Gifts

My parents met at a party. She spoke no English and his German was so bad, she asked someone what language he was speaking.

From what I gather, the early part of the relationship was filled with funny incidents where they misunderstood each other terribly due to the language barrier and ultimately laughed about it.

She was a beautiful woman and very thin and one day went on about needing a girdle for her dress while my father acted like she was nuts. Girdle is the German word for belt. He thought she meant she needed undergarments to flatten her stomach.

He was in the army and would go away for his work for weeks at a time. He would write her love letters in English and then translate them word for word by looking up words in an English-German dictionary.

She was high pregnant and took to reading his letters on the toilet because she would laugh so hard, she would pee herself. He would try to lovingly say "I can't wait to hold you in my arms again" and it would angrily read "You just wait til I get my hands on you!"

They spent years speaking half English, half German to each other. One day, my father comes home and says to her:

Ich habe ein gift fur dir.

It's all in German except the word gift. He bought her a present and told her in German "I have poison for to give you." because gift means poison in German.

She stood there wondering what the hell she did that he wished to poison her. They were still able to laugh about it once they straightened it out and it was retold as a funny story for many years which is why I know of the incident.

She eventually learned English. And then the honeymoon was over and the ugly fights began between two people who still didn't understand each other but now imagined they did.

My relationship to my ex husband began with an argument and the arguing never stopped. We were both very articulate, well read individuals with a large vocabulary and it took me ages to realize we had serious communication problems.

Our arguments focused on nailing each other to the wall over "you SAID...!" and not on trying to understand each other. This is part of why I had relationships during my divorce with men from other cultures who spoke English as a second language.

I was able to tell more than one man very sincerely "I have no idea what you are talking about. I never said that. I NEVER thought that. This is a misunderstanding."

My sister once said to me that she understood why my mom sometimes just left the room rather than answer my father, a pattern I hadn't noticed. Their marriage had reached a point where the words got in the way and the deeper misunderstandings remained no matter how many words they threw at the issue.

I was very aware that my long distance relationships to men from other cultures helped keep it in the humorous misunderstanding honeymoon stage. Meeting in person would have almost certainly involved much more serious issues rooted in different mental models and assumptions turning presents into poison more serious than "That's not what I meant by that word."

I can say pretty words about these men in part because an affair means always seeing each other at your best for pleasantries and not having to deal with each other's literal and figurative dirty laundry.

I learned many things from Navarre who was Persian and it was a tremendous growth experience. But my big takeaway was that marriage involves mutual commitment to deal with real world issues in both lives.

The relationship ended because we never had that. He never paid my bills. He never left his wife. I wasn't a kept woman.

So as my divorce proceeded forward, I left California and moved in with my parents and got a job. And he no longer had ready, consistent access to inconsequential pleasantries and moved back home to the woman he actually loved and worked it out with her.

Marriage was never on the table in his mind. He politely made that clear anytime I made an issue out of it.

I once noted "You've never once told me you love me." He replied "I'm in love with love."

I would tell him I wanted to marry him and have his baby, he would say "You flatter my ego." but he also once told me "To leave my wife and marry you would require me to insult TWO women."

The truth is it was a completely escapist fantasy on my part and had he talked about getting with me and tried to make it happen, I would have had to balk because I was celibate for medical reasons and I still am many years later.

What I felt for him was a nice experience and he let me have that and chose to not squelch it while making it clear he absolutely wasn't making plans for a future with me anytime I pressed such questions.

We never broke up. We just drifted apart as I did what I had to do to pay my bills and make my life work as a divorcing woman not willing to promptly remarry as the solution to my financial situation.

We chose to be kind to each other for a time and then chose to walk away and not ruin each other's lives. And I feel okay about that, personally.