Blather

Yep, "ueberkontrollant" is a word I coined myself. I like it. "Bee-atch" is just an easy plagiarism from my kids' vocabulary. That's the comical, lexical gloss for something deeper and more significant. "Ueberkontrollant" is my transliteration of "Over Controlling" with that negative cachet of stereotypical German caricature- the Nazi officer who insists on having every little thing *his* way. Gene Wilder's Nazis and Nurse Ratchet are classic examples of this caricature. But "over controlling" is a subjective evaluation- one person looks at something and decides that the other person is"over controlling." In some ways, I reckon we're all a bit controlling. What gives this lexical creation some relevant meaning is agreement that "You can't email anyone" is extreme, that it's beyond the normal give-and-take of a marriage's compromises.

In my case, it seems to have been the outcome of her lack of trust- While she didn't say so, her implication was "I can't trust you to refrain from developing a romantic (thus dangerous to our marriage) relationship via emails, so I want you to stop emailing, period." Emails are a form of communication. Communication enables intimacy. Maybe she'd found out for herself how intimate you can be in internet communications and she felt that if I became as intimate as she'd become, that could threaten our marriage.

Yep, I think this could have been a dilemma for her- allow me the freedom to do as I want, potentially finding romance, or restrain my behavior so I'd never stray from marital fidelity. The former could have brought an end to our marriage; the latter shook it beyond repair. If I'd agreed to stop internet communication, she'd have felt better, but only until something else might have come up that she considered a threat- maybe I'd have to work late or I'd want to do some renfaire camping or I'd help a gal at work change her tire. While emails cumulatively constitute intimacy (the more you write, the more you understand the other person), even casual contact- lunch with work folks- can lead to further contact. Pretty soon, anything I do could become an eventual (hence too-real) threat to our marriage. The primal motive in all this could be her insecurity. This could have been her way of saying, "There's so little good about me that any normal man would be looking for something else if he were married to me." If this were so, it would have been very difficult to admit that you're less than worthy.

I don't think this conundrum is sufficient to proclaim her "no internet communication" edict. I think she should have gone to counseling with me and tried to find a way for us to make the marriage better. But she chose not to go. She wanted things her way and no other way. Pity, too, since I think she lost a lot through her intransigence. I lost, too. But I'm not sure the alternative would have made our marriage palatable: If I'd agreed, "OK, no more internet," we'd have remained married technically. But we'd not have been happy. She'd have spent her time watching me for tell-tale signs of infidelity and I'd have chafed at her gumshoe style.

From a perspective of two-plus years, I feel there wasn't another alternative. I don't know how she felt when I refused to stop my emails, but she could have felt I was on the brink of something intimate, something that would have shattered our marriage. I do know that she took half of our money, $100,000, and stashed it somewhere so I wouldn't know where it was.

I agree- a lot depends on one person who's unwilling to communicate. Yep, I think that was Bonnie- several times I tried to get her to go to counseling, but she didn't want to go.

This segs to me a bit- When I wanted to see a counselor with her, part of my motivation included an intense fear of being single. I'd been married for so long that being single petrified me. If I divorced, I'd become a dirty, smelly codger, wandering around in my underwear, eating tuna from a can I'd opened a few days ago, muttering to myself about Martians and cursing people who lived Ozzie and Harriet lives. I think that might have been a slightly irrational but based on an accurate projection of what my life has become. Yep, before, I had a lot of domestic bliss- hearth, family, all the superficial stuff that most people want. Heck, I even had the numbers- 35 years of being married. (I made 36 years, technically, but the last year or two were not very "married.") Since I filed for divorce, I've had the ability to choose what I do based on what I want to do. But I've also had a lot less of the "family" stuff that used to be so endearing. I'm not yet wandering around in my underwear, muttering about Martians, but I'm not the same as I was two years ago. I'm contemplating leaving the area, making biweekly visits with my small son a thing of the past. The pain of seeing him less seems to be diminished but the reasons for the diminished pain are the topic of another post.

Another time, I'll try to talk about what I miss- the illusion of intimacy, the actual intimacy, the romance, the support of internal family love.

# posted by rich @ 12:31 PM