Road Trip

It’s funny to call it a Road Trip. In all my prior years—as a teenager and young adult, a road trip meant FUN. This was far from fun, and yet had the same essence. The sense of adventure you get from going on a road trip when your young was always coupled with a slight edge of fear. Where are we going to stay? Who are we going to meet? What kind of adventure are we going to have? This was the same, but with more emphasis on the fear part, and much less on the fun.

A few weeks after the first shoe dropped, I called my sister Julie in Philadelphia. How strange to be calling Julie out of all my siblings (six from which to choose). Just one year younger than me, we had of the most antagonistic of relationships. Softer than I in many ways, and tougher in others, I think there was a part of her that ever so slightly reveled in my misery. “How soon can you be here for a road trip to Chicago?” I asked. With a two year old and a four year old in car seats, I knew I’d need even more than emotional support. Julie knew my situation and immediately replied. “I’ll take the train up tomorrow morning”

I told Greg I’d be leaving in the morning to drive to my parents in Chicago. He cried silently--said nothing. We’d been in therapy for the last eight weeks. Our therapist, a forty-ish, lean professorial type but with a NY fashion sensibility, had given me his final blessing.

Each week, Warren would give us some sort of exercise to carry out in order to have us step into one another’s shoes for the week (there I go with the shoes again!)

Each week, Warren would begin the session by asking us how we did with the exercise.

Each week, I would go into vivid detail--listing all the effort I had put forth in my attempt to calm my aggression and create a more peaceful environment where Greg could feel safe in expressing himself.

Each week Warren would then turn to Greg and ask what he had done to fulfill his end of the agreement.

Each week, Greg muttered, “I tried to…”

Each week Warren would say “Greg, repeat after me….I CHOSE not to”. There is no such thing as trying, he explained. You choose to do, or you choose not to do something, and when you say you’re trying what you really mean is “I chose not to”.

What a revelation….I chose not to. I finally got it. He was choosing not to be emotionally present in the marriage. There was nothing I could do. It was so freeing. After eight weeks of “trying”, Warren advised, “He is continuing to choose not to—you have to choose whether you want to live in that or not”. I chose not.

We planned to leave at five. The kids would sleep till eight and we’d stop for breakfast then. We’d continue the twelve-hour drive until 8 that night and stop at a hotel. We’d arrive at my parents the next day.

As luck would have it, the kids decided to rise and shine at five. They must’ve sensed the anxiety, neither one ever slept the entire length of the trip. “Twinkle twinkle, You are my Sunshine, and the Itsy Bitsy spider” interspersed minute by minute with “if he drops that f’ing batman figure one more f’ing time and we have to f’ing reach back there again we’re going to f’ing lose our gourds” kept us laughing and crying for the next thirteen hours. They decided to fall asleep in South Bend, Indiana. We decided to push through.


At 2am, the road trip ended and we arrived “home”. Mom and Dad were awake and waiting. Arms wide open to catch us all. No fun, no sense of adventure, but ahhhh….Relief.