Questions from My Mother-in-law

We came out to Parker's mother because we were ratted out. This is how it happened: purely by coincidence, Scott and I were spotted at the Getty museum in L.A. by a family friend, who then reported her “sighting” to Parker's mother.

I arrived home from L.A. to an email exchange with my mother-in-law that went something like this:

Helen: What a small world. Catherine was at the Getty at the same time you were on Saturday.

Me: No way! Why didn't she say hi?

Helen: I guess she didn't say hi because she was unsure of the exact nature of your relationship with Scott. Not that I understand it myself.

Me: Yeah, I can see how Catherine would have felt awkward. So, are you saying you don't understand my relationship with Scott because you wish you did? If you want to know more about anything, I'd be happy to tell you – or have Parker tell you.

Helen: Now that you mention it, I guess I do want to know. I'm imagining the worst, a chaotic spiral leading nowhere good.

So Parker wrote his mother a letter, explaining the situation. She responded with a lot of concerns and a lot of questions. The most important question, which she actually voiced, was rhetorical: Do you honestly think a marriage like this can survive?

Her other questions, followed by my actual responses, written in May of 2003, appear below.

1) What are you getting out of this arrangement? The adoration of two men instead of just one? The excitement of something taboo?

Obviously I get a lot out of this arrangement, yes. Adoration and excitement are certainly part of it. You seem to imply that it's greedy to want or need adoration from more than just one person, and maybe it is. As for violating a taboo -- the implication is that I'm trying to be cooler than the other kids on the block, putting myself above the rest of the world, convincing myself that I'm not subject to the same rules and limitations as the rest of humankind. But it's scarcely a universal taboo; not every culture insists on the sanctity and inviolability of the nuclear family as we understand in this culture. But it isn't all fun and games, [Helen]. You know as well as I do that people are mercurial, that what comes from them isn't always adoration. I get a lot, and I also have to give a lot. I am not the only person benefiting from this arrangement.

2) Are you still 12 years old, unsure if you're pretty enough?

Well, that was a low blow, [Helen]. I know that my adolescent insecurities have played their part in my adult life, but no, I'm not 12 anymore. And I'm not plagued by worries that I'm not attractive enough, though it's probable that [Scott] has had a lot to do with my adult confidence. It's tough to spend your teenage years as a nerd, sure there must be something wrong with you, then get married at nineteen, having had no sexual experience, and not still feel insecure. So I guess the answer to that one is, yeah, maybe when I met [Scott] I was still partly that awkward 12-year-old looking for reassurance, which I got, and am immensely grateful for. This new confidence, this ability to be at peace with myself, no longer haunted by the rejection I experienced as a child, is in many ways a gift from [Scott], a gift not just to me but to [Parker] and [Denali] as well. Maybe I could have found confidence in some other way, but I didn't. However, it would be a huge mistake to think this was my only motive, to chalk everything up to that particular immaturity.

3) Would you be willing to let [Parker] run off with another woman?

It depends on what you mean by "run off." If you mean, would I be willing to let him have another intimate relationship, sexual or not, then the answer is yes. In fact, I think this is something that would be good for him. Would it be difficult for me? Yes, of course. But I have a lot of faith in our ability to overcome the difficulties the way we have always been able to deal with other problems in our life together. We're not perfect and our marriage is not perfect, but we are both committed to working on these things together. If he were to "run off," that would be cheating. I am not "running off." I'm still here, taking my responsibilities seriously, despite what you may think.

4) Is your affair with [Scott] recreational? Love?

Do you really think [Scott] and I could weather everything that has happened in the last 4 1/2 years if we didn't love each other? It's been too difficult; the rewards of recreational sex aren't enough to compensate us for all the work we've done maintaining our relationship. I'm glad that you don't think it's impossible to love more than one person at once; otherwise, we'd be poverty-stricken indeed, and no couple would even be able to add children to their family without somehow taking something away from each other. As for your question, isn't this hurtful to [Parker], I think he can answer that question better than I. When I first asked [Parker] what he thought about my beginning a sexual relationship with [Scott] (which was definitely before anything ever happened), he responded simply: [Viny], if you were happy about it, why would I be unhappy? Perhaps I invested too much in his response; I discovered later, when it ceased to be an theoretical question, that he was hurt and made insecure by my decision to take him at his word. That's human nature for you. But I also think that [Parker] no longer feels threatened by my feelings for someone else, that he's learned to understand his own jealousy, and I hope that I will be able to learn as much as he has when he falls in love with someone else. [Parker] knows that I love him, that I'm not just playing around, and that I'm trying my best to be vigilant, to watch out for any sign from him that he's having trouble. For what it's worth, I have had to go through feeling jealous when [Scott] started dating another woman (who knows about me) about a year & a half ago. It wasn't easy. But I don't believe that jealousy equals love.

5) Are you proud of the fact that you broke up a marriage?

Why in god's name would I be proud of such a thing? That's assuming that I DID break up a marriage. While I'm certainly culpable -- and have had to wrestle with a lot of guilt -- I don't think I did it single-handedly. [Scott] wasn't entirely happy with [Monique], or so he has many times said, or he wouldn't have begun a relationship with me. I'm not necessarily pleased by the implication that I must not have been happy in my marriage, then, but I do think there are significant differences. The whole story of how this began and who thought what is too long to recount here, but I have often wondered if [Scott] and [Monique] would have gotten married in the first place if I hadn't been around. So that's a hard one. And I think that [Scott] and I both made a mistake there, one I don't plan on repeating -- [Monique] was certainly very hurt, and it's our fault more than her own, that's sure.

All the other questions, about other men in my life, other women in [Parker]'s, and the "real victim" -- [Denali] -- are the questions we think about most often, every day in fact. There has been a "next man," actually, once, several months ago, a very very dear friend of mine whom I've known for almost ten years, and while [Scott] had initially agreed, he has had a horrible time since then. There's a lot to think about. Is [Denali] a victim, really? That's the real question, perhaps the most important one. Obviously, I don't think this is bad for [Denali], or I couldn't be okay having made the decisions I have. I'd like to hear more about why you think he's the real victim, and I'd like to spend a much longer time telling you what I think about the way [Denali] (and maybe another child, someday) fit into our lives. I hope you know that I adore my child, that I take being a mother seriously, that I want him to be happy and am doing what I can to ensure that he grows up into a good person. I also know that you disapprove of us as parents, that there's always this implicit comparison between us and parents you think are more devoted. This has really hurt my feelings. I hope [Parker] addresses this whole issue in his email (I don't know what he's saying yet, and he doesn't know what I've said -- we thought separate responses might give you a better sense of where we're each coming from. Contradictions or elisions will be instructive for all of us, I hope). But now I have to go teach my class.