I’m Okay (to give) You’re Okay (to take)

My Aunt B once explained to me that the world was essentially divided into two sorts of people: those who gave readily and those who took readily.  Through that lens I am able to see some of what was going on  for years in my relationship with my husband and his children.  They all had their feet firmly planted in the world of those who feel entitled to charmed lives.  Somehow they believed they’d earned it: my husband- because he had a demanding job and therefore deserved a personal life that was smooth sailing; and his kids- because their parents’ marriage ended and therefore  deserved that the rest of their lives be made easy for them.  Or perhaps their sense of entitlement did not originate within themselves.  Perhaps it was their father who, motivated by guilt for not wanting to be married to their mother, felt compelled to orchestrate their lives in such a way as to never have to say no to them. In either case, he consistently took the path of least resistance with his children. I watched for years as he made excuses for them. His daughter couldn’t help shovel the driveway because her frame was too small. His son couldn’t help clean up after dinner, because he finished eating first and couldn’t be expected to sit at the table to wait for us to finish eating.   Year after year, my daughter and I participated in his annual Saturday morning “Clean up your Neighbourhood Day”, while his children slept in and were not awakened to help out. (Incidentally my daughter and I did this even when we lived in another city and drove in to Toronto to clean up a neighbourhood that wasn’t even our own.)

Many is the time I was kept waiting at some pre-arranged corner, because he wanted to squeeze in one more task before meeting up with me (pick up the dry cleaning, drop something off).  Clearly his time was more valuable than mine.  Many is the time my daughter cleaned up the kitchen while his own daughter got a sudden urge to go the bathroom and his son had to take a cell phone call.  His children would re-enter the kitchen as the job was being completed.  Their father would walk by and say “Thanks kids for doing all the clean-up”.  Was he wilfully oblivious?

For years I helped put up or take down their Christmas tree, while in my own home, my 3 year old and I dragged our tree from the car into the house, and sawed down the trunk with a hack saw because I didn’t know any better.

When he moved during our courtship, I stood on chairs and installed all his window coverings while he sat and organized his CDs in alphabetical order.

You might well ask why I allowed this to happen for so long.   I believe I was eager for two things:  1) to demonstrate my ability to be totally committed,  to prove the depths of my love, to be a good girl, to earn approval and 2) to grow as a person, to refine my character and develop my stamina, to test the limits of my love and the limits of God’s love to sustain me while I bottomed out.

In retrospect I should have just joined a kibbutz or some international aid project:  growing vegetables or constructing schools for orphaned children.  I was so desperate to build something, to be part of something worthwhile, and to have a family, that it seems I took the three of them on as my ‘project’.

When I started asking for a return on my investment i.e. the pleasure of seeing the three of them become more self-sufficient, less dependent on others to organize their lives and more cognizant of their many blessings, I was treated as a traitor.

There were many wonderful perks for me in being with my husband.  I loved the feeling of being chosen by a man, a feeling I am no longer able to enjoy.  As enlightened as we claim to be in this era, a single woman still bears the stigma of being left out ‘when choosing sides for basketball’.  I loved being at a social gathering and looking across the room at my husband and knowing that I had someone to go home with when the evening was over.  I loved the little acts of intimacy, sipping from the same glass, standing naked together in front of the bathroom mirrors, him shaving, me drying my hair.  I loved sexual intimacy, feeling wanted, being able to make him happy.  I loved the sound of him getting into bed beside me.  I loved him seeking out my body in the mornings.

Amazingly, while I believe I gave so much more than I gained in our time together, I was not the one who gave up on the marriage.  My act of treason (failing to have Mother Theresa’s character and Kim Bassinger’s body)  was punishable by death. Death in this case was the complete abrupt emotional cut-off from my husband.   Occasionally I wonder who is helping him find his glasses, cell phone, and brief case now.  Occasionally I wonder who is tutoring, chauffering and unlocking the door for his children now.  But they will have found someone else to do those things by now.   The takers always seem to be able the find the givers.