what happened to your life?

you wake up one day upset about a disagreement you had with your wife the previous night and before making it to lunch you bring it up with her and express your dissatisfaction and she responds by telling you she thinks the two of you need to separate.  you're floored.  you wonder if you had not brought up your discontentment would she have dropped this bomb. 

you consider the relationship and you have some discussions with your wife and the two of you agree to go to counseling, if only for the children's sake.  counseling is utterly unproductive, at least in terms of reconciliation, so you make an ultimatum. 

"if you move out i will never forgive you for taking away my power to give my children what i never had," you state matter of factly. 

she goes, unfazed, and on the fateful day you leave the house so she and her people can come in and take away your new, 52" television and so many other pieces of divided assets as it were.  you return home and you feel violated.  your living room is a mess.  you see the lines on the carpet where the vacuum cleaner could not reach and a few spider webs.  you feel akin to the spiders in their lonely, desolate lives, creating their webs for sustenance, pacing back and forth, waiting, waiting for something to happen, a meal or a disruption.  you wonder how spiders cope with their solitary lives.  you admire their focus.

you knew the relationship was in trouble, however.  you had been reluctant to attack the problem areas head on opting instead to focus on the positive and let good enough be just that.  life was hard with two small children but you felt like it was a season and you could address these areas later, perhaps when the children were a bit more self contained.  you were surprised to have that option closed to you and you hate being surprised unpleasantly.  it always feels like a mean mix of betrayal and embarrassment.

you get up everyday, none the less, and you go to work.  you collect the children on tuesdays and thursdays then every other friday after school you bring them home until monday morning when you drop them back off at school.  contact with your wife is severely cut though not totally.  you forward mail to her in a secret compartment of your daughter's school backpack and you text and email when you need to communicate.  your life is tolerable. 

five weeks later your boss is rude towards you and you dislike working for him anyway so you have a confrontation.  you tell him if he can't refrain from talking to you in such a manner he should lay you off so you will be eligible for unemployment while you look for another job.  he consents to that agreement so you return his car and his phone and you start looking for other work. 

you remember 17 years ago when you got a job working for a water delivery service how you had been determined to move up within the ranks of that company because you recognized your lack of an undergraduate degree as a career impediment.  12 years later you left that company to go to a little start up company that offered you more money and a great, if risky, environment.  you thought it was a good decision because now you would not work in the same place as your wife and you did not feel as valued by your new manager as you wanted to be anyway. 

two years later as the world economy floundered in the wake of bad mortgage loans and credit default swaps, you were laid off.  in seven months of unemployment you went on plenty of interviews and you rejected one offer before finally taking the position you would hold for the next few years.  and there you were less than three years later; unemployed again. 

maybe some people enjoy being unemployed...but you don't.  you don't mind some time off but sans a real income what good is all that time, you think.  on a daily basis you think of all the things you could be doing or would like to do but you are constrained by economy. 

when you do the math on your unemployment benefit income you realize you will be literally a few hundred dollars short of what you need to maintain your rent, your share of your children's private school tuition, and your household bills.  you could move to a smaller, less expensive place but you do not want to do that because she did that and you think staying put creates a certain sense of stability for your children.  you could take them out of the private school but you refuse to do that.  you believe with all of your heart this school is one of the very best things you have been doing for your kids.  you think the language skills they are learning will give them a certain advantage in the world, not just in being able to speak mandarin but also by nurturing diversity and multiculturalism.  you would rather spend your money on that education than on virtually anything else there is to spend your money on. 

your life is fat with struggle.  it is stressful having more going out than coming in.  when you have your kids you wear every hat.  you are the dad and the mom.  you cook and clean, encourage and scold, challenge and build confidence.  when you are short with them or when you opt to watch playoff hockey games instead of playing chess with your daughter, you feel bad but your energy is sapped and you crave the down time.  you resolve to make up for it later by initiating an activity in which you are 100% present and involved, like a hike or a day trip to the beach. 

how did you get here?  it is hard not to beat yourself up some.  it is hard to turn off that voice in your head that tends to berate yourself for so many failures.  how did you not listen to your college mentor when she said finishing school was the most important thing you were engaged in at that time?  why did you leave that company when you had nearly twelve years of employment under your belt with a great record and many good relationships within the company and you were not poorly positioned to realize your goals there?  you can't help the questions.

why didn't you realize prior to getting married when your wife said if it didn't work out that you both would have tried your best, that there was an unequal level of commitment evident in her nonchalance?  if you love writing so much why didn't you focus on that in school and work harder to make it a career?  how did you get here?

you feel like a spider.  you wake without any sort of employment commitment so you take your time.  you feed the cat and clean up her area.  you make coffee.  you comb through the job boards and send out a resume and cover letter or two.  you write a blog post.  the evening comes and you turn sports on the tv and you check your phone to see if anyone has contacted you.  nothing.  slowly you move into the kitchen for a meal.  you return to your computer.  you watch some tv and you apartment is a web-like dungeon.  you move around it, fiddling here and there, tidying it up, stopping to read a russian novel, posting to facebook as if everything is great and your life, like everyone on facebook's, is just rolling along so smoothly.  you check your phone to see if anyone has contacted you but it's just dictionary.com sending you the word of the day, or your hockey app informing you of the upcoming playoff schedule, or an email from bhatrimony.com, (you wonder how you got signed up to receive emails for finding an indian bride.)  you shower as the world goes on not unlike a spider in it's lonely web grooming itself, eight legs flitting about utterly unconcerned with the outside world but in your case, it feels like the outside world is unconcerned with you.  you are lost without your children.  lost.

when the kids are with you your perspective improves.  you have a sense of purpose and above all you love.  you are alive.  you know this because you love.  you love these two little people fiercely and you work hard to channel that love in such a healthy way as to give them the very best of you. 

it is a dark time in your life in spite of the great love you share with your children and you mean to embrace it.  you want to learn all that you can from the failed relationship with your wife.  you know you will appreciate a utilitarian job making good customer service for some company or another for a mediocre wage far more than you have in years.  you think the job is the key to fixing you.  an income and a work routine will make all the difference.  your dark and lonely season will transform and you will grow wings and venture out into the world again where you will face new challenges, meet new and interesting people and build relationships, and bring light to your little corner of the world to share with your children.