Another anniversary’s in the books. To commemorate the occasion, Crankenstein and I attended a couple of museum exhibits and enjoyed overpriced carryout under the watchful eye of Muriel, who wedged herself between us on the couch afterward during The Exorcist. We discussed the underwhelming state of our marriage (which does not yet require the services of a Father Karras) and prepared to bid farewell to Crankenstein’s student loans, a process I’ll write more about once it’s officially settled.
Crankenstein and I are boring, as you know, and so are our marital problems. You might recall that we weren’t relationship-ready when we started dating and assume our troubles stem from that. Do recent mentions of Into the Woods and Cher point to lingering feelings for my ex? Is Crankenstein’s eating disorder up to its old tricks? Well, we saw Into the Woods almost 10 years ago; our worst eating disorder blowup dates back to 2015; and the point of the Cher post was that I miss being carefree in a way you only experience fleetingly, when you’re young and stupid.
That’s not to say the ED and tangled feelings about my previous relationship weren’t significant obstacles. And while Crankenstein and I were foolish to rush into dating, we weren’t wrong that we were right for each other. It’s hard to describe my marital dissatisfaction in a sensible way because I can’t claim to fully understand it. Before attempting to do so anyway, I should clarify that the two of us have already discussed this at length. She reads anything I write about our relationship before it’s posted and I’m excluding some details for privacy, which will only muddle this more.
In short, I was already questioning our marriage as we headed into 2020. Then the pandemic hit and Crankenstein was emotionally unavailable for quite some time, which was hard on both of us. At a certain point, I felt abandoned. Had I not been concerned about her mental health, I would’ve left. Instead I stayed and my resentment grew. Then I started having health issues in 2021 that worsened throughout 2022, which deepened my misery. But we still loved each other, and when Crankenstein realized how far apart we’d drifted she made a genuine effort to reconnect.
We encountered a slew of stressors during this period that compounded my confusion. Was I upset about X or Y or both? There was never time to figure it out or to resolve our pre-2020 conflict before the next big crisis appeared. In screwball scenarios like that, where one thing after another goes awry, it helps me to think of a Talking Heads lyric: “Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down.” When I’ve (figuratively) done that in the past, everything’s turned out fine. But the challenges of 2022 and 2023 often felt more like a waterboarding.
Being told at 40 that I might have 10 or fewer good years ahead of me caused an additional strain. If I’d been in midlife crisis mode before, as I speculated in a June post about Carly Simon, it was now thrown into overdrive. Every negative feeling I’d ever had about myself, my wife and our marriage was suddenly amplified. I felt stupid for wasting so many years telling myself “Don’t worry, it’ll get better.” I’d already done that once before and paid the price, and here I’d gone and done it again, this time for almost twice as long — oblivious all the while that the clock was running out on whatever time I had left to repair my mistakes.
Some of my anger at Crankenstein was completely unfair and irrational. Some of it was not. It upset me that I’d struggled for years leading up to the diagnosis and she didn’t lift a finger to help around the house. She expressed concern about my sleep disturbance to the neurologist, but wouldn’t assist with Muriel’s early-morning care even after I repeatedly asked for help. I was touched when she researched ticket packages to tennis tournaments on the day of my diagnosis… until she told me to bring a friend to Australia and other places she didn’t want to go.
How was the future supposed to work now? Motherhood seemed officially ruled out, which probably hurt more than anything else. Crankenstein takes care of people at work and does a wonderful job of it. At home she takes care of virtually nothing and relies on me for almost everything. If I can’t take care of us by the time I’m in my fifties, what good am I to anyone? Do I get tossed into assisted living? Does she hire a caregiver to pull double-duty for us both? If she doesn’t need me emotionally and can’t rely on me physically, I’m not sure I serve a purpose — which is the same existential crisis I’ve grappled with throughout much of our marriage already.
We agreed in premarital counseling that unless our marriage was irretrievably broken, we’d make every effort to salvage it. (For us, “irretrievably” meant abuse, infidelity or lying about addiction, including the eating disorder.) Now we have to figure out what that entails. We’re aware of the dangers of acting irrationally after a life-changing diagnosis, and of holding each other responsible for frustrations that stem from a situation neither of us created. At the same time, there’s plenty we messed up ourselves and I don’t want to fall into the trap of blaming everything on Parkinson’s.
Over lunch today, as we discussed what our parents taught us about divorce when we were kids, I mentioned an oft-married friend of my mother’s who drives my dad crazy by whining “I want what you two have!” every time she sees my parents together.
“She’s had it five times now,” he’s known to quip.
Crankenstein’s eyes lit up as she referenced a favorite meme that was more relevant than ever: “Maybe the grass seems greener on the other side because you’re not over there fucking it up.”