When you are unhappily married the loneliness is unmistakable. It creeps and creeps so quietly over time like a cruel and unrelenting force in your house. The woman may slide into bed so quickly and feign sleep upon hearing his car on the driveway; the man may drive around in circles trying to avoid going home. He may book evening dentist appointments, stay late at the office to file (now there’s a metaphor), may take up mixed doubles squash (now don’t get crazy – sometimes squash is just squash), offer to help friends move or stay at Home depot till close every chance he gets. She may get busy with Book Club, take clients everywhere they need to go in the evenings, book time in the evening with a personal trainer, go to night school, volunteer to be a Girl Guide leader (now don’t get crazy, sometimes when people call your wife “Rainbow” in the streets-that is her Sparks’ name, she has not become a stripper). She may cut her hair, shed some weight, run a marathon. He may find Buddha, Betty or take up bowling.
Living alone as a married person is the loneliest of states. You cannot tell anyone you are lonely and all the world thinks you are not. You rumble around the house when the two of you are there, bumping into each other, sucking the oxygen out of the rooms you share. You lie stiff in bed unable to meet in the middle on anything.
Sometimes you will go to someone’s house and the children will tell you “and this is Daddy’s room” and it will be in the basement where it is cold and dark. Every house has its secrets.
No one wants to make the first move. Years and years of disappointments and normalizing cruelty or just plain and simple ignoring of the other’s needs or interests. One side feels underserved and pulls back, the other feels that pull and the cycle continues.
Where are those people who were here first? Before the house, the children, the dog, the beautiful stuff, the memories, the habits, the reactions. Remember the double futon you used to share and it was too big because you slept touching so closely ?
Now that King with the deluxe mattress, half a dozen pillows, deep duvet, all so comfortable yet so crowded.