Sept. 22, 2012

Today, I realized—my parents must be manically lonely. I mean, they have been married for over two decades and they don’t talk much (unless you count fighting), and they don’t spend much quality time together (again, unless you can count fighting as quality time). I wonder what that must be like—being married to someone and ending more like resentful, detached roommates instead of spouses. It’s like Mae from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof once said, “Living with somebody you love can be lonelier than living entirely alone, if the one you love doesn't love you.”

Now maybe my parents still love each other in a way, but passionate love or intimate love has definitely fallen to the wayside. It’s companionate love. It’s dead companionate love. It’s more like they’ve been together too long without doing anything exciting, constructive, or intimate together. It’s like everything has just gone out of it, like a balloon deflated, a light bulb burnt out. Or Woody Allen would call it a “dead shark.”

My father works night shift and spends his days alone and drinking. Sitting on the porch and drinking. Sitting in front of the computer and drinking. Watching documentaries and drinking. And my mother? Well, she escapes into religion. That’s her addiction. That’s her drug. Escaping into church and prayer and Jesus Christ. Escaping into what she calls “the only thing to ever really love her endlessly and unconditionally.” She spends her days at work and her nights with her lord and savior. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with religion. Or even drinking, but it’s when people look to that for sole companionship…it gets sad.

As for a social life, my parents don’t spend time with friends very much. They don’t have many hobbies to pursue. My dad will practice singing every once in a while (he’s actually pretty good at it), my mom will go read her prayer books and maybe do gardening. They go to work, they go to church together on Sunday, go out to eat…and then what? Back to the daily grind? Back to the crushing loneliness and the total alienation from friends, family, and meaningful social activity? And the other sad part is I don’t want to go back to them. I don’t want to come home and have to be their companion. I can be their daughter and their friend, but I’m not their life partner, nor should I BE their life partner. They chose a life partner, over two decades ago, and now they’ve become detached roommates, casual acquaintances, strangers passing in the night. These two people who are never going to divorce, highly unlikely to separate, and probably not going to fall back in love with each other…what are they going to do? I now see how a marriage takes work. I see how a couple can fall into a routine that then becomes a rut. And from a financial, cultural, and practical standpoint, I see how hard it is to go separate ways. I mean, how could they ever go to counseling? Would they be able to find someone who speaks their language? Understand their cultural values? Take the time to get to know them and the hardships they’ve been through? If they didn’t live together, how would they fare? My mom would need someone to translate for her. My dad would need emotional support, nurturing. They rely on each other financially and practically. And what would their friends say? They live in a culture where spouse separation is a big deal, and they don’t want to lose face. They don’t want people talking. Besides, they got married because that’s “what you do.” They had kids because that’s “what you do.” They stayed together because that’s WHAT YOU DO. It’s what they were raised with…and everything they’ve ever known.  And then what would they think of themselves? It’s not so easy to make it on one’s own. Would they able to survive?

In either case, I don’t think they’re going to separate, but conversely, if they stayed living together, would they ever take steps to improve anything? Would they ever renew a commitment to having a marriage and not just having a “dead shark”? What will happen?

I’m curious to see, a few years down the road, how my parents are doing, both individually and as a unit. Will their relations ever improve or will their marriage slowly corrode from the inside out, making them drift further and further apart until there’s nothing there but an empty void and the whisper of a marriage that once was…