Personal Journal

Death in a number

I’m more disturbed about this matter than I will give myself permission to feel.
This may be the end for Jean and I, but I leave that decision to her.
I did something that she has found embodies the height of disrespect to her needs.
It goes almost exactly like this:

Last night at Weight Watchers, she went to the scale first. When I went, the reader still had Jean’s paperwork lying there. It was no draw to my eyes (I don’t care what she weighs). Jean instructed me not to look at her paperwork. I didn’t. I was looking at the scale reading, which was right next to the paperwork. She again told me not to read it, and I said I wasn’t. She finally put her hand on my face to cover my eyes, at which point, I turned my head so that I could peek through a gap in her fingers, and I did in fact look at her paperwork and saw her weight.

On our way out of the WW meeting, she asked if I had seen it and I said I did, confirming it by saying how much she weighs (and if she ever got wind of me telling 3rd parties what she weighs, she’d kill all of us, and that today doesn’t seem like so much hyperbole).

The aftermath of that was awful. She cancelled our dinner plans, she sobbed and cried in the car. I told her I was sorry, that I didn’t understand it was so important to her for me not to know. She told me how mad she was at me, that she didn’t want to be around me, and that she wished I would hurry up and go (I presume she meant on my trip this Sunday, but I’m beginning to wonder if she means go out of her life).

I shut my mouth, knowing that anything I could say would escalate her feelings of sorrow and loathing (for me).
We got home, got her car in the garage. I got out, and she began sobbing like she had lost her favorite cat. I got my jacket, my keys, and I left her there to get away from her presence, for both of our sakes. I spent 4 hours out, going to dinner alone and to see a movie (School of Rock, kind of good).

I went to Target and got notecards. All the “apology” cards were sold out. Go figure. Must be the moon. So I handwrote one saying this, essentially:

I’ll leave it to you to judge my value as a partner, but you should know that in my heart, I meant no harm. Honestly, I intended no harm. I’m sorry that my actions caused you so much pain. Love Dane.

I went home and gave it to her. I gave her a hug and said I’m sorry again. She started crying again, and she went downstairs and slept on the couch. I woke her this morning and told her what time it was. I got myself ready, and when I exited the shower, she was in the big bed, telling me that she wasn’t going into work until “later”. I left. When I got to work, there was a message from her, apparently from 6:30 last night (half an hour after I left her in the garage crying) saying that I could come home; she was “leaving.”

It could be that we’re done this morning and I just don’t know it yet. My affect is flat, and I’ll tell you why.

I can concede that I shouldn’t have looked at her weight paperwork in deference to her wishes and needs. To explain my actions with no attempt at excusing them, there were to factors that led me to act contrary to her wishes. First, and most importantly, I don’t care what she weighs. It has no impact upon what I feel for her. Second, her demand that I not look seemed playful at the moment, in WW in front of everyone. Her putting her hand over my eyes drew from me a sort of prankster mentality, and I rebelled playfully against her, looking at the paper.l

<sigh>

I don’t consider the following rationalizations:
Over the past 11 months of living together, I have made efforts, if not daily, than on average, daily, to tell her how I find her beautiful, desirable, amazing, feminine and strong, worthy of my pride and someone who evokes from my own soul a need to be humble in her presence.
I know that she is not comfortable with her own body. It has been evident throughout the relationship. I have tried not to tell her what she could be, and I encourage her to reach her goals for herself, whatever those may be. Indeed, we have been going to Weight Watchers together, because I wish to lose 40 pounds, and I wish to be an encouraging presence to her.
To me, this abject horror she feels at me knowing her weight is a singular point of difference between yesterday and today.
Today, someone else knows her weight, and it’s not an internally carried scarlet letter. Today, that number, she must feel, is worn on her breast for the entire world to see, and she is deeply ashamed of herself.
And philosophically, this is a conflict borne of a lack of trust.
She doesn’t trust me, or herself, or both, I’m uncertain of the mechanics of it.
She doesn’t trust me to know the number – perhaps feels I’ll tell the world? Probably unlikely.
She doesn’t trust the friendship we have together to allow me to know the number and remain unchanged. It’s like it is some horrible secret. That’s the secret of her fragile self-image. I’ve seen through the glass now, and she feels unprotected – she feels that I am a threat to her, knowing what I know – not the number – how terribly fragile her self-confidence is.

So I say we might be done. I doubt it, actually, but I think we’re only in Act III of a five-act play here.

The truth at the heart of relationships is absolute. If you don’t love yourself, you can’t accept love from someone else. If you are not willing to make yourself vulnerable to being wounded, you cannot trust the partner. If you cannot trust the partner, you cannot expose yourself in vulnerability, which means you cannot feel the warm protecting spiritual embrace of the lover who would give all to protect you.

I make this promise to anyone who I love or who loves me (including platonic friends). I promise you that I will hurt you or disappoint you because I am human, and I will fail. I also promise you that when I do fail you or hurt you, I will regret it so deeply that it will shake my soul, and I will beg for your forgiveness, try to understand how such a hurt came to pass, and to avoid it in the future.

This is not the first time where I have had to pause and take note of the fact that Jean does not fully accept herself, and that she is extremely reluctant to trust. She is not comfortable with who she is.

And then, I think of foundations, and I realize that the foundation of our relationship is built on something prone to collapse, and I ask myself, “Is what I am doing rational? Is it justifiable”. Am I just another person waiting for the person that I’d like to love to change into that person who can finally love herself and then begin to move forward.

Here we are again, staring at a cracked foundation, four days before I hit the road for 5 weeks and then some. I had not yet set up my surprises for her, the notes hidden in pockets and drawers that say things like “I’m thinking of you right now” or “today I miss you very much”. And now, disjoined from my feelings of nurturing for her as I am, that whole project seems like it would be artificial, a construct based on my feelings that I should do it, not that I truly feel inspired to do it. Like my marriage again.

I have another proverb: I should only have to apologize once and mean it. I’m sorry. I’m empathic; I understand the nature of the humiliation she feels, I understand the depths that it has sunk her soul to. I don’t think it’s valid, but that’s not my place to say (and I won’t). All that I can do to make it better is say with conviction that I don’t care what she weighs, it changes nothing about my feelings for her, including my deep physical desire for her, nor my respect and admiration for her as a woman who strives toward self-improvement and self-actualization.

These things I have said, and I feel to pursue sending that message any more would be to grovel and to debase my self, to diminish my own spirit, and I cannot do that in good conscience. So I will not.

It is up to her now to decide what this means for us, for her especially.

I have to pause and reflect onto something – some trend which for several months has been idle, but which has reappeared in the last week or two. It seems that we are a couple naturally prone, without malice, to elicit the worst responses in one another. We both love one another, but I wonder if these characteristics each of us possesses aren’t simply connecting with one another more frequently with a spark that causes pain instead of making one another breathless in the face of unconditional love…




It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn