Jake drove quietly after we left his mother's house.<\/p>\n
The streetlights passed over his face, then disappeared behind us.<\/p>\n
I sat with my hands folded in my lap.<\/p>\n
I wasn't angry in the way I had been that night in our bedroom.<\/p>\n
I was tired.<\/p>\n
There was a difference.<\/p>\n
Anger had made me want to explain everything until someone understood.<\/p>\n
Tiredness made me want to stop explaining.<\/p>\n
I had told Diane what I needed to tell her.<\/p>\n
Jake had supported me.<\/p>\n
Neither of us had shouted.<\/p>\n
Yet I couldn't shake the feeling that we had reached only the beginning of something.<\/p>\n
After a few minutes, Jake spoke.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'm sorry about dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned toward him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you sorry for?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor letting things get to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n
I watched him for a moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you want me to stay quiet?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen what do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
He sighed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't know. I just hate that things are like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
I understood that feeling.<\/p>\n
I hated it, too.<\/p>\n
But I was beginning to recognize that wishing a problem would disappear was not the same as doing something about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't like it either,\u201d I said. \u201cBut I don't think we can fix it by pretending we haven't been hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
We drove the rest of the way without speaking.<\/p>\n
When we reached our house, Jake parked in the driveway.<\/p>\n
Neither of us got out immediately.<\/p>\n
He looked toward the front door.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought buying a house would cause this much trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
I almost smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeither did I.\u201d<\/p>\n
He rubbed his hands together.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Mom offered to help us, I thought it would make everything easier.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo did I.\u201d<\/p>\n
He turned toward me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn't think she'd feel like she had a say in everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wanted to tell him that I had noticed the problem earlier than he had.<\/p>\n
I wanted to remind him of the times she had brought up the money and the times he had asked me to let things go.<\/p>\n
But I didn't think that would help us now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we both wanted to believe the help came without conditions,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess I never really thought about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I believed him.<\/p>\n
That didn't make the consequences disappear.<\/p>\n
But it helped me understand why he had been so reluctant to challenge his mother.<\/p>\n
He had accepted her help with gratitude.<\/p>\n
Then, without quite noticing, he had begun treating her approval as something he owed her in return.<\/p>\n
I had done something similar.<\/p>\n
I had tried to earn my place by being agreeable.<\/p>\n
Neither of us had stopped to ask whether the arrangement was fair.<\/p>\n
We got out of the car and went inside.<\/p>\n
I put my bag on the counter.<\/p>\n
Jake followed me into the kitchen.<\/p>\n
For a moment, we stood without speaking.<\/p>\n
Then he said, \u201cWhen she gets upset, I always feel like I've done something wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned toward him.<\/p>\n
He looked embarrassed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that sounds stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn't.\u201d<\/p>\n
He shook his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cI've spent so long trying to keep her happy that I don't know what to do when she's disappointed in me.\u201d<\/p>\n
I listened.<\/p>\n
It was the most honest thing he had said about his mother in a long time.<\/p>\n
I could understand the fear.<\/p>\n
I had my own version of it.<\/p>\n
Whenever Diane criticized me, I worried that she would tell Jake I wasn't good enough for him.<\/p>\n
Whenever she brought up the house, I worried that I had no real claim to the life we were building.<\/p>\n
I had tried to prevent those fears from becoming reality by making myself easier to accept.<\/p>\n
It hadn't worked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to think that if I could make her happy, she'd stop treating me like an outsider,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Jake looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't think that's going to happen just because I'm more patient.\u201d<\/p>\n
He lowered his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't want you to feel like an outsider.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I need you to help make sure I don't have to.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wanted to believe him.<\/p>\n
But this time, I didn't treat his promise as the end of the conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does that mean to you?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
He seemed surprised.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you say you'll help. What are you going to do differently?\u201d<\/p>\n
He thought for a moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'll stop asking you to let things go when she's the one crossing a line.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remained quiet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'll tell her when something isn't okay, even if she gets upset.\u201d<\/p>\n
He paused.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I'll stop acting like you and I need her permission to make decisions about our house.\u201d<\/p>\n
I felt my eyes sting.<\/p>\n
Not because the words were extraordinary.<\/p>\n
Because they were the words I had needed to hear from the beginning.<\/p>\n
I sat down at the kitchen table.<\/p>\n
Jake took the chair beside me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't want to lose my relationship with her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't want that either.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I can't keep doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoing what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaking you pay for the fact that I don't know how to say no to her.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn't answer immediately.<\/p>\n
I had spent so much time wondering whether he understood that his silence hurt me.<\/p>\n
Now he had said it himself.<\/p>\n
I could have told him that everything was forgiven.<\/p>\n
I could have wrapped my arms around him and promised that we would never have this problem again.<\/p>\n
But I didn't know whether that was true.<\/p>\n
So I told him the truth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love you, Jake. I want us to get through this. But I need to see these changes last.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat's fair.\u201d<\/p>\n
We sat together for a while.<\/p>\n
There was no argument to finish.<\/p>\n
No one needed to leave the room.<\/p>\n
For the first time in a long time, I felt that we were talking about the same problem instead of defending ourselves against each other.<\/p>\n
Later, I went upstairs to change.<\/p>\n
I took my robe from the closet and put it over the chair beside the bed.<\/p>\n
I looked at it for a moment.<\/p>\n
Then I smiled faintly.<\/p>\n
It was only a robe.<\/p>\n
It had never been the real issue.<\/p>\n
The real issue was whether I could live in my own home without feeling that someone else had the right to make me small.<\/p>\n
I was beginning to believe that I could.<\/p>\n
But belief was not the same as certainty.<\/p>\n
Jake came into the room a few minutes later.<\/p>\n
He stood beside the bed and looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan we start doing this differently?\u201d<\/p>\n
I reached for his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can try.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
That was enough for that night.<\/p>\n
We turned off the lamp and went to bed.<\/p>\n
I lay beside him in the dark, listening to his breathing.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether Diane would accept the changes.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether Jake would always find it easy to keep his promises.<\/p>\n
But I knew that our marriage could no longer depend on my willingness to swallow every hurt.<\/p>\n
I had spent too long trying to prove that I belonged.<\/p>\n
Now it was time for both of us to live as though I did.<\/p>\n
Jake drove quietly after we left his mother's house. The streetlights passed over his face, then disappeared behind us. I sat with my hands folded in my lap. I wasn't … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39089,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39069\/revisions\/39089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}