It took days of staring at the woman behind my eyes.
I considered being the silently knowing wife. The rest of my life. But as far as I am concerned, that is not what marriage is made of. For better for worse, and trust that in the end even the ‘worse’, when tackled with love and determination and honesty, will turn out for better. That’s my philosophy.
So.
I sat him down when little B was asleep. I told him about the picture still burned into my mind. I asked him what was going on. I even confessed to spying into his profile.
My heart was hammering bile into my throat while I waited for him to meet my eyes and answer.
It took a long time. I waited, and in the silence all I could feel was the soft innocence of our child sleeping in the room next door, his sweet and total trust and love for his daddy. All I wanted, all I want is to keep that real. Whatever it takes. Can I? Is it real? Has it all been a charade?
Eventually MM said Yes, this is something he wants to do. No, he doesn’t think it’s a phase, and no he doesn’t think it’s just a fantasy. He knows I don’t feel the same and he’s been afraid to talk to me about it, because he loves me and doesn’t want to lose me. A woman’s heart can only melt at that. Really. Even if her man is a sick bastard who wants to do weird and horrible things to other women.
He didn’t say much, but he never does. He was really vulnerable, and that touched me. It feels weird because it contradicts the picture of the man who can also want to be so abusive. I can feel that the man I love and that B loves, is real, not a fake. But this other man in MM is real too. How can that be?
I left it at that for the night and went to bed. Next morning I packed little B into his stroller and went to the mall for the morning. I bought little B a toddler juice, and a foil balloon shaped like a cat. (He calls cats ‘mao-mao’ and is mad about them. No we don’t have one. MM is allergic.)
I bought a dozen organic eggs and a punnet of imported blueberries. B and I ate the blueberries while sitting on a public bench in front of the cinema entrance. We watched the children and their moms queuing up for movies.
You are not allowed to take in refreshments unless they have been bought right there. The only things on sale right there are fizzy sugared drinks, sugary sweets and chocolates, popcorn, ready salted. They have only recently started stocking bottles of mineral water, and often run out. Not a single piece of fruit. No oatmeal cookies. I have never questioned this. The mothers we saw also did not question this.
B and I ate the blueberries, unwashed, and watched the strollers and the balloons and the spiderman suits going by.
I find myself wondering about MM’s childhood a lot.
Yes his father used to beat him. Back then belts and cattle whips were discipline, only fists and bricks were child abuse.
And yes his mother was an emotional absentee. To this day she thinks love means putting your photo in a heart-shaped frame; family communication equals sending a personalised Christmas card every single year, and forwarding spam.
I guess this urge in MM makes sense. I knew all that about his background before we got married, and I could feel that this kind and intelligent man he turned into in spite of it all, still had scars. But I guess I thought those could all just be healed out with love and gentleness. Apparently not.
Ironically I find myself feeling much more open about the idea of letting him hook up with a playmate than I would have thought. Maybe it’s just that I sense that this is never going to go away until he lets it out, and I sure as hell don’t think I could stay married to him if he ever let it all out on me. A sacrificial victim? I could never do that to another woman – deliver her up to suffer for my sake. But if she really truly honestly wants it? I don’t know. I still find that hard to believe in. But maybe. It would certainly get me off the hook. And maybe even get… that… out of his system.
But what kind of damaged woman wants that done to her? What would such a person wreak if let near my family and home? Pictures of boiling bunnies flash in alternation with her grimacing face, behind my eyes.
