by Jane Weiss
Talking to him by phone in early February, I explained that I had made a very difficult decision to separate from Brian, and would be moving into an apartment with my friend Jane. I told him she was also separating from her husband, and that sharing an apartment would make it possible for each of us to manage financially. He was mostly quiet during our conversation, but said he was sorry I had been unhappy. A note arrived from him a few days later:
I wish I had a profound or “electric” bit of counseling to offer you. You will continue to have my support whatever develops in this situation. I love you dearly, as fathers do their daughters. We will all make many mistakes as we go through life, and we cannot live in the past, nor can we right the wrongs we do. So, being the intelligent lady you are, exhaust yourself with searching for a solution that you will be able to live with as the years go by … I am not smart—I have just lived long enough to have learned much, much from experience. I pray that you will make all the right decisions, my dear daughter.
Love, Dad
Jane’s family simply didn’t see things that way. From my vantage point, it seemed their principle was to hate not only the sin, but the sinners as well. Jane’s children still rarely called her, and if she managed to reach them, there were often excuses why they couldn’t see her. When her mother or sister phoned, and I happened to answer, they said as little as possible. Jane’s mother never referred to me as anything other than, “that woman.” She harangued Jane with shame and harshness, and their phone conversations routinely left Jane in tears for hours afterwards. None of the family expressed interest in what Jane was struggling with or what was going on in her life. She was simply told repeatedly, “Your place is with your husband and children—period.”
Then it was June, and Jane and I both had sons graduating from high school the same week. David’s big day was first, and I was to meet Brian, Edward, Moria, and Erin at our family home, so we could drive to Southwest High School in one car. I arrived at the house I knew so well and stood at the front door, hesitant to knock. I was now a guest at this home, not a resident. Guests didn’t just walk into others’ houses unannounced. So with a quick glance around to be sure no neighbors were watching, I gently tapped on the door.
I heard, “Mom’s here! Yay! Let’s go!”
It could not have been a more beautiful evening for an outdoor event. The kids had never seen a graduation ceremony, and were giddy with excitement to see their big brother in his purple cap and gown. Everyone clapped and cheered loudly as the senior class filed onto the field and took seats, facing their adoring friends and relatives seated on bleachers.
Our family sat together, and the kids were only moderately squirmy through the long speeches. As David’s name was called and he crossed the stage for his diploma, we were all on our feet, yelling and stomping with delight. He looked up at us, smiled and waved. By all appearances, we were a happy, cohesive family. What a lesson in how deceiving appearances can be! I immediately questioned what the stories were as other groupings stood together to honor one of their own. I wondered which other families might be as disrupted as ours this evening of celebration.
Two days later, Jane’s son Michael was graduating from Burnsville High School. The ceremony was also held outside, and again a clear blue sky and mild temperature had the makings of a perfect evening. Michael called Jane, saying he had mailed her a ticket to get through the gate. He said he thought their family was going with some neighbors, so she should just go directly to the stadium. I promised I’d send lots of support, strength, and love energy to her throughout the evening—not trusting how the family would behave this time. From her trembling smile, I could see her apprehension as she headed out the door.
Around 9:00 p.m. when I heard her fumbling for keys in the hallway, I snatched open the door to find beautiful Jane standing there with reddened, swollen eyes. She walked into the hallway and through a weary, forced smile, said, “Well, I’m glad you didn’t go with me tonight. I couldn’t find the rest of my family, so I sat alone, fairly high up so I could see the podium. Michael had been elected by his classmates to speak, and it was so amazing to hear his deep, resonant voice addressing three-thousand-plus people over the loud speakers. I was so proud of him and his confidence and maturity. He spoke glowingly about his dad, Andrew, and the girls. Then, suddenly, I heard him say, ‘My mother left our family to go do her thing …’ and I don’t even know how he ended the sentence. If I could have jumped off the bleachers, I would have.”
Jane continued, “When it was over, and I finally made my way onto the field and found Michael, all he said was, ‘Hi Mom—thanks for coming. I have to go now to change clothes for the all-night party. See you.’ And with a brief hug, he was gone.”
I could never predict when the next shoe would fall with Jane’s family. I figured they must be overcome with confusion and anger, and they’d go to any length to reel their Janie back into the fold. Little things happened virtually every week, and it seemed there was no way for her to escape the continuing punishment. Others also joined the fracas. One day, a “friend” of Jane’s phoned our apartment and, since Jane was not home, she blurted out to me, “You just give Jane this message. Tell her Sally White called, and I never want to see or talk to her again!” Slam went the receiver.
If it wasn’t a hurtful phone call from someone, it was one of the kids refusing to see her, or a searing remark from Charles when Jane stopped by the house for something. The hostile treatment was constant. I began to see a steely strength behind Jane’s gentle demeanor, as well as the depth of her spirituality as she grounded herself in the belief that she was being held in the arms of a loving God. “Hold to truth, hold to love,” I heard her say over and over.
My admiration for her grew steadily. Could I be so steadfast and strong in the face of the amount of opposition she was experiencing? I didn’t know. But I was learning a lot about this magnificent being who had chosen me as her partner. I felt deeply blessed.
The Tables Turn
In July, the upset came not from Jane’s family, but from mine. My older son, David, called one day to tell me he had enlisted in the Army and was leaving for boot camp in mid-August. I couldn’t have been more blown away. Now I was drowning in grief. I felt David and I were strongly bonded almost from the moment he and Moria arrived from Korea ten years before. Yet with absolutely no discussion, he chose to leave for only-God-knew-where.
Our family had lived very frugally and used savings earmarked for college to place David in Blake, a private school with small classes, in seventh through ninth grades. For although his verbal and written language skills in sixth grade were only average—not having spoken English for his first eight-and-a-half years—we knew his abilities were well above that. We worried that without support he’d become lost in a public junior high, and not be able to manage the demands of high school. Knowing David’s capabilities, Brian and I wanted to give him the opportunity to catch up with his peers. So he spent junior high at Blake, and while there, met and surpassed grade-level standards in all subject areas.
Moria and Edward also attended Blake for two and three years, respectively. Edward had significant respiratory allergies, and was on a strict milk-free diet and medication regime that needed careful oversight. By age five, Moria had been diagnosed with learning disabilities, and was still language-delayed after nearly three years of speech therapy. Both of them had attended Montessori preschool and kindergarten to give them the best possible start in grade school.
The individual attention available at Blake filled the bill. After three years, all the kids had gained significantly from the Blake School experience, but we had exhausted our savings. So David transferred to Southwest High School, and Edward and Moria transferred to Fulton, the neighborhood elementary school.
By David’s senior year, it was obvious he would graduate with a good grade point average and be able to choose among colleges. Brian and I explained that he needed to seek scholarships and loans to suppl
ement the small amount we could afford, because what little savings we had was spent on the years he, Edward, and Moria went to Blake. But he didn’t pursue college admissions as most of his friends were doing, and eventually shared that he’d decided to go to a community college for a year or two. I thought that was a good compromise, given our financial situation. After that, he could transfer to the University of Minnesota or elsewhere to complete his bachelor’s degree. That was my understanding of his plans until the day he called with his enlistment news.
“How long have you been considering your decision to join the Army? And why are you doing it? Why the Army?”
“You and Dad said you didn’t have money for my college, so I have to get it myself. The Army’s college savings program will let me have four thousand dollars in the bank after two years. That’ll pay for at least two years of college, and I’ll figure out the rest. Then I won’t need money from you. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m eighteen, and I’ve already signed the papers.”
There was clearly no way Brian or I could change David’s course of action. I was devastated by his choice to not go to college after high school graduation. I was fearful that, once he joined the military, he wouldn’t go to college at all. I also perceived a resentment in his voice as he talked about his decision. Was his decision really all about the money we didn’t have?
David’s biological mother, now living in Hawaii, had located our family in Minnesota the previous September and called me. I waited until close to David’s graduation to discuss this with him, and was nervous about doing so. But it was basically a non-event from his response. He asked if she was married, where she lived, and why she called. A few weeks later, they spoke by phone.
Was her coming back into his life a factor in his decision to enlist? After all, he lived with her for eight-and-a-half years before coming to our family. Or was he just sick of the family upheaval and the resultant demands on him as oldest to help hold things together at home?
I’d been concerned early on when David seemed to be placating me with pat answers about Brian’s and my separation. I sensed there was much more that he wasn’t saying. I’d planned to find more private time for us to get deeper into conversation, but that hadn’t yet occurred. Was he so disappointed in me and in our family that he just wanted out and, coincidentally, his mother had appeared in his life? I wouldn’t hear any more satisfactory answers before the flight bearing my dear older son departed Minneapolis for Fort Benning, Georgia.
How could this be happening when I could still see the look on his bright young face as he confidently marched off the plane that carried him from Korea to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport ten years before? I was heartbroken for months, and couldn’t suppress the guilt I felt at my possible role in David’s decision to leave.
Coming Home ‘Midst the Storms
It’s not surprising that the darkest days in Jane’s and my early years were those that catapulted our learning to new levels. When we were first together and trying to sort out the roadmap of our lives, we acknowledged that we’d give anything to be able to see just one year into the future. We couldn’t even think about five years away. How would we feel about each other? Would we be together? What might bring us into a closer relationship, and what could tear us apart? How would our families feel about us?
About three months into our living together, a female couple gave us a framed saying that read, “Living with women is harder because there aren’t any rules.” We didn’t like the saying, and decided not to hang it on the wall. It would be many years before we could understand and appreciate its full meaning.
Each time someone in Jane’s family did something that threw her into despair, I wondered how she’d find enough reserve to pull herself out. I recognized that each family member was carrying varying levels of pain—for some, nearly unbearable—around Jane’s decision to separate from Charles and live with me. Her intention was to separate from her husband only—not from her children or extended family. Not being able to see the children was her family’s requirement. Nonetheless, Jane was blamed for separating from the children as well. Their logic, which was baffling to me, seemed to be, “Since we (the family) continue to feel hurt through our choice of not seeing you (Jane), we are entitled to bring you hurt.”
That they did. I saw it as nine to one. There were nine of them—counting Jane’s husband, children, parents, and siblings—to one of her, and it appeared that their strategy was to use their strength in numbers against her, so that, over time, they would wear her down, and she would return to her “rightful place.”
What none of our family members could be expected to see was how painful it was for both Jane and me to know we had brought them disruption, heartbreak, and shame. Neither of us had allowed ourselves to fully feel the emptiness in our marriages, until there was a yardstick against which to measure it. Once we experienced the unbounded joy and fullness of our new relationship, the marriages we were in became untenable. It would have been wrong; there would have been no honesty or integrity if we had stayed in those marriages, when we each loved another so deeply. That notwithstanding, our self-punishment was intense. I was routinely given reprieves when I spent positive, productive time with my kids or sisters. But Jane had little of that. Instead, she was regularly peppered with criticism or avoidance from the group of nine—all because she found her previous life not sustainable, and had taken action on her own behalf.
Jane’s family’s behaviors were only one aspect of the energy-draining components for her at that time. Published work by T.H. Holmes and R.H. Rahe (1967, “The Social Readjustment Scale,” Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 11, 213-218), on the stress level intensity of various life events, indicated that her total stress measurement was dangerously high. She was separated from her husband, had significant changes in financial status, social activities, living conditions, number of family gatherings, and so on. She had begun a new job, had difficulty with relatives, moved to a new residence, and her oldest child was leaving home for the first time. These cumulative life changes put Jane at high susceptibility (with eighty percent probability) to stress-related illness.
My total stress measurement was lower than hers—a moderate susceptibility (with fifty percent probability) to illness—primarily because I wasn’t in a new job and I didn’t have the type of the family pressures she was experiencing. I began to feel responsible for the hell Jane was going through because of our love, and this compounded my own guilt about it. I didn’t know where to turn for support for either of us.
Just as Charles’s anger and accusations had hastened Jane’s and my recognition of the true essence of our relationship, once we were together, Jane’s family’s treatment of her forced us evermore deeply into our respect and love for each other. Frequently, Jane was so emotionally wounded that she lay sobbing in bed with her back to me so I couldn’t see her contorted face.
From behind, I held her in my arms, body against body like nested spoons, while I tenderly kissed her neck and wet cheek. I slowly massaged her shoulders and back—feeling the curves of her waist and hips with each stroke—and gently caressed the smooth softness of her legs, abdomen, and full breasts. Eventually, her shaking body quieted, and she lay still, cradled in my arms. If she didn’t fall quickly to sleep, she gradually rolled over and found my waiting lips eager to meet hers in long, passionate kisses—as if infusing each other with the energy and courage to keep going. We slipped into easy lovemaking that transported us up, away, and back to the goodness of our beings.
We talked together endlessly, seeking relief from all the negative emotions and self-talk. We did our prayer ritual, asking that family members be able to release their fears and anger and become whole again. I continually prayed for Jane’s health and well-being, and asked that I be able to forgive and have compassion for those causing her such angst.
Hour after hour, we desperately clung to one another, finding our physical togetherness the only sure comfort in th
is otherwise hostile environment. Often on the other side of sleep, having survived yet another assault, there was affirmation and more assurance of who we were together. Day by day, we depended more upon the compelling, unshakable love we held for each other. All of the opposition to our relationship was increasing our faith and trust that nothing could come between us.
Chapter 9 - Fear for the Future
Jane
In those first few months living together, there were times when I was afraid I had “put all my eggs in one basket,” which was my mother’s assessment of my situation. If I had, and that “one basket” was Bonnie, how could she bear the responsibility for being my sole emotional support? How could I keep from becoming overly dependent upon her? Would my dependence lead to her resenting me, or my resenting her?
Our compelling reason to be together was based on the strength of our relationship. If it became tenuous, how could we continue to choose to stay together? If we couldn’t stay together, then what would happen to me? To calm myself during these times, I would objectively take stock of our relationship.
From the very beginning, I held an innate, unwavering trust in Bonnie—a trust so strong that I could willingly relinquish the only financial and societal security I had ever known. Unlike most people I had loved in my life, she had always been truthful, straightforward, and vulnerable with me, openly sharing her deepest thoughts and readily exposing her shortcomings and fears. Knowing she, too, was willing to risk losing her prized place in society by loving and living with a woman, and that, in doing so, she would bear a heavier financial burden somehow reassured me that this must be a love that would endure.