My first impression of my wife wasn’t the greatest. She was conversing loudly in a foreign language and broken English with a heavy accent while holding a cigarette in one hand and a drink in another, hair tied back in a short ponytail and wore an ugly navy-blue uniform. But she was beautiful. Bold and straight-forward, but attractive. I was a little taken aback at such a bizarre combination and was unsure how to react.
We met when I was 24, embarking on a new adventure and writing a new chapter of my life by myself for myself. I had just graduated from university a semester before, and I was eager to get out of the city I had resided in for too long. She was 26 and her life was a routine at work, but she had traveled most of the world. Being the breadwinner in her family, she was on her third contract with Royal Caribbean Cruises and would have easily gone on to her fourth if we hadn’t met.
Our relationship progressed in lightning speed. It might have even skipped all stages and went straight from meeting each other to “all-in” in a month. So when she asked if I would like to marry her on an elephant ride in Phuket, Thailand, I was shocked. Throughout our relationship, she had always thought we were never going to make it. Being the pessimist she is, she was a constant reminder that love is a battlefield. Warning bells were going off all over the place and signals for a disaster were in big, bold, red print, but I was adamant. It was as if I saw commitment/ marriage as a task or a challenge to be conquered – I knew it would take a lot of work, and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. It was sort of like a bet against myself: I betted that I would win and love would prevail. Less than a year after we met, we had gotten married. She relocated to Vancouver and applied for permanent residency so we could build a life together here, in Canada.
But like all things Murphy’s Law, our lives didn’t pan out the way we would have loved it to. She couldn’t work for an entire year while we waited for the government to process our papers. Sure, she earned scraps babysitting and doing odd jobs on occasion, but this is a woman who used to work 55 hours a week and made double my income! Suddenly now the tables were turned. Our dynamic wasn’t equal anymore; almost everything in this materialistic world depended on money, and we didn’t have enough of it. We quickly blew through our savings (there weren’t much to begin with), and I had to pick up a second job making minimum wage at a fast food franchise. But we were flexible and accommodating individuals when it comes to livelihood. We cherished each other and made do with what we had. When I had free time I’d spend it all with her, and the times we were together we were happy. Still, nothing could have prepared us for what was coming. They say that “An idle mind is the devil’s playground” – now I finally understand how toxic it can be.
After the 6-month mark of our marriage, we had started to fight a lot more on an ongoing basis. She was feeling idle and stuck, and I felt anxious but helpless. We were constantly in a rut and there was no way out until we hear back from immigration. We’d fight about the smallest things, which I felt were ridiculous, nonsensical, and practically unconstructive. I am a temperate person, but she is most definitely the opposite. Our ways of dealing with anger didn’t help much, either. When I’m angry I have to get away. I need space to cool down before further discussion is to be had. She, on the other hand, is the hotheaded idealist. She needs to talk about the matter right then and there before she can move on or cool down. There have been fights where I simply vanished. I would slip away quietly into the cold, silent night. But there have also been instances where I was trapped in our room: she would block the door to prevent my escape. Either way I’d end up in tears or she’d end up bawling her eyes out because she thought I was never coming back. We both knew we have very different ways of dealing with our emotions and needed to negotiate to come to a compromise, but neither could help the other when we were in the heat of the moment. A compromise was usually unsuccessful.
A year and a couple of months after our wedding, she was granted a work permit. She got a job within weeks, and we lucked out with an apartment minutes walk away from her workplace. It seemed like life could only get better. We were finally able to start living our lives together as equal partners and contributors to the household. But something was amiss… We weren’t as intimate as we used to be and we had started to get bored with our time together. Jealousy, paranoia and insecurities began to surface more frequently. Her passion for us and our life; our future, started to fade. It was a slow and invisible transformation; all that time spent in the devil’s playground meant that her troubling past was now catching up with her.
I was naive. I knew she had become more irritated, easily stressed, and somehow distant. But I had no clue how to make her feel better other than reassuring her daily of my devotion and love while being a responsible provider. One time I told her that our relationship felt like that of a parent-child relationship, with her being the child who is yet to grow up and me being the kind, caring and loving parent. She laughed and agreed.
Just before summer of 2014 started, our life hit a huge roadblock. On one nice evening out with a friend, my wife started to voice her concern about me going over to a friend’s new place to help get her place in shape. We chatted and joked about how ridiculous my wife’s insecurities were – to think that I’d get up to no good with this friend who she was just hanging out with days ago. Now, it certainly didn’t help that she knew I had a crush on said friend years ago, but I was totally over it and in love with my wife! Nevertheless the evening progressed, and my wife’s seething insecurities seemed to have been contained or dismissed as more alcohol were consumed.
Things escalated quickly out of hand back at the apartment. She began to transform into fiery balls of fury. She charged at me, grabbed me out of the computer chair I was sitting in and pushed me against the wall. I was scared, sure, but to be completely honest I wasn’t surprised. My instincts kicked in and I knocked her against the wall. Our physical brawl ended in a visit by the police. I was angry, sad, disappointed, embarrassed and upset. I could not believe that I had to fight about hanging out with a friend. I could not believe something so minute could anger her so greatly. I could not believe that she laid her hands on me, but most of all I was disheartened to discover through the tears, scars and bruises that this time, she really went off the deep end.
I spent a night at a friend’s and went back the next day. My wife and I sat down and talked. She apologized and promised it would never happen again. We agreed that she needed help – help I had no idea where to ask for. I tried – meditation retreats, fitness/ exercise retreats, and even adventure/ hiking type retreats – any option that will give us time and space apart while keeping her mind and body busy for at least a week. But nothing interested her. She started to see her psychologist again, who immediately diagnosed her with borderline personality disorder (this name is hugely misleading – I suggest you look it up instead of assume what you think it is). Our initial enthusiasm to find help started to dwindle, and I got back to carrying the burdens of paying the bills.
My wife spent most of the 2nd half of summer away from home – she had the summer off because her workplace wasn’t able to give her enough hours, and she was too proud to take on a minimum wage job. She met a friend during the pride festival who lives an hour’s drive out of town. But I wasn’t overly concerned – I was actually glad that she finally had someone whom she could call a friend! I know it takes time to adjust to brand-new everything, and having a friend could certainly help make the process easier. So I let her go have her fun and I kept on with work, thinking that providing a roof over our heads and not letting our stomachs go hungry were enough to keep our relationship and life together status-quo.
I thought that our last saving grace would be the PR, which was finally approved and arrived just before summer ended! We were overjoyed and relieved. The waiting game finally came to a close! Our relationship, however, did not take a turn for the better. There was always something brooding just underneath the surface. By the end of summer there had been fights, infidelities, talk of an open relationship, and a lonely birthday.
Then, it happened again. In mid September my wife again slipped over to the dark side and lashed out her anger at me. Even though I may have indirectly caused her to flip the switch this time, I’ve had enough. I was fed up with her attitude and my constant battle for peace at home. I was trying so hard to maintain a healthy relationship with her that staying in it no longer made me happy. I told her that I cannot help her if she doesn’t want to be helped. It made me incredibly sad to realize that I cannot help her, that maybe she never wanted help or that she’s lost all hope and she’s given up on herself already. That last little shred of faith I had in her was shattered into a million little pieces, and so did my heart.
After that incident a plethora of diagnoses came from a psychologist, and my wife was put on light doses of medication. But as hard as it was, I decided to put my foot down and let love run its course. There are some things in this world that just can’t be helped. Maybe my wife is one of those precious gems that have gathered too much dust and if no one picks it up to polish it, it remains an ugly stone. Or maybe, just maybe, my wife needs a good slap or two on the side of her head to help her realize her potential and use her ambitious nature to take charge of her life. The truth of it is, drawing a boundary for myself from our relationship (read: separation) doesn’t mean I’ve given up on her. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about her; it doesn’t mean I don’t think about her, and it certainly doesn’t mean I don’t love her anymore.
Sometimes, I wish love could work its magic and we would find our way back to each other again.
Where's My Dime? 