Enough

                                                                            Enough

          I know how this all must look, how I must look- cold, ungrateful, arrogant. And, I know it won’t change anything if I say up front that I’m not. I wish this were the story of a woman who found her soul mate. Maybe my mother’s right. Maybe I am never satisfied with what I’ve got. Or maybe, what I’ve got just isn’t satisfying.

         I mean sure, Kelly is a caring and patient man. He’s trustworthy. He’s annoyingly on time. He coaches high school basketball, loves carving pumpkins and stringing Christmas lights. He’s the man most women think they want. It’s not that I don’t appreciate that. I’m just not willing to settle for it. I don’t think it’s asking too much to want a man who keeps me guessing. Who isn’t always asking me where I want to go. Who doesn’t wait for me to lead the way.

         No. I wasn’t beaten. There were no bruises. I have no scars. But I couldn’t breathe...for years, I couldn’t breathe.


         As a history major in college, Kelly became captivated by the cultural upheaval of World War II Europe. To this day, it’s his favorite period to teach to unenthusiastic high schoolers. I spent the latter half of my undergraduate career enamored by the ideologies of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel. I was mesmerized by the idea that the way we come to know and understand ourselves is by knowing and understanding the world around us. That one notion has stayed with me my entire adult life. It’s exciting. It’s hopeful.

Anyway, my passion for German philosophy and Kelly’s interest in circa 1940’s Europe made a trip to Germany a lifelong dream of both of ours. I brought it up several times over the course of our marriage, but the timing was never right. At first it was a lack of money that stopped us. But then it was basketball season or exam week. One summer, Kelly had to help a friend move to California. Plus, he’d heard that summer was peak tourist season and didn’t want to go when it would be too crowded for us to enjoy ourselves. For one reason or another, it just never worked out. So, I should have been ecstatic when I found the tickets- ten days exploring the grandeur of German architecture, the beauty of its countryside, the sorrow of its history, all in honor of our fourth wedding anniversary.

         He’d placed the tickets in a small shoebox, wrapped it in shiny pink paper, topped it with a silky silver bow, and placed it on the front seat of my car. I found it when I left for work that morning, just like he knew I would. It’s the same way he asked me to marry him. Passively- a tiny jeweler’s box sitting on top of a folded piece of stationary with the sentence “Please say you will” written on it. Simplicity. He thought it was romantic.

         Anyway, I came straight home from work that evening. Kelly was standing at the island in the middle of the kitchen slicing mushrooms for his famous mushroom stroganoff. That’s the dish he made for me the first time he cooked me dinner, and for the first party we hosted after we bought our house, and on our first wedding anniversary. I bought him a cookbook for Christmas one year, but he still goes back to the stroganoff. Tried and true, I guess.


         I remember the first time I told my mother he’d made dinner for me. We hadn’t been dating but a few months. I lived on campus but he rented an apartment with a few of his friends. She liked that about him too, that he was responsible and independent. My mother thinks those are rare qualities in a man.

         When I told her he’d made the stroganoff for me, there was a noticeable pause on her end of the phone. Then, “That’s wonderful, Alex.” She made some comment about Kelly needing to rub off on my dad and how maybe she didn’t need to worry about me living off soup anymore.

To me it was just dinner. I only told her to make conversation. She didn’t like it when I talked about my philosophy studies. You can’t talk to a former Catholic schoolgirl and current Sunday school teacher about the possibility that God doesn’t exist. I was always looking for safe things to talk to her about. Hell, I still am.


         When I walked through the back door that night, he put the knife down on the cutting board, said, “Finally,” and walked towards me.

         “Hey,” I said. I knew what was coming. He didn’t even let me set my briefcase down. 

         “Hey? Are you kidding?” he smiled. “I’ve been waiting all day. I didn’t expect you to call me at school or anything but come on, Alex. Germany!” He must have read my expression because his smile began to fade. “Alex? You okay?”

         I didn’t see any reason to prolong it. Looking back, maybe I should’ve waited, let him have one last mushroom stroganoff. Maybe I didn’t handle it right. But, when you’ve had enough, you’ve just had enough.


         The first time I cheated on him, we’d been married a little over two years. It was with a court clerk who’d done some footwork for me on a particularly messy divorce case I was trying. It wasn’t planned. I didn’t seek it out. But when the blatant flirtation between us escalated, I didn’t resist. It only happened once. In my office. After hours. He was older, eager to impress, secure in his desire for me. I realize now I had wanted to see him as this mysterious private investigator who lived the dangerous life of uncovering all the dirty little secrets we keep. It never occurred to me he was just a middle aged secretary with advanced computer skills and a working knowledge of public record keeping who couldn’t make it through law school himself. Not until afterwards, that is, when he made a point of telling me he’d never cheated on his wife before. I don’t know why he thought I’d care. We never spoke again.

         No, I didn’t tell Kelly. I did feel guilty, though. Not because of what I’d done, but because I’d wanted to do it and because I knew I’d do it again. Not that sex with Kelly is bad. But, it’s like a song that’s been played so many times it’s lost its rhythm, like a dance so thoroughly practiced that the dancers have become robotic in their performance. Kelly told our marriage counselor he was happy with our sex life, said he didn’t know there was a problem. I wasn’t surprised.

         The thing is, I knew the way Kelly was when we began dating. It’s not like he started out as my dream date and fell apart or got lazy over the years. For God’s sake, we had three semesters of class together before I even knew he existed. See, despite my mother’s description of Kelly as, “right off the cover of GQ,” he’s really just the man you pass on the street, nod hello to, and forget before you reach the end of the next block. When he called my name outside our university’s library and asked me if I was working on my econ paper, I thought he was a stalker. He wasn’t. He was just a guy with a crush on a girl he never should’ve had a chance with.

         God, that sounds horrible, but it’s the truth. Three weeks before Kelly finally got up the nerve to talk to me that day at the library, Kyle Davenport had broken my heart. He and I had met the October of our freshman year of college. We were both philosophy majors. We had some great conversations about these massive topics like the origin of morality and whether God exists. I loved everything about him. He was so smart and he did all this tremendous volunteer work. He was really devoted. I remember one Christmas, sophomore year maybe, he made me go with him to serve Christmas dinner at one of the homeless shelters by the university. We ladled reconstituted vegetable soup into Styrofoam bowls for people who smelled and looked like they’d not bathed in months. It definitely wasn’t for me. But it suited Kyle, and I loved him for it.

         At the start of our senior year, he broke up with me. He’d decided to apply to graduate school in France. Just on whim. He went to a study abroad conference, and just like that, his mind was made up. Meanwhile, I was hoping to stay in Florida for law school. Kyle saw our breakup as inevitable, said he didn’t see a reason to drag it out. 

         Enter Kelly. I was emotionally needy I’ll admit it. Kelly was attentive. He followed me everywhere. He praised everything about me. And when he finally asked me to dinner one afternoon, I said yes. That year was so stressful for me- the Kyle situation, taking the LSAT, applying to law school. Kelly was the one constant thing I had going.

         After graduation, Kelly got a job teaching at a high school not far from the university. I started the hellish first year of law school, and we just kept dating. I’d complain about the insane amount of work I had to do, about having no money, about being exhausted all the time. Kelly would buy me lunch or make me dinner. He listened to me. He was...there for me. And, he became this buffer between my family and me. 

He got along great with my dad, who’d never liked any guy I’d dated before. My dad hated Kyle, said he was cocky because he was spontaneous. Disrespectful because he didn’t believe in God. But Kelly, Kelly was perfect- respectful, Republican, Catholic. He tutored my little sister in Algebra, started going to church with them on Sundays. Now, I didn’t go to church (a fact my mother was praying Kelly would be able to change), but he went. And he went with them. They loved him, and that made being a part of their family easier for me. The black sheep had finally done something right.

         I wasn’t using him. No, I didn’t love him at first. Actually, the first time he told me he loved me, I said thank you. Thank you. We were an odd match. It took a while, but I came to love him. Not passionately, ours was not a love story one would find in an Austen novel, but devotedly, comfortably. And when I found the ring on the front seat of my car that day, I agreed to marry him.

         We were married the summer after I graduated law school. My parents paid for the wedding. They were thrilled, of course. I heard more jokes about how someone had finally managed to saddle their little wild stallion than I care to remember. My mother kept crying at the wedding. She came up to Kelly and I at the reception and told me she hoped I knew how lucky I was. How lucky I was.

      We didn’t have a honeymoon. I got hired immediately at a firm I had interned one summer with. I worked twelve, sometimes fourteen hours a day, and I would’ve worked more if they’d asked me. I love my job, always have. Even back then when all I was doing was preparing briefs for the senior attorneys, I loved it. But now, now that I am one of the senior attorneys, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. And, sure, it’s about the clients I help, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t about the thrill of victory too. I love the battle. I love the feeling of power that comes with defeating the opposing party. Whoever said that phrase about how it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, obviously wasn’t a winner. 

         So maybe I am a little to blame. When I told my mother Kelly and I were going to see a marriage counselor, she suggested I take some time off work, thought maybe the job was putting too much stress on me. I don’t know why I even told her. It just came out. Like I said, when you’ve had enough, you’ve had enough.

        All I know is, the more I became immersed in my career world, the less Kelly seemed to belong in it. I’d go to work and feel exhilarated and come home and have to listen to him talk about his day at the high school. In the evenings, he’d make lesson plans or grade papers while I was researching case studies and legal statutes. He talked about basketball try-outs and potluck Christmas parties while I was standing in court rooms filled with older white men in expensive black suits who looked at my ass every time I turned my back to them.

         I had to work so hard to prove myself to the men in my office. I mean, like it or not, as a female attorney that’s what you have to do. They want to think you’re a pushover because you wear a skirt. So while Kelly was teaching adolescents about the Civil War, I was clawing my way up the corporate ladder. And, I’ve been successful. It wasn’t long before the money started coming in. We bought our house. I bought Kelly the Jeep he wanted. I brought up going to Germany. That didn’t work out, though.

      The point is things really took off for me. I started getting more high profile cases. I spent long weekends at spas paid for by appreciative clients. I had that first affair.

         Yes, there were more. There’ve been three over the course of our marriage. Each just a one-time thing. That first time in my office, once at a conference in Texas, and once with a guy from a bar. Kelly doesn’t know about any of them.
About six, maybe eight, months ago, he suggested we go to a marriage counselor. We weren’t seeing a lot of each other. I just couldn’t find a reason to want to be at home. I’d stay late at my office or go out afterwards, anything to keep me out til nine or so in the evening. Kelly goes to bed at ten thirty every night and gets up at five every morning. Every morning, even when he doesn’t have to. I’d get home in time to talk to him a little and say goodnight. But most of the time, we didn’t talk. We either argued about something, often my late schedule, or we didn’t say much at all. That’s when he suggested we see the counselor.

        So, I went. Not because I wanted to save the marriage, but because I didn’t want to be divorced. More specifically, I didn’t want to have to tell everybody I was getting divorced. The first they want to know is what happened. What did I have to say? My husband’s such a good man I can’t stand to be around him? My own sister said, “Poor Alex. Her husband’s boring,” when I was complaining about Kelly never wanting to go out anywhere. What was I supposed to say?
My Aunt Rita, my mom’s youngest sister was beaten so badly by her ex-husband that she can’t see out of her right eye to this day. After it happened, her mother, my grandmother, went to see her in the hospital to try to talk her out of pressing charges against him, said it was a private matter. And, I’m going to tell them I’m leaving Kelly simply because he’s not what I want?

        So, I agreed to go to counseling. And yes, one of the first questions the counselor asked was whether either of us had been unfaithful. I lied. I knew Kelly would never suspect I cheated on him. It didn’t occur to him that there was a problem with our sex life, why would he think I’d sleep with someone else? Besides, my affairs were the symptom of our marriage problems, not the cause.

      Other than the matter of my infidelity, though, I was completely honest in therapy. I talked about being bored by Kelly’s interests. I talked about needing him to be more active and adventurous. He talked about my working too much, about my “addiction” to my job. He talked about wanting to have children and my reluctance to partake in a discussion about the possibility of it.

      I’ll admit, when he brought up the kid thing, I got pretty angry. We were sitting in a counselor’s office because our marriage was in crisis and he wanted to know why I didn’t want to talk about having kids! What was he thinking? What about my career? What about all the places I had just said I wanted to go and things I wanted to do? And he brings up having kids? It’s like he has this picture in his head of what his marriage is supposed to look like except the sketch of the wife doesn’t fit me. I said that in therapy too.

      We went to see that counselor four times. She gave us dating exercises and told us each to keep a journal. I never wrote in my journal. I don’t know about Kelly. We did go on a couple of dates, though. Kelly planned one. We went to a local pizzeria and then to see a movie. And I planned one. We went to the carnival that’s open year round down by the beach. We ate hot dogs and snow cones and rode the ferris wheel together. I honestly had fun. We laughed together like we hadn’t in a long while. The next day I heard Kelly on the phone with his father talking about how expensive the food was and how the rides should be more spread out because it got really congested after dark.

      After that, I told Kelly I wasn’t going to therapy anymore. I said I didn’t think it was doing anything for us that we couldn’t do ourselves, and I was paying a hundred dollars an hour for it. He agreed. Then he said he was going to ask me a question and whatever my answer was, he’d believe it. I said okay, and he asked me whether I still wanted to be married to him. I lied. Yeah, I took the easy way out. Fine.


      I stood in the kitchen looking at him, dishtowel draped over his shoulder and nothing but concern in his eyes, and I couldn’t maintain the lie anymore.

    “Alex. Are you okay?” he repeated.

    “Do you think this trip will fix us?” I started. He took the towel from his shoulder and tossed it onto the table.

    “It’s something we always wanted to do together,” he answered. “You said you wanted me to take control, make more decisions, be...active. Well, here you go. How are you not thrilled with this? Did you read the brochure?”

    I had read it. I walked around him and sat down at the table. I asked him to sit down and he took the chair directly across from me. When our eyes met, I asked him why he planned this trip now. “I’ve tried to talk to you about taking this trip for years, Kelly. Why now are you interested in it? Maybe because you’re feeling a little...I don’t know...desperate, I guess.”

      “Desperate,” he repeated, throwing his head back and staring into the ceiling. “Okay, you know what, maybe I am feeling a little desperate.” Then he went on about how I didn’t want to go to therapy anymore, and how I had cancelled our last two date nights, and how he didn’t know what else to do to get through to me. I just sat there, knowing what needed to be said but not able to find the words to say it.

      “You said you wanted to stay in this marriage, Alex. That’s what you told me. That’s what you told your mom.”
“My mom? Have you been talking to my mother about our marriage?”

      “You have.” He pointed one finger at me, then quickly withdrew it.

      “She’s my mother!” I shouted.

         “The point is, Alex, I gave you a chance to get out of this marriage and you said you wanted to stay.” He was looking right at me, studying my reaction like I was on trial or something.

      “I just don’t think now’s the time to take this trip together,” I said.

      “Well, when is the right time?” he asked. He kept twisting his wedding ring on his finger. I didn’t answer. “When?” he persisted. “Christmas? Next summer? I mean, is it a timing thing, or do you just not want to go?”

        “I don’t know, okay. I just know that now’s not the time.” I know I must’ve sounded like someone scolding a puppy for peeing on the floor. I just got so frustrated. I knew what to say but I didn’t want to say it. That’s why people hire attorneys, to say that stuff for them. I guess he could tell I was getting agitated because he leaned back from the table and took a deep breath. Then he leaned forward and placed his hand out to me across the table. I looked down like I didn’t see it, and he pulled it back into his lap.

        “So how about this,” he started. “How about I call the travel agency and tell them we need to reschedule. We can do that, like for an emergency or something. I’ll just leave the date open. When you’re ready, you can call ‘em and rebook it.” I was still looking at the table. I knew if I looked up, his eyes would be all over me. “You have the tickets, Alex. This ball’s in your court, but don’t you say I didn’t try to do what you said you needed me to do”

        The ball’s in my court. That’s what he said, like it was something new. The ball had always been in my court. That was part of the problem.

        He got up from the table, walked back over to the island, and resumed slicing mushrooms. I sat there for a few seconds trying to decide how to say what needed to be said and thinking about what I was going to tell my mother. Finally, in a voice I almost didn’t recognize, it just came out.

        “I don’t want to be married to you anymore.” I got up from the table and with briefcase in hand, walked out the door. I didn’t look back at him. He didn’t say a word to me. I just left.

        I told my parents a couple days later. My father said I should take some time to think about my decision before the divorce is finalized. He said I have to think about the consequences of my actions. I’m not sure what that means. My mother said she wants me to find happiness, and if I think leaving Kelly will bring me that, she wishes me luck. Then she added that I’ll never find another man like him. And they both made a point of telling me he will always be a welcomed member of their family. Overall, they took it better than I thought they would.


        I have asked myself, though, what I would’ve done if he’d tried to stop me from leaving that evening, if it would’ve changed anything. It wouldn’t have. He did call my cell phone later that night, said he’d wanted to give us both time to think so no one said anything they might regret later. No one, I guess that meant me. I didn’t call him back, and he didn’t call again.

          As for my dream trip to Germany, I upgraded Kelly’s two tickets to one first class ticket.