Before and after
My husband of 19 years sat across from me in our bedroom, holding both my hands in his. The kids were in bed; he had put on soft music and poured us a glass of wine. Things were looking good — I was getting my hopes up. Instinctively I knew we were in that place that would be forever known as “before” and “after.” For two years now, our marriage had been unravelling, and it looked like tonight was going to be the night when I would find out what demons we were dealing with and we could start the process of healing.
“You’re going to have to be strong,” he began, and I eagerly hung on his words, knowing I would be anything he needed me to be to get our relationship back on track and our marriage back to what it used to be.
He was my best friend. John and I had begun dating almost 21 years earlier and after that first evening together, I knew I was going to marry him. Our courtship consisted of hours together talking, going for walks, and planning our future together.
We married in May 1981 and shared almost all of our non-working moments together. We rarely missed having breakfast together at the beginning of each day, and never went to bed without the other at the end of it.
The perfect family
By our 10th anniversary, we’d added four more people to the world — three daughters and a son. Our lives expanded to revolve around us being a family. Every Sunday we went to church; in the summers we went camping, winters we skied and tobogganed. We created family traditions such as breakfast in bed for birthdays, Mother’s and Father’s Day. Every Valentine’s Day John would send each of the kids a carnation and me a rose; at the end of the day he and I would make the dining room into some ethnic restaurant and would serve our children and their special friends. I was always the crazy cook and he the bantering waiter.
John was an attentive husband and a good father. He never shied away from bathing the kids, reading them bedtime stories, or doing homework or dishes with them. For our 15th anniversary, he stole me away for a long weekend on the ocean, back to where we’d had our honeymoon. It was one of the most romantic times of our marriage.
In January 1999, I began noticing changes in John. At first he just wanted to spend more time alone than usual. Then he began pulling away from me, not wanting to talk, becoming rather despondent. Shortly after that, he went on a business trip for five days and when he came home, he was completely uninterested in me sexually. Two weeks went by and I began to worry. I found a marriage support website and emailed for help, describing the change in my husband.
It became obvious to me what the problem was: John had turned 40 the year before, and was now simply going through a midlife crisis. I was so excited that I could put a label on him. Now I knew what needed to be fixed.
Ever try to fix a man? Just for the record, most of them are “as is” models, and if by some fluke they are of the changeable kind, trust me, it cannot be done through crying, pleading, nagging or cajoling.
I know that now.
