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Confrontation has long been hard for me, and I have worked tirelessly to avoid it. My conflict avoidance is also probably one of the reasons that my marriage has survived. While I acknowledge that past, I am moving into a new version of the future.
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It has been going on since the beginning of humanity. Why am I surprised?
I have been undergoing a psychological transformation for the past couple of weeks. I have always heard that the horrors of war are too much for the human brain to process, and that PTSD and the elevated addiction and suicide rates of veterans are the predictable results. The contents of the Epstein files released on January 30th are too horrific, too shocking, for my human brain. I am not an empath. I work in the field of emotional abuse. I have aced grad school classes in sexual assault that required a lot of case-study critical analysis.
And yet, I was not remotely prepared for this.
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I touched her shoulder and her back a lot. My connection to her, and our comfort with each other, was evident to anyone who cared to pay attention to us in the crowded bar. Her husband definitely noticed. We had recently traveled together, she and I, and her husband’s mind was swirling with anger, jealousy, and questions.
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My wife, Sheri, and I just spent a long weekend with three couples. It was interesting to hear that we had all shared the same clear and decisive experience, without which, none of our marriages would have survived.
All four of us men were drinkers. All four of us men begged our wives to let us back in emotionally, and to comfort us as we tried to get sober. All four of our wives, after multiple attempts to be our soft pillows–to cushion the impact of early sobriety, finally stood by a hard boundary.
All four of our wives said enough was enough, and forced all four of us men to do it on our own.
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My daughter’s hands get cold. Not like normal cold. Really cold. They turn a splotchy blue and white, which is visually concerning as a parent. It has to be some kind of circulatory thing.
I opened the door and saw Javier, the sixteen-year-old son of one of our tenants, standing on my doorstep. His was not a face I expected to see, but I was fond of his family, and he looked distressed. I asked him if he wanted to come in and talk. He was breathing hard as he perched on the sofa. Javi told me, his face reddening, that his dad had started hitting his little sisters. “I could put up with it when it was just me. But them? No. I can’t stand it.” He knew I was a lawyer (though unbeknownst to this desperate kid, I hadn’t practiced in years, and never in family law). He’d come to me to understand his options for getting his dad out of the house. He even brought evidence in the form of cellphone videos of his dad’s violence he had bravely recorded inside the apartment. What would happen if he called CPS, he wondered.
A couple of hours later, I reluctantly sent Javi home, breathed a big sigh, and opened my laptop to do some research. This was my first (and hopefully last) time being the trusted adult a kid came to with a big problem, and I was determined not to let him, his mom and his sisters down.
After alcohol killed my husband, I looked through years of text messages from him, looking for clues. There was no mystery, and I’m not sure what I was trying to solve. Somehow, knowing the truth wasn’t enough. I compiled his messages to me – often repeated over and over again – in search of answers.
These are his words:
“I know that I am not what you want anymore. I know you are unhappy in our marriage. I know you are pulling away and preparing to leave me. I have never been enough for you. I know you are looking for someone new to replace me, if you have not already found him. You and the kids don’t want me around anyway. I’m best served to just stay quiet. It all seems so fragile sometimes. You guys were fine until me. Being quiet doesn’t work. Should I move further away?
“I will just work. That’s all I am good for.
I know your secret.
At least, I know that it is one of a handful of possibilities that my wife and I have either lived through ourselves, or witnessed dozens (maybe hundreds) of time with others.
I can all but guarantee that your worst fear would never come true. They aren’t going to shame you or reject you or fire you or turn their backs on you.
I’m afraid of losing what I’ve worked so hard to build. I’m afraid there won’t be enough…enough readers, enough listeners, enough participants, enough interest, enough connection, enough resonation, enough money.
My ability to sleep through the night, and the degree to which I am pleasant to be around during the day, both depend on how I am managing my fears. Just like addiction isn’t a yes or no question, but rather addiction exists on a continuum, my fear is on a spectrum as well. Sometimes my fear is in check, and I feel peaceful and content. Sometimes my fear is temporarily nonexistent, and I am joyful and exuberant. Other times, my fear is woven through my thoughts leading my mind to race with fixation and rumination. Occasionally, my fear is completely out-of-control and I am debilitated and consumed.
For a long time, I couldn’t silence the screaming in my head.
It wailed day and night, night and day.
Years passed while it ranted and raved, quieting occasionally in slumber.
After a while, I wrestled that wraith into a box where it remained my captive.
Its muffled screams blending into the soundscape – white noise humming and buzzing at the periphery of my mind like the foggy mist of last night’s dream.