The summer I came back to the States, the fall I chose never to go back to Iran, I told myself that if I could just get away from my husband’s family, just gain a little control, then all my troubles would magically disappear. I understood that if I refused to go back, I would likely end up divorced. I summed up my decision as a logistical one. I wanted to live in the States. He wanted to live in Iran.
Four months later, my husband appeared on my mother’s front stoop.
On the outside, I was surprised, because I figured that in his outrage he had written me off. On the inside, I was disappointed. Because I didn’t know which was more impossible, re-negotiating the dynamics in our relationship, or letting go of a boatload of attendant resentment.
What I did know was that I was tired. I didn’t have the energy reserves to work at my marriage anymore. Or the patience to unravel the hundreds of hurtful incidents knotted hopelessly together that, when separated from the whole, could only appear stupid and petty.
Or to put right the big things that, when combined with the little, beat the limping thing right into the ground
But, more, I didn’t want the fights I knew were looming, the recriminations, and that injured look on his face put there by my betrayal. I didn’t want to live in the aftermath of my brutal breach of faith. To have my nose rubbed in a puddle of guilt.
Being a coward, I sidestepped responsibility. I told him I could offer our marriage no guarantees, that it was up to him, his personal choice, if he walked away from his country, the dream job at the university, his extended family, and all that prestige, when I knew, in my heart of hearts, that it was way too late. That I no longer loved him. That I wanted him to shake hands with me and concede defeat.
After we divorced, I chalked up our failure to a broad generalization. From what I’d seen, the longevity of Iranian/American mixed marriages had little to do with happiness, and everything to do with a remarkable ability to slog through tribulation. It felt good that it wasn’t my fault, or his, just the natural consequence of an impossible situation.
Then one day my ex-husband stopped over to pick up our kids. He was unhappy, the kids were unhappy, and, feeling the cause of it all, I had to wonder, as I’m prone to do, if I’d been too hasty. I hadn’t really given him the chance to try and fix things. I probably hadn’t even presented a clear list of my harbored grievances. I hadn’t had the guts to allow my husband to express his pain. I had wanted out before that horror show began. I had lacked—just one more thing that I lacked—the perseverance to sit through the storm.
Because I had avoided that discomfort, I spent the next few years paying the price by second-guessing myself. What might have happened had I given the guy a chance to fix what ailed me? When he got sick with cancer, I felt a thousand times worse.
Long after my ex-husband died, I realized that it wasn’t just his pain I had wanted to avoid; I hadn’t wanted to face myself. I hadn’t wanted to know what was in there—in that mess I called me—to have to put into words what I wanted, thought, or felt.
I was terrified of the truth; because to reveal yourself by telling what is so, is to risk confrontation, disappointment, rejection, and disgust.
Evasion isn’t sexy and mysterious. It’s just a cheap slipcover for a lack of self worth. Or so it was, is, for me.
How incongruous that all the while we present the false self, what we truly long for is raw intimacy. We long for someone to know us as we are—with all that we have done and all that we want—and accept us. We long to tell our all. We long to be whole in someone’s sight: know this about me, and yet love me. Please. Yet we can’t bear the thought.
Who are you, and what do you want?
Until you know this, you won’t risk true intimacy.
