He Will Ask

Roughly a week ago, my husband asked me to leave our home. He called my mother and said (I’m paraphrasing based on her memory), “Come get her. I can’t deal with what I have to put up with anymore.”

My mother was not about to make a 70 minute round trip on a late Sunday evening, but by Monday my bag was packed, and my father drove me to my parents’ house in the country. The last time I stayed with my parents, from September to 2008-October 2008, I was on sick leave from work due to anorexic eating and severe anxiety. My visit with my parents was like being rehabilitated at a California spa. I was eaten up with fear and guilt, yet I was lovingly cared for in every way imaginable.

When I went outside on their wrap-around deck, I was touched by the beauty of the pond, the butterflies and the dozens of hummingbirds who gathered to drink my mother’s homemade nectar. In an effort to stop my dangerous cycle of starvation, my mother made me every food I could think of that didn’t turn my stomach, and several times a day I was treated to organic vegetables fresh from their country garden. I was given gourmet coffee in the mornings, almost total control over the television and rides to all of my medical and psychological appointments.

Yet I was miserable. I was humiliated by the fact that I had collapsed at my job from anorexia and had been sent home by the Executive Director, ordered not to return without a letter from my physician stating that I was fit for work. I worried constantly about how my work projects were being handled in my absence. I worried about whether my husband loved me. I worried about whether my daughters were happier with me out of the house or, even worse, if they were indifferent.

As I find myself at my parents’ house again, this time in the middle of a wet, grey February, I feel relief. I miss my husband, but I don’t miss being screamed at. I love my husband, but I don’t miss giving him quick, forced apologies so that my children won’t hear him yelling at me. I want my husband to have the supreme happiness that I have always dreamed of having for myself, but I don’t think that either one of us can have it right now if we’re living in the same home. In other words, being basically thrown out of my house has given me a sense of tranquility that came suddenly, harshly and as a complete surprise.

I have marriage counseling tomorrow. My priest will find out that I am staying with my parents. He will find out that I’ve realized the only way I can recover from anorexia and anxiety is to spend time away from my husband. He will find out that my husband calls me several times a day to tell me that he misses me and ask when I am coming home.

My priest will ask me, “When are you going home?’

And I will sit in his office, nervously pinching myself with my fingernails as I do during every session, and say, “I don’t know.”