John Edwards announced today that he's Quinn's father. That was a surprise to most of us; we figured that Quinn was Todd Palin's kid, since, after all, everybody knows that Quinn is an Eskimo.

Blondie has a low opinion of John Edwards, and I have to admit that my opinion of his has dropped considerably in the last two years. She views him as being morally corrupt, since he's apparently abandoning his cancerous wife. My view is that he's an idiot and a coward, as it's considerably smarter and substantially less painful to get the truth out completely, all at once.

Letterman's Law

You could call it Letterman's Law. Or you could call it the Law of Prince Edward Sound. Or you could call it Nixon's Law. Watergate was a third-rate burglary; it was the coverup that drove Nixon out of office. The captain of the Exxon Valdez was drunk, sleeping it off in his cabin, when the ship ran into trouble, but it wasn't like the ship was adrift; there was a pilot at the helm. By comparison, David Letterman was pretty much untouched by the revelations that, as a single man, he had behaved like a single man. His ratings didn't suffer at all, and because no further revelations have been forthcoming, he's been able to harvest a fairly good crop of humor from the situation.

John Edwards went to Haiti today, with a team of doctors, to do good. "He's gone to Haiti for good?" Blondie asked. "Good!" I pointed out that I'm sacrificing as well, as my doctor's appointment has been rescheduled several weeks further away with a different specialist; the surgeon I was originally to see has gone to Haiti. No brownie points for me, though.

I've mentioned before that she really feels betrayed by Tiger Woods. Having been in a parasitic relationship before, I can imagine that Woods and Edwards were in similar relationships as well. Perhaps they are simply pigs, but I'd rather think that my initial assessment, that these were fairly decent men, was correct. It has become popular to talk about toxic relationships, but if anyone's talking about the sub-class of toxic that constitutes parasitic relationships, I've missed it.

A License To Screw

Some people view marriage as a permit to engage in sex, with the expectation that the couple will raise children. That may be why so many people are resistant to the notion of same-sex marriage. Since children aren't an anticipated outcome of the union, it's not really a marriage. I feel sorry for such people; I view marriage as a relationship that is 24x7, not something that happens 3 times a week, for twenty minutes a time.

Em and I talked. A lot. When she was discouraged, I offered a shoulder for her to lean on, and when I was disheartened, she buoyed me up. We were flywheels for each other, helping us maintain momentum. We were a team, guarding each others' backs. My relationship with Blondie has been somewhat different, because I was disabled when we met. My ability to support her has been limited; but then, when it came time to build a fence, that wasn't something Em had the physical strength or the skills to do, so maybe the relationships aren't tha different.

Most of my life, I've created businesses from scratch, and sold them, much as a nurseryman plants yews and sells them when they are still small to landscapers. It has a lot in common with farming, the occupation of my father, and his father, and their fathers in turn for at least eight generations. They would spend money for seed, and fertilizer, money for equipment and maintenance, and gas and oil, feed for draft animals, and they'd have to feed themselves and their families until it was time to harvest the crops. Then, they'd pay their accumulated bills, and with any luck, would have enough money to raise the next crop.

Planting Season

The average working man labors about 2000 hours a year. A farmer spends about 1000 hours planting in the spring, 1000 hours harvesting in the fall, and 1000 hours maintaining and repairing equipment during the winter, and doing such things as weeding the crops in midsummer.

Similarly, I worked incredibly long hours when I was trying to get a new business established. They say one big benefit of owning your own business is that while you work seven days a week, you only have to work half days - and what's more, you can choose which twelve hours you're going to work. But that's only when you have a business fairly well established; when you're getting it off the ground, you have to work longer and harder. I used to think of it as planting season.

When I had Em as a partner, though, she was able to provide an income while I was getting a business off the ground. I didn't have to worry about feeding myself; she'd find me and shove a plate of food under my nose. I didn't have to worry about washing my clothes; when I had an important meeting, she'd have clean clothes, nicely ironed, for me, and often she'd even lay them out for me. When I no longer could function, I'd crawl in and collapse on the bed. I'd wake up later to find she'd undressed me, and covered me, and I was sleeping restfully, because her body was nestled right next to mine.

At any given time, 90% of the world is lonely, and 80% has physical needs. I was exceedingly blessed, and Em knew I was well aware of it.
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Balance of Power

And then she was sick. More and more, instead of her caring for me, I was caring for her. More and more, instead of making an important economic contribution to the household, Em's medical expenses were draining us financially. More and more, instead of going out and making buying decisions, she remained at home while I went out and hunted and fetched. More and more, instead of being in the cat-bird seat, calling the shots, Em found herself a helpless dependent, relying on my support.

It would be an understatement to claim that she didn't like that. She was a strong, independent woman who was suddenly weak and dependent. It wasn't a matter of my wresting power from her; the SLE did that. If she was home and in bed, she didn't have the power to decide whether to buy pink or blue, whether to buy Acme or Ajax, whether to get paper or plastic. And because I was concentrating on caring for her instead of investing heavily in my business, my net income soared at a time that her income sagged. It's natural that she resented the loss of power.

Instead of lying together at night, telling each other of the troubles and victories of our workdays, all she had to offer was a regaling of the high score she'd accomplished on Super Mario Brothers - there's not much else she could do, lying in bed - and neither of us was of a mood to have me tell her of the troubles I'd faced and victories I'd scored in my work, when she had noting comparable to relate.

Going From Worse To Worst

We weren't bringing out the best in each other. We weren't giving each other something to grow upon. She didn't want assistance, but she had to have it, and I didn't want a dependent, I wanted a partner, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. That's what "in sickness and in health, for better or worse" is all about. Nobody really understands, when they make that vow, what it really involves. Instead of a fulfilling love, marriage becomes a gaping maw, a black hole, darker than any corner of Calcutta, a quicksand that sucks up any emotional energy that one has, and asks for more, more, more.

So I can understand that John Edwards, comfortable with a charming, dynamic, and powerful wife, might be emotionally drained by being married to someone who is pathetic, weak, and dying. Money isn't everything; as the Beatles sang, it can't buy me love. And I think of Tiger Woods, losing his father that he relied upon so much, increasingly crippled by knee and leg problems, with a wife who is uninterested in sex because she's pregnant, or post-delivery, or, whups, suddenly pregnant again, or post-delivery, and preoccupied with babies instead of a husband might feel emotionally needy. Money can't buy him love, either.

When I was little, there was a whole passel of kids in the house. Before I was two, they started moving out, and by the time I was a pre-teen, it was just two of us kids. There never was a lot of loot, even when it was just Little Brudder and myself, and there was substantially less when there were eleventy-fourteen kids in the house, but when it's just you and Little Brudder in the evening, and Dad was off at a meeting, and Mama was working, and Little Brudder wanted to do something else, it could get damnably lonely.

Brining The Tractor

There were a lot of evenings that I'd go out to the barn and climb into the cold steel seat of the Allis-Chalmers tractor, and grab the bakelite steering wheel in both hands, and sing lonely songs to myself. It's a wonder the tractor wasn't rusted through, as many tears as I shed. It was a different story when the house was full of kids, because no matter who was mad at you, you could always find someone who wasn't and figure out a way to laugh and have fun. Well, not always - but it sure seemed like it when it was just me and Little Brudder.

I have a tendency to pick the underdog in fights. Maybe that's why I made a career of starting new businesses; it was always an uphill fight. But if you happen to see Tiger Woods out there, or you see John Edwards, tell them that I'm rooting for them. It's damnably awful to be in a soul-sucking parasitic relationship. Been there. Done that. You don't even get a damn t-shirt for having spent that time in hell. Consequently, I don't think it guarantees we'll go to heaven when we die. It just sucks.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
balance of power - big families - Elizabeth Edwards - flywheels - Haiti - John Edwards - marriage vows - planting season - Quinn - Tiger Woods - Todd Palin - underdogs