Broken Pieces

I broke a plate this morning and it felt good to smash it on the floor, to feel a morbid satisfaction from seeing it breaking into pieces (for a fraction of a second I thought it wouldn’t break). It was a moment of culmination that brought us back to our senses and stopped the fight when it barely started. Too bad it happened to be a plate from a brand new set so the remorse lingers: why I couldn’t I have picked out some old cracked bowl?!

I’ve broken enough plates in this relationship and the act always brings relief, inexplicable redemption; it’s like a period at the end of a long and confusing sentence when you run out of places to put commas. A timely explosion, a rather welcoming meltdown that prevents something bigger from breaking: it’s buried inside, so fragile and weak, but you’d rather break a brand new plate than let the fury in, than expose yourself to its demolishing power.

He said, “All your life is broken…” but in a calm voice now, since the crashing sound abruptly made screaming irrelevant for both of us. And he busied himself with cleaning the mess, which showed clearly that he took the blame. Unleashed anger can do more damage than we possibly imagine when blind rage sends only one command to your brain, “fight!” And before you know it, it’s too late and the words yelled out will be carved in both your memories forever and no amount of good make-up acts can erase them or help you pretend they were never said.

But he got it all wrong: broken plates do not symbolize my broken life or crushed hopes for happiness. I break them so as to stop us from breaking more important unfixable things. For a long time I considered it a coping method of mine but it does us both a service. It makes us both stop before we cross the line, it helps us go on unbroken. And maybe one day I will discover a less savage way of keeping us sane when we are about to lose it. But this morning the broken plate was the necessary sacrifice that saved both our faces.

"Leave My House" or My Reponse to a Comment

I got an emotional yet thought-provoking comment to my post "Stick With Reality" from one of the readers. I wrote such a long response that I might as well publish it as a separate post.


Hi Layla
I am not an avid blogger but started the day hoping to find some opinions that would guide my dead marriage.Its good to know that you are ready to unlock mysteries hidden inside your "someday good,someday bad" husband. I strongly believe that people tend to drag such relationship because they fail to see a better life outside.I am now married for 9yrs and have a lovely 7 yrs old boy. Its easy to say that I waited so long because I wanted to give my child a normal environment to grow. But the fights are becoming too frequent,many a times right in front of my son. After every fight my husband will succeed in pulling him in his side by way of taking him out or buying him expensive gifts. I know the poor child needs to be diverted from domestic hatred that is brewing among us adult but this has caused a big gap between me and him. He wants to be with his dad and sometimes when he is angry he even tells me to leave the house(the way his dad says) and that he wants to be with dad and not me.All these years I waited for him to grow....like this?
Still I would have thought of continuing,had there been a life of little dignity.
He doesn't want to talk..recently I begged him to talk but he shouted" I don't Value you" so no need to talk. "Get out","Go to your dad's house","leave my house"...these words are regular. I don't know,how am I going to do it...I know right now there is nothing better outside....but after many painful and sleepless nights,I have come to the decision to give my life a chance to live with dignity.

I am not a marriage counselor, I just share my own experience, but as a person who's been there I would like to respond to you.

I've heard things like "Pack your things and leave!" a number of times, I've been cursed at a number of times. I do not respond to any of that, I immerse myself into silence - not the "I'm-not-talking-to-you" type of silence, but the one that shows that I am ready to talk but only in a civilized way. Rudeness automatically turns on my "deafness" and "muteness" and that's the way to preserve my dignity and cool down his overheated temper. It's a waste of time to respond to these empty threats (if he truly wanted you to leave, he would personally pack your bags and put them outside the front door), but he uses them because it's a way to hurt you since you obviously still let these things get to you.

I devote so much of my time and attention to our son: reading to him, inventing games, helping with homework, watching kids movies together. And my husband just takes him to Toys R Us once every 3 months and it goes like "take whatever you want, son!" And immediately the scale shift to his benefit. So that's also familiar. But I know that in a matter of days all those cool toys will be scattered around totally forgotten. They will not be the central piece of his childhood memories when he grows up, but your love, attention, and shared experience will be.

The dangerous part is when your son begins mimicking his father and treats you without respect. In these situations I usually tell my son firmly, "I will only talk to you when you calm down and go back to being polite". I know he will outgrow it: for now it's nothing but a childish way to express negative emotions by copying the way adults do it. But I dread that one day he will treat his wife poorly so I do everything in my power to emphasize the cruelness of maltreatment - whether it's bullying at school, or husband yelling at his wife. I know that my stories and examples will root deeper than the impression caused by all the toys and games combined. Children grow up and the veil falls from their eyes: then they can judge everything for themselves and all the manipulative practices used on them in childhood come to the surface. And when it comes to my side of the parenting job I have no worries: I never attempt to buy love, I just give it unconditionally and it will be fully appreciated if not now then in a number of years.

I know your pain far too well because those are all familiar hurts. But not everybody has it the easy way. And I don’t encourage you to ignore the problems, just on the contrary make sure to have a “room” in your heart, where you store all the unfairness, the ill treatment, the abuse moments you experience in your marriage. This way you keep your eyes open and don’t pretend that things are fine. But make sure it’s not the only room or the biggest room. Make sure you preserve self-respect and communicate that you still have it in abundance. And sometimes it really helps to close up so that your husband’s poisonous “arrows” hit the wall and do no harm: when he can’t hurt you he may lose any interest in trying.

Feeling Hopeless In Marriage

I have my dark days. And when these days come, nothing that I do can help elevate the gruesome feeling of hopelessness and resentment. Then my thoughts begin to spin in circle: that’s not what I signed up for! I deserve better! It’s not fair! The inner storm escalates to a point where I beg for a sign pointing to the exit, something that says “escape is that way”, which I will follow without hesitation out of fear to explode. But there isn’t always escape, nor do I end up exploding with indignation. I plunge into deep mental work of sorting myself out, sorting us both out, letting the storm subside so that I can breathe normally again.

There are really two paths that I may choose to take: the dark and the happy one. And I’ve set down the dark path many times, always reaching the point when I knew I had to turn back, give it another chance. It’s the path of negative emotions, finding faults, blaming, hating and non-talking. Something you could rightfully call the “cold war” for no missiles are launched (such as filing for divorce) but the anticipation of the breakup is in the air. It’s when you do nasty things to each other to hurt back for all the past, present and future wounds, when all your actions are aimed at expressing contempt, even disgust. But you don't leave. Yet.

I’ve never walked down that road for more than a few days, a couple of weeks at maximum for the fear of destructive consequences this approach has on my soul. I would become a bitter scornful woman, get soaked with disdain. I would darken the already thick darkness. So I always chose to come back and initiate appeasement. But many people live in the state of cold war for years. And even as they head for divorce, the resentment lingers long afterward. No enemy left to fight but the fighting habit remains. And whole years are to be erased from you memory.

I don’t know how things will end for me. And I become even more clueless in my dark days. All I know is that I am not capable of choosing the path of hatred, I value my life and my dignity higher than that. Letting someone destroy you is as good as choosing to destroy yourself. So I will always choose the path of love and forgiveness, even knowing that this love is undeserved and unappreciated. Regardless the outcome, I want to be able to look back and see myself not losing dignity, rising above the hurt feelings. There’s always some light in our married days, weeks, years – our experience, our growth up to the point of complete transformation, all the wisdom that we acquire along the way. It’s just up to us whether we choose to see it or ditch these years as a complete waste of time.