Why?

I’ve been performing a damage assessment in surveying the rubble of my marriage.

It really has been such a mess. What started out as something that was going to be friendly and compassionate, turned into a bitterly offensive affair. Definitely not something that I would want to happen to anyone I cared about.

But here I am in the midst of the ruins.

One lingering question remains that I just don’t have an answer for. Why did I have so much difficulty with Lovey’s family throughout the marriage? Was it because I was so inept as a husband/father/provider?

Something about them apparently rubbed me the wrong way and it lingered. For 25 years it lingered. Even now, as an ex officio member of that clan, I still have issues with them.

When I joined them in 1981, Dad O’Lovey was the king of the roost. He’d say jump and all of “them” (females) would say “How high?” on the way up. He was gruff. Lovey’s and my wedding were more about him and impressing his cadre of friends than it was about us. We wanted to sing to each other. He didn’t. So we didn’t.

He would nag. He would insert himself into our business and our lives…. I resented it. He always nagged me about my weight. He told me that I was way too big. Mom O’Lovey said they loved me and only wanted me around to enjoy my family a long, long time.

When I went over there at meal times, I would be so upset, I would eat very little. I always felt that my every bite was counted, my portions measured, and if I went over the unwritten allotted amount, there would be hell to pay. On one occasion, Dad O’Lovey gave me one of his diuretics to make me lose some weight.

When I got a new job, he didn’t think it was a good idea for me to leave the old one. When we were expecting twins, his first comment was “I’m sorry.” When we adopted our son, both of the parents O’lovey were deathly against it.

Lovey’s sisters can be as bad. Her eldest sister lives in a palace in Colorado with her 2nd husband. Her sister that is my age, lives in a palace in Herndon, Virginia with her 2nd husband. Her baby sister, lives in a palace in Fairfax Station, Virginia with her 2nd husband. Her eldest sister is the resident child rearing expert who constantly criticized our methods. She’d constantly say we weren’t spending enough time with the kids or that we weren’t taking them rock climbing or doing other “fun” things. The latter two sisters are ferociously fundamentalist Christians. During the presidential election year of 2004, we spent a great deal of bandwidth reading emails about the spirituality of George Bush and Dick Cheney; and the lack thereof of John Kerry, and John Edwards…and how gays were going to ruin the institution of marriage. Well, when I responded differently and asked her to tell me exactly how allow gays to marry would harm marriage, she totally lost it. She wrote me back and said that she was crying through her tears and unable to read her computer screen, etc. Then, she went off totally onto left field accusing me of knowing some deep dark secret about her and her husband that had been told to Lovey in the strictest of confidence and how I wasn’t to be trusted. This apparently stemmed from an innocent comment that I made several weeks earlier when I asked her how she and her husband were doing.

Mercy!

I didn’t have the foggiest idea of what she was talking about.

My family and the few friends I was able to cling to during the marriage also felt rubbed the wrong way in their presence. When they made comments to me, I sort of glossed it over or made excuses.

Was it denial?

My nephew, the son of the sister who cried at her keyboard, came to visit us last night. What a delight! He’s now 22, a senior in college and actively pursuing a career as an artist. He’s single. He spoke last night of wanting to move to San Francisco. (God help him if he turns out to be gay!) He and the girls were talking about his mother. “She’s a little on the dramatic side,” he said. “She’s definitely wanting to keep up with the Jones’.” Later on, the topic turned to the Colorado aunt, “…she likes to show off,” he said.

In rereading what I have written here, I think I know why they rub me and my friends the wrong way.

I’m glad I live alone in my house.