My wife and I were driving and talking yesterday when I said, "Of course I’m dependent on you." "You are," she said. "And you’re dependent on me." I waited for her assent to that statement. None was forthcoming.
I dealt with my embarrassment analytically at first. I said, "But in cultures around the world, who is more dependent?" "By and large men are more emotionally dependent than women," my wife said, throwing me a sop.
I felt funny about it the rest of the day. The truth of our relationship is, I’m more emotionally/psychically dependent than she is. I require her approval. This is hardly the first time I’ve acknowledged this truth. I’ve always thought there is a Jewish element to the issue. I’m from a matriarchal family. My mother is stronger emotionally than my father, closer to the ground. She holds his tether, keeps him from floating away, and she made the big decisions. I gravitated to my wife because she’s a strong woman. She’s made most of the big decisions. Oh–I made a couple of them, I moved us to this new house; but it involved a lot of dithering and angst. I’m not a very decisive person. A luftmensch, more: "people without any roots in the social structure of society, without any occupation, without any regular livelihood; hawkers, rag and bone men, people who made a living as match-makers…" (per Isaac Deutscher, The Russian Revolution and the Jewish Problem).
I want to regain independence in my marriage. How will I do that? I will try and be more self-contained, I will try not to cling to the gunwhales of her boat as I tread water in this mad sea.
Will it work? Can I change the pattern of two decades? I’ve changed before, I say to myself. Can I just use my own brain in life, and navigate on that basis? Really I’m not sure how I’ll do on my own.
My wife went away for the weekend yesterday afternoon. I effected the new regime by not calling her. Or not calling her a hundred times, as she puts it. But when she calls this morning, to get a friend’s phone number that she left behind, I announce, "You’re dependent." "I’m the most dependent person in the world," she purrs, lying.
I vow not to make any more announcements of my new independence. I will just be the thing, not say it. I won’t power-leak. That’s my wife’s word for talking about something rather than doing it. She explained this to me a long time ago.
