Us by Terrence Real

Author:Terrence Real [Real, Terrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harmony/Rodale
Published: 2022-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

The Blessing of Repair

Repair is the final third of the cycle of harmony, disharmony, and repair. I call the stage of repair knowing love. Here you are utterly aware of your partner’s failings and shortfalls—the temper that’s too big, the affection that’s too small, the sloppiness, or stinginess, or impulse to control—and yet you choose to love them anyway. What the relationship gives you far outweighs what it lacks. And so you embrace those parts of your partner that, left on your own, you might avoid.

Mike is toxically selfish and painfully immature. He also adores his wife and kids—though you’d never know it by the way he’s been behaving. Does Angela want him still? Yes, if he can grow up and stay faithful. She loves her big hulk of a guy. Is he the world’s most sensitive husband? Hell no. But he lights her up with his stupid grin, and when the five of them are together, what can she say? It’s home.

“You have a choice,” I tell Mike. “You can submit to being married, or you can be free and go back to being single. You just can’t do both at the same time.”

Mike looks long and sorrowfully at his wife. He’s so completely awkward with his feelings, so inarticulate, that I almost feel sorry for him, until I recall all the damage he’s done.

“I’m sorry, Ange,” he says. “I don’t know what else…I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

Sitting next to him, she bristles.

I intervene. “Listen,” I tell her. “Just listen to the guy.”

Mike stares down at the floor.

“Look at her,” I tell him. “Tell her.”

“It’s just…” he begins, frustrated that he can’t find better words. “Angela, it’s just—you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. You and the kids, I mean. You’re everything.”

“Then act like it,” she answers coldly.

“I know, I know. I’ve been a total shit, I get it.” She looks up at him. “I’m an asshole. I know it. I don’t deserve it. But if you did, Ange. If you could somehow forgive me. I would never…”

“Yeah?” she says, waiting, unimpressed.

“I’d never hurt you again. Not like that. Not ever, Ange. Or put my family at risk. If you could…I know. I know. I don’t know why you would. But if you ever could forgive me, learn to trust me again.” He pauses, looks at her.

She raises her face toward him.

“Never again, sweetheart. I can’t begin to tell you.”

Soft, undefended, Mike pleads his case. “I will never hurt you like that again. I’ll do anything,” he says.

“Good,” I tell him. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

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