
I ran across your blog for the first time today. I was googling domestic violence and a link to your blog popped up. I’d first like to write that I think you’re courageous for sharing your story. I’d like to do the same at some point. Secondly, I have to be honest, as I read about your children, I began carrying on this debate, by myself, out loud, about the views in your post. Can anyone identify with that at all? Because I felt something as a mother, I decided to reply. It’s clear that you recognize your children are functioning defensively and have aptly shifted into a gear of self-preservation. Yet it appears, you believe that just existing in a marriage without fighting somehow will not resonate negatively in their young lives. A home with very limited or no communication between parents and partners seems so harmful and lacks a healthy, relationship model, essential for young people as they move through life. How is divorce selfish, if it’s done with the welfare of your children in mind? Is it because you’ve been married and divorced before? I believe marrying with children before you’ve healed from or worked through why your first marriage wasn’t successful might be what’s truly selfish. I’m not saying that’s what you did, but you have to recogize that there might be parallels in both your marriages. I’m not sure that spending the remainder of your children’s adolescent years in an unhealthy marriage, void of communication, just so you can say you stuck it out for their sake, isn’t a bit selfish and “emotionally costly.”
It is not about getting a divorce or not getting a divorce. It is about finding happiness. It doesn’t look like divorce will make you happy. Divorce might remove some pain, but it won’t make you happy.
It sounds like you want the appearance of a family because that teaches your children stability, and you want to live on a farm with a man and some children and lots of animals. But at the same time, you want to have an amazing career and honestly, all you are missing is some hot, steamy love affair with someone neurotic, delusional, unattached, and (hopefully) very good in bed. You want to be a man in the 1950s. We all do.
I have learned so much from you and enjoy your writing very much. I don’t have the background you have nor have I ever faced the situations you face, but your perspective has helped me learn and appreciate your point of view. You know what is best and will find your own direction. Take care, good luck and thank you.
That moment of vulnerability is so hard, when we try to put our pride aside and reach out to the other person. It’s painful to risk rejection, to risk not getting our needs met – again – and bridge the distance. Often there is a pattern of one person in the relationship doing all the bridging, which gets old…
I’m occasionally struck with what a waste it is, how much people withhold from each other what they know the person so desperately needs, how many days and years that could have been happy are frittered away in bitterness and resentment. Do none of us have any idea how to actually love another person?
Argh I have read here for awhile and never commented, but you drive me crazy with this kids need me to stay because divorce is bad for them. Ok let’s say that is true, you have already screwed it up—- the farmer is not their dad, you ex is. So all this research you are putting out there doesn’t count because that is looking at the original nuclear family not a blended one! So stay or go but don’t put that on the kids.
Hi Penelope,
I’m a long time reader but first time commenter. I am not one for telling personal stories to strangers but maybe this will help you. As a child, my parents wouldn’t talk for very long stretches at a time. I should emphasize that there was no physical abuse. Some occasional loud fights but no abuse. And there were of course wonderful times of getting along. But mostly, there was low, unstated tension and silence between my parents.
And I can say with all sincerity that NOTHING was worse than the times my parents didn’t talk. I noticed it. All my siblings noticed it. I remember begging to get the wishbone when we had a chicken and I would wish for my parents to talk again. I would pray every night to God and implore to have my parents talk. I would go to school, play with my friends, laugh with my siblings and through all of it, there was a CONSTANT drum beat at the back of my head: “please let this be the day they talk; please let this be the day they talk.” I even had high blood pressure as a child (and I was very thin, healthy, ate great food: it was purely a stress thing.)
I don’t want to make it out too horribly. In many ways, I had a wonderful childhood. Most of my memories are happy ones. It might be nice for you to know that I grew up in large family and we all turned out great: we have great jobs and we all somehow have managed to have wonderful, supportive relationships that are very different from the relationship my parents had. But I can also tell you that to this day, I will sometimes try to sleep, and memories will flood in of those “non-talking” times and to this day, my body will react with a surge of anxiety. This isn’t to lay a guilt trip on you or anything. But I just want to relate my experience. Kids notice things like that. And they care. I would have taken fighting over the silence any day.
Just wanted to chime in,
PDT
Is this a legally recognized marriage? From the posts around the time of the marriage, i got the impression there was some type of ceremony or something, but not necessarily a legally binding marriage. So if the marriage is in name only, there would be no issue with a ‘divorce’.
I think staying with the farmer meets Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at the level of safety. I think you need to make sure you have that area fully covered. Then start working on Love and Belonging. It is as if you are trying to operate at the level self-actualization when your other needs are not being met. Though you seem to be aware of this if at least subconsciously because you say “I want to be a person you admire” which hits another of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, esteem, respect by others. I guess my thought is if you want your marriage to work start at the bottom and work your way up the pyramid. Good luck and I am sorry for your sorrow :(
Hello Penelope,
Living with someone you care about that has Asperger’s is so challenging. If you do love them though, it’s your job to figure out how to communicate effectively and not get pissed off at them for not communicating the way you want them to. My husband and daughter drive me mad sometimes with their responses to actions/ words/situations that would not even illicit a response in a ” normal” person. Do they wake up every morning saying to themselves, “I’m going to be purposely obtuse and difficult today”. No, they don’t. It might seem that way to the rest of us, but I know they can’t understand why we don’t get them and that’s why they withdraw – it’s way easier to be alone. So, ask the Farmer to work harder at understanding the way you communicate and he should remember your intention is not to drive him away. Plus, he should not indulge in his anger. He’s a grown up and should act like one.
I have just passed the 20th year in my not so happy, working hard at it marriage. And it sucks. No violence, no abuse but no love either.
Only people in crap marriages have to work this hard at it. It is a waste of a life.
I am still here because we have a daughter and I thought it best to stay for her sake. She’s 15 and now even she wants ‘out’!
Penelope, the statistics about kids from divorced homes cannot possibly be as black and white as we think they are, and probably need updating for c.40 years of major social change.
“Secrets are fun. That’s what I try to tell myself. It’s fun not to have to have a secret anymore, really.
….I thought it was a huge deal when I said” (insert my secret here) “but no one really cared. What is a huge secret to you and what is a huge secret to everyone else is so different.”
…
” I walked up to the Farmer, after two months of not talking to him, and I said, ‘I want you to hug me.’
…..
He looked at me.
He said, “You must be really happy after that call. It sounded like you guys were having lots of fun.”
I said, “No. I’m sad actually. I’m sad that we are not trying hard enough at the relationship. I’m sad that work is so much more fun than my personal life.”
He hugged me.
And that is why, I think, that stories have so much power. We so much want a happy ending.”
This post ROCKS. I so identify with MY secrets not being of any interest to anyone else, and I so identity with wanting a happy ending. How come no-one else seems to have noticed the happy ending to your post??
I so admire you for sticking with your marriage – I agree with you – it’s worth it – for the kids AND for you AND for the Farmer! In another post, you said something along the lines of that maybe a happy life was too difficult and too nebulous a goal to achieve and that maybe we should just concentrate on having an interesting life instead. i think that your life with the Farmer is an interesting life – the interest being that you two are weaving a story together – you are both trying (in both senses of the word). As long as the violence is in the past (and you honestly acknowledged your role in that), I think you should keep trying to make it work.
But how arrogant of me or anyone to make suggestions!
I wish you all the best from the bottom of my heart.
Dilys
I admire your honesty Penelope, it’s hard to do and hat down to you for writing realistically about your life and not just the good happy stuff. I wish I could be as honest as you are on my blog.
I do think if your relationship isn’t working then you shouldn’t stay just for the kid’s sake. I guess lots of people are giving you lots of advice and it’s easy to give advice, but deep down you probably feel what you should do and that’s the answer. The intuition is powerful. I hope everything works out for the best and you are all happy and healthy.
Penelope, I have been divorced from my ex-husband for 12 1/2 years…..we have one daughter who is 15. For the last 6 1/2 years we have chosen to live under the same roof….Although sometimes it is not easy, we see the prime beneficiary as our daughter….when we were living apart, it was very hard on her…I believe every circumstance is different…My ex-husband is a very devoted father….and she benefits from the warmth of his kindness and caring, and she has that every single day. He and I both love being parents. There is no doubt in my mind that this situation works best for us, it is not for everyone….there have been times where he does not speak respectfully enough to me, but he has improved about that a lot…..I never had a mother who was available emotionally or even physically present much of the time, and my father was almost non-existent, I am doing things much differently than my mother did, and it’s working well for us…..My daughter loves seeing her Dad every day….they spend a lot of time together…. I hope this helps. I greatly admire your desire to work the marriage out, but I do think you need to take a very hard look at your own happiness….you deserve to be treated with respect, care and admiration….to be adored….and your husband is setting a poor example for your sons in the way he treats you. Something to think about…..Role models for men are so important. But I have to say this, for them to see you having honest discussions and working things out is a very valuable thing too!! All the best to you dear Penelope…..
He has his own bedroom, and he’s been very respectful of that boundary.
Let me know where I can send a donation for your kids after the abuser kills you. Make sure you put a copy of your article about how divorce is bad in an envelope for them to read after you’re gone.
Your comment is abusive.
No, it is reality.
No it is not abusive, it is a wake up call.
It’s no way to talk to someone who’s already dealing with emotional abuse. Even if it was a misguided attempt at a reality check, it’s really just a shitty way to wound someone. Counterproductive.
Will it be good for you to see your sons grow up aggressing on women? Because the Farmer aggresses on you?
If he can’t handle who you are, and you can’t stop provoking him, please get out and teach them a better way of life.
This nonsense about selfish is something you have in your own head.
You are in denial – about alot of things it seems. You look for ways around your denial when it wreaks havoc in your life in some way. (There! Blunt statement. Second blunt statement to follow.)
You seek explanations or excuses that make sense to YOU, but don’t necessarily make sense in practical application in the real world of managing relationships. In this way, Asperger’s is hurting you.
Best advice: Couples therapy won’t work for you until you learn to better manage the challenges of having Asperger’s. Working more or separating yourself gives you relief from the emotional work of maintaining a balanced life, but as you admitted, there is a loneliness in that as well. Maybe being with the Farmer is not right. Maybe divorce is inevitable.
But maybe not. Only you can make that call but…
The first step is yourself. Not your marriage, your kids, your blog, your work. I’ve only been following your blog for a short time. I see you struggling. It’s getting worse. Do you think it might be time for reassessment? Time to think of ways you might be able to use the strengths of Aspbergers to minimize the negative symptoms it causes? It will also help to clarify the choices you have available to you. Start with YOU. Logical assessment of your emotional status. You seem so lost and fragmented right now and that is coming through loud and clear.
My heart goes out to you – I feel empathy for your pain. Come up with a plan for effective coping strategies and you will be able to make things better all around. Some secrets are fun. Some are very heavy. Let them go and get on with it. Your willy-nilly Asperger’s drivel is putting a damper on the more robust Penelope we so love to listen to!
I am a child of a mother who decided to sacrifice her happiness for the sake of her children by marrying emotionally abusive man. She had two children from her first marriage which ended because of physical abuse. She has been miserable for 37 years with her second husband always complaining and saying how much she hates him. She is 66 now, very unhappy, full of bitterness still agonizing about divorce. I am so sick and tired to be a part of her drama all my life.. Sometimes I wish I had no family at all. Masochistic parents with low self-esteem don’t realize how much they poison lives of their children just by being unhappy and spreading negativity around.
Penelope you have excellent analytical skills. I am so surprised that you didn’t research on the subject of women in abusive relationships. All your justifications are so typical and unreasonable. I would recommend you to read books by Melody Beattie, she describes perfectly what stands behind any unhealthy relationship.
Another great book on the subject “Women Who Love Too Much” by Robin Norwood
Wow. There’s very selective editing of comments here, I see.
Isn’t THAT convenient!
…now I am curious.
Don’t work so hard at avoiding fights – work at fighting better.
Kids need to see healthy safe ways of fighting, so that when they grow up they have ideas on how to resolve conflict. All you’re showing them now is avoidance.
Must be hard being a mom. Best wishes to you :)
One can be neurotic, delusional and lonely without being workaholic. Just thought I’d mention this.
Beautiful writing.
Penelope. First of all, you know I read your blog regularly and you know I admire you and you inspire me. Let’s start there. First of all, I am not reading the comments and I am writing what I really honestly think. I am betting that the comments are saying… congratulations on putting the family first and not divorcing. I am just betting there is a fair amount of that. If you were really putting your kids first, you wouldn’t have married the second time. That would have been putting the kids first. Not introducing another dad, and a complication… It was a big risk. And it looks like the risk isn’t panning out. And the farmer is basically stuck with you and your kids now, because you don’t want to divorce for the sake of the kids. Long slippery slope. I am not sure what you do now. Choices are choices. We make them and we live with them. You are trying really hard to live with yours and I commend you. But, after reading this post, I don’t think it ends well. At some point within the next one or two years, you guys divorce. After that, I BEG you, don’t get married again, until those kids are in college. Focus on their birth father and making sure that they have a good relationship with him. The farmer is temporary.
I’m responding to this because I know Rebecca – she comments a lot. And I like her website, and I don’t think she’s a nut job. I think she is a great addition to this blog, actually.
But even for Rebecca, there is so much missing from her story. For one thing, people with Aspergers have a very very difficult time raising kids on their own. The biggest thing you need to raise kids is empathy and executive function. People with Aspergers are very short on both those things. Raising kids with someone who has both those things — which all neurotypical people have – is important for someone with Aspergers. That is hard for me to admit. It’s hard for any very smart, financially independent woman to admit, don’t you think?
Second, I don’t write about the boys’ birth dad a lot here. Mostly because it’s a very smooth but unconventional relationship and I don’t want to mess it up. But their birth dad co-parents with the Farmer, on the farm, which everyone is happy with. The Farmer loves the kids and is happy to take responsibility for raising them. The birth dad does not want responsibility for the kids. He was very clear during the divorce that he did not want any responsibility for the kids at all, so I have set up the best scenario for the boys given that limitation.
I never write this. I’m writing it to show you first, how difficult it is to have kids with someone who has Aspergers (both my Ex and I have Aspergers). And second to show you that there are a lot of considerations that me getting remarried was definitely a good idea. I never wonder about that. Ever. I just want it to work better.
Penelope
Your decisions make sense.
My wife reminds me a bit of you. What has most hurt me in our marriage have been moments when she was lacking empathy toward our children who were trying to reach that side of her.
We have had lots of fights, bad and worse, but they seem to become less important as life goes on. We both know we want to make it work. At least I know we both want to. I think it’ll be ok.
For you too, it’ll be ok, I think. But it’s hard to know, isn’t it? With what we know, your decisions make it possible, though.
Btw, our life is fun, demanding, unconventional, active and quite interesting. All kinds of things are possible.
Tommi
P.S. Maybe go for more hugs?
Penelope, you are right, I didn’t take into consideration the difficulties of parenting with Aspergers or the birth father’s ability to parent his kids. In that light my comment too black/white for the situation. I really do appreciate the extra bit of information. Thank you.
I don’t think you should leave the farm.
You have problems dealing with people in a non-professional capacity (i.e. when people are being paid to cooperate) and like all valuable skills, you need to learn how to do that. Maybe in the end your relationship won’t work out, but spending two months giving the farmer the silent treatment is not working on your relationship skills.
Also, “never fighting again” is an unrealistic and impossible to meet expectation, and when our expectations are not met we get frustrated. Creating a fantasy in your head about a conflict free life will not help you cope with, or mediate the conflicts in your life.
There is nothing wrong with firing a therapist, as long as you hire a new one instead of thinking you have it all figured out, or that you can just cook and clean in exchange for staying at the farm. That will be an unsatisfying situation for everyone involved, even the kids.
You need a person to tell you when you are doing things wrong who is not going to provoke an emotional reaction in you by doing so.
(I considered adding an addendum to this to explain to other people how I’m not victim blaming but I think you will understand what I am saying without further explanation)
Penelope,
You of course know that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. You must take care of yourself first–if you are messed up you are not being a good parent. Kids are resilient. It sounds like there is still abuse going on, if he put your stuff out on the porch–that’s abuse too.
Abuse is abuse, whether it is physical or emotional. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!
An insightful article by Dr. Christine Carter, Happiness Expert.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-carter-phd/is-divorce-immature-and-s_b_1337284.html
For as much as I strongly believe marriage takes work and thoughtful dedication, it shouldn’t be as painful and harsh as the one you describe. My husband and I have had challenges through the years, undoubtedly, but we have always been on the same team. We enjoy spending time together. Our marriage is a place of comfort, not hostility. We’re happy and I can’t say it’s all that hard, certainly not in the way you describe. I have to believe his is how marriage is supposed to be because it feels right. Peaceful. Positive.
Growing up, my parents were severely toxic with each other. My sister and I wanted desperately for them to just call it quits. It wasn’t a healthier situation for them to stay together, but it did set us up with a lot of PTSD and unhealthy views about what a relationship means that required years of counseling to deconstruct. They were too scared of what it might mean if they were just honest with themselves about how they felt about one another, how dysfunctional their marriage was (and is). Staying together was not a selfless act of courage, but a pathetic decision based in insecurity. In many ways it’s easier to stay together instead of taking responsibility for your own happiness and the welfare of your children. They’re as miserable today as they were 30 years ago. Their marriage is no accomplishment.
In the end, you’ll do what you feel serves you best which is of course your prerogative, but please be cautious about how you justify exposing your children to dysfunction, trauma, and hostility in their home. It’s not fair to them. They know exactly what’s going on.
Penelope, I have three pieces of unsolicited advice for you. I’m really too busy today to be writing comments to blogs, but since I like you a lot, I’m bothering.
1) As an act of self-preservation, kids will identify with and stay with the parent they view as most stable, not the aggressor. I know you can find all kinds of studies to support whatever position you choose, but I feel this is the absolute truth. Be stable.
2) Do some reading up on empathic listening. Stop acting like a crazy person, you are not a crazy person. Use empathic listening, it works, but only 100% of the time.
3) Your beautiful boys are going to grow up to marry women just like you, so be your best YOU.
forgiveness and humility is so hard when you think you’ve been wronged. sometimes i think the marriges that work (and are healthy) are the ones that have been able to work the ego out of their relationships. instead of “i want you to hug me”, (maybe this was not verbatim) which despite being a genuine expression hints of a power play, why not “i miss you and i’m sorry because i can’t even remember what he fought about, lets try again”
**are so hard.
**cant even remember what we fought about
This discussion reminds me of a great episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond”. The episode featured the major characters getting together for a dinner to celebrate Robert and Amy’s three month anniversary. Debra and Raymond had been together for about 15 years or so, and Marie and Frank over 40 years.
I will never forget Marie’s speech about how marriage works. You basically just put your head down and plough through it! I couldn’t agree more.
Me, I have been married for 23 years, and I personally do not believe anyone that tells me that their long term marriage is not very hard. There are a lot of entrepreneurs on this board, including me, and I could very easily compare marriage to running a business. There is something that drove us to start that business AND to get married. You don’t just give up when the going gets tough. I don’t believe Penelope feels they are in danger here. If she felt that was the case, of course she would leave.
I am with you Penelope when you reject the idea of divorce. I wanted to leave my husband so many times over those 23 years. My marriage has been a roller coaster for a lot of it, but luckily, we are in a pretty good place right now. I don’t expect this to last, though. I have been in this long enough to know that a marriage has good and bad periods and if you find that it is mostly bad, then you work to find more of what put you together in the first place via counselling, being more attentive to each other, more sex even if you really don’t want to.
We have also had some horrible fights in front of our son. Kids just need to know that a fight does not equal end of marriage. If you feel confident that that is true, you can tell your sons that. It is what I told my son and I think that made him feel better.
Bottom line, I am convinced that my marriage is really quite normal, and yes, yours is too.
I agree kids need to be taught to work through disagreements and conflict but I also think that bad marriages are the norm because so many of us choose the wrong life partner. And unfortunately a bad marriage is not like a bad business idea that you can simply leave, or reengineer.
I don’t want my daughter to have to work this hard at a marriage. It is draining and you get back less than you put in. Why would we want that for our kids? Why do we think that is even normal? Who says most people are in an unhappy marriage where you have to work hard? I think it’s only us people in bad marriages that continue to perpetuate ths myth to make ourselves feel better and sanctimonious, like modern martyrs!
Here’s what I think people want to hear from you, so they can trust you:
What’s your boundary?
What kind of behavior crosses the line from a problem you can work on to abuse that you must walk away from?
Are you clear on that? Or is it fuzzy? (If you’re clear, please say so, and I’ll shut up.)
Divorce is crazy traumatic for children, period. I’m a child of divorce, and everything you think about it is right. Leaving the farm, which is so great for your kids – in your place, I would want to make the same decision you are making, for them.
But if there is abuse, that’s worse for your sons, long-term, than even massive divorce and dislocation trauma. Also, if it’s abuse, you don’t have control over it. You can’t make it stop by figuring out how to never make him mad.
If you value honesty, answer honestly: is there abuse? Because that picture looked like evidence that there is. And throwing you out of the house looks like more of it.
What’s your line? What’s too much?
I am concerned you would do anything to keep from uprooting your sons again, including putting them through the trauma of watching your abuse. Divorce in the absence of abuse is selfish. Not divorcing when there’s abuse is equally selfish – it’s a way to keep yourself from having to feel like a shitty parent who made bad decisions.
You are a great parent. A truly fantastic mother. Be brave enough to keep knowing that, if you have to leave.
I do not want to automatically tweets your posts. How do I unsubscribe from this? Please advise. Salene kraemer
As a child of parents who should have gotten divorced, but stuck it out for fourteen years, far worse than parents in a divorce, is having to live in a house with people whose only reason for living in the same geographical space was ‘marriage’. If my example of the archetypal relationship between man and woman is a constant lack of intimacy and frequently explosive back and forth, what example is that setting? I still live with the fallout, and worse, so do my parents, and this is nearly twenty years on. There is no benefit to setting and example of unhappiness, you’re just teaching the children of any such relationship that its best for parents to be unhappy, for the sake of their kids, and then, when those children are old enough to analyse
I hope you can keep running so the elephant won’t have to die.
I really love this post. I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestion of Pema Chodron. I have 6 of her audio collections in my kitchen cupboard and sometimes I think they are the only reason I am still here, not only here in my kids and husband and also here on the right side of the grass. But her two words that have always stood out most to me are absolutely relevant to your post and a really easy Pema-on-the-go to remember. The first is “stay”. She says ‘stay….stay….stay….its like a dog…you have to stay’. Its so true, you really have to stay and you have to keep thinking deeply about your situation, dont run from it, dont run to your work. The second is when she talks about boundaries. We need boundaries in life for what is acceptable, what we tolerate, what we do not. A book on boundaries may be helpful for you when you get stuck like this. Thanks for all your posts, I always look forward to them!
I don’t really believe in divorce either, at least where kids are involved (I have read the research too and it’s really pretty clear: the effects are terrible and long-lasting–even into middle age and beyond). Sometimes it’s necessary of course (like in cases of rampant addiction/untreatable mental illness etc.) but I think it’s better to think of it as an amputation: something you only do in the very last resort.
But the situation you describe is not good and frankly sounds untenable in the long term. You need to fix it. It sounds like you know this already.
I only know much about my own relationship (because what goes on between two people is always kind of unknowable for outsiders). But for me, marital problems are almost always caused by my personality defects/character flaws. Yes, it takes two people to have a fight, but that’s the point: if I were perfect, there would be no conflict.
You talked about trying hard at the relationship, but I think this is misguided. It’s really about trying hard to improve yourself (in particular, to honestly confront and defeat your most besetting sins–I am an atheist, so I don’t mean this in a religious way). If you do this, improvements in the relationship will promptly follow.
Love you P! I cried a little reading this. Here is my own personal observation of relationships between men and women: because men are built to deal with life totally different than women ie. Be strong to provide and protect, when in a relationship with a woman, when they need emotional support from you, rather than come to you and say “honey i feel lonely and need you to love me just a little more right this minute” what happens instead is men start a fight with you. But they do it in a way that makes it seem like YOU started and its YOUR fault you are fighting…to preserve their pride and dignity as the strong men they are suppose to be. This is how men control women. Because women react and cant control emotions and men NEED to control women the cycle continues. As long as we are alive, we will have to deal with this from the opposite sex. This type of control by men is exhibited in fathers and daughter relationships, and basically any relationship where the man needs emotional support from a woman. If you pay attention to gay men in relationships, they seem to be the most balanced.
Will you sit down and write a post about everything you *like* about the farmer? Because reading your blog, I never get any impression of him, just of you and your issues.
You want to stay in the marriage because you want a certain kind of life for the kids, because quitting is bad for the kids, and because divorce feels like giving up. I’m not hearing anything about why you want to live with this particular man, rather than some other generic salt-of-the-earth farmer of your imagination.
I don’t think this is a “match made in heaven”, but if you want it to work, you have to actually care about him and respect him.
Don’t you?
I was once in a dependent living situation. some people cannot live without another person or love in their life. they are afraid of loneliness. Loneliness is for people who don’t know who they are and are lacking in self-confidence. Life is filled with great discoveries and living in a bad relationship is not one of them. When you get the self confidence and courage you will move. You aren’t officially married though… so hopefully no legal wrangling. get your life back!!
Please reconsider the divorce. My parents have been married 38 years. For as long as I can remember I have dreamed they would divorce. They are miserable. My brother & I (who are 36 & 30 respectively) have always hated being home, even now when we visit. The tension was always there even if the yelling was absent. Kids do not flourish in that environment. I’m just this past year dealing with the issues my childhood left me with. Also, about the anxiety…please read the mindbody prescription by dr. John sarno. It is NOT a self help book. I’m like you. I need research & I need facts. This book has both. My sleep and anxiety are so much better. This book will change your life. You will see yourself on every page. It can help a myriad of ailments. check out the reviews on amazon.com. My best to you & your boys.
Penelope. Do you honestly think you are doing your kids a favor keeping them isolated on that farm, “homeschooling” them, living in a home where the adults don’t speak to each other, much less share physical intimacy?
Not to mention the physical, emotional and verbal abuse they have witnessed?
Time for a reality check, woman. THINK ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS FOR A SON TO SEE A MAN PUT HIS MOTHER PUT OUT LIKE YESTERDAY’S TRASH!!!
There are too many sycophants on this blog. You seem to feed on the kudos for being “honest.” The truth you tell is ugly and your kids deserve better.
Does your ex know the reality of your sons’ living situation?
Uh? Are your kids calling the Farmer, ‘Dad’? What do they call their birth father? Do they still see him?
I read this post with interest and particularly the reference Penelope makes in one of her follow up comments to the ‘decent research’ with regards to kids and divorce. Straight up I just want to say that I’m not some kind of anti-science lunatic. I understand the valuable role research plays in identifying trends and patterns of behaviour and ultimately helping society develop and make informed decisions. However – I am always amazed when in the realm of human relationships there is this desire to use science to quantify why decisions may be right or wrong for individuals. I am fairly sure (how is that for a scientific argument) that even in the face of comprehensive research, if you try hard enough you will always be able to find an anomaly that backs up whatever personal position you want to have. Judging from a lot of the comments I have read in this thread with regards to kids and divorce, there are obviously a lot of people out there who demonstrate that being a kid with divorced parents is not always such a bad thing. Are their experiences still deemed invalid because of the statistics??
I guess what I”m trying to say (after that long winded paragraph) is that I feel like we are starting to de-value individual human experience when we rely on research and statistics to justify decisions. Its easy to dismiss someone’s experience as ‘abnormal’ in the face of overwhelming stats, I’m just not sure its all that useful.
I hope Penelope you find a resolution that suits you, the farmer and your kids. I just hope you don’t make a decision based on what you think the outcome will be, as mapped out by whatever stats/research you want to look for. There are way too many variables in life that can throw a spanner into anyone’s works and totally render any research results useless.
I’ve been married to a carpenter for 34 years, living in the same house for 27 of those years in a remote rural area. We have two grown children who are amazingly healthy and happy with their lives as they’ve grown up and left the nest. And I still face this same struggle, every week, that you talk about in this post. I have always been the oddball in this little family, the dreamer, the one who asks why we can’t pack up and start over; why we aren’t looking at possibilities and options every day. The three of them have always flatly refused; even suggesting that if this was something I wanted then I was welcome to go alone. It would be so much easier to just go get a job in the city using my degree and experience; live alone in an apartment; do work that I enjoy; feel empowered and successful. I think about it. I need that confirmation in my life that I have value. I don’t do it because in the end, it’s a cop out. I need this life, this calm, simple, loving man, this solitary place so that I can grow and change into the person I want to become in this lifetime. It’s not easy. But I do try and remember to feel grateful and to appreciate his unchanging, steady love and lifestyle, even when it feels like a prison. Without this anchor, I would have ping-ponged through the last thirty years and felt nothing truely important was accomplished. In choosing him, I asked him to hold me down; to keep me from sabotaging myself. In agreeing to be tethered to him and this place, I have created two grown children who are everything I was too handicapped to become and the best part is….they still love me and want me in their lives. I sucked in the most terrible parts of what was done to me in my childhood and I didn’t pass them on.
Your purpose here may be to give your boys a real chance at dropping the generational baggage of abuse. That’s what I think they may be trying to tell you; that they need you to do this for them. And the farmer is probably the one person who can partner with you to help you get through. My husband and kids knew all along that we were on the right course. I struggled and fought with it the entire 30 years and still do. I wanted to be able to do so much more. Or I felt conditioned to think that what I was doing was nothing. It was not.
Wow, Kitty, to come to this realization must have taken you years of reflection and deep thought!
When I get asked every once in a while if I would like to go back to my young years (I am in my early forties), I always say no. I don’t care if everything was higher and I was more beautiful then. The knowledge I have gained as I age is way more valuable to me than my looks and a creak free body.
It appears to me that those who have taken the route of divorce are really no happier than those that stay in the marriage (of course it depends on what issues there were to break up the marriage, I don’t say that divorce is never warranted), and you see that yourself probably. There is a price to pay for EVERYTHING, including one’s “freedom”.
You can bring your marriage back from this point–if you both want to, and you think deep down it’s safe to.
Also, I wanted to applaud you for your clarity about how dangerous it is for your kids to see traumatic fighting between you and the farmer.
Finally, you’re a person I admire because you tell the truth, not because I think you’re life is perfect.
from NurtureShock: It’s ok to have [smaller] fights in front of the kids as long as they also see the resolution. Avoiding fighting in front of them usually means they see the argument, but never learn how to resolve conflicts.
I’ve been following this blog for years, and while I hate to see entries like these for the sake of Penelope and her kids, it also doesn’t surprise me based on the cyclical behavior in her marriage that she has spoken of in the past.
I think those of us reading P’s blog for years know that she’ll do what she wants, ultimately, even if the choice seems wildly unhealthy or damaging. Which is frustrating as all get-out…but then again, we don’t know all the facts and the context for everything.
There are two things that have me puzzled, however:
1. WHY does the Farmer stay with Penelope, then? If it’s his property and essentially his house, why does he LET her come back? This perplexes me. It seems that perhaps he’s fine with the “arrangement” also (of getting a cook and a maid, and sharing a life with boys he cares about). What’s keeping him around, then, if life is apparently so miserable for him too that he’s lashing out at Penelope on a regular basis? (In spite of all, I don’t know why Penelope puts up with his behavior, but that’s her business).
2. It seems that the Farmer has been transformed into the boys’ “Dad”. Is the biological dad officially out of the picture? A once-a-week guest? How does HE not have any say in the environment in which his children are raised? Or maybe he gave up his parental rights altogether?
I remember the brief era in which Penelope was living in Madison, with the kids in a stable home and she and her ex taking turns staying with the children at THEIR house. Why is this no longer an option? Or has the Farmer’s house no longer his/hers, but the boys’ home? (and if that’s the case, what kind of home really IS it for them?)
I want the best for Penelope, I really do. But I agree with an earlier post when the person said that it just shouldn’t be THIS hard. It shouldn’t.
Penelope
Have you ever read any of Ayn Rand’s views on relationships and love? Or any of her work period? I think you might be enlightened/intrigued by her thinking.
What do you think about “7 Habits” view on love- that love is a verb and the feeling of love is only the after affect of the act of “doing” love.
I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5298
To the comments that divorce doesn’t hurt children And they want some studies READ “The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce” Children need two parents. (wasn’t that your book recommendation Penelope?) Being Married is an adult conversation. It takes something. And it can feel hard.
Oh, Penelope.
Stop it. Stop defending an indefensible position.
To make a marriage work you have to choose correctly in the first place. (Said by someone who’s been married 18 years. Without fighting or having someone try to run me over with a tractor.)
Look, as someone who does the type of studies that P.T. so often cites, the studies don’t make anything even remotely close to the type of inferences that this blog draws from them.
Its surprising to me that someone who is so fond of citing studies doesn’t actually read the complete study. All of the studies that P.T. cites as gospel are caveat-ed up the wazoo!
And I guarantee you that no psychologist or sociologist who is actually trained in field research would EVER draw such strong inferences from the literature!
Look, I’m Autistic and I get the over-reliance on studies. But at least have the brains to read and actually analyze the studies – all of the studies you cite EXPLICITLY state why they cannot be interpreted the way you interpret them!