Adjustment, in marriage, number 4002.
I just realized -- and we have been married four years -- that I need time alone, in my house, while she is out of the house.
She needs people -- to talk to people, to be admired for what she is -- a good musician, a good dancer. She needs to be told she is good at what she does, how she dresses, what she knows -- she is very bright on many subjects.
But I need my time alone -- to write these very talks that I could not write if she were somewhere near.
She is at a pub session -- many musicians gathering at a pub to play.
I need to know she is not here. I lived alone for perhaps fifteen years, and the ten before that I had children -- but no wife, no equal.
I tell you all this because I just realized it all.
I love being alone. I love to not be physically aware of another. I am reminded of the time my children were very little -- one & three years old. It was around their normal bedtime, but I was enjoying their company. They were very quiet, absorbed silently in what they were dojng. My wife then wanted them upstairs, in bed, asleep. I said, but they are being good. She said it didn’t matter. She needed them to be upstairs and in bed before she could relax. I could not understand her wish, but I did usher them upstairs to bed.
Soon thereafter, for complicated reasons, I became a single parent raising two kids, and a visitor came over & I wanted my children to go upstairs to bed. But they are being good & playing quietly, the person said. I think all of you will know what I said next: I can’t relax until I know they are upstairs and in bed. I suddenly knew what my wife back then meant.
I have a deep need for time alone -- and I need that time alone at home. In my home environment. Totally alone. I have a need not to feel the presence of another. The way I am constituted, programed, means that whenever I am in the presence of another I think -- what do they need, what do they want. Do they need peace & quiet? Are they hungry? Am I hungry? Should I -- Shut up stupid mind. It can only shut up when there is no other human present to think about.
My wife has, at times, a need to be with other people. I am paraphrasing badly but someone once said that we perceive ourselves through contact with others. It is through social interaction that we come to know who we are.
I think she needs to interact. I think she needs to see others, interact with others, and it is better for her if I am not there when she is with others.
She is good with others. In an experiment they proved that pupil dilated talkers, interactors with others, caused the pupil of the acted upon person to dilate. In part, pupil dilation denotes excitement, pleasure. If you talk to a hyped up person -- hyped up on their subject, whatever their subject, or hyped on a drug, whatever their drug -- you to will be hyped up.
At times, she has that effect on others: she is truly excited by what she is expounding on, and those there with her, like her, listen to her.
Difference number 2004 did I say? And now that I know the preceding, can I do something conscious to create such opportunities -- for me to be alone, for her to interact socially with others?
I don't know.
Copyright © 2004 Henry Morgenstein