“Marriage is a great institution … but who wants to live in a institution?” — Betty Comden and Adolph Green (from Auntie Mame)
Well … I do, for one.
May 7, 2018, marks the 41st anniversary of the day Janet and I were married. May 4 was her birthday. She would have been 60. Normally, when I do a quote of the day, I put the quote followed by a few short paragraphs. Since I was planning on writing something to mark our anniversary today anyway, I thought I might as well piggyback this with it.
A year ago I wrote this at Ricochet, about my marriage. Today, I am no longer married – not through any voluntary choice of either of us. Janet died on January 10.
It is nearly four months later. I am still adjusting to being single. In short: being single sucks.
I am not talking about the grief that accompanies the loss of a long-time partner. That is bad, but I am coping. Rather, I am talking about living alone after over 40 years of having someone there with you. It is aggravating a thousand different ways.
The house is empty, except for me. It is lonely. I am not the only one who has experienced this problem. My sons when through the same thing when they started careers and moved out, living on their own for the first time. My oldest got married last September and has never been happier – in large part because he is no longer living alone. My middle son fills his evenings with activities – classes and hobbies – to cope. My youngest found a job where he works 60 hours a week.
I, too, fill my hours with work. As a writer and consultant, I work from home. That does not really cure the loneliness problem. An hour at home is an hour alone. I find myself finding excuses to get out of the house or invite people over.
There are the minor things. You have to take care of everything: laundry, cooking, cleaning. You lack anyone to remind you to do things you forgot to do. If you are stuck in traffic, you can no longer phone home to get your spouse to check road conditions and navigate you around problems. (Jan and I frequently did this for each other. Phone home. Put the phone on speaker. Listen to the workarounds.)
I have even lost my best excuse for avoiding invitations. For 40-plus years, when asked to participate in something we wished to skip, both of used the same routine: “You want me to go with you to the local biker bar and watch you insult the colors of the different motorcycle clubs tomorrow night? Let me check with the spouse.” Of course, the answer was always that the spouse had plans for me that night.
If an immediate answer was required, I could call her up and say, “Hey cupcake, so-and-so is asking me if…” Since I never called her cupcake, except to signal I was being asked to do something I wished to decline, she would immediately “remind” me of the important engagement I had at that time. (Her code word was to start the question with “Darling husband…” Again, she never started a sentence with “darling husband,” otherwise.)
Then there are the major things. Since January, I have found myself working without a net. Minor issues escalate to serious quickly. Take changing a lightbulb in a room with a cathedral ceiling. That requires a trip up a ladder. Slips off ladders occur. With someone else in the house, if you fall and hurt yourself someone can take you to emergency care (or simply observe you to ensure you do not need that trip). With no one else about the house, such a slip is potentially life-threatening. I find myself postponing such things until someone comes to visit.
Medical things which are otherwise trivial have the potential to be life-threatening. In February, I came down with a sore throat. Saw the doctor. Got antibiotics (he thought it was likely bacterial) and took them. But a week later I had been coughing so much that I decided to see the doctor the next day. That night, after midnight, I woke up with a coughing fit, unable to breathe at the end of it. (You want scary? Find yourself unable to exhale. That is panic-inducing.) Called up the 24/7 nurse hotline my insurance offers. The nurse told me to go to the emergency room.
Two years ago I would have woken Jan and she would have taken me. (We did that for each other several times over our marriage.) That night, my nearest relative was 60 minutes away.
I was fortunate. I called a neighbor two doors down and asked if he could take me to the E-room. After midnight. His first words were “I’ll be right down.” (God bless Texas.) My problem was solved with some topical oral anesthetics and a couple of breathing treatments. No biggie, really.
Except. It only takes five minutes of not breathing for things to go permanently bad. What if I had not been able to get to the emergency room? What if I decided to go ahead and wait until morning to see the doctor for the appointment I scheduled the previous day? The first thing that oxygen deprivation does is rob you of good judgment. Without my spouse and living alone, I had no independent check on my decisions.
Mom called last week to let me know my dad was being held overnight for observation. He had had difficulty breathing the previous night, after midnight. He insisted he would be fine until the next morning. She dragged him to the emergency room. They decided he was not fine and kept him.
He was released the following day. When I called, he insisted the only reason they kept him overnight was because they had a treadmill stress test scheduled the next day, and it was more convenient to keep him there. (Yeah, dad, tell me another one.)
I visited my parents in April. Dad is 93; mom turned 88 while I was up there. They still live in the same condo they bought over 30 years ago. Still live independently. It was like watching two tops just beginning to wind down. You can see the wobble start and know it will not be much longer. As long as they have each other, they will continue on. When one goes, I suspect the other will not be far behind. They have been married over 65 years and would not know what to do apart.
Marriage? I don’t really know what to do without it.
Published in General“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery … each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
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