Page 421 - WhyAsInY

no sMoKe, But fire
ence and iconoclasm had to have worn thin; and my craziness about watching how our money was spent was undoubtedly disturbing. (It is a craziness that definitely persists. I not only like to watch what is being spent, I keep track of every penny—now in the computer, then, at least starting at some point in the marriage, in a green spiral notebook. The argument that George Washington also kept precise track of his expen- ditures somehow did not hold water. I know that it is an extremely irritating practice, one that Kathy puts up with, infrequent outbursts aside. In Phyllis’s case, shortly after I became very angry when she forced us to owe a tiny amount of interest to Bloomingdale’s, the one account as to which postponed payment would quickly turn into a loan, I had a front-row seat for the evisceration of the green notebook. I pre- sume that when Kathy finishes reading this, she will toss my desktop over the rail that surrounds our deck. Believe it or not, some wives view my presidential habits as “controlling.”)
But, at least as far as I was concerned, the foregoing did not seem to pose critical problems for the marriage. We had the children, we laughed, we socialized, we skied, we biked, we played bridge (which I had taught Phyllis), and we were part of a community, and of a family. What more could there be?
Increasing religion, increasing commitment to the temple, to the rabbi, to the Rebells, to Harry—all must have burdened me but were all things that could not really be discussed. If, for example, I didn’t think that putting on a suit and going to synagogue with Harry and Phyllis after a long week at the office was what I really wanted to do, Phyllis was perfectly fine with that. She was going. If I didn’t want to, that was my choice. But in my immaturity, that wasn’t good enough. I had to please, so I would go anyway, not exactly hiding my lack of enthusiasm. She had to have resented my reaction and seen it as passive aggression. So, I wasn’t exactly getting bonus points for my efforts. When I finally expressed my view that Phyllis was spending what I thought was too much time with Turetsky, I was met with silence and a stony stare.
Beyond Phyllis’s non-reaction when I stopped smoking, there were other signs that I should have seen as meaningful and threatening.
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