I fell when I got home from school yesterday.
I arrived home late after attending the start of the year parent and teacher conferences. I was exhausted and crabby. I could only imagine taking a hot shower and curling up in bed with a book. That was not to be.
As I entered the front door, I felt my foot slip from underneath me. Some sort of fluid was on the floor. I fell in an undignified manner landing on my butt. My hand landed in the warm liquid. It took me to register that it was cat vomit.
In the living room I could see my delightful, balding husband sitting on the couch looking at the TV intently. Screams and explosions emanated from the television. He was playing some video game.
Even though I was still on my butt, I could see the house was a mess. Dirty dishes and glasses were on the floor and various tables. Toys littered the floor. And a pair of dirty socks was in the middle of all of this mess.
Oh, did I mention that my husband no longer has a job? He was laid off last April. The unemployment is soon to run out and he has no prospects. The fact that we will be unable to make the house payments on my comically small salary seems to be of no particular concern to him. He plays video games while I work.
My husband was laid off immediately after I ended the affair with Mark. Of course, I am sure it is just a coincidence. Yeah… right.
I get mad at Jeff, but I know I am to blame. I would apologize, what would I say? “Sorry you got laid off sweetie. But it was not your fault. Your boss just fired you to get back at me because I decided to stop fucking him. Sorry it ruined your career. “
So I got off my butt, and forced a smile behind my tears. I cleaned the house up and was able to finally take my shower late at night. Even though I was exhausted, I could not sleep.
I have never met a man as cruel and vindictive as Mark. Why must he continue to torment me? If he hates me that is OK - I will accept that as my price of penance. But doesn’t he realize that getting rid of Jeff also hurts his biological son? We are headed towards a financial disaster. Doesn’t this man have ANY heart?
I have not contacted Mark since April. But now I am thinking of contacting him and asking if he could bring Jeff back. I know it has usually been a mistake to contact Mark. But if I just sent an e-mail or an instant message, maybe it would be OK. If he wants me to grovel I will grovel. But he is not only hurting me, he is hurting his son.
I arrived home late after attending the start of the year parent and teacher conferences. I was exhausted and crabby. I could only imagine taking a hot shower and curling up in bed with a book. That was not to be.
As I entered the front door, I felt my foot slip from underneath me. Some sort of fluid was on the floor. I fell in an undignified manner landing on my butt. My hand landed in the warm liquid. It took me to register that it was cat vomit.
In the living room I could see my delightful, balding husband sitting on the couch looking at the TV intently. Screams and explosions emanated from the television. He was playing some video game.
Even though I was still on my butt, I could see the house was a mess. Dirty dishes and glasses were on the floor and various tables. Toys littered the floor. And a pair of dirty socks was in the middle of all of this mess.
Oh, did I mention that my husband no longer has a job? He was laid off last April. The unemployment is soon to run out and he has no prospects. The fact that we will be unable to make the house payments on my comically small salary seems to be of no particular concern to him. He plays video games while I work.
My husband was laid off immediately after I ended the affair with Mark. Of course, I am sure it is just a coincidence. Yeah… right.
I get mad at Jeff, but I know I am to blame. I would apologize, what would I say? “Sorry you got laid off sweetie. But it was not your fault. Your boss just fired you to get back at me because I decided to stop fucking him. Sorry it ruined your career. “
So I got off my butt, and forced a smile behind my tears. I cleaned the house up and was able to finally take my shower late at night. Even though I was exhausted, I could not sleep.
I have never met a man as cruel and vindictive as Mark. Why must he continue to torment me? If he hates me that is OK - I will accept that as my price of penance. But doesn’t he realize that getting rid of Jeff also hurts his biological son? We are headed towards a financial disaster. Doesn’t this man have ANY heart?
I have not contacted Mark since April. But now I am thinking of contacting him and asking if he could bring Jeff back. I know it has usually been a mistake to contact Mark. But if I just sent an e-mail or an instant message, maybe it would be OK. If he wants me to grovel I will grovel. But he is not only hurting me, he is hurting his son.
I was unemployed once for a year and a half. I know it can be very hard to find something else.
ReplyDeleteBut it's harder when you don't look.
Can I suggest you have two different problems here? One is the ongoing emotional problem with Mark. The other is that Jeff is unemployed. They are different.
OK, I believe that Jeff got laid off because you ended the affair with Mark. But now what? The subtext that I hear in your post is, "Not only am I guilty of having an affair with Mark, but I am also guilty of Jeff's unemployment ... because I directly caused his lay-off by ending things with Mark. So I have no right to get angry with Jeff about anything, nor to ask anything of him. So I have to let him play video games instead of looking for work, and I have to let him leave the cat vomit on the floor for me to clean up, because I have no right (guilty as I am) to ask anything else."
And there is just enough truth here to distract you from mountains of falsehood. So allow me:
Yes, you are guilty of the affair with Mark. You addressed that by breaking it off. The emotional aftershocks may take a while to die down, but you did what you had to do.
Yes, your ending the affair probably triggered Jeff's being laid off.
But no, you are not guilty of his layoff because you didn't do it. Mark did. Mark may have been acting in revenge against you, but it was still Mark who did it. And if he laid off Jeff because of your ending the affair, when there was no complaint about Jeff's work, then Mark is the one who acted unjustly. Not you. As far as Jeff's layoff is concerned, you are the victim of injustice, not the perpetrator.
Of course, Jeff is also a victiom of injustice. But the next point is that being a victim of injustice doesn't entitle you to a free ride. OK, Jeff was laid off unjustly. That's too bad. It wasn't fair. But neither would it be fair if your house were struck by lightning or a tree fell on your car. (God forbid.) On the other hand, fair or not, when disasters happen we are called to respond. That is part of our job as humans. In Jeff's case, the disaster is his unemployment. And even though it is unfair and unjust that he is unemployed, ... even though you were responsible for triggering (not causing) his unemployment, ... nonetheless it is his job to get up out of his chair and find work. Your involvement with Mark is a whole different issue -- completely irrelevant to the task that waits for Jeff right now, and it does not give him any kind of free pass.
Naturally there are practical questions I might have, that are none of my business. Is Mark really the only guy in town who hires men in Jeff's line of work? Or could he find work with a competitor? Is Jeff tied to just this one single line of work exactly? Or can he do anything else? He might not make as much money as he would in his specialty, but anything is better than nothing.
These are all practical questions, though, and they pale before the absolutely fundamental questions of challenge and responsibility. The plain fact is that as long as we live in a fallen world, nobody guarantees us that we will never suffer injustice. The right message, rather, is the one spoken to Job: "Gird up your loins like a man, for I will ask of you and you answer me." In Jeff's case, the "asking" is more like "demanding" ... demanding that he put down the video games, demanding that he find a blasted job, demanding that in his spare time he keep the house in order as well (as I did for the 18 months I was unemployed). Those are the demands, the things asked of him. And it is time for him to gird up his loins like a man and answer.
Sorry for the sermon. I got carried away. But please think about this. And bless you all.
Thanks for the comments Hosea. You really are quite insightful.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are right - my affair with Mark does not excuse Jeff from not looking for a job. I understand that logically, but emotionally the lines get blurred.
Unconsciously, my thought pattern is that since I have violated my marriage vows of fidelity, I have no moral right to expect my husband to honor and provide for me. And it as though through my suffering I am make some sort of penance that will help lead to my redemption.
My husband works in a somewhat specialized field. And in good times I am sure he could find a job quick. But in this current economy it is hard.
Hi again,
ReplyDeleteI've probably already said enough on your next post to piss you off thoroughly, so why not come back to this one and compound the damage? :-)
No, seriously. I understand what you are saying about suffering and penance, but again you are confusing two different issues.
In the first and most basic instance, the reason your husband needs to get off his ass has nothing to do with honoring or providing for you. After all, you are an adult. You can work. Your current job may not pay a lot, but in worst case you could find another job ... maybe one you didn't enjoy so much but one that paid better. So you aren't the issue.
There are four people who are hurt by your husband's indolence far more than you are: I mean your three children and your husband himself. And this on several levels.
The most obvious level is financial responsibility. Jeff owes it to your kids to bring in a paycheck, so that you can keep food on the table. That's just basic.
Second, what kind of an example is he setting for them? They will grow up thinking that the kind of man they should admire -- for your son, the kind of man he should aspire to be -- is a man who is happy to play video games all day while he lives in squalor and cat vomit. Is this what you want them to learn about the ideal of manhood? Is it what God wants them to learn about manhood? I hope not.
Third, vice corrodes the soul. When you get into bad habits, they become a part of you, and you end off with a cheaper, tawdrier soul than you had before. You become a worse human being. Well, every single day that Jeff spends wallowing in sloth instead of exercising initiative and responsibility is one more day that his own soul shrinks, ... becomes a little smaller, cheaper, more shopworn. It is one more day in which he becomes a worse human being. It is one more day in which he slides farther away from the shining ideal for whose sake he was made in the first place. And so for his own sake, for the sake of his soul, for the sake of the very purpse for which he was born ... for all these things he has got to pull up his socks and look for work.
I'm in a specialized field too. I know it can be hard, especially in bad economy. When I was out of work, it took me 18 months of looking nearly every day. (During that time, I also took care of the house and the kids because my wife was quite ill.) But if I hadn't kept myself sharp by looking every day, I would have gone to seed and nobody would ever have hired me again.
No excuses.
Hosea,
ReplyDeleteDon’t be silly! You do not upset me. I appreciate your insights.
I agree with much of what you say. I am disturbed about what you said about his soul. I think you are right. But could I be passively-aggressively be encouraging this destruction of his soul? Such a thought disturbs me.
I guess anything's possible, but that looks really highly unlikely to me. Why would you want to destroy him? That makes no sense.
ReplyDeleteA far more likely explanation is the one you allude to above when you say, "emotionally the lines get blurred." I think what has happened is that you have allowed the strong, overpowering emotions surrounding your affair -- the way it started, the things you found yourself doing, how hard it was to end it, and even the experience with Pastor Karl -- I say, I think you have allowed those strong emotions to blur your vision.
As a result, you are allowing yourself to shoulder not only the burden of your own failure to be the woman you thought you were, but also Jeff's failure to look for work. You are carrying this burden for him when you shouldn't -- it is rightly his and you must not deprive him of it.
But that means that when Jeff fails to look for work, or when he allows indolence to eat away at his self-respect, it's not about you! This is not the place for you to feel guilty. This is not the place for you to keep silent. If Jeff fell asleep at the wheel of a car and aimed it at a tree, you would wrench it out of his hands and point it back on the road. And you would wake him up. Right? This is obvious. So no, you don't want him to destroy himself or ruin the children. This is the same thing, only slower. So you have more time to react. Don't let misplaced guilt* paralyze you when you are needed in this moment of crisis.
* Note that I speak of "misplaced" guilt ... i.e., guilt that is properly Jeff's. I'm not talking about guilt that is properly yours. But you can't take his too ... he needs it, as a spur to get him moving.
Or think of it this way: if there is a chance that Satan inspired the whole affair to get at Karl, what you are doing by your inaction is to hand him a bonus point. He may have missed his shot at Karl (or maybe we won't really know for a while), but if he can snare Jeff with indolence, you with silent resentment, and your kids with having a bad role model to imitate ... well, that's not bad for a day's work among demons. Satan may have been counting on taking you out for good; but if you resist him, he is clever enough to use the shell shock from the affair to take you out of the battle in another way. Don't let him.
Wow! My bosses husband is also out of work. he too could care less about finding a job. But his mommy nad daddy will support him.
ReplyDeleteBut not for the same reasons you have.
Please don't balme yourself. Mark is being an ass! He must know what he is doing to you.
I don't get him. I just don't know what to say????