I'm not going to recount the story of how I came to be Rick's secondary. Suffice it to say that, around the same time as Rick's wife and my husband began their relationship, Rick and I began a relationship of our own.
There was no question that Lilianna was Rick's first priority, and that Parker was mine. We were on equal footing, two secondary-secondaries together.
It should have been a perfect set-up. It wasn't.
In the winter/spring of 2005-2006, Rick was under a lot of stress. For a time, I was able to provide him some respite, a much-needed break from business-as-usual. He called me his “oasis.” And I really didn't mind being his escape from the desert of domesticity – I completely understood where he was coming from, since I'm often tempted to approach my own secondary relationships in the same way.
The problem was that Rick was up to his eyeballs in relationship drama at home, and the last thing he needed was another relationship to maintain. What he wanted, ultimately, was the thrilling sweep of space: a clear vista, a soundless sky. He didn't want me.
I didn't want to be a burden, so I tried to make myself lighter for his sake. The result was the attenuation of intimacy. Pretty soon, Viny-the-Oasis had dried up. I was just part of his daily drag. Our relationship had become a less-substantial version of the kind of relationship he already had with his wife. Less friction, less passion; less pressure to interact, less communication. I started thinking of myself as Lilianna-lite.
I knew Rick cared about me. When he wasn't completely distracted, he could be extremely thoughtful. But I felt like I was slowly disappearing: the lighter I got, the less I mattered. Pretty soon, my burgeoning insecurity became a very weighty matter indeed.
The following is an email I wrote Rick in December of 2006 – I think it pretty much encapsulates how I felt about being his secondary-secondary:
I don't know if you've seen [Denali's] Tamagachi, or if you know anything about them; they're an electronic pet, and they're much more convenient than actual pets because you can put them on "pause" when you don't have the time to take care of them. But when they're up and running, you have to make sure they're happy and fed. You can tell whether they need something because they have "hungry" and "happy" meters. If all four hearts are filled on "happy," for example, you can probably get by without playing any silly games or feeding it snacks for several hours, or even all day. Sometimes, however, the Tamagachi gets sick, and a skull appears above its head. If you don't attend to it immediately, it dies, even if its happy and hungry meters were okay.
Unfortunately, neither people nor pets are as convenient as the electronic version of anything, and the only way you know they need something is if they complain. I hate complaining. I resent having to do it. Maybe because I tell myself I am so low-maintenance that I shouldn't need to complain, that even the most distracted kid can manage to take care of something that doesn't even mind being put on "pause" when attending to it isn't convenient.
But maybe I am fooling myself. Maybe I am more like some desert cactus, which can go without water for weeks and months at a time -- but if it's always a drought, it's not going to make it. I think that's a more accurate description of what's going on. (Notice I'm still priding myself on being low-maintenance; the other possibility is that I have a completely inaccurate perception of myself.) Now, a continual drought does not mean it never rains. It means it never rains quite enough to make up for the preceding drought period, or that it doesn't rain quite enough for the cactus to make it through the next drought period without getting stressed.
It keeps happening to me that I am not quite completely okay when I see you, that I don't quite make it without feeling a little water-stressed; then we have a conversation about it..., and there I am, complaining of drought while a nice steady rain is coming down, and I think to myself, "What was my issue again?" And then I'm fine, until I'm not so fine. In the couple of weeks before this past weekend, I was just beginning to feel ignored and generally not very important to you, but I told myself (accurately, I think) that this was probably due entirely to external factors, such as the fact that you and [Lil] were finally getting some long-overdue time alone together. When you were telling me that you felt it had been a long time since we'd seen each other, or since we'd really connected, I was gratified to think that it wasn't just me feeling that way. But then when you said that you never realized that you've missed me until you see me, I started wondering how this is going to work. If I don't occur to you during the times when I'm not around, where is the incentive to ever get together going to come from?
So, as usual, I had a lovely time with you this past Friday. Then, on Saturday, you were (understandably) rush-rush-rush. Then, on Sunday, you were also (understandably) rush-rush-rush when I called to see about possibly getting together, and I completely understood why there wasn't time to do anything. Then, although you said you might call Sunday night, you didn't. And I figured that there was probably a good reason, even if the reason was simply that you went to bed early, although I did kind of think you might perhaps have managed a short email. Then yesterday I didn't hear from you, either; I thought about pinging you and then decided that I probably shouldn't, because I knew how busy this week is for you. And then last night, again, there was a very good reason for not hearing from you: [Lilianna] had just returned, and, I assume, had all kinds of things to say about the funeral and her experience in CA. So you see, the way I am feeling is probably totally unreasonable.
But here it is, anyway: I feel ignored, taken for granted, not appreciated. I fear that I am being horribly annoying for bring this up during your extremely busy week, and annoyed with myself for being annoying. I feel annoyed and angry with you that I am in this position in the first place. I feel like there isn't room for me in your life. I don't see how I am going to get through the whole next couple of weeks until everyone is back from the holidays, feeling like this -- and I don't see any way out of it, because neither you nor I has any time to deal with this issue of mine right now. I probably should have sat on this until later, in the hopes that the little skull over my head would go away of its own accord, but I didn't. So I've dumped this on you at the beginning of a busy day, and I'm sorry, and I'm not sorry. I am feeling simultaneously bad and pretty pissed, and I don't know what to do about it. (Sometimes I think: what if [Lil] weren't going out of town on a fairly regular basis? I'd never see you. And how can I look at that and not feel like an afterthought?)
Time to wrap this up and take [Denali] to school. Don't bother trying to respond to this today; I know you don't have time, and I'm just going to feel worse if you take time you don't have to deal with me. But maybe we can talk tonight, or tomorrow night before we all leave (oh goody, you're thinking).
There's a letter I wrote him several months later that's basically a repetition of this one, which I will forbear copying here. Rick headed into what he later called “a Viny dormancy.” Perhaps it was just as well, since I was pregnant with Sienna at the time. A few months after Sienna was born, there was a brief Viny-Rick sexual renaissance, but by that time, we were firmly in tertiary territory.
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