This Past Year’s Musings, Part III

Photo by Chunfeng FENG on Unsplash

Continued from Part II, “That no matter how much I loved Adam (and he me), he was hurting me. That I literally might not make it if I stayed with him and didn’t change something.…

Being with Adam made my brain, my thoughts, my heart, my body, my sense of self, tangle and clot together in agonizing conflict.  Nothing was clear set, nothing was certain. Things needed to change, but what exactly? I have not been able to meet Adam’s expectations, as hard as I’ve tried through the years.  Is there anything we can do to compromise? Adam wants me to work a traditional 9-5 job.  I think even he realizes that is not feasible anymore, but can I hold a job if I get one? If I had a job, would that be enough for him? Can I be the socialite that he wants me to be? Can I be the Rachel I used to be? Can I lose weight and be that dainty but strong woman I used to be in my 20’s when I was healthy and I danced 30-40 hours a week?  My mind went back and forth, back and forth.  Are Adam’s expectations reasonable? Am I just being lazy?  Is he right about everything?  Am I just too broken to see clearly? Why can’t I just be what he wants me to be? More practically, I thought If Adam and I separate, how am I going to support myself?  How would I get health insurance? Could I move yet again when we had decided, when he had promised, that this house was the last one until he retired?  We had finally moved to a home that I could be assured to have at least 10 years in…10 years to make it all mine. I could even get to know my neighbors because I wouldn’t be leaving soon!

I tried to be honest with myself and asked, What do I really need? And are my expectations reasonable?

I know I need support.

Support as in Adam…

• believing me, validating me when need be, encouraging me, cheering me on, reminding me I wasn’t alone, telling me that everything would be ok, that we were in this together;
• not being angry every time I had a doctor’s appointment or a medical test (this actually was not an issue this year because he had amazing health insurance and we had reached our deductible in January so everything I had for the rest of the year was “free.”  Him being upset at medical costs was something that had consistently happened in the years before);
• recognizing that something was very wrong and I needed help desperately;
• backing my beliefs and my hopes that therapy was not THE answer, but that it was one that provided me the help I needed at the time;
• being willing to do anything to keep me alive;
• just wanting me to be healthy, jobs be damned;
• not being so critical about the things that I loved and that made me me; and
• not dashing all my hopes about the website I was building or the book that I had written.

Adam was not supporting me in any of these ways. For example, in regards to my book, Adam frequently said things like “no one wants to read a memoir,” and “it’s just a memoir, everyone can write those,” and “no one will want to publish your book.” The fact was, Adam hadn’t ever taken the time to read the whole book I had written these past couple of years.  He read the first few chapters and only focused on all the things that were wrong with it.  “You shouldn’t have so many parentheses.” “You’re too harsh and judgmental.” “You need to put your thoughts more into your narrative.” “You need a theme.  No one cares about your life as a kid.” “The language is too casual for me to take it seriously.”

I always listened to what he said, and I made adjustments where I agreed there needed to be changes. But he was missing the whole point.  My first and foremost goal in writing my book was to process through the trauma I’d faced as a child and as an adult.  It was incredibly effective at that.  I knew myself better by the time I finished the book than when I started. Even if I did nothing else with the book, I was happy that I wrote all of it. My second goal, similar to my goal in creating a website, was to provide encouragement (and resources) to others who have faced similar things as I have.  And finally, my third goal was to publish it some day with a real publisher (because every writer’s dream is this…to see their book endorsed by professionals and on a shelf in the bookstore).

The website was a whole other endeavor that Adam did not support.  He thought I was spending too much money on setting it up.  He said no one would see it and I was putting way too much effort into something that very few people would ever visit.  He briefly reviewed my website when I asked him to (I asked him to check all the links and make sure nothing was broken), but he never read my blogs. On one hand it seems so silly to desperately want someone to read the stuff you’ve written.  But on the other hand, he was my husband and he knew me better than anyone, and why wouldn’t you read your wife’s words?  Why wouldn’t you want to know about the things she can’t talk about but she seem to be able to write about?  Why wouldn’t you want to let her know you love her and find ways to lift her up because she obviously needs it?

I was flabbergasted.

He did tell me he was proud that I wrote and finished a book.  That he was proud of me for sticking with it. I clung to that, even when he was upset about the money I had spent on writing classes, the money I wanted to spend for an editor and a copywriter. When I decided to publish the book myself and not go through an agent (because I had sent inquiry letters to 89 agents, with no bites), he refused to pay for anything that would enable me to do that.

Money was one of our biggest problems (isn’t it in every relationship?).  We fundamentally shared different views on money and I had come to the realization in PHP that we fundamentally held many different values period at this point in our lives.  Adam viewed money as something sacred, something to be held onto, something to collect, something to protect.  He had never faced hardship in his life, so his miserliness didn’t stem from that.  I’m not sure what made him view it the way he did. His main goal in life was to save enough so that when he retired, he could do whatever he wanted, travel wherever he wanted.  Because of my EDS and the other misfortunes I have faced, I don’t feel like I have that luxury. I will be disabled by the time he retires.  I believe that saving is important, but enjoying life and making memories with loved ones is even more important.  For me, money was something that was meant to be appreciated…spent on experiences (like traveling) or things that helped us attain our goals (like my website and book).  I also truly believed that money should be freely given away to others we either loved or who needed it more than we did. I wanted to share, but he wanted to save.

And he did save! He saved and paid for most things in cash, including all of the sports cars he had owned with and without me (2 lotuses, 1 GTR, 1 Corvette and a Tesla).  He obviously didn’t mind spending money, when it was his idea and it was something he wanted.  He earned an enormous salary compared to anyone I had ever known and it was really hard for me to understand why we had to watch every penny we spent.  It was almost like the more money he made, the less we could spend, especially when I wasn’t working. Adam’s gross income in 2023 was $179k, which was an increase from the $130k he normally made.

Adam tried his best to make me understand with charts and graphs and an excel budget that showed we spent more than he made every month.  In response, every month I tried to cut something else out: subscriptions, extraneous gifts, books, clothes, etc. We cut out most of our traveling and eating out. Adam wouldn’t let me buy groceries anymore (because I spent too much) so he bought them with coupons he collected. I stopped cooking altogether because I never had the right ingredients and he had a wonky schedule that wasn’t conducive to eating together in the evenings.

By April 2024, I was a wreck every time I bought something because I was afraid of his reaction. Sometimes in the past I would try to hide my purchases, like a little kid, just so that I didn’t have to deal with the disapproval and the frustration. When he began looking at our accounts every day though, I couldn’t really hide anything anymore. I consistently felt like I did before I met Adam, when I was in actual penury and couldn’t afford a damn lightbulb.

April 2024

When I returned home after my 2-week trip down south, home was not a respite. I was feeling very depressed and one day ended up spending over $600 on items from Amazon. I vaguely remember making purchases for his mom’s birthday and for an upcoming trip, but my memories surrounding it were foggy.  I had never spent that much money on just “stuff” before, and most of my purchases were always items I thought I or we needed.  My spending spree was completely out of character.  Adam woke me up in the middle of the night though yelling at me, asking me if I had spent six hundred and something dollars and I vaguely kind of sort of remembered that I had. 

I had never seen him that upset.  He wanted to know why and what I had purchased and I asked him if we could discuss it in the morning (since I am no match for him in an argument even on a good day, let alone having been woken up). He stormed out of the bedroom to sleep in the guestroom (which he had never done before) and I could hear him on the phone with his bank setting up new accounts.  In the morning, I noticed he had removed all the money from our joint account and placed it into an account I couldn’t access. 

We discussed what had happened and I profusely apologized.  I told him that I think spending money sometimes is like a coping strategy for me because it is something that feels good in the moment, something that I could control.  I had just been feeling so terrible those weeks and felt like everything was out of my control, so my theory is that I dissociated and spent that egregious amount to feel better in that moment.  But I recognized that I had really messed up.  I told him that no, I shouldn’t have spent that much money without discussing with him first, and that I would gladly return everything (a habit I had started getting into when I would buy something but inevitably feel guilty about afterwards). 

And I did return everything.  But Adam was furious and he said he would give me an allowance of $900 every month which all my living expenses had to come out of (minus rent and utilities). I felt like I was being severely punished, over the top, for a mistake I had made that I easily rectified.  He felt like I was trying to just steal all his money.

I immediately began feeling passively suicidal again.  I was in constant stress and worry that I would disrupt the peace, that I’d make him upset, that he would be disappointed in me and not want me. I definitely felt unwanted and unloved. In a moment of desperation I texted my mom, sister and three girlfriends and told them I thought I needed to be separated from Adam for a while.  Maybe some space would be good for us?  They all readily agreed and said they would support me whatever I decided. I brought it up to him a few days later and we both cried a lot but he agreed to try it.  The marriage therapist also thought it was a good idea. Adam’s condition was that I would still go with him on our scheduled trip to London before I left. I really didn’t think it was a good idea, so I tried finding someone else who could take my ticket. 

At the end of the day, though, I agreed to go with him to London out of respect and love and poor judgment.

London

Neither of us had been to London before, but it was the first trip I had ever taken that I did not look forward to, the first one that I sort of dreaded.  We did have a good time seeing the typical things like Buckingham Palace and Westminster Alley.  But Adam was downright callous the whole time, more insensitive than usual. He did things like the following:

• When we were at the airport, he paid for something like TSA Pre-Check for himself, so that he didn’t have to wait in long lines. But he didn’t pay for me to have the same thing, so I did have to stand in long lines and then try to find him afterwards.  In the past I would have thought it was funny and we’d laugh about it.  Now I just felt like he didn’t care anymore.
• I couldn’t keep up with his walking, so Adam would just leave me.  When I subluxated my hip, he refused to pay for a cab to take me to the hotel, so I had to walk an hour and a half in extreme pain back to our lodging. 
• The next day after the hip incident, when I told him I needed to just stay and rest in bed for the morning so that I could hopefully pull myself together for the rest of the trip, he was very unhappy with me, blamed me for ruining the trip and huffed out alone. I felt immensely hurt.

It had been so incredibly difficult for me to initially tell Adam that I thought we needed to separate for a while. And because of his reaction, I still kept on doubting myself, wondering if I was just too needy or blaming myself for not being able to physically be better for him.  The London trip did solidify in my mind that regardless of whether Adam loved me or not, I certainly didn’t feel loved.  At best I was a nuisance to him; at worst I was not worth the effort to make me feel respected or taken care of.

I was relieved when I finally went back down south to stay with my family.

May 2024

For the month of May I stayed with my mom and stepdad in their home.  My mom was so nice, trying to make me as comfortable as possible.  It was comforting to be close to my mom again, and we enjoyed our gym outings and our coffees together. Since she lives right near my sister’s family, I also got to be more involved in my sister and my nieces’ activities and their farm too.  Multiple people said by the end of the month that I was noticeably better.  On the inside though, my depression was only getting worse and my suicidal thoughts were becoming more frequent, always infiltrating my mind when I was supposed to be enjoying myself.  At one point, I got worried enough that I checked myself into a local IOP program, which I attended for a week before I left to go back up north.

June 2024

It was weird returning home to Maryland. How should I feel by this point?  What should Adam and I do?  Adam and our therapist asked me if I had missed him when I was gone.  I admitted that I hadn’t missed him, but I thought it was just because I was so relieved to not be a constant target for his criticism. For two weeks, Adam was extra thoughtful, extra kind.  We tried to just pretend that nothing was wrong.  We went on walks together, had dinners together, played our weekly Scrabble matches together.  I didn’t feel suicidal because I didn’t feel bad about myself.  Adam was acting like the old days, like he wanted me.  It was such a relief!  Maybe we could make this work out?

After a couple weeks, Adam asked me what I had decided.  I told him that I still loved him, that I had never stopped loving him.  That I didn’t want to leave, but I felt like I had had to leave in May to protect myself. That I had to see for myself if I was better when I wasn’t around him.  And despite maybe being better without him, I really really didn’t want to divorce.  I wanted to stay with him in our home with our kitties and grow old together.  I was working on myself… trying to get better, trying to get a job and trying not to spend money, all things that he wanted/needed.  Would he be willing to work on the things that I needed too?

To be continued in Part IV…