Sibling Assignment #47: Failure at Reconciliation

I gave me and my sisters this assignment:

"My WR 121 class has been studying reconciliation and reading all these papers about their struggles and successes with reconciliation makes me want to write about reconciliation.So, write a post about an experience you have had with reconciliation. It might be a successful reconciliation with a person you were in conflict with. It might be reconciliation with your self you were out of sorts about. It might be about a reconciliation that has never happened and maybe never will. It might be coming to reconcile yourself with an idea that had bugged you for a long time. I think these reconciliation posts would be enhanced by each of us writing, at some point in the post, about what we understand "reconciliation" to mean and where we look in our lives for examples of reconciliation that help us measure our successes and failures at reconciliation. Have fun!"

You can read InlandEmpireGirl's piece titled "The Winter Dance", here and Silver Valley Girl's post on the ministry of reconciliation, here.

Here's mine:

I hate writing this.

I'm a failure at reconciliation.

To reconcile requires being in the presence of someone I have hurt or someone who has hurt me.

I'm terrible at this.

I hate knowing I've hurt another person and can barely face the truth of hurting another when I've done it, and find being in that person's presence almost impossible.

Likewise, I hate to be in the company of someone who has hurt me.

Moreover, I'm awful when it comes to reconciling myself to things I don't want to be true.

Over the past few months, I began to take account of my failures at reconciliation as my students and I were studying the ideas of loss, survival, and reconciliation in WR 121.

My mind kept going back to the end of my first marriage, all the way back to 1982.

Irreconcilable differences. By signing a divorce agreement, I submitted to the idea that our marriage must end because of irreconcilable differences.

I didn't know what those irreconcilable differences were and did not reconcile myself to the fact that they existed.

I obsessed for several years, wanting to reconcile with Eileen. I obsessed about this in my head, picturing imaginary scenes of reconciliation over and over again. I obsessed in my chatter with others, talking about Eileen endlessly with anyone who would listen to me, and when I wore out that person, I looked for others.

As far as making contact with Eileen, I didn't do much. I had surrendered my sense of self-security and worth to her acceptance of me. Her rejection of me and facing more of it terrified me. Unable to reconcile myself to the fact of our divorce, I continued our marriage in my imagination and, of course, all I experienced in this imagined relationship was rejection and, in turn, deep self-hatred.

Maybe that's why I kept insisting within myself that Eileen and I could still be friends. Part of me foolishly held out hope that we could reconcile our broken marriage. To me, it wasn't broken. I couldn't reconcile myself to the fact that we were through.

In the fall of 1983, Eileen called me to say she planned to get married as a Roman Catholic and so our marriage would have to be annulled. Desperate for Eileen's approval, I numbly agreed to cooperate with the annulment.

I couldn't reconcile myself to what was happening. Emotionally, I had never divorced Eileen. Having our marriage annulled, annulled me. That our marriage could be treated as null, annulled my moral compass. I fell into despair. Annulled, nothing much mattered to me. I became emotionally, sexually, spiritually, and professionally cynical. The annulment hollowed me.

I recovered a sense of moral integrity, however, when I opposed the annulment. I felt a vigor for doing the right thing I hadn't felt for quite a while as I composed my self-righteous and what I knew would be my futile essay objecting to the annulment.

Even with our marriage annulled and Eileen's second (first?) marriage inevitable, I continued to pine for reconciliation. I pined for some kind of sit down with Eileen. I was delusional. I imagined we could still sit down have last words together. I thought we could express forgiveness. I thought such a meeting would help me let go of our marriage.

My delusions of reconciliation peaked in the spring of 1987. One weekend, I retreated in silence at Our Lady of Guadeloupe Trappist Monastery from Friday evening until Sunday at noon. On Saturday evening I listened to a tape about the story of Jesus directing his apostles, while failing at fishing, to cast their nets on the other side of the boat where the fish filled their nets.

I don't remember the equation, exactly, but somehow this tape and this biblical story "divinely inspired" me to write a long letter to Eileen: I wrote as if we were still close, as if my inward travails and my desire for reconciliation were as pressing to Eileen as they were to me; I wrote as if the fact that I felt God calling me to write this letter would move Eileen to want to see me and settle our relationship once and for all.

Eileen didn't want anything to do with any of this and replied with a brief note asking me never to contact her again.

I never have and never will.

I'm not sure I've ever really learned to live with how broken I was for so many years and with how my brokenness, desperation, and weakness made any kind of reconciliation between me and Eileen impossible.

I'm still haunted by this failure at reconciliation.