Now It Can Be Told

 Almost three years ago, I took both of my kids with me to visit my best friend Heather and her family in California. My best friend and I have been an item since the first day of eight grade, when we met at the bus stop. We were both new kids at school -- I had come from Rockland County, New York while she was from a different school district in the same county. We bonded over our observations of the school, the other kids, and feeling out of place in rural, coastal Half Moon Bay. She lasted a month before arranging to return to her old middle school, while I stuck it out.

We reconnected in 9th grade, and this time we stuck together for our high school years and beyond. Now we had kids who were in middle school, and because everyone's spring break dates aligned, we had time to explore, share stories, and rest. One morning we went out to breakfast and Heather talked about an incident from nearly twenty years ago.

My husband (at the time) and I had visited California with his family to watch his cousin graduate from UC Santa Cruz. This meant most of the trip would include his extended family but we had one day set aside to visit Heather, so we drove to her house to meet up, parked, and piled into her car for a trip to San Francisco.

We hit the tourist spots -- Fisherman's Wharf, and even did a tour of Alcatraz. On a walk through the city back to the car, my husband split off to a parallel street. I remember feeling anxious about it, while Heather looked annoyed. It felt like a loyalty test -- was I going to follow him, or stay with Heather? We are so often expected to place our romantic relationships above our friendships. If your spouse doesn't get along with your platonic friends, it can isolate you. Loyalty tests are not part of love.

There were many little things like this in my marriage, unspoken rules that I learned along the way all in place to ensure I remained considerate of his feelings. Meanwhile, I never seemed to look closely enough at his actions to decide what was abnormal, or what felt inconsiderate of my feelings.

Towards the end of our day out, Heather drove us across the Golden Gate Bridge. I sat in the front passenger seat, laughing and joking with her, while my husband had the back all to himself. At some point he decided to remove his sock and shoe and foist it into the front, on my side of the car. Heather made light of it by laughing and pointing to the splatter shaped glittery sticker she had affixed to the inside of the passenger door that said, "What's that Smell?" I snapped a photo with my disposable camera. We joked and laughed and I had never paused to think, this isn't normal. This is not a thing I would do if the situation were reversed and I was in the back seat while my husband and his friend spent time catching up in the front. 

This was the story Heather shared with my kids about their dad as we sat in a restaurant booth eating breakfast. They didn't know. While that incident really happened and I still have the photographic evidence, I had filed it away. There were a few things like that -- so outlandish and weird that I kept it to myself, partly out of not wanting to tell on my spouse (which is the type of thing that keeps experiences of dysfunction and abuse quiet), and partly out of shame. If you let it sink in that you married a person who resorts to removing their sock and shoe to place their bare foot into the passenger seat where you were sitting instead of opting to use their words, it can feel like you supremely fucked up your choice in your person. At the same time you can play it off. Oh, it was just a failed attempt at humor. It's harmless. Lighten up, Francis!

The kids were incredulous. Mommy, did he really do that?! Oh my God! It shifted their view of their father and at the same time made them pay attention to incidents with him that felt off kilter. The story has become a litmus test my oldest kid uses when she meets a friend of mine. "Did she tell you about the foot?" The friends that don't know all have the same reaction. WTF?!

We are no longer married and I don't have to "protect" him out of a sense of loyalty anymore. The foot incident was shocking, funny and harmless, and one of many things that happened in the course of over two decades that I remembered but buried. We marry as adults on the outside while being emotionally immature, resorting to playing games, being shocking, getting revenge and testing our loved ones all in an attempt to get attention, and under that, be loved. I'm guilty of my own embarrassing antics, but I am also done being ashamed and staying quiet.