I spent four hours with Rose last night. She ended up not going to the worship thing, she got out late from work and was too tired and just wanted space from people. (I passed the church on the way over, looking at all the cars in the parking lot and wishing I could go in. It’s funny how some doors feel closed to me now.)
I’m never quite sure what to say about our conversations. First of all, four hours of dialog is impossible to capture. Second of all, some of it is personal and I know others are reading it; I’m fine with sharing my thoughts, just hesitant to put hers out. I only put some out because the blog is relatively anonymous; if her identity was clearly known, I would feel reluctant to say much about about her. But I want to record some big points so later I remember them…
She didn’t cry at all, I cried a few times. It didn’t bother me, I just felt very deeply about the things we were saying or what she was telling me. it’s just funny because she always has to ask me why I’m crying; I guess I am impenetrable in some ways, I make connections under the surface that might not be obvious, and so she needs me to articulate it… plus she is just not used to me being so openly emotional in positive ways, for some many years I was taciturn as well as depressed, and she never saw any of what was going on inside me. Now I cannot even help it…
Pip
We talked about Pip being in the hospital. It did come up that she was sort of perturbed at me because i never called Pip directly — I always called her and then she’d put him on since she happened to be with him. I did not have an answer for this, nor did I understand why i did not even think of it. I don’t really know why.
Part of it was just because I ended up calling her and she would happen to be with him, so then I’d just talk to him instead of having to call him separately, I didn’t HAVE to contact him directly nor did I have to call him back right away.
Another is that when I call him directly, I usually feel like an intrusion and I get one-word answers. He doesn’t invest much if he doesn’t feel like it, and I’m not the greatest conversationalist. I can talk to his brother and sister far easier because they actually participate in the discussion and do a lot of talking themselves. They seem to enjoy talking to me.
She also recalled when he was in the NICU at Hopkins when born, and how hard it was for me to be in the room, and how bored I was, and how little interaction I had with him, and how I would just sit around and read a book. I guess she did view that as “not caring about my son.” I can’t answer that either, that man was almost another person at this point to me. She’s still viewing my current behavior in connection with that, whereas I just remember feeling helpless, out of place, overwhelmed… and yes, bored. I was always bored when forced to stay around people and invest energy without any framework, guidelines, or rules to dictate what I was supposed to do next — I felt so clueless at the time, after spending the first 20 years so isolated in many ways.
My strengths at that time were very lopsided; what I was good at was intellectual interaction with people, and a baby demands a completely different set of skills, I had nothing to offer… and I was also suicidally depressed at that time period, I had almost transitioned during that time and was agonizing over what to do.
My responses nowadays are different, i actually DID want to be there… but I’m still much more a “sit nearby and be in proximity to show I care” person, if I have trouble connecting with the individual. Even now, I like hanging out with new moms with babies, but I’m not one to really feel a need to pick up the baby and coo and coddle; I’m very happy just talking about the baby and looking and playing briefly… but otherwise observing.
And Pip and I just do not connect easily. What he wants and needs is more what Rose can give, not what I can give. he operates on very different principles than me, and I was very clear with her how while I can empathize with him, I don’t know how to engage him in a meaningful way; the things that work for me do not work for him, and vice versa. It’s always been hard and I’ve been frustrated.
I started crying when she was talking about how scared and exhausted he was over the PICC line, though. He just has these strong physical emotional reactions to everything, pain really really scares him… and it broke my heart to imagining him being so afraid, I don’t want to see him have to deal with that, yet at the same time my method (’suck it up’ and use my mind to guide me, do not cater to the fear, maintain grace and composure, do not let fear dictate my choices) is the opposite of what works for him. Sometimes he really turns my stomach when he freaks out and just cannot push through, although I never have tried to force him to do that or shame him because of it; I just don’t know what to offer him, to empower him. He can’t approach things the way I do, and vice versa, and I am absolutely clueless.
I asked Rose how she deals with it (because she “gets him” better than I can, because she’s more similar), and she says she (1) helps him accept the emotions are okay to have and then (2) tries to encourage him to rise above them and be better as a human being, hoping the positive affirmation will help. Maybe she can say things in a way he better grasps than I can, and maybe she is more patient with this; I’ve tried doing this but I cannot do it to the degree that is effective for him, he doesn’t seem to respond very well to me even when I think I’ve done well.
And here’s another sign of differences: She said Pip told her he was nervous about going to Dayton because what if he had to go to the ER and they had to do something with the PICC line? And she said that she would drive eight hours out there to be with him if anything happened.
That blows my mind. I would be concerned about him, but the logical part of my brain would also be saying, “I want to be there, but it’s really far away and by the time I get there it would already be done and over; and there are people with him who are family and who love him and can make sure he’s okay; and sometimes in life we have to face up to things alone and be strong, and it doesn’t do any good to always coddle someone, and he’s 13 now; and if it’s a routine process, then he will be okay.”
So I would be very torn over what to do. I might go anyway just because I care, but part of me would rebel against it, if it’s just a fairly routine thing. Maybe it’s just because I have always perceived Pip as immature for his age.
And I can’t tell what a healthy response would be for me. The fact it, I’m an introvert and so tend to be more independent; and I’m also a survivor who had to work through most of her life situations alone, without being able to depend on anyone to be there for me, including my parents, and so I learned how and I am very strong… but maybe that strength isn’t always healthy or positive for relationships if it isolates me. And maybe the strength I achieved because of my childhood is not a sort of strength that a “normal healthy” child should be developing, it came with terrible cost to me.
She was talking so much about her conversations with him and how they interact; and it meant a lot for me to hear about my son and who he is becoming and what he does and says… but it was breaking my heart too, because I feel like I have lost him (and told her that). He has always attached to Rose, throughout his entire life; now he doesn’t identify with me; he’s not apt to see me;l I haven’t lived with him for a year and a half; I feel like I have lost him forever, and I’ll never get him back as mine; and he’s lost me too in the process; and sometimes all I feel I can do is pray for him and wish him a good happy life because he’s not going to let me back in, if I indeed was in there in the first place.
And I don’t feel like I could have done better or chosen a different route either. I’ve always done the best I could. It just sucks to feel like everything is out of my control.
At this point, Rose and I did both agree that if my relationship with Pip is going to continue at all, it’s going to be all based on my level of investment because right now he is not going to invest in anything on his own initiative.
Sis
I always listen to Rose and her guesses/hunches on things, because I trust her, I know she tries hard to see multiple angles, and she is also most like my family… so she can give me a version of that viewpoint in a way that I can grasp.
When I told her my sister wrote me before the shower but never mentioned it, Rose told me my sister organized the shower and probably didn’t want to tell me just to avoid having a conflict about it… and maybe not realizing I even cared much about it.
Which I could guess, I suppose.
It’s more a matter of determining whether the motivations were good or bad, and how much so, that is my dilemma, since that guides me to know how to respond.
It’s funny on their end, they don’t really examine context. I realized Rose didn’t even get context well, so I’ve talked to her about it in the past and in regards to this situation, so that she understands my feelings better for future reference.
I went through hell with my sister and mother a year ago over all this, and felt like they repudiated my moral character because of my transition; it was ugly enough that I felt it damaged our relationship severely; in the same time period, I got judgmental letters from gossipers at my mother’s church, and my mom never apologized or seemed to defend me or talked to me about it. I would defend my kids; their lack of defense tells me that they figured I deserved it because I was “being bad.”
All of those things really hurt; they were never really “resolved”; and likewise with our relationship in the last year, I’ve always felt like my sister just did her best to glue things together without really coming to any level of acceptance, just like Rose was “accepting” I was a woman without ever calling me “Jennifer” or “she” or trying to view me in any way other than what I used to be, and that didn’t help our relationship in the least.
All of this could be because my sister is not sure what to do; it could be because she just wants to be expedient and deal with what only she needs to. But for me, I was experiencing personal violation in my conversations with her, so when anything happens now, I have trouble reading it as an isolated event. It is just part of the prevailing recalcitrant negative attitude she has possessed from early on.
Now, I did not need to be invited to the shower, and after seeing who went, I think it wouldn’t have been prudent for me to go; but I was hurt simply that she didn’t even mention it to me and treated me like a non-person rather than a sibling. That’s how it came across, regardless of what was meant; and I would have handled it different if our situations had been reversed. It also leaves me wondering realistically whether I will ever be able to see my niece and who they will refer to me as in regards to her.
I am really getting a full taste of how hard it has been for me living in a family of non-intuitive people, and how hard it has been for them to understand me… they just do not perceive the world in the way I do and vice versa. In the past I just did not realize the depth of that gap.
Rose said, “Why don’t you tell her then?” Part of me just wanted to avoid things, but I think that I need to mention it, as thoughtfully as I can, to her, just so she knows. I need to keep the emotion out of it and be as fair as possible with her, but at this point there is no hope to have anything with her if I don’t engage more; and if I want more, I need to engage more.
Right now apparently she’s happy with things the way they are (and Rose said, “Well, it’s not like you’ve been close to her, realistically,” and that’s right… for some reason, though, I just feel like she’s my sister, and I had positive feelings towards her, and now I feel like we are strangers, and I wanted to fix that even if we might not necessarily be “close”).
In-Laws
I mentioned to Rose I might write them a letter.
(I was thinking that I could at least leave no confusion that I was open to relating to them, so that if they were avoiding connecting because they thought I didn’t want to, then that barrier could be removed.)
I shared my idea that maybe they just weren’t talking to me because they weren’t sure how to approach things or because they didn’t want to step on Rose’s toes until it was clear what was going on.
She sort of blew me away by when she said, “I think it’s just because they no longer have a reason to have a relationship with you.”
I was sort of jaw-dropped on that one.
I’m still officially married to their daughter.
I’m still the parent of their grandkids.
We never had a falling out, none in the least.
They said they loved me, and I said that to them on numerous occasions.
In some ways, they were more “parents” to me than my own parents.
I just really never totally understood how some people really define and invest in their relationships via “roles.” I was their son-in-law. I’m still technically their son-in-law but I’m a woman… hence, I’m no longer part of their life.
I realized that while i understand role-based relationships and sometimes use that in order to determine proper boundaries, I’m far more into personal relationships. I personally cared about them as people and respected them, they’re good people in so many ways. They became part of my life. Just because a role changes doesn’t mean the feelings change… and in this case I’m not even clearly “cut,” because their daughter won’t ever divorce me.
And I’m not even the one who originally chose to leave and thus be “separated,” that was their daughter’s decision.
She asked me by way of comparison if our one friend’s parents would still want to see their ex-son-in-law. That situation was so much different: He cheated on his wife and left her and the children on his own to live with his girlfriend, and he had a two-year drag-out divorce with our friend which was just absolutely ugly, and he avoided his in-laws and didn’t like them and had a rocky relationship with them over the entire marriage. Honestly, even with me as a friend/acquaintance, I have to clearly state he was an a-hole much of the time… until after he left that marriage and ironically started being a much nicer guy. (Weird.)
I’m not even sure how Rose or my ex’s could compare the two. The only similarity is that we’ve separated, but almost everything else is the opposite.
But I’m just sort of flabbergasted. I just approach things so differently. If you care about some, then you invest in them regardless of what the relationship is called. It doesn’t matter if you are my father, brother, sister, mother, cousin, neighbor, pastor, or whatever; if we love each other, then let’s love each other.
The only time that roles come into play is determining the level of investment… but if one of my kids got divorced and they were still cool with their ex and I cared about them, I’d continue to talk to them and see them. People make their own friends, and they make their own family.
I’m not even divorced, I’m local, I’m willing, and… nothing.
I’ll have to decide how bold and proactive I would like to be, but I have been smacked between the eyes: Now it’s clear that I will never be invited to another holiday function again with people I felt were family. My level of involvement with them in the future will depend solely on simply how much hurt/direct rejection I am willing to risk.
…I just don’t understand people.
Rose
And of course it always comes down to her, as the most important relationship besides my kids.
At least I got to tell her pretty much all the main thoughts I’ve mentioned here in my journal, and now she knows my feelings. So I felt good about our conversation. Me writing all these pages is ridiculous if I never share them with her.
I don’t even remember how we started talking about it, just that at some point, I said:
“I feel like I’m losing you. You started calling me Jennifer, and that is what had to happen, and that is what needed to happen, we couldn’t avoid it, but once that started, I stopped being your husband and just started being your friend… and you don’t spend time with your friends.”
“All i wanted you to be was my husband,” she said.
More tears. “I tried,” I said. Tried to say, but I was crying. I could only whisper. “I tried so hard to do it, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.” Barely audible. I couldn’t say it louder.
I wanted to say I was sorry, but I’ve said it so many times before and it’s understood. It adds nothing new. Neither of us wanted this. But it still Is, the way it Is.
And she didn’t refute any of it.
“What do you want me to say?” she said quietly, eventually, honestly. And she’s right, there’s nothing for her to say.
“There’s nothing you could say,” I replied, and I knew it was true. “I just need to know you know how to feel. I just need to know you are listening to me, hearing me. That’s all.” What else could be said?
But.. that’s where we are.
Two and a half years ago, she raged against me and I stared numbly at the sky on the trampoline. Now I am crying in the kitchen, within eyeshot of the trampoline, and she is quiet, saying nothing, her rage gone. There is nothing to rage over. It’s over, unless I can live as a man again… and we both know it won’t happen. So it’s over.
She’s tired, she says. She has a lot to get done, she says. It’s hard to see me. And she is right, she’s so right. There’s no way for her to build and maintain a relationship with me outside the house. There’s no way. I transitioned because that’s what I needed, I left the house because that’s what she needed, and now we don’t see each other because that’s what she needs.
It’s over… over for that and for many other reasons, but it never really had a chance. You can’t build a relationship or maintain a marriage if you don’t spend time together.
When people ask me “how it went” with her, I don’t even know what to say. It went well… and it also drove hard nails into the coffin lid. Our marriage was on the verge of dying anyway, and I feel like that was it ultimately… the choice to not spend time together, our inability to spend time together, it all adds to the congealing failure of our marriage relationship.
We love each other. But it won’t work, can’t work; it barely had a shot, and now? No. Just… done.
Some of us have made it work. Not many. But some. Gwen, for example. It’s hard, but if the family sticks together, it can work.
Our family was not suited to stick together.
The sooner I get over that, the better.
The sooner I can free her, the better… and the sooner we can all continue with our lives and build whatever is realistic rather than running after pipedreams and half-imagined whimsy.