Bea V. Larsen . . . .Commentaries |
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Bea V. Larsen is a Senior Mediator at the Center for Resolution of Disputes in |
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It's Payback Time This entry was posted on 9/27/2008 10:09 AM and is filed under Relationship Dynamics. After living together for fifteen years, they married when she became pregnant. Their daughter is now three years old. Two physicians, he an academic, she in family practice. Neither have remarkable income, but due to the generosity of her wealthy family, their financial lives have been more than comfortable. Most recently, upon the birth of their granddaughter, the gift from her parents was an elegant home. But their marriage is crumbling, awash in a sea of anger and despair. He is 50, she 43. Another woman, now long gone, turned his head. Unaware of his affair for over a year, blaming herself for his distant ways, she met depression head on. After many months of marriage counseling, for both of them were motivated to preserve their family, he said he could no longer live the lie that his passion for her was restored, and moved out. She, at first willing to forgive him, now finds he is the one giving up, on loving her. This, rather than the affair, is the source of her rage, and she is emboldened. It’s payback time. On his departure, without having consulted an attorney, he believed that the value of all that they owned would be divided, including their very pricey home. Not so. Fortified with legal authority, the house is now claimed, by both his wife and her parents, as a gift to her alone, an advance of her future inheritance. Thus, not marital property to be divided. The couple had not sought to accumulate any significant savings, always reasoning that her inheritance would provide them with a comfortable retirement. So what money they had to spare was gifted to their daughter’s college account. There is no marital property to divide. So he said: but then I will have nothing! And she said: right! (Along with a few other choice words, beginning with: you should have thought of that before you . . . .) It’s an old story. Almost a modern fable, with a moral easy to write: don’t get mad, get even. Sort of makes sense. But not for their daughter. For if her mother’s anger and her father’s rancor pervades the air that she must breathe, how can she love them both without her loyalty always called into question? My fantasy, but I well know it is just that, is finding and speaking the words to focus both parents on imagining their daughter twenty years hence, how she would then assess the space they created for her childhood, how their treatment of each other warped her future. Might the mother wish she had been more generous? Might the father wish he had been less resentful? Might this vision alter current decisions? In my real world, I meet alone with the empowered wife, but just ask questions, for it is not my role to give advice or make judgments. What does she think will be the impact on her daughter growing up with parents of such unequal security, and who are unable to be friendly in her presence? She is silent for a long time, but then says: I know, somehow I must get past the anger, but I’m not sure I ever will. It is said that revenge is sweet, but there is only bitterness here. |
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