Jealousy
One of the changes that pre-midlife has brought is an ugly thing. It is jealousy. Not envy, but jealousy. I hate the feeling, and I can't recall having been a jealous person in the past. Of course, I've rarely felt so much anger, hurt, and frustration (coupled with insecurity) all at the same time either. So here's where I realized I had a problem:My husband, who is not a happy individual, experiences the most joy when he is working and writing and being productive in scholarly and academic ways. He is usually isolated when he does this, which means he spends many hours alone in front of a computer. This also means that the things that give him the most joy and satisfaction in life are not things that he shares with me. I rarely see him happy. This doesn't mean we do not spend time together - on the contrary, we eat dinner together most every night, and we watch TV together until I am too tired to stay awake. On the weekends, he works while I do housecleaning, and he goes to church with me and on occasion will sit and read the Sunday paper with me. But we do not enjoy the same things, and since he is a quiet and reserved person, we do not have fantastic exchange of thoughts and feelings.
At least once a week, he spends a block of time in which he has committed to write in his office with one of the department's graduate students on a grant proposal - a young, sweet, smart, and pretty female graduate student - a happily married graduate student. The worst part is that I like her very much, and I've met her husband and liked him too. So why on earth would I feel jealous?
My husband does not get up in the mornings with me. When I leave for work at 7:30-ish, he is still sound asleep. Ironically, this morning he was up because he was going in bright and early to write with this student. I felt crushed that he is unable to get out of bed to see me in the mornings, but he is able to get up...(dare I say it??)...for her. But I know it's not her per se - it's his other life, his career, his work that he is getting up for. That is what he is willing to get out of bed for - but not for me.
I feel like my husband is having an affair with the rest of his life. I feel like he leaves to go to that which he dreams of all night. I feel like I get the leftovers. His way of putting it is this: "I'm spent." There is little of him left for me when all is said and done. And what I do get is not his best. I do not get to experience joy or happiness or peace with him. I get to solve the question about what is for dinner, and whether the credit card got paid, and if the tires on the car need to be rotated. Michael gives himself away to everyone else before he gives anything to me. He will spend money on me, and take care of anything I ask him to do. Yet somehow, that doesn't leave me feeling loved. It leaves me feeling last on his list. It leaves me feeling like one more thing he has to attend to on his to-do-list of the day. Write? Check. Answer e-mail? Check. Run to the post office? Check. Finish that journal article? Check? Tell Tamara I love her and give her a nonchalant peck? Check. Roll over and turn out the lights? Check.
But that does not end my list. It continues like this: Wonder why my husband has no desire to be with me? Check. Consider buying a vibrator? Check. Grow angry at being last again? Check. Try in vain to fall asleep? Check. Listen to my husband snore peacefully? Check. Grow angry and resentful? Check. Run through the mental checklist of why he wants nothing to do with me? Check. Start to cry? Check. Feel endless streams of hot tears running until my pillow is soaked and I flip it over? Check. Lie there and wish it would all end? Check.
And in the morning it starts over again. I wake up alone, eat breakfast alone and plan the day alone. I start dreading coming home at the end of the day, and I haven't even left the house. I look at him sleeping, and sometimes I admire how beautiful he is. Sometimes I walk over to the side of the bed and pet his head and lean over to smell him simply because I like it. And other times I don't turn around at all, and head out the door angry. The rest of the time I feel resigned. I used to really be in love with him. I got through endless difficult days knowing that we might see each other in a few weeks or so during a weekend visit or a conference. And now there is so little I look forward to.
So, the jealousy is about the joy he doesn't experience with me. It's knowing that everyone else gets to spend time with him doing things that he finds enjoyable. Meanwhile, I get a brooding, depressed, and exhausted roommate. I am jealous because I never got to be a newlywed. I just got to be the resented wife. His student is really lucky. She gets the best part of him, and doesn't even know it.
posted by No Longer In Crisis @ 5/11/2005 11:58:00 AM
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