I am neurotypical in how deeply I feel things. Part of my journey in life is to learn to moderate my own emotional depths. I have gotten better at this over time. The ending of my marriage and subsequent loss of 70% of my time with my children was a blow that I nearly did not recover from. Just working on this novel and revisiting the memories and photos of my kids before the collapse, causes my neurons to fire in sad and intense ways. I don’t think most people feel to this atomic level.
I understand that my loving outflow of touch and words and emotional connection provided a large portion of the glue that kept my young family together during the married years. Something slipped. We had setbacks, we had challenges. Emotional challenges. An overt emotional affair by my then-wife during the darkest moments. I think my constant commitment to optimistic joy and encouragements kept our shaky nuclear shack together for longer than would’ve been possible otherwise.
I was a big love generator. I was the breakfast king. I woke the kids for school every day, cooked them breakfast, and got them to school on time while I was still in the house with them. Once my energy was removed other trajectories started occurring in our lives.
My path away and out.
My daughter’s migraine headaches and abysmal medical care.
My son’s broken leg.
I’m sure it was a frightening time for my ex-wife as well. Sure, she got the house, the child support, and the big-parent role, but she was ill-prepared to navigate the choppy waters after the divorce.
Often, when I was doing the “good morning everyone” routine on a weekday in the house, my wife would sleep in, or complain of a headache. Basically, she opted out a lot.
When it was just her I began getting notices from the automated school attendance system that my kids were, late, or absent, missing classes due to her malfunction. Or perhaps, her ability to keep both kids above the magnetic sadness that was also running through their veins, courtesy of both mom and dad.
I got the easy path. It was also the harder path for me. I lost everything in my life that made any sense. For the first month, living with my sister, I was hard-pressed to get up before noon. I would eat whatever was available in my sister’s sparse provisions. I tried to maintain buoyancy, but I slipped beneath the surface into some black waters of loneliness and longing that were retriggered today as I was reviewing and recapturing old photographs.
Even in the beauty of a Catskill retreat, I can taste the shock and awe. My chemicals are firing up the loss network. Tears are never far as I’m excavating historical pain.
I understand my son’s loss and crushing depression more than he is capable of comprehending. It makes letting go of him that much more difficult. Here in the mountains I am offline. Even tiny signals of support and love are not possible. No feedback coming from him, his other parents, or his 12-step counselor either. I am forced to deal with my own life, my own emotions, and my powerlessness over what’s causing him to flounder so mercilessly at the rushing attempts for his final semester of college.
He’s alone in my house. A quiet gift. A place to heal. Congeal and be sad. He often ignores all incoming encouragements, even resents them as patronizing. That’s the depression talking. In those moments of blackout despondency, there is not much you can do. In my experience, the best course of action is to wait it out. Get rest, exercise, and good food. Eliminate drugs and alcohol. And most importantly ask for help.
My son has no faith in any concept of a higher power. Perhaps my mom, “Nana” now tattooed across his shoulder blades would make a good stand-in. At the moment, he’s got nothing. He’s got a professional intervention coach who’s his best hope at navigating upward toward the surface. The “god” part will come through the asking. When we are at a loss and smashed flat, we reach out for help. There is nothing else to do. Who answers, or who you can hear, is more about of a personal spirituality process. If you are not listening for god, or have no concept of god, or in some cases, have given up on god and are furious about it, well, if that’s where my son is, I certainly GET IT.
The massive transformation blew away all that these four people trusted in. I was surprised by my wife’s choice to seek legal counsel while continuing to batter me in couples therapy. Her honesty has been an issue from the beginning when she was living with a man while starting to take ever-longer lunch dates with me. The flirtatious texting with me would be a violation of any relationship she had with her boyfriend. She had her reasons for switching horses, I understood later as the truth came out. She wanted a baby. The older man she was with was unwilling to spawn. I don’t mean for that to sound flippant. Or, probably I do.
In the same exact way she jumped from his ship to mine at the beginning of our relationship, she repeated again in her marriage to me, as things became hard. She sought counsel and comfort in a coworker. She introduced him to the neighborhood public library that had “great coffee” and quiet reading spaces over lunch. An email exchange sparked up. I accidentally stumbled upon one of the emotionally explicit emails as I was doing a routine cleanup of our shared iMac.
This moment probably set our divorce in motion several years before she actually hit the emergency release button. She never apologized. She said she understood how painful it would be for me and that she would not do it again. That’s all I got.
I pulled my fractured shit back together and we held our demons at bay and “worked on the marriage.” I worked on keeping my family together. She began her process of “investigating all opportunities” while staying minimally contrite and somewhat spikey. This is when physical intimacy turned into a negotiation. One that I mostly lost.
Years later, after the vasectomy renaissance, as things became isolative and cold again, we started couple’s therapy for a second time. I was focused on how to keep our marriage together. She went to see an attorney. My imagination says she used therapy to placate me while she evaluated Excel spreadsheets and family law. I began to protest the frosty bedroom. I was no longer willing to endure isolation and loss while sleeping next to a woman I still loved deeply. In some ways, I forced her to choose.
She put our marriage on “tentative” after her admission. Therapy ended. I demanded, “In or out?” It took her two days. I was losing my mind and becoming more furious.
It’s odd. At this present moment I am again at an ending. I have cut the lines of communication and emotional energy between myself and a woman who loved me with all she could muster for almost three years. I am transparent. I am not dating. I am pausing on all fronts.
Time to go deeper. Investigate my own black bastards. Make room for new avenues of happiness. Dream of eventual partners again. Back to seeking. For now, however, today, stopping completely all motions of affection.
It’s amazing. Last night, as torrential rains again pelted the circus tent above my moonpod, I was in need of some reassurance. I wanted to reach out and encourage my son. Get a hug from my daughter, even over FaceTime. I wanted to escape. Ask for help.
I let everything go. My need for reassurance. My need to share my loving thoughts with my kids. I prayed for my son to receive my hopeful energy without contact directly from me. I asked god to be present in their lives and in mine. I listened to the rain’s unrelenting roar on the circus tent above the pods. I let go. I listened to my pain. I let it wash over me. Surrendered.
This morning, and now, in the afternoon, I am calm and tender. Comforted only by my own release and vulnerability. I am surrounded by loving musicians who I don’t know, but who are also offering to play songs with me. I am alone in a sea of music and musicians. A few of them famous.
Here is the truth.
I was powerless to love my wife back into the marriage. I was unable to find honesty with her. Perhaps my son has disassociative responses to hard truths. He certainly was not modeled healthy emotional response to adversity by anyone in his life but me.
Our journey to personal recovery begins at the soul. When broken. When our “lives have become unmanageable” we turn to God, or higher powers, or others. Alone, we must turn within. Last night was transformational. I could not reach anyone. Even god failed to give a sign. The rain continued an attempt at washing us all down the valley.
And in my own final release of all that I know, all that I have known, and even all that I hope for my near future feels complete. I am washed clean.
Yes, I still want to reach out to my son today.
I will be still. I will listen for god and love in all these amazing people around me. I will stop talking. I will sing Heartbeat as a duet with the woman who is married to one of the stars of the show. She is why I’m here. I wanted to honor her.
It’s one of my favorite songs by the gentlemen in this musical trio.
Dear god, it’s me, John.
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