Oh. Right.

Last night, after the news, just as I was getting ready to go to bed, this cheesey made-for-television movie came on. My hand on the remote to kill it, suddenly I was transfixed.

The characters were a husband, a wife, and their young son and daughter. Wife was going away on a business trip. Husband was kinda sulky about that. Wife promised the kids that next Saturday they'd go to the circus. Wife came into the bedroom and husband said, 'we need to talk.' Wife said, 'Sure, just let me call Brody and find out what time he's picking me up tomorrow.' Wife gets on the phone with Brody and chit chats. Cut to husband, downstairs watching television. Sulking. Wife comes down. "Sorry about that, Hon'." Wife says, "obviously it's too late to talk about it now..."

Wife: Now wait, this is a pattern we talked about in therapy. I go on a business trip and you don't like that, so we have an argument.
Husband: How would you know. You keep missing our therapy appointments.
Wife: Well let's not fight about that.

They get into bed, lying with their eyes open without touching each other or speaking.

The next morning, Husband is making breakfast. Pancakes. Wife tells him the griddle is too hot. "It's not too hot," he says, with that aire of someone who is barely managing to keep his volcanic rage under control.

Then, one of the kids mentions Wife's promise about the circus. This is news to Husband. Wife apolgizes for not mentioning it last night because they 'got way off track.' He is a statue while she pecks him on the cheek before heading off on her business trip.

Oh yeah.

That's what it's like. That's the relationship mode I remember. Totally.

"No. It's fine. I'm fine. Everything is fine." He said without any discernible trace of anything pleasant in his voice, in a tone that could take a boiling lobster pot to subzero if it's within earshot.

I couldn't watch anymore. And good thing, since it was past bedtime.

I guess that Tolstoy was wrong. "Every happy family is the same. But each unhappy family is unique in it's unhappiness." Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong WRONG! That could certainly be an excerpt from my years of domestic bliss in Brooklyn.

Usually, when I go to bed, I curl up around my pillow, imagining that it's whatever man happens to be getting my synapses firing that night. If I have his name, I'll wish the pillow goodnight using that name. Not last night. Uh uh. The pillow was the pillow.

Exceptions to that?

Yeah.

Special Guy was the exception.

No Just Before We Go To Bed testiness. Not a one. Never anything wrong that one of us holding the other one tight and kissing him deeply couldn't resolve.

But still, I'm grateful for the reminder that relationships are perilous territory. The bulk of my thirties was taken up with a bad one. I don't need the same thing for my forties.

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