I open my eyes and remove my fingers from my temples, the pulsing beginning to lessen, though only slightly. “No,” I tell Adam simply. I point out that I have my sister, Charlotte, as a prime example of motherhood done well. Sure, she’s exhausted, and the start of her little family began sooner than she’d anticipated, but she’s a wonderful mom. If she, also a daughter of my mother, could do it, of course I could.
“Then why won’t you at least consider having one?” Adam pleads.
“I have considered it, Adam. Every woman does. I even reconsidered it when Nina got pregnant the first time, before she miscarried. And when Charlotte was pregnant with her three, I thought about it. I imagined myself in their shoes and thought, Does this look like something I want after all?”
“And?”
I groan. “And nothing’s changed. I know what I want and what I don’t, Adam. I want you. And I don’t want a baby.”
“Look, I’m not asking to have one in the next nine months.”
I gesture to the dresser where I keep my pills. “It sure sounds like it, me stopping my birth control and turning our trip to Maui into a last hurrah.”
“Can you be open to the idea? Or how about adoption?” He suddenly looks eager, renewed, hopeful. “If being pregnant is the problem, what about that?”
“Adam, the being-pregnant part is an infinitesimal part. And even when you take the crazy that comes with raising a child and all the responsibilities . . . when you take all that tough stuff and set it aside, I still know, deep down, that I don’t want to be a mother. Even though I’ll be missing out on all the joy that parenthood does bring, it’s not for me. It’s just . . . who I am. Plain and simple.” Adam now looks defeated, no longer hopeful. I sit on the edge of my side of the bed and ask him, “You know why I don’t want a child. Why do you want one?”
After a short silence, he presses a fist to his heart and says, looking straight into my eyes, “I feel it in my soul, Halley. In my heart. I can’t explain it.”
“You can’t explain it. That’s great.” I can’t hide my sarcasm. “You want to upend our lives because of something you can’t explain?”
“I guess since Nina got pregnant I’ve really started looking at kids differently, thinking about babies,” he says. “This isn’t something I’ve ever done, really think about having children. Ever.” His fist drops to the scrunched blankets across his lap. “Maybe that’s the problem,” he says with an ironic sniff. “You did all your thinking a long time ago. I’m thirty-eight, getting older, and looking at life through a clearer lens that comes with age . . . I don’t know. That’s why I haven’t been myself lately. I don’t want to be angry with you, Halley, but every time you say you don’t want something that’s become so important to me, I deal with it by shutting down. It’s not fair. But I do know that I have to be completely up-front with you.”
“I appreciate that.”
“What I mean to say is . . . god, this is hard.” He pauses. “I’d love it if you would consider having a child.”
“I know that.”
“But if that’s all you did . . . Consider? And we never actually had one . . .”
“Yes?”
He closes his eyes and sighs.
I clap a hand to my heart. “What are you saying, Adam?”
“I really want a child, that’s what I’m saying.” He exhales a very long and heavy breath. “I know this wasn’t how things were supposed to be, Halley. I’m sorry.” He gives me a sideways sympathetic smile. I don’t like it. It’s as if he feels sorry for me. As if I’m to be pitied for standing by my convictions.
“I feel sorry for us.” As soon as I say the words, I feel the stinging sensation behind my eyes that warns me the dam of tears is about to break.
Adam and I—my husband and I—are at an impasse. The dam is about to burst, the grey cloud is hanging low and heavy, that fat elephant is pressing against the walls of our bedroom. Every horrible cliché is rearing its ugly head, and all either of us can do is stare at the other, speechless.
Scrambling, I finally blurt out, “What should we do?”
“I don’t know.”
Wrong answer. Adam always has an answer, and a good one. A real and workable one. He’s the problem solver, the one who steps up if I step down. The positive to the negative. The perfect match. My perfect match.
I grip my heart, as if that’ll somehow help the sudden burning sensation that’s seized it.
“Things clearly aren’t working the way they are now,” he says, only adding to the fire. This is not what he’s supposed to say. He’s supposed to cry with me and hold me and tell me that we’ll figure it out. Because we can. Because that’s what soul mates do!
Desperate, I suggest, “Let’s go take that Thanksgiving trip now! And go all out. Pamper ourselves, remind ourselves that together we can overcome anything.” I press my hands to my heart. “That we can be happy, just the two of us.”
Adam only looks at me with two slightly raised brows.
“I’ll ask Chantelle for the time off,” I add. “What do you say? We need this, Adam.”
“Halley, no.”
“No?”
He sighs. “I . . . I can’t think about vacationing right now.”
“What?”
“We’ve got bigger problems than vacations, Halley.”
Not thinking, and being spiteful, I say, “Fine, whatever. Let’s just cancel the vacation.” A painful stinging knot settles in the back of my throat.
“Fine,” he says.
His response is not what I expect. “Great! So you want to bail on our life plans and our Thanksgiving plans? What’s next? You want to bail on our marriage, too?”
As soon as I say it, and as soon as I register that Adam is not saying anything, I regret my rant, my insinuation, the whole damn evening.
“Omigod,” I breathe, cupping a hand to my mouth. “Do you want a di-di-di . . .” I can’t bring myself to say the word.
“Christ, Halley.” Adam gruffly crosses his arms over his chest. “No! Of course I don’t!”
Relief ushers the knot out of my throat and suppresses the tears, but the simple fact that the idea of our marriage failing presented itself, even if it was wholly my doing, leaves behind a small stain of disturbing doubt.
“Then what?” I mutter, helpless. “What do we do?”
“Maybe . . . ,” he begins, sounding equally helpless. “Maybe we should see a therapist?”
“A therapist?”
I don’t know why, but I’m skeptical. But I’m also desperate. And so is Adam. We have to try more than Tito’s Tacos and a horribly heated, unproductive argument before bed to solve our marital problem. Therapy it is.
“Deal,” I say, snidely thinking, You do remember the concept of a deal, right, Adam? Instead I decide to put to rest for the night, and hopefully for good, my anger and resentment toward my husband and this ridiculous dilemma. “I’ll call around for an appointment first thing in the morning.”
Four
You’re just upset because you didn’t hear what you wanted to hear,” Adam says brusquely as he shuts our mailbox with more force than necessary.
“And you’re telling me you heard what you wanted to hear?” Arms akimbo, I stand in front of him, impeding his path to our condo.
“Of course I didn’t.”
As agreed, we met with a therapist. Her twenty-plus years of marital counseling and one available hour at the end of today meant she was qualified to help Adam and me climb out of our mess. Unfortunately, halfway through the session it became clear that her advice was hardly worth considering.
“Good,” I say, turning on my heel. “Because suggesting we should probably consider a separation is nonsense.”
Adam and I stalk to our front door.
“Let our heads get clear by being away from one another,” Adam mocks the therapist. “Take time, space, reassess. It’s ridiculous.”
“That’s the easy route,” I say. “Walking away.
We’re not . . . going to fail.”
“I agree. I’m not a fan of what she had to say, either. But Halley.” Adam pushes open our front door, the mail tucked under one arm. “What do you suggest we do?”
“See another therapist.” Isn’t it obvious? This one clearly didn’t work for us, so onward we search. And again and again, until we’ve exhausted our options.
“All right,” he says in a confident way. “I was thinking the same thing.”
I follow him inside and charge to the kitchen, where my laptop and a notepad and pen are leftover from the therapist search. “One of the doctors I called didn’t have an opening until next weekend,” I say. “I’ll call him back and book him?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“And I’ll call a few more and book a third.” I force a weak smile. “Just in case.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
And so it went. Therapist Two didn’t suggest a trial separation so much as he suggested that I needed to play on Adam’s team, so to speak. I needed to find it in my heart to respect Adam’s sudden wishes for a child, and if that meant considering and perhaps having a child to, and I quote, “save our marriage,” I should make such sacrifices. Because, and I quote again, “Isn’t that what true love is about?” I wanted to stand up and shout, “Isn’t true love not about coercion? Not about promising one thing and doing another?” It came as no surprise that Adam didn’t think Therapist Two was as terribly misguided as I did.
Needless to say, Adam and I have become more agitated with one another these past few weeks. Our home is quickly deteriorating into one of those households you see on reality shows where parents cry out for help reining in their unruly children—except that in our case there are no children. Left and right we’re sharing pointed glances, snapping retorts, and practicing the golden rule of “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.” Which can be just as venomous as actually saying something when in your everyday life you usually communicate, laugh, and exchange warm glances. Silence has never felt so cold.
Therapist Three turned out not to be any different from Therapist Two in that a side was clearly taken. She wasn’t as bold and insulting as Therapist Two in suggesting that one party align with the other, but when she looked directly to Adam and said, “Having a baby is something very different for a woman than for a man. I don’t think you understand what you’re asking of your wife,” I was fairly sure this therapist would be meeting the same fate as her predecessors. The takeaway from all three was clear: one of us had to change our mind, or . . .
I couldn’t think about or.
The entire drive home Adam ranted and raved about how sexist Therapist Three was, how backward it was to look at children through such a narrow scope, and on and on it went. If I put the kibosh on Therapist Two, then Adam could do the same for Three.
With three failed counseling sessions and three argumentative weeks down, Adam and I are no closer to a resolution. We find ourselves at the same damn impasse, under the same heavy grey cloud. It’s amazing and depressing how thirteen years of a cultivated love can deteriorate so severely in such a short time.
“We’re getting nowhere,” I grouse the night of our session with Therapist Three. I take my regimen of pills without a second thought, then begin to tighten my side of the bedsheet. “I don’t want to fight anymore, Adam. I’m so tired of fighting.”
Adam, already in bed, looks up from his magazine. He’s wearing that familiar blank expression I’ve grown accustomed to since the B word became a thing.
“I don’t want to fight anymore, either, Halley.” His voice is calm, crisp.
“What do we do?” I’m about to suggest trying yet another therapist, even though I feel utterly hopeless at this point. When one side is taken, the affronted party is incensed, and when one suggests we separate—
“Maybe she’s right,” Adam says.
The therapist today is right? Adam agrees that asking me to have a baby—to seriously consider one—isn’t fair?
“The first therapist,” he continues. “Maybe she’s right.”
My heart begins to burn. Adam closes his magazine and rests folded hands on it.
“Right about what?” I ask.
“I think we need to step back.”
Immediately outraged by the finality in his tone, the doomsday-ness of his words, I stammer, “So—so you want a . . .”
“I think a separation would be good for us. To step back and figure things out.”
The burning in my heart disappears, just like that. Now I feel . . . nothing. Emptiness. Hollowness. It’s a dark cave in my chest where, against the odds, I can hear a thudding thump-thump-BEAT that rings through my body, my ears. I’m alive, yet I feel as if I’m in free fall.
“Or see another therapist!” I blurt.
Adam shakes his head, his eyes trained on his magazine. “I don’t think counseling is helping, Hals. In fact”—he looks to me—“I think it’s making things worse. We’re always fighting. Everything is so tense. Maybe the first therapist was right, and we need to figure this out . . . with some space between us.”
“But we’re working on a marriage, Adam. A union. We’re supposed to figure things out together.”
“And the status quo isn’t working.”
I clap my hands to my head and collapse on the edge of the bed. I can’t believe my ears.
“We both know we’re not our best selves right now, Halley.” His words come out shaky, rattled by the striking turn in the conversation, in our lives. “We owe it to our relationship to try something different and see if it works. We’re not . . . good around each other right now.” The words pain him to say as much as they pain me to hear. His eyes are squinted, the corners wrinkled, his bottom lip tucked in an uncertain bite.
He scoots closer to me and rests a hand on my lower back. “I think we’re better working through some stuff . . . away from each other. Fewer fights like this . . .”
“Are you seeing someone else?” I don’t know why my mind goes here. I suppose it’s the standard conclusion women in romantic books and films come to when their husbands suggest a separation. And doesn’t every woman know that a separation means only one thing: that you’re merely gearing up for that inevitable divorce? There is no getting back together once you step back. You get used to being apart and realize being separated is exactly what you needed, and you like it, and you don’t want to go back to the way things were because things are suddenly so much better apart!
I can feel the awful, familiar tightness in my chest reappear—a burning filling the hollow space. My stomach gurgles; my heart beats even harder, faster.
“I am absolutely not seeing someone else,” Adam says, and I believe him. I have no reason not to. If there’s one thing I know Adam is not, it is unfaithful. Seeing how he’s going back on his promise of a childless union, I find some room for disbelief, but if I’m truly honest, Adam’s as straight as an arrow. I’d be willing to bet that he’d stay in a childless and perhaps even miserable marriage with me before he’d cheat.
And as soon as this thought crosses my mind, I have one of those bizarre feelings where you’re seeing something clearly for the first time, and you’re simultaneously elated and terrified. If Adam’s life will be unhappy and unfulfilled because of me, and if my life will be filled with resentment and contention because of him, then maybe Adam’s right. We aren’t our best selves right now. We’re not good around each other right now. Maybe, given the situation, we do need to step back, take time, assess, and try to work out our together, apart.
The severity of our situation, the harsh reality that lies within my discovery, hits like a ton of bricks. There’s only one thing I can say. “A separation?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“I . . . don’t know.”
“And . . . then what?”
“That’s what we’ll figure out.”
Adam is calm and coll
ected as he discusses the bleak and vague future being laid before us, but I can see in his eyes and the way his shoulders uncharacteristically sag downward that he’s anything but collected. Adam’s reeling inside, like me. This isn’t what either of us wants, yet it’s what we both need.
At last he says something that brings me hope. “If we’re going to keep our relationship strong and honest, I think we should give this a try, Hals. We should try whatever we can.”
“We should.” I slip into place in my side of the bed, slowly trying to register what on earth is happening.
“I love you, Halley.” Adam unexpectedly takes my head in both his hands and plants a firm kiss on my forehead. “To the edge of our solar system and back.”
That does it. The tears come. I hold them in long enough to say, “I love you, too, Adam. To the edge and back.”
They are the heaviest I love yous we’ve ever said. The heaviest I think I’ll ever say in my life.
With nothing and everything more to say, we turn out our lights, lie down on our own sides of the bed, and fight for the restful sleep that never comes.
It is the next morning, in that first second of being awake, when you register you’re no longer asleep, that I become conscious that it is a new day, and I feel good. It is in the following second, when I remember the events of the night before, that I register they were not a nightmare, and I feel incredibly sad.
Unsure how to carry on given the newly made decision, I skip breakfast. I forfeit the most important meal of the day for two reasons: I have zero appetite, and if I don’t eat, I can avoid having to see Adam. As soon as I wake, Adam is already in the shower, so I slip on my running gear, double-knot my neon-pink laces, the condo key tied to one, and hit the pavement.
By the time I return home, Adam is already gone. So, following in his footsteps, I get ready for the office. I suppress the urge to bawl my eyes out in the shower and call up my best girlfriends to lament the scary state of my marriage, and I go to the office. I have never been more grateful for a day packed with back-to-back meetings. I have no choice but to keep my personal life at home and plow through the workday. I stay an hour later than usual, both because I want to avoid facing Adam for the first time since talk of separation, and because it feels really good to bury myself in my writing. Even if my current article is titled “To Conceal and Contour.”
Everything the Heart Wants Page 7