Pleasant melancholy and the Black Pit of Despair:

Pleasant melancholy and the Black Pit of Despair Part III: The chain is forged

For Part I go here. For Part II go here.

Melancholy...

It serves a purpose. The only way to truly understand and learn is to dissect, to deconstruct. Melancholy allows us to review our missteps, to relive our mistakes in a way that is strangely pleasant. That reliving is necessary if we are ever to learn from our pain. Melancholy is agreeable in the same way that listening to the Blues can stir the heart in pleasurable sadness. There is a reason that the Blues are still a viable music form. There is a reason why the Blues are best listened to while drinking Scotch.

I have described the slow deterioration of my marriage to Ayla. She had slept with another man, a married man with children, when she and I were separated but supposedly working on our relationship. I decided to take a job in another city without discussing it with her, because she had chosen to NOT discuss with me her decision to sleep with a married man, a decision that affected our lives together at least as much as my taking a job in a different city.

I moved to Austin in June of 1996. I was working for a new company, and I threw myself into my work. Instead of research and development, I was now developing a manufacturing process for a state of the art integrated circuit that we were transferring to production. It was a new experience for me, and I threw myself into it completely to forget about my woes. I was working 60 hours a week on average, with some weeks going up to 80 hours.

In August, Ayla came down to visit me in Austin. The visit went reasonably well, and I thought we were on track to end our separation and get back together. Then, in December, the week of Christmas, I traveled back to Portland to visit Ayla in the house I was still paying for. She and I slept together, then, while we were still in bed together not having dressed she told me she was still sleeping with the same married man she had been sleeping with before I moved to Austin.

I couldn't catch my breath. I couldn't believe that she chose that moment to tell me and not before we had sex. Strangely enough, I felt guilty. I felt I had driven her to this because I had married her because I felt I could never find another who would marry me instead of marrying her because I loved her (quite a chain of "because" there, but I didn't realize it at the time). I have been told I have an “overly developed sense of responsibility”, and my feelings of having “driven her to sleep with someone” was an unmistakable product of that misguided sentiment.

Even after her confession, I was still trying to save the marriage, even though I had told her after her first revelation that if she continued to sleep with that married man that I couldn't guarantee that we would stay together. I felt responsible, even though it was her and not me who had chosen to break the marriage vows.

Ayla had a friend, Carol, who had a bad breakup and moved to Portland to forget her old relationship and move on to a new life. Carol had known about Ayla's infidelity, but had remained silent. Carol was lonely and afraid. Ayla thought that if she managed to get Carol and me to sleep together, she could absolve her infidelity and gain a hold over both Carol and me at the same time.

Ayla encouraged both Carol and me down the path that she had chose for us, talking to each of us separately, being remarkably subtle in her plan. Ironically enough, her plan succeeded all too well. I spent an evening with Carol in her apartment, and I discovered I could be attractive to a woman who wasn't Ayla. Carol and I didn't sleep together that first evening, but on the day after Christmas, Ayla, Carol, and I met to go out. Carol had been drinking, and she couldn't keep her hands off me. Eventually, we made it to Carol's apartment, Ayla left, and I slept with Carol. After this surreal experience, with my wife encouraging me to sleep with another woman, I realized there was nothing wrong with me, that I could indeed be attractive to other women, that I had married Ayla for the wrong reason.

It was a revelation in the deepest sense of the word to me. I had never before considered that I was a good person that women might desire. In my exhilaration, I decided that rather than continuing a marriage that was a sham, we should divorce. I thought that we would both be happier pursuing our own, separate paths.

What I didn't realize at the time was that Ayla had married me for the wrong reasons as well; I truly thought she had married me out of love, and in all fairness, she thought she had married me out of love as well. She was as wrong about her motives as I was, and that misunderstanding was the final link in the chain that dragged me into the Black Pit of Despair. Like the crash of an airplane, like the derailment of a train, like any catastrophe, there was a chain leading up to my fall into the Black Pit of Despair. If any link had been broken, I would not have fallen into the pit, just like as in any chain of events if one of many critical decisions or events had gone differently, the catastrophe would have been avoided. The chain was complete, though, and the doom was upon me. I was irretrievable on my way down into the Pit, although I thought I was on my way to freedom.

To be continued...

Posted by Jack at 22:25 on Tuesday 3 February 2004 | Trackbacks (3)
The Bejus Pundit linked with Part III
Blackfive - The Paratrooper of Love linked with Wednesday Warp
The Brier Patch linked with Random Fate