Mixed Metaphors on my Marriage

Orson Scott Card sets forth a hierarchy of foreignness in the Ender's Game series. There are the Utlanning, who are strangers from our own species and own world, Framling, who are strangers of our own species, but from a different world, Ramen, strangers from another species who are capable of living peaceably with us, and Varelse, who are strangers of another species who are not capable of communicating with us. Of course, his use for the setting was science fiction, with people living on all sorts of worlds, and running into different species, but I was thinking over it today, and I think I will tweak it a bit, but use it to describe my perspective on my impending divorce.

The thing that made me think of it was I was thinking again today about how Janardan has said repeatedly that he views me as his enemy. I have understood what he means to a degree in very narrow contexts. Push would come to shove, I would feel overly frustrated by his lack of appreciation or apparent love, and so I would just try anything, which ultimately could be described as emotional jabs to see if this person actually experiences any pain, and thus whether this person can actually be hurt or cares about me. And the first time or two, he did. He got hurt, and so it showed to me that at some level, at least, he did care. And those couple instances gave me view that this man was not varelse, but that there was a possibility for us to come together, and live peaceably and lovingly. (I would still call him Ramen, just because he is so different as to not actually live in the same world the rest of us live in).

I think he views me as varelse, though. He has his own way of seeing the world, his own way of working and living within it, and it is different not only from mine, but pretty much in essentials different from anyone I have ever known. He does not act according to any common expectations, he does not judge people that way, he does not appreciate people that way. He is disappointed by the best of people, and does not really care about the worst. And really, my interpretation of him could be completely wrong too – these are my guesses. He feels like I do not want to understand him enough, that I am not willing to do what it takes, or maybe that I am just not capable of being ramen, that I will never understand him, and that I do not even really try.

It is easy when I talk to people for them to side with me, to see him as this pretty crappy husband who never really did anything for me. And I get that, it is an easy view to take, and if you look at the surface, it is a pretty accurate description. But it misses so much that is below the surface. While we look at him, and see all the ways that he has failed me, he looks at me and sees all the ways that I failed him. And they are not things that I understand really, nor do I know how to combat, especially when he gave up on me, and did not want to give me any assistance in trying to figure out common ground.

A phrase I used to think of a lot while we were going through lots of drama was this line from Ever After. “A bird may love a fish, but where would they live?” To which he answers, “Then I shall have to make you wings.” We are all the birds, flying all around, wondering what he is doing down there, why he refuses to come up and fly, wondering why he will not come out of the water. Do I think he is quite as restricted as a fish? Not really. I think most of the barriers that existed, he created in his own mind in the first place, but that doesn't mean that they are any easier to overcome.

Do I think he tried very hard, or very much at all in our marriage? Not really. But the turnaround there is that I think he would view me the same way. We value different things, and action is not something he finds much value in. Do I think he should? Yes! But he also thinks that I should find more value in just thinking about things, or probably lots of other things that I never even came close to understanding.

I think there is a current among some people, and some people have said it to me, that I am in some ways lucky that he is leaving me, because it sounds like he was not all that great of a husband to me. And to a degree I think that is true, but I don't think it is because he is just lazy and didn't want to. He was a fish and tried to marry a bird. There were always going to be problems. It was a dream that we could find some place to meet in the middle. Do I really blame him for giving up on the dream? Not really, but I also don't agree that it couldn't have been done. And it would have been worth it all.