Her reaction was almost exactly as I had anticipated. I had transgressed the unwritten but heavily enforced censorship policy. Ours is a relationship not of equals but of supremacy. There is no way I could ever write any correspondence, even a note to the dry cleaners, without her aide. Hers is the ultimate authority in the marriage. I am here to make up the numbers.
It was foolish ever to have considered firing off a quick email to my friends, such as they are. I do not make any effort with them, save a few Facebook posts or a text message on their birthday. Yet they remain my friends, which must say something. My gross digression from the rule under which every missive, no matter how seemingly trivial must be vetted for tone, message and distribution, was to include unauthorised correspondence with her friends.
My friends remain my friends as outlined above. They are pilloried for not making more of an effort and are accused of not liking us as a coupling or her as a being. Yet they remain firmly my friends. Hers, meanwhile, must be referred to as our friends and I am expected to act as I would as if I had a bond other than an accident of circumstance.
Acting as if our friends were friends of mine is also an activity fraught with danger. Risqué jokes are verboten, anecdotes frowned upon and political discussions that range further than
Silence is always an unacceptable alternative to her increasingly exasperated berating. As with every situation, there is a disparity of meaning against expressed desire. Calls to be quiet, once observed, are followed of demands to explain myself. Self explanation leads to calls of misunderstanding her view. Requests for her side of the story are met by shouts that I should know what is making her upset.
I do not know what upsets her.
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