HOW TO SUCCEED IN LOOKING STUPID...
WITHOUT REALLY TRYING
Here is another wrinkle:
I was completely prepared for a certain amount of grief from my better half, on my refusing to say that I could commit to our wedding vows as we had said them twenty-six years ago. What I said instead was that given the emotional upheaval of the last several months, in which I had been plunged into complete turmoil over men I had never even MET, I didn't see how I could make a promise not to react to a real person in a way I would not be prepared for. I was willing to try, but I just didn't see how I could withstand the overwhelming response if it were coupled with, say, touch. And above all, I didn't want to make a promise and then fail.
What I was not prepared for was the entirely logical response that this was a personal rejection, and the anger that equally logically followed from it.
I am the first to admit that Jesus had it absolutely right when he said that anyone who thinks about adultery has as good as committed it, as far as he is concerned, so I know it's all the same whether or not I ever GOT to the motel room with either of these guys. But surely the larger point there is that we have ALL fallen short, and can all only survive through forgiveness. And that is where I find the triumphalism of the virtuous, which I shared so smugly until so recently, suddenly utterly incomprehensible. Nothing like having the ends of the telescope switched on you to make you think.
It's funny how life doles out these little lessons you thought you were long past learning. Here I am having become something I never even dreamed I could become, in this case untrue to my wife, despite all the temptations of a quarter-century. And yet all it took was a little breeze, and my whole house of cards came down. Since the enormity of my breakdown in December and the drug-rooted mania of March, both of which leave my better half with the unshakeable conviction that everything I do is just a psychiatric symptom, I have found myself in one room after another in that house of cards, reconstructing rooms I never knew existed, at least for me. And yet I must have been painting and papering them, furnishing them, and re-arranging the furniture for a long time...
Well, I was never comfortable on the judge's bench anyway, so maybe it's better to be in the dock; at least I know it's where I belong. The way forward seems to be over broken glass and hot coals, one after the other, and the bed on the end is one of nails, and Procrustes attends it.
Lord help me.
I was completely prepared for a certain amount of grief from my better half, on my refusing to say that I could commit to our wedding vows as we had said them twenty-six years ago. What I said instead was that given the emotional upheaval of the last several months, in which I had been plunged into complete turmoil over men I had never even MET, I didn't see how I could make a promise not to react to a real person in a way I would not be prepared for. I was willing to try, but I just didn't see how I could withstand the overwhelming response if it were coupled with, say, touch. And above all, I didn't want to make a promise and then fail.What I was not prepared for was the entirely logical response that this was a personal rejection, and the anger that equally logically followed from it.
I am the first to admit that Jesus had it absolutely right when he said that anyone who thinks about adultery has as good as committed it, as far as he is concerned, so I know it's all the same whether or not I ever GOT to the motel room with either of these guys. But surely the larger point there is that we have ALL fallen short, and can all only survive through forgiveness. And that is where I find the triumphalism of the virtuous, which I shared so smugly until so recently, suddenly utterly incomprehensible. Nothing like having the ends of the telescope switched on you to make you think.
It's funny how life doles out these little lessons you thought you were long past learning. Here I am having become something I never even dreamed I could become, in this case untrue to my wife, despite all the temptations of a quarter-century. And yet all it took was a little breeze, and my whole house of cards came down. Since the enormity of my breakdown in December and the drug-rooted mania of March, both of which leave my better half with the unshakeable conviction that everything I do is just a psychiatric symptom, I have found myself in one room after another in that house of cards, reconstructing rooms I never knew existed, at least for me. And yet I must have been painting and papering them, furnishing them, and re-arranging the furniture for a long time...
Well, I was never comfortable on the judge's bench anyway, so maybe it's better to be in the dock; at least I know it's where I belong. The way forward seems to be over broken glass and hot coals, one after the other, and the bed on the end is one of nails, and Procrustes attends it.Lord help me.
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