The Blame Game

The first time my husband tried to make love to me, he couldn’t. The second time he tried, same result. When it didn’t happen the third time, he started getting seriously paranoid. He reassured me in an increasingly more panicked voice that, “This has never happened before.” And, disappointed as I was, I was good. I told him not to worry, “we’ve got plenty of time.” And I meant it.

Though it was not funny at the time, we’ve since had our share of laughs at his (non) performance those first few times. We were in a hotel room, again, neutral territory, in a bed that had no ghosts or memories or previous associations for either of us. Fueled as we were by alcohol and desire, we were determined to go slow and make the first time special. Maybe things would have turned out better if we hadn’t been so damned insistent on being “romantic.”

He told me later that I’d just absolutely blown him away. After his divorce, he was adamant that he would stay single and footloose for a good long time. He decided to set a bar so high that no real girl could possibly hope to meet it. Well, surprise! Not only did I exceed his threshold, but I added things to the list that he hadn’t even considered. I was smart, accomplished, worldly, confident, well-read, well-traveled, sexy (he said), AND I also owned power tools and knew how to drive a tractor. In short, he said I was so perfect, I intimidated him.

Okay…. so it’s MY fault.

When I was in high school, I had a rock star boyfriend. I think the biggest reason I went with him was because his long hair drove my dad crazy. Being a rock star, he had a very strong sense of himself and his power over girls when he was on stage. Every time he played a high school dance or backyard party, the girls would swarm. Of course, he loved it. And of course, he couldn’t help himself. And when I caught him with some other girl, he told me that if I were a better girlfriend (secret guy code for if I’d have sex with him), he wouldn’t have to cheat. Now you know how I lost my virginity. Imagine my surprise when I found out that, even after I gave him the goods, he still cheated.

At the tender age of 17, I made a mistake and learned a hard lesson from it. But I figured out early on that nothing I do is ever an excuse for a guy’s bad behavior. And from that point on, I was pretty good at not putting up with crap – especially infidelity.

I was so charmed by the way my husband blamed his temporary impotence on me, it never occurred to me that this incident might foreshadow darker things to come. That there would always be some external reason why he wasn’t to blame for his shortcomings, his demons, his bad behavior…. And that because I would most often be the closest person at hand, the finger of blame would get pointed back at me.

At the time, I was so flattered to think that he considered me to be the paragon of perfection, that I never considered the possibility that he had told an elaborate lie to the woman he’d been seeing – and with whom he’d been the very night before – about his whereabouts that weekend. You bet, it was all my fault.


The Wife Who Knows