Trouble in Paradise

Since the moment we broke up, my ex has been tremendously generous about letting me take the kids to visit my family in California as often and for as long as I (and they) please, including every Christmas.  I once asked him why he was so cool about that, and he said that he knew that my parents would organize the best celebration ever and that he certainly couldn’t compete.  Neither could I, so I had to agree with his logic and be grateful that the onus doesn’t fall on us to do so.  This summer, however, I made plans to be gone over his birthday for reasons that aren’t interesting enough to mention here, and he got upset.  Frankly, I was surprised because he has always felt very awkward about celebrating his birthday, and it has befuddled me that he never seemed to enjoy receiving gifts or having a nice dinner and cake, etc.  In addition, I know that his girlfriend’s birthday is the day before his and that they had celebrated it together last year, and he had even asked me not to have the kids buy him a gift.  So I just assumed it would be the same this year.

I was wrong.  He said that he felt lonely this year, and I mentioned, in my finding a positive spin for everything way, that he had her to celebrate with.  He responded with a dismissive noise, the guttural equivalent of a “yeah, right.”  I was floored and immediately started peppering him with questions.  “What’s up with that? Aren’t you going to spend it with her?  Are you two having problems?”  He said that he wasn’t going to share the details of his “turbid romance” with me.  Then I was even more confused.  What the heck is a “turbid” relationship, I asked.  He said, “muddy.”  “You mean like confusing?”  At this point I had to pull out the dictionary.  I know.  I’m such a nerd.  Perhaps it wasn’t going to make me understand him or their relationship any better, but I had to at least understand the word in this context.  So the Random House College Dictionary supplied me with this, as the third meaning, “confused; muddled; disturbed.”  Well…this was not looking good.

Then I started into a line of questioning that was clearly inappropriate and none of my business, but I wanted the kind of information that he used to share with me when we first broke up, when he forgot that, well, I was his ex-wife, not just the woman who had been his best friend for 13 years.  This time he cheerfully fended them off and told me that he wasn’t going to tell me about it.  I even tried to use the old “I’m just concerned for the kids’ sake” argument.  Nothing.

Well, I have to believe that most ex-wives would be almost elated at the news that their former hubbies’ relationships were on the fritz.  It occurred to me that my logical reaction to this should be “I knew he’d never make it work with such a young girl (she’s 25).  What could they possibly have in common?”  But that wasn’t where my mind was going.  It was going to the angst that I had experienced only a week before when I was feeling uncomfortable about my son inviting said girlfriend to his birthday party.  I had conquered that demon with aplomb and felt that the party had been a success, that we had experienced an important milestone and that I was ready to embrace her as part of the family, at least in an extended sort of way.  So my reaction to his revelation that there was trouble in his relationship was a different kind of selfish.  It was a “How the hell could you have made me go through all that discomfort only to tell me that you might be ending it with her a week later?”

I didn’t let on that this was what I was thinking because I was too busy still trying to get the scoop out of him.  He informed me that there was a lot of drama going on between the two of them and that this was their basic nature and that no, they weren’t breaking up.  Phew, I thought.

And then came that small moment of satisfaction.  Oh yeah…he’s still a drama queen, the one that made my life a lot too crazy, especially at the end.  Evidently, he still thrives on conflict and turbidity (For God’s sake, who would even use that term to describe a relationship?).  And now someone else gets to deal with that.  I couldn’t help but feel a little pang of glee, or vindication.  Hmm…I guess I’m only human.

Our Anniversary Gingko

Many years ago, when my husband and I were in living in an apartment in New Haven, we had a maple tree in our backyard that was kind of sick.  It had black spots on the leaves and didn’t ever turn beautiful colors in the fall.  Then one spring it started to look better, and a friend of ours asked us if the tree represented something in our lives that had been infirm but now doing better.  My first thought (and I might have even said it) was why ask us about something negative and stir up trouble like that?  No tree was going to be a metaphor for some sort of pathology in my life.  But my husband, who is adept at getting in touch with his inner pathos, went into some deep analysis about how the tree did indeed represent some lingering malady of his that was now on the mend.  I remember my internal scoffing at the notion.

Well, several years later, I find myself returning to the tree metaphor.  On our last wedding anniversary before we broke up, my now ex and I decided to plant ourselves a tree.  My mother had planted trees when my sister and I were each born, and it seemed like a good idea, especially since our deck is overly sunny and needs some shade during the summer.  Being the fanciful sorts that we are, my ex and I chose a gingko tree because we find it aesthetically pleasing.  It has such beautiful fan-shaped leaves and turns a gorgeous golden color in the fall.  After planting it though, we read that it isn’t really a good shade tree.  Oh well.

The tree was pretty small because we didn’t have the money to invest in a more mature tree.  But it was more than a sapling, and we thought we’d be living in the house for a while and could wait to see it grow.  My ex had done some research that gingkos were prone to grow crookedly if they weren’t staked well in the early years so for the first year, we rigged something together, something, mind you, not very sturdy or sophisticated.  Alas we are academics, not terribly handy people.

I don’t think the marriage survived much more than a year past this planting by no fault of the tree, of course.  This spring, however, I looked out my window and noticed how good the tree looks.  Its trunk is growing really straight and tall.  It looks strong…and proud, actually.  Even though I had resisted the original mention of the tree metaphor (perhaps because I found it displeasing to think of my sick tree as a representation of something in my life), I couldn’t help but make the same analogy today.  Despite our break up, my relationship with my ex is thriving.  In fact, it is much better than it was when we were together.  Even though we no longer have the stabilizing force of marriage to hold us up (the staking of the tree, if you will), we communicate and see each other almost every day, not just because of the kids-although they certainly bring us together- but also because we are still friends.  We still love each other and want to be a part of each other’s lives.  Like the tree that has new branches and leaves, we have found new ways of communicating and resolving conflict.  Like the tree, we are reaching for new heights.  What we were unable to do when we were together, we are doing now,and that is getting along.  And for this, like our anniversary gingko, I am quite proud.