How Many More Times Treat Me The Way You Wanna Do?

How Many More Times Treat Me The Way You Wanna Do?

This font is named Bitter, like the taste in my mouth.  I just want the rational side of life to stick around for longer than a minute. A minute. 

Jenny is on week 4 of this regimen. This is a bye-week.  This means two weeks of freedom.  That idle hands are the devil's work has never been made more clear than when Jenny has time to burn. Never more clear than today. Never.

As per usual for a weekday, I had to work. Distance working is old now.  Quite old. But it's a living.  Jenny, on a year's paid leave, thanks to the generosity of her fellow teachers' sick leave donations, fills her dance card with visits to friends when she has these days of freedom from chemotherapy. But it also gives her time to ruminate.  And that typically leads to her finding problems she needs to solve, and I, her biggest problem is one she views as intractable. She hews, nonetheless,  to the work like Sisyphus.  In her eyes, despite all her effort, I just roll down the fucking hill every night.  

Given the nature of the problem, it isn't surprising, however frustrating, that she is back on the "gimme good lovin'" campaign, or as I fondly refer to it, She made this bed because I made her make it, and now I have to sleep in it.  It also isn't surprising because she was angry when she went to sleep, and angry when she woke up.  Angry that she isn't getting her way, angry that I won't meet her demand to pretend that nothing has changed and climb in her bed, despite the years' long affair and her ongoing refusal to stop.

Which leads to her return this afternoon.  I had climbed into the bath around 4:30, pandemic hygiene being what it is, when she entered to talk to me.  She took a seat on the toilet, and began to tell me this round about meandering story about how I had told Abby I had planned on going to Lowes, but then changed my mind. It is true. The gist of the story is that Jenny raised the Lowes' trip because she wanted me to go ride with Abby, so Abby could practice driving.  Jenny  complained that her stomach pain was terrible.  She didn't directly ask me, directness is rare, and I think her inability to be direct is in her DNA.  So, after she had hemmed and hawed for a few moments, I told her, if you need me to get out of the bath and take Abby driving, I will, just ask me.   She finally did just that, and I agreed to do so.  Then, I shifted the conversation. 

I said, "what are we doing?"  She understood I was asking a meta question, not asking what we were actually doing that instant. Jenny begins to tell me she is unhappy because I won't give her the affection she needs.  I have made it impossible for her to get affection from Eric the pinché motherfucker--who readers may recall she saw last week--by telling his wife about the affair.  If one thinks about this claim even a short time, one wonders how much el pinché is into this affair. I mean if his wife is inhibiting his ability to see his soul mate. . . Anyway, she then says I am also not giving her affection, and she is lonely and doesn't deserve this.  Then, she tells me I am punishing her for the affair by refusing to provide her with the affection she needs.  This includes cuddling and sleeping in the bed.  

I , for the umpteenth time, explain to her that I am not punishing her. She loves someone else and I, in my own self-interest, have worked to emotionally separate from her.  (I have been sleeping on the couch since September, I lived in a hotel for more a couple weeks, and then got a month-to-month Airbnb that I abandoned shortly thereafter only because she threatened/attempted suicide.) I told her that I am taking care
of her everyday, and showing her nothing but loving kindness.  
She acknowledges this saying, "You are a great caregiver, I need more than that."  I curled my mouth up in a "them's the brakes" expression.  My spoken rejoinder to her was to explain again that she is having an affair, has refused to stop having the affair, and thus I need to separate.  

Jenny, clever girl, said that she isn't having an affair anymore, that I had made that impossible when I told el pinché's wife.  This claim is such horseshit, I didn't even know where to start.  I won't rehash the rest of the conversation, you can see the dialogue in several earlier posts.  It's Groundhog Day.  Suffice it to say, I didn't agree to her demand.  However in a bit of a puzzler, she left the bathroom and then volunteered to drive Abby.  This pleased me because I knew she was going out later in the evening, which she did, and found the complaint about her stomach, while likely true, wasn't a barrier to anything other than riding with Abby.  

After riding shotgun with Abby and eating dinner, Jenny left for the evening.  Then the text storm began: 


















This actually breaks my heart, because I do love her and don't want her to suffer. I am not, however, the diploma from a kindergarten moving up ceremony, I am not a participation trophy for a tee-ball player, I am not a consolation prize Monty Hall passes out when you find a zonk behind door number 2.





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