Me, Me, and Me

To continue this string of holidays, special days, birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and take overs, I remember yet another thing that happened on my last birthday while I was still married and I knew nothing about his plans to get a divorce.

That last year, my birthday fell on a Saturday. For once, I had been looking forward to my birthday. I wanted to do something fun, go out with my loved ones, maybe my closest friends, too. I had been talking a bit about how I was looking forward to doing something simple, but special to me. And by had been talking I meant not just my mom, but mostly him.

Every time I would mention my birthday, I would be received with silence. He would start reading, type on his laptop, look at his plate if we were at the table having dinner, or watch TV intensely. It wasn’t as if I would be interrupting him. Not at all. We would be talking and it would come up naturally in conversation. And as soon as I would talk about it, there would be a flip in a switch.

Since by then I was used to him hardly ever being interested in anything that would interest me, I would ignore him and carry on with my chores or whatever else I would be doing and not continue to talk about it. Why bother, right?

We were also approaching a wedding anniversary milestone. Our wedding anniversary was roughly 40 days before my birthday. Coincidentally, his own parents’ wedding anniversary was about 2-3 days off from ours. This was not done on purpose. By chance, it was the only day the parish had available for us and we took it. In fact, I never found out that until after we were married.

I don’t know if it would have made any difference to me. Considering that the only time my husband did something nice for our wedding anniversary was for our very first anniversary, over time, I learnt to not make a bid deal about it.

However, as our milestone kept getting closer, and I was hoping for our marriage to get better, I started to look forward to it.

I have never wanted anything big for anything like birthdays or anniversaries. But like any normal person, I wanted to build nice, happy memories and make them special. Once again, it would be all in vain. Well, how could it have been when a year or so later I would put the timeline in place and realize that by then he had long before already set all the wheels in motion to give me the final boot?

My friends were asking me if we were going to do something special for our anniversary. I would try to dodge the well-intended and loving questions by saying that we were more likely to keep it simple and quiet. My married friends were all excited for me and trying to guess what he might do.

I can’t remember anymore about what happened concerning our anniversary. There’s like a gap in my memories. All I know is that he must have said something to let me know that we were not going to do anything as I don’t remember my trying to find any gifts for him. What I did get him was something for Father’s Day, but not from me. I pretended it was from our daughter.

I remember helping our daughter give him the gift bag. I recall him being clearly uncomfortable. I didn’t know why. Now I have to think it was because there I was, giving him gifts, while he was talking to divorce attorneys behind my back.

Either way, those were more or less the things that were happening in my life in those couple of months. What I didn’t know was what was happening without my knowledge or involvement. And I am not talking about the impending discard that was coming and speeding up in my direction.

My in-laws were approaching a big milestone: 50^th wedding anniversary. Their anniversary is roughly 45 days before my birthday. My mother-in-law had mentioned it to me a couple of times, all giddy. She was looking forward to it.

I remember asking her once or twice if they were planning anything special for the big day. The only thing she said was that they were still not sure and they were most likely to have a small gathering of their closest relatives, including us, and some friends at a restaurant. And she never mentioned it again to me.

It is not like she didn’t have opportunities. My husband would insist in us visiting them every weekend. We would spend a full day, sometimes a day and a half, of our weekends with them, usually at their place or at some park nearby and then go to their place for dinner.

While I of course wanted our daughter to have a relationship with her paternal grandparents, I also wanted to do something different on the weekends once in a while. And for once, to be able to pick which day of the weekend to spend with them. But it always had to be the day that it was convenient for my mother-in-law.

I was never allowed to do anything with my mother. If I would say anything to those effects, he would say that my mother had enough hours with our daughter during the week and that she didn’t need to see her again over the weekends.

Yes, my mother would see her every weekday. But that was because she was babysitting her while we both worked. I wanted for my mother to be a grandmother once in a while, not a nanny. What was wrong about that? I wasn’t asking to do this every weekend. I just wanted to treat my mother to quality time out with us, as a family.

But no, he would make a bid deal out of it and would tell me things like I should go out with my mother and he would then take our daughter to his parents. I would then get sad because I had not seen my daughter apart from the late hours of the weekdays and after work and I also wanted to have quality time with her over the weekend.

As a result, I would just try to talk to my mom and console her over the phone, assuring her that I was not taking her for granted and I appreciated everything she was doing for me, cancel my plans with her, and tag along with my husband to once again go to his parents.

This also meant my having to cook something to bring with us or go buy something. My friends would ask me over and invite me to gatherings and events they were putting together and I could not go or invite them over because it was either that and not see my daughter, or upset my mother-in-law and my husband in the process.

I felt so lonely in my marriage in those days. I learnt the true meaning of loneliness. I had friends whom I never saw. I would only catch up with them over the phone, text message, e-mail, or Facebook. I had a job that I loved, but I couldn’t enjoy at all. I had my mother, who was aging and needed my attention and help, and I couldn’t be there for her. I couldn’t even have a good time with her if we wanted to. I was married, but it didn’t feel like a partnership at all. I didn’t feel I could lean on him at all.

So that was my life those days: Drop my daughter in the morning, go to work, pick her up in the late hours of the afternoon, drive back home, take care of my daughter’s needs, sometimes also prepare dinner for all of us, go to sleep (which would never be before midnight), to start all over the following day, unless it was a weekend, which meant going to the in-laws. The few hours we weren’t there, I was running chores like crazy and getting ready for another busy week.

I was busy. But I wasn’t feeling I was getting anything done. Things piling up. To-Do lists getting longer and longer, while I was getting more and more tired.

The week of my birthday arrived. I wanted to talk to my husband about it. By midweek, I still didn’t know what we were going to do and my mother kept asking me since she was looking forward to spending the day with me and her granddaughter.

And then, the bomb got dropped on me. My husband reminded me over dinner on Thursday night that his parents’ 50^th anniversary gathering was taking place on Saturday. I looked at him across the table, not knowing what to do or say. I was in shock. It took me a few seconds to realize that he had said Saturday and that he had not mentioned anything about my birthday.

A couple more minutes of uncomfortable silence followed. When I finally regained control over my tongue, I murmured something along the lines that it was my birthday on that day. All he replied was, “I know.” I then asked him how come I had not heard anything about his parents’ anniversary gathering until just that moment.

He looked at me as if I had offended him and said that his mother had sent me plenty of e-mail messages. I told him that I had not received any of them. He looked at me as I had accused him of lying and said that it was not possible that I had not seen them.

I then asked if he knew at which account she might have sent them and he replied to my account. I pulled out the phone, looked at my inbox, and showed him that I had not received anything from her on that account at all. Ever.

He then suggested that she might have sent it to my Yahoo! account, not my Gmail. I reminded him that I had not used that account in years because it had been hacked. Moreover, I asked why she couldn’t have mentioned anything over the countless of weekends we had been spending with her.

At that point, he angrily said to me that I could go celebrate my birthday with my mother doing whatever we both wanted to do and that he was going to go celebrate his parents’ anniversary and that he was going to take our daughter with him.

I couldn’t believe my ears. Or maybe I could. I was not really surprised that he had said that. It was not the first time he had ever said something like that to me. The previous year, he had done something similar with my mother’s birthday. We had been talking about it for a couple of months. He had promised to free up his calendar to come join us. My mother had been looking forward to that Saturday for weeks. She would get to be the grandma, not the nanny, for once and we were going to be spending quality time doing something fun with her and then go to a restaurant of her choice for dinner.

The Thursday prior to that Saturday, he told me that he was not going to come and that he was taking our daughter to his family gathering that was taking place on that very same Saturday. Once again, as it had already happened before with many things concerning his mother’s family, I had been left out from all communications.

I reminded him that we had been talking about it for weeks and that my mom had been looking forward to it all along. With his eyes on the plate and working his fork around, he then instructed me to tell my mother that she could celebrate on Sunday, instead. Then he added that I had a choice: To join him on Saturday, or go ahead and spend the day with my mother.

I reminded him that he had promised me weeks before that we would be spending that day with my mom to celebrate her birthday. He then added with an irritated tone in his voice that her birthday did not even fall on that Saturday.

I tried to explain to him that that was not the point. That once again, he had broken a promise to me, putting me in a position to chose between both him and his mother and other people who were important to me. And once again, why was it that he was waiting to the last minute to tell me something that had been clearly organized with ample time and opportunities to let me know about it so I could have made plans in a better way and not hurt and disappoint those to whom I had already committed myself.

By the way, have you noticed the pattern? Always at the last minute, always over dinner. When it was not over dinner, it would be right before bedtime or when I was about to cross the door to go to work so I would be too tired to put up with an argument or not have time to discuss things with him.

And once again and like many times before, I would end up rescheduling my plans (at least I didn’t have to cancel them that once) and hurting someone important to me.

The funny thing was that my daughter did not want to have anything to do with that crowd of people she didn’t know. (We didn’t know about her being autistic back then. Looking back in time, her attitude makes sense to me now. Surprisingly, she would only get like that when we were at one of my mother-in-law’s family gatherings. She would never get upset in other types of crowds or at Mass, for example. I guess children have a 6^th sense for people in general, autism or not.) I spent the entire gathering in the hosts’ master bedroom, calming her down and entertaining her, by myself. Once in a while, someone would come to keep me company or ask me if I needed anything. But that was about it.

With those and many more precedents, you can imagine how I might have felt when he disclosed to me that his parents were having their anniversary exactly on the day of my birthday.

I felt hurt and furious, to say the least. I had to put my distance as to not to blow up and do or say something that I would regret. I didn’t feel like finishing my dinner anymore. I picked up my plate and started to wash the dishes.

This was a normal pattern with me. Whenever I would get upset or hurt about something he had done to me, I would start cleaning like crazy. Our bathtub and toilets never looked better than after he would hurt me one way or another. It was my way to set a boundary.

He stayed at the table, finishing his dinner. He carried on with his life like nothing had happened. Following morning, he tried to bring it up again. After telling him that him and his mother had no excuse not to have told me in person about the affair and had had plenty of opportunities to do so in the past weeks, I said that I needed to get to work and walked out from there.

Once I arrived at my mother’s and got my daughter settled, I shared with her what had happened. My mother started to cry. I had to make a big effort not to start crying myself again. I had already spent many hours the night before crying, first in the shower, then in bed while he was snoring and sleeping calmly like a baby by my side, me trying not to make a sound so as not to wake him up. I didn’t need my eyes to get all red right before I would get to work.

It is very hard for me to conceal when I had been crying. My nose, cheeks, neck, and eyes get very red and my nose gets congested. And I needed to be strong both for my mom and myself.

I decided that I was going to take my time to get to work. I didn’t have any meetings for a couple more hours. I stayed with my mom, making her company and playing for a little while with my daughter.

Eventually, my mom calmed a bit down. She started to get worried that I was going to be late for work. She then asked me if I knew what I was going to do. I told her that I didn’t think I had any other option but to go to that restaurant and shared with her that she had also been invited.

That really made my mother very angry. She didn’t want to go at all. I told her that I wasn’t going to hold it against her if she didn’t want to go. After all, it was her choice. She could do whatever she felt she wanted to do or was in conditions of doing.

By the time I went to pick up my daughter after work, she had made her mind up. She asked if I could sit down and talk with her about it, which we did. We continued to talk about it on my way home, via hands-free cell phone technology.

We talked about the cons and pros of showing up and not showing up. We both agreed that, even though it was not what we wanted to do, we couldn’t afford to raffle more feathers with my mother-in-law or my husband. So my mom was going to come meet me at our place and we would drive together to the restaurant. We would then do something to celebrate my birthday on Sunday, instead. And we made plans to make the best of it, even if it was not exactly on the actual day of my birthday. By the time we hanged up, we were both feeling much better about it, having arrived to the conclusion that it was up to us to make the best out of my circumstances, and we actually started to look forward to our time together a couple of days later.

Saturday came. My husband did not mention my birthday once. He didn’t even say happy birthday to me. I don’t know if he knew better not to say it at that point, or what. I don’t think so. I now believe that he didn’t care at all. He tried to make some conversation with me. However, he would only talk about his parents’ anniversary. Seeing that I was not interested in joining in such topic, he eventually kind of dropped it. He did ask what I was going to do and whether my mother was going to join in.

I told him that my mother was going to come meet me at our place and left it at that. Knowing my daughter and with her still being young, I had a feeling that our plans would mostly have to be worked out as time went by and depending on her schedule more than ours.

I was right after all. She had had a bad night the night before and she would not wake up. I decided to let her sleep. My husband started to get impatient, as he wanted to head out to the restaurant to set things up since it was a lunch celebration, not dinner. He wanted me to wake her up. I said no and to let her sleep in; that she needed it. I then added that he could leave and that we would join them as soon as possible.

I think he was concerned that I would not keep my word and actually take our daughter to the event. But unlike him, I am a person who keeps her promises and only breaks them when circumstances are out of my control or there is an emergency and there is a very valid, unavoidable reason to do so.

Since a narc does not keep promises, lies, and twists reality and the truth to suit his or her own needs, he or she cannot trust that you won’t do the same. They project everything on you. And he hardly ever stuck to his word or plans concerning other individuals, he couldn’t trust my to keep my word and show up at the restaurant.

He then started to pretend to be busy with things and delaying his leaving. At some point, I heard his cell phone ring. I soon gathered that it was his mother. I heard him say, “I’m still home. I’ll be on my way shortly.” My mom arrived at that very same time. I went to open the door for her, but he was already there. He greeted her profusely, as if nothing had happened and with a completely different attitude than the one he had been using with me all morning long. My mother muttered a hi and walked in. He then turned to me and asked again if we should wake our daughter up. I told him that there was no need for all of us to be there that early and that she still needed to have breakfast before leaving. He said that I could give her breakfast there.

At that point, I had to consciously push myself to not show my anger at him. I looked at him as if saying “don’t try me.” I guess he got the message because he said, “Okay then, just let me know when you are on your way” and he left, still clearly doubting whether I would keep my word and show up.

My mother asked where my daughter was. I said, “Upstairs, still sleeping.” I then told her that I was surprised that she had not changed her mind and did come over. She then told me that she was not going to give the “witch” (yes, by then she had come up with a nickname for my mother-in-law) the pleasure of not having to see her face. That God could ask her to be accountable on the day of the Final Judgment. But until then, she was going to make sure that my mother-in-law would have to see her face and be reminded of her selfishness and would end up getting uncomfortable. I started to laugh. My mother can be stubborn like hell and believe me when I say that you don’t want to cross her. She won’t do anything to you. But she will give you a very-deserved and very well-grounded and honest earful. I knew she was not going to do anything to spoil my mother-in-law’s day or plans. My mother knows better than that and she is very well-mannered. But oh, my! She will make sure that you get the message, if it is very well deserved.

When we finally got there, we realized that the small gathering was anything but. They have actually rented the entire restaurant. There was a sign outside saying that it was closed for a private party. There were easily 80+ people in there. There were balloons everywhere, pictures, decorations on the walls and on the tables. There was a gigantic cake on a special place against a wall. And there was a white screen hanging from the ceiling right next to the cake.

My mother and I had been given the pleasure of getting assigned seats at the guests-of-honor’s table. Not that I was going to be able to sit and eat anyway. My daughter had decided to explore the room in that typical way toddlers have, and her father was very busy playing host, as well as doing something on the Mistress (my nickname for his stupid laptop.] I later found out that he was making last minute changes to a PowerPoint slideshow of pictures of his parents that he had been working on for weeks, if not months, in preparation for that day.

At some point, my mother-in-law honored me with her presence. By then, I had already been hunting after my daughter for a good half hour while trying to say hi to the few people I knew and not be rude to the guests in general who were trying to talk to me. She grabbed my face with both hands and stamped a kiss on one of my cheeks while saying, “I love you so much! Thank you for coming and joining us, especially knowing that you gave up your birthday for us. That was so sweet of you!” I remember thinking that I had no other option as I was once again given an ultimatum. But I had to keep my thoughts for myself and trying to put the best smile I could on my face told her that it was a pleasure and that it wasn’t every day that any marriage could reach such big milestone. She then added that it could be me one day and, having completed her act and duties, she quickly moved on to grace another person with her majestic presence.

I felt so hypocritical. So now I had yet three more feelings to add to the ones that I had already been feeling since that Thursday before: Hypocrisy, guilt, and a serious disgust for my own feelings and what I had just done. I also felt a big dislike towards my mother-in-law because, even when I still had a small hint of doubt in the back of my mind, I saw how calculating her move had been, kissing me like that, in the middle of the room, with all eyes set on us, but my daughter’s who was in a mission to hit the cake. She gave me the perfect excuse to move out from being the center of attention of everybody there.

I could still hear my mother-in-law’s voice through the cacophony of the room, telling someone, “Don’t I have the best daughters-in-law? One came all the way across states. But the other one sacrificed even her own birthday to be here for me… us. Isn’t she the sweetest, most loving darling ever? My son chose her wisely. But he’s a good boy. I raised him well.”

“Oh, indeed! You raised him well,” I thought. “How could you not? He is just like you. And since you are perfect, he has to be perfect, too. But you won’t ever tell anybody that once the show is over and the curtains down, unless he serves you a purpose, he doesn’t exist for you anymore and until the next time you need to be the center of attention or you need someone to adore you and tell you how great you are.”

I then heard someone said to her, “I hope he does something special for her to pay her back, maybe later today or tomorrow?,” to which my mother-in-law answered something along the lines of, “Oh, I’m sure he will. And if he doesn’t, we will make sure to get her something nice ourselves.”

(Hallo??? What was that again? Something nice? Oh, okay… because I’m still waiting here!!!)

I don’t know what else she said after that. All of a sudden, I developed an acute case of selective deafness. Moreover, someone started to hush everybody in the room. I saw it was my husband. Was he going to give a speech? I silently said a prayer, asking that wouldn’t be the case.

For once, my prayers got answered. No, he wasn’t going to give a speech, nor was his brother. What they were going to do was show a slideshow going back 50-70 years. The show lasted a good 20 minutes, if not longer. It even had music on it. Lots and lots of pictures of my in-laws when they were kids, of the previous generation that I doubt anybody besides my mother-in-law and her siblings nobody knew, lots and lots and lots of pictures of my mother-in-law, many pictures of their other granddaughters, some pictures of my husband and his brother, most of them with their mother in them, too. Oh, there’s a picture of me with red, evil eyes thanks to the flash! Or it might be that I am the devil and a vampire after all. Oh, a picture of my daughter somehow found its way in there. More awwww’s from the audience.

I looked at my husband. He was checking the faces in the crowd with this look of satisfaction on his face. I realized that he had been the author of the film. Spielberg, better watch out! You may have serious competition at the next Oscars ceremony.

There was a man who hated being in pictures or pictures in general. I guessed his dislike of photography was selective, just like my deafness at the time.

My daughter once again saved me from my own thoughts. I had to go tend to her, thank goodness. I don’t know what happened after that. She had found someone had opened a an emergency door in the back to let some much-needed fresh air come in. She ran like a greyhound dog and sneaked her little body in between two chairs. I had to run after her and try to fit my butt in between them. Somehow I managed to grab her in that way that only us moms can do.

Someone had tried to stop me on my quest after my daughter, to tell me how kind of me to having given up my plans for my birthday and be there for my in-laws and she wished me a happy birthday. To this day, I have no idea who was that woman. All I know was that she was completely oblivious to the fact that I was trying to prevent my daughter’s escape. I thanked her and picked my daughter up, trying to get back to my assigned table while distracting my daughter who was mischievously trying to free herself from my hug.

I then noticed that something was going on with my husband and his brother. They were both looking at their wallets and having a quiet conversation. It took me a few more minutes to realize what was going on: They were picking up the tab.

But it wasn’t just their parents’, their own, and their direct families’ tab. It was the entire room’s tab!

Once again, my daughter made me a reason to distract me from my own thoughts and, more importantly, where they could lead me to. I decided it was time to leave. She was getting very restless.

Using her as an excuse, I quietly told my mom to get ready and say her goodbyes. I then went to my husband who was still trying to figure the numbers with her brother, and told him that our daughter needed us to leave; that he could stay as long as he wanted, but I was going to take her back home. He said, “Ah, okay” while smiling to me as if nothing had ever happened and it was the best day of our lives.

I decided to just let it go. It was not worth it anymore. My mom and I quickly said bye to some people we knew and left with my daughter.

The following days, I would finally realize the full extent of what had happened. All those years, my husband would never want to spend any money on me or our daughter. He not once threw a party for me or her. He hardly ever gave me any gifts. But he always expected something for his birthday, Father’s Day, Christmas, or any other occasion he considered important. He paid as little as he could for our wedding, not hesitating to use my hard-earned miles or points or credits on any discount plan I could have had at the time, to cover for any expense for our wedding, honeymoon, or both, and did so most of the time without my consent or even asking me.

But there he was, picking up a tab that was probably as large as a small wedding reception. For his parents.

It isn’t that I could have been jealous. Not at all. Under different circumstances, I would have even and happily shared in the cost. But the scale was never balanced and it always leaning towards his mother’s side or whatever he wanted.

Three days later, his attorney would file with the court for our divorce. I wouldn’t be served for another four months, which means, I would not find out that he wanted a divorce until the weekend right before I got served, four months after my birthday. And it would not come up in conversation, actions, or anything for almost another month.

The rest, well, you are learning about it through this blog.