I'm currently reading The Fellowship of the Ring, book 1 in the Lord of the Rings series. The tale (at least as it's interpreted in the movies) has come to have special meaning to me, as I hope to post about later in my HLHS blog. That post will probably portray our marriage in a glowing light. However, I realized today that my marriage has also come undone by a ring's seductive power. As much as I admire the fiercely loyal Sam and puely resolute Frodo, we have a long way to go before we can say we aren't corrupted by the shiny power of a metal band. Hopefully esposo is not reading my little blog, but if he is, he can take solace in the fact the this sordid tale will probably cast him in a better light than it will me!
Esposo and I rarely fight. Sure, we disagree sometimes, but we usually work it out through discussion. I had a friend tell me a couple years ago that couples who don't fight have unhealthy marriages. Said friend is now divorced.
Yet, there are times in any marriage where one person (or both) feels like they aren't always listened to. You know, spouse asks you for advice/help and you comply...and they proceed to do the opposite of your recommendation and expect you to resolve the ensuing catastrophe. And you say, "if you had just listened to me...."
It's pretty easy to not listen to me all the time though, as I talk a lot, and we're new parents so there's usually a 1-year old babbling or screeching at the same time. Or, a 1-year old that we're trying not to wake up with barely audible whispers.
Another problem is that I hate hate hate surprises of any kind. There must be a secret control freak slumbering in the innermost core of my being, because I like to know the facts, and I like to know them ahead of time. No matter how "good" the surprise is, I would still rather be informed in advance. Esposo, on the other hand, likes sneaking behind my back and going on secret missions to fulfill quests that he hopes will please his loved ones. He can't stand it when I try to find out what my Christmas gifts are in advance, or when I want to give him his presents or birthday cards a couple days before his birthday so that he's not surprised the day of. I cannot relate to those people who choose not to know the sex of their baby before labor, and a surpise party sounds like a special place reserved in one's own private hell.
The other problem is that I've had my heart set on a ring for a very long time. At our local jewelry store, I've admired it for a couple years. It is (was) a black pearl (my name means pearl) set on a very thin yellow gold band. "This," I thought, "is a thing of beauty, a special thing." Impregnating my mind with all sorts of symbolic meaning, I liked to think it was a matter of time before esposo would make a present of it.
For Himal's 1st birthday, esposo went behind my back and bought a ring to surprise me. But it was not the black pearl ring. On Himal's birthday, he strode into the room with a huge smile on my face and said "surprise!" handing me a jewely box. I thought, "could it be?!" I opened it, and inside was...a huge, ornately-carved white gold ring with all of our birthstones on it. Now, I have simple tastes, and I don't wear big jewelry. In fact, I hardly have any jewelry at all, especially the kind most people would refer to as "jewelry." Ok, I have none, other than my wedding ring. I don't like rings with a lot of height or width, and I especially do not like white gold. I figure, if you're going to buy gold, it should look like gold. Not to mention, my wedding ring is yellow gold, and I think it looks tacky to mix white and yellow gold on one's fingers.
I was so taken aback. I tried to pretend that I liked it, and that I was pleased about the surprise, but I wasn't. In fact, I felt miserable about it, and resentful. Esposo would ask everyday if I was going to wear the ring, and I'd go retrieve it and pretend I was proud to wear it. But it was huge, and heavy, and banged into everything, and hurt my hand, and got caught on everything. The colors were all wrong and moreover, I just felt like...it wasn't me.
Finally, after a week, I confessed that I did not like the ring and that I would probably never wear it. I then went to the jewelry store with the intent of begging the owner to let me exchange the ring, to put it towards the black pearl ring I really wanted. When I got the store, the black pearl ring was...gone. 2 years of admiring, hoping, waiting...and suddenly it was gone.
I talked to the jewelry store owner about what I could do--explained to him that this ring would only bring me sorrow and that it was affecting my marriage. He finally agreed to let me exchange the ring for another--that is, he would put the stones in another setting. I finally chose a simple design, a much smaller, lighter ring.
It seemed like the end of story. Until the credit card bill arrived. Shockingly, esposo had spent a ton of money on this ill-fated piece of jewely. I don't know what came over me, but fury arose and I let loose all my feelings--that I was appalled he had made this big of a purchase without telling me, and that he had let me exchange a ring of such value for a ring that was maybe 1/3rd the price. I kicked myself for not keeping the original ring and just passing it down as a family heirloom. But most of all, I just felt anger that he hadn't listened to me. That he hadn't bought the ring I actually wanted--than he bought one of those mother's rings, which seemed so trite and unoriginal that it was unfathomable, an unimaginable stereotype. For his part, of course, he said that it was meant to be a gift, and that he was sorry. And I said I was sorry for not liking or appreciating it. But neither of us are really sorry--we're actually, deep down, sorry about what the other did.
So now the ring sits, burning a hole in my mind and jewelry box, just like Frodo's ring seemed to burn a hole in his pocket. A source of loathing or discontent, a source of intentions gone awry. Esposo says to just let it sit there, but in my mind, it will always be the ring I didn't want yet am forced to keep. How to make this situation right? Is this a big learning experience in our marriage--something we all go through, one of those incidents that will always be a legendary source of difference, like the spouse who unforgivably voted for Reagan that one time?! Or like the time, as a child, I was taken out for ice cream and witnessed the ice cream-throwin fight of a century because a husband committed the crime of buying his wife a dish of mint chocolate chip? One of those defining shockers that become the symbolic nexus for all the misunderstandings?
Maybe reading the LOTR series will be more cathartic than I ever imagined.
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