Time to let go

I just wasted a weekend. A weekend that I was looking forward to -- because weekends are when my husband is usually all (or mostly) mine -- after his work,housework, kids and family obligations are taken care of. (OK, doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot more than weekdays when he sometimes puts in 12-hour days).

I spoilt it all by asking my husband out to lunch on Friday. He hummed and hawed, saying he might be busy. OK, I said, a compromise --I'll pick you up and we can eat somewhere nearby --it won't take up more time than a normal lunch with your colleagues. Hmmmm, let me see, he said.

At lunchtime he called up and told me one of his usual lunch buddies asked him out for lunch. Don't you have lunch with these people every day anyway? And I thought I had first dibs by asking first thing in the morning? To me, it signalled that he'd rather be with them (whom he saw morning, noon and evenings everyday) than with me. (OK, the thought that the work spouse would be there too was lurking in my mind.)

To him, of course, it indicated that I wanted to control everything he did -- even down to his choice of lunch buddies. And seeing how men usually react to being controlled (i.e., badly) he blew his top. I thought it was pretty unfair because all I thought I was doing was expressing disappointment at his decision. (And surely I could not be blamed for feeling let down?)

Of course the whole weekend was spent cold shouldering each other. Almost every move now is seen through the lens of the "work spouse affair" -- for him : does she want to exert control because she thinks I'd rather be with my work spouse? and for me: does he actually want to be with her?

After nearly half a year of second-guessing motives, ascribing agendas, we're both worn out. Deep down, I know he is trustworthy; I just can't stand (or understand ) him having a close, young female friend. Half a lifetime's worth of shared experiences is too precious to throw away for unsubstantiated suspicions, no matter how much hurt and anger they have engendered. And a promise made in the sight of God cannot be taken lightly.

In the sleepy half-light of this morning's dawn, I woke, tired and regretful for a lost weekend. I felt him remove the pillow that had been our "boundary marker" in bed this whole weekend, and his legs and arms folded over me. I think it's time to let this whole thing go. Time to let go of my hurt and anger, instead of trying to extract my pound of flesh. Yes, I don't understand why he still wants to be friends with her, why he thinks it's perfectly harmless. But I want to trust him and pray that he will retain his moral grounding, instead of waiting for him to fall, just to say "I told you so". And I want to believe him when he says we belong primarily to God and each other, and no one else in between.

1 Peter 4 says that "love covers a multitude of sins". Time to bury this one and move on.

minds of men and women

I wish I could say that I've put the whole suspicion about my husband's work spouse behind me. After all, I do believe that he is an honourable man. I believe that he will not indulge in any infidelity that would destroy our marriage and wreck his career.

That said, what worried me no end, was that he did not believe that there was such a thing as emotional infidelity. I tried to introduce him to the concept that inappropriate emotional closeness was a risk factor for emotional infidelity, which in turn led to the slippery slope towards physical, full-blown infidelity. Nope, he said, then how could men and women ever be friends? Well, I said, do you remember that that was exactly how WE started, by being good friends? I think his insistence that his friendship with her remain was one of the key factors which made me so upset -- because it indicated that his friendship with this woman was important enough to keep, despite knowing his wife's discomfort. He says that I have no right to control who his friends are; while I insist that surely my feelings are more important than an ordinary friendship, unless......? We are at an impasse here.

The second thing which aroused even greater suspicion was the lack of transparency. He actually thought that by keeping the phone on silent mode, and answering messages while I happened to be out of the room, was a good idea. And he would omit details of what they did (eg., breakfast, lunches out etc) or leave out her name when telling me about the people he went out with. To him, I would only get upset whenever he mentioned her or when I knew that she called again, so it was best to keep me in the dark. All I had to do was to trust that he wouldn't ever do anything wrong. To this, I could only say, huh?! I think that "don't ask, don't tell" is a potent breeding ground for suspicion. And to think that this man has even more postgraduate degrees than I.

For a while we have become mired in a circle of defensive accusations -- "you're so suspicious, it would be worse if you knew", "if you were just friends you wouldn't feel a need to hide it from me". And both of us feel equally wronged by the other. Do men and women really think so differently that we fail to find common ground on this issue?

PS: Thank you, f8hasit, for becoming my very first follower. I think one of the reasons why I started writing this blog was to find out what other people thought about this whole thing -- whether I was really a nutcase for believing something was wrong.

taking things into my own hands

Hello, you remember the work spouse who wouldn't stay at work? Well, even after my husband gently hinted that he was busy at home and on weekends, with the kids (and a wife who wouldn't let him off the hook when it came to housework), sometimes I felt that she was not open to receiving hints. Strange how someone could text something like "Sorry, can you talk?" at night even after having been told the above -- unless it was some sort of crisis. And for that, I told my husband, surely she had her own support group of equally single and entanglement-free friends.

And she seemed to have some sort of emotional crisis every other week -- family, work, friends..... I think it was at this point that my patience ran out. I take pride in not being a particularly needy person, and am not the sort of wife who calls her husband up a few times at work each day. So it felt rather unfair that while I resisted calling him up just to chat, and tried to resolve problems on my own at home, this girl seemed to have no compunction about unloading her problems onto my husband -- at work and afterwards.

It came to a point where I would jump every time the phone beeped (incoming text message), thinking it would be her. One day, after messaging that my husband was "so sweet" (not to her - it was for something generous he did at work) and should have called her when he went in to work that weekend (since she was there too), I replied that " Yes, I know I married a good man."

You would think that there would have been a shocked silence after that. For me, it was a giddy mixture of defiant elation (at having declared my presence) and trepidation (what if my husband got angry that I was being so obviously curt?) the moment I hit the "send" button. Instead after a few seconds, there was a confused and giggly reply that my husband needed more sleep since he was sending gibberish. Good grief! I wondered when and if the truth would finally dawn on her!

I think revelation must have finally come sometime that weekend, because there were no more messages for the next two days. She did ask my husband the next Monday, if things were alright at home. Being Asian, of course he replied that things were ok but just a bit busy at home so kids and wife would really like his attention so....... She said she found me really scary and wouldn't call him at home UNLESS necessary. (insert a sceptical Hmmmmm) She probably thinks my poor husband married a really bitchy woman.

My husband had asked me before, if he could invite her over to our church group meeting (we meet regularly every week), seeing that she feels there is no meaning in life, save for work (a common enough sentiment in modern Singapore). At this time, I really don't have an answer. I would like to be unselfish and say yes, but at the same time I feel outraged over the anxiety and hurt that she has caused me this past five months (although she was oblivious to it). They're still the best of buddies at work -- I have no doubt, and I still have the weekly emotional meltdown over her.

But -- and it almost shames me to admit this -- striking that one blow to assert my presence and annoyance brought me some measure of resolution, and a somewhat savage satisfaction.