On reflection over the past few months, perhaps the hardest part about dealing with B2 was witnessing her emotionally checked out demeanor and her complete unwillingness to share responsibility for the situation. It triggered painful memories of a eight years ago when B1 had an emotional melt down that quickly led to our divorce.
It happened suddenly in winter of 1999, just after having a typical and happy Christmas holidays. One night in January we were sitting in bed and B1 announced that she was feeling distant from me, but did not articulate why. I tried to draw her out but she couldn’t really put her finger on what was wrong. After a few days of seeing that this was not just a bad night, I suggested that she re-establish sessions with a counselor. For seven years she had seen a brilliant doctor at McLean Hospital who had done wonders with her. For reasons I did not understand then, but do now, B1 instead went to a local councelor, one that she had never seen before.
Then B1 started disappearing at night, coming home late, and never calling. I started worrying about her. One night she went out across the street to get a few items at a store and didn’t come back. By two o’clock at night I had called the police, called all her friends, and my brother in California. I was sure something had happened to her. She showed up at 3:30 in the morning and claimed she was with a friend and that she didn’t call because she had left the phone near JayWon’s bed and didn’t want to wake her.
Nothing seemed to be adding up.
About a week later, again in bed, she said that she didn’t want to be married. I was dumbstruck. Up until Christmas she had been kind, warm, and attentive. Our relationship had many flaws but I had always perceived her as being a dedicated wife and mother. I spent many nights almost hysterical with grief, trying to hide the sobs from the girls who had no clue what was going on.
I tried to convince B1 to go to couples counseling and found a very good woman who had a good track record of dealing with these sorts of things. B1 reluctantly went. The counselor was name Dawn who saw the emotional detachment immediately. After two sessions she told us that she didn’t want us to come back unless we were really interested in saving the marriage. Afterwards I called Dawn privately, and she told me that the message was really being directed towards B1, who then declined to go to future meetings.
I was beside myself trying to salvage my world. I needed help so asked Dawn if I could get individual counseling from her. She said yes. When I went in for the first meeting she told me she had some bad news. She told me that she didn’t give up on seventeen-year-old marriages easily but my marriage was over. She said B1 didn’t have the emotional ability to be a wife. She also validated my suspicions about B1 being sexually abused as a young girl. Dawn thought the age of Adie triggered this meltdown.
In so many ways that harsh message was a relief to hear. That I was not the cause of this, that the seeds were planted long before I ever entered B1’s life. It also explained why B1 chose not to go back to someone who knew her so well.
If she had gone back to her old counselor, she would have been told that the problems had less to do with me than it did with unresolved issues in her childhood. By going to a complete stranger, B1 could, on the first meeting, paint any picture she wanted of our marriage. That’s what she did, and within the first session the counselor was recommending that she get divorced.
The big problem I was facing were the girls, ages 12 and 14. They had not seen any arguments between B1 and myself and had no clue of what was going on. I had to force B1 to talk to the children as a family and tell them that we were going to live apart. She kept minimizing the impact on the kids. B1 chose Easter Sunday, and the girls bounced into our bedroom expecting us to tell them something about a summer vacation or some other long term plans as a family.
I did the talking and explained that B1 was having issues that went back to when she was a child and that she did not feel comfortable any longer living with a man. So I said I was moving out to give B1 the space she needed.
Adie instantly became hysterical. She wanted to know where I was going and what did this mean as far as where she would live. She wanted to know if it meant that she would no longer see her grandparents and Sis. Both of us reassured Adie that everything would stay the same, except I would be living somewhere else.
JayWon’s reaction almost made me physically ill. She froze and sat motionless staring and not even blinking. Slowly a tear ran down her cheek. It was at this point B1 excused herself and said that she had to go downstairs to do some work in the kitchen.
I sat with JayWon who was still rigid and held her close to my chest. I carried her over to the bed and rocked her for about an hour. She then quietly told me that she wanted some time alone and went off to her bedroom.
About four weeks later I pulled up to the house on a Sunday with a small van to get a few things to take with me. B1 puttered around the house totally ignoring me. I carried things into the van with a buddy of mine. The kids were playing around the house on what was a beautiful sunny late May day.
When I drove off, B1 never said goodbye. The day after I drove back to what had been the home of everyone I loved. I saw that residual clothes I had left in the closet were tossed in a thoughtless heap outside, where the girls would see them on their way out the door when going to school.
It was my relationship with the girls that turned things around, but it took me a long time to recover from those awful days.