The greatest dilemma of separation has to do with vocabulary.
‘Stop calling him “your husband” – he isn’t that anymore!’ chides my hairdresser.
‘Not-quite-ex-yet-officially doesn’t have a snappy ring to it, does it?’ complains a friend.
‘My children’s father is a bit of a mouthful…’, I admit quietly to myself.
‘Why don’t you use his first name?’ ask my work colleagues. That last one is easily answered: because the first name feels more intimate than giving him a quick label like ‘ex’ or ‘husband’. In front of my children I can call him ‘Baba’ (Greek for Dad), which is what they have called him all their lives. Nothing to do with me.
But what can I call this man with whom I spent 20+ years of my life?
Well, don’t laugh, but I think the best solution might be: WB. Not for Warner Brothers, or his initials. But for ‘Wet Blanket’. Hear me out: I am not being unnecessarily cruel or name-calling. I am simply describing the effect he has had on me for the last ten years or so, possibly longer.
All the things he had once claimed to love about me began to irritate him. How ‘educated’ and ‘cultured’ I was compared to him, how opinionated, how I could debate with him for hours about the state of the world, how vivacious and loud and full of laughter I was when out with friends, what a social butterfly at times, what a recluse at other times, my reading, my book acquisition, even my love of elephants no longer seemed lovable but annoying. I had to be corrected (often in public), put in my place, hidden away from work colleagues for fear of being an embarrassment. All my attributes which did not put him in first place (even ahead of the children) had to be complained about until I made efforts to change them. Meanwhile, woe betide I try to change anything about himself – ‘I never pretended to be anything I was not, you knew whom you married’.
Yes, more fool I! I thought people grew and developed all life long. I didn’t exactly want to change him, I had no illusions about some of his less stellar qualities, but I was the incurable optimist, hopeful that life, family, children and growing older would mature him and reduce some of that selfishness. After all, I was a self-centred teenager myself once and I’ve grown so much less selfish since having children.
So yes, I suppose we were each other’s mutual wet blankets. He dampened my enthusiasm, intellect and friendliness. Meanwhile, I acted as a wet blanket on his selfishness, becoming quite the nag. Whenever I accused him of it, he would reply: ‘Why don’t you become more selfish too? Stop saying you are doing so much for the family!’
Partly based on the thoughts I had while reviewing Meena Kandasamy yesterday and partly because I work things out emotionally so much better when I fictionalise things in writing, I intend to embark upon a series of vignettes, poems, flash fiction, rap battles and who knows what else, loosely assembled under the title ‘The WB Chronicles’. I also will attempt a longer (perhaps radio?) play based upon the Three Witches in Macbeth, except they will be three men having their midlife crises, meeting in the pub to complain about the unfairness in their lives.
When shall we three meet again?
To watch FA Cup Final or Champions’ League?
When we’re done with bathtime fatigue
And can be Monarchs of the Glen…
I haven’t quite figured out the details, but one could be whingeing about how his wife wants to take half his money after the divorce, another could be protesting at being accused of sexual harassment at work, and the third could be complaining about the expectations his much younger girlfriend has of him. Meanwhile, in the background, there could be some kind of Greek chorus bringing in alternative points of view (especially with the dryness of legal documents). It would be a comedy, because how are we to survive if we cannot laugh at the lemons in our lives!
findingtimetowrite 