It was quite obvious that my marriage was going downhill, more and more we tried to do things apart from each other. The children kept us together in a sort of suffocating prison. There were things planned for doing together a long time before and there was no escaping these. Like the subscription on the theater. My wife had booked some concerts; famous and not so famous bands coming to our city. I booked a few plays, always had been interested in a good story staged by good actors.
This evening we had a very famous female actor doing a monologue. I had been a bit late with booking this and so we ended up in the front row. I never like that too much, especially not with comedians because you will run the risk of being the one they make fun of.
The play was quite gloomy, was about emotional neglect and abuse. Soon I felt it: she started focussing on me. It made me feel guilty on behalf of all the men, but especially I felt guilty of being me, being a man. I tried to look somewhere else, maybe she would take her eyes of me that way. She did not, it felt like she had intruded my guts and my soul. I could not avoid it: I was looking into these very expressive eyes again. There were parts in the play that were so awful that I had crawled under my seat if that had been possible. Leaving my seat was not an option.
I suffered under her verbal lashes for more than an hour. Tears were running over my cheeks at a certain moment, I wiped them away. It felt double: of course I could become emotional, but did not this show how weak I was of mind?
My wife did not notice my distress; I saw her glimpse on her watch from time to time. I felt annoyed by that, saw it as an insult to the actress. I admired her a lot and that evening she made me very aware why.
After the play I had the feeling I had run an emotional marathon, was exhausted and wanted to go home. My wife had a different idea: "Let's have a drink in the foyer".
I agreed, maybe my mind could get to rest before we would cycle back home.
There was only a small queue and soon I could sit with her and sip at my beer.
She wanted to know what I thought of the play, so I told her in a moment of honesty how I had been the focus point of the actress.
She laughed scornfully: "What a rubbish. You silly man! Building your ego again or what?"
Behind her I could see the actress coming into the foyer, looking around, like she was searching for somebody. When she saw me, she headed in our direction. She stopped right behind my wife, talked to me!
"I do hope I didn't cause any distress for you. Making you feel uncomfortable. This is a difficult play to do and my way of doing it, is to find a focal point, somebody I talk to."
I swallowed hard, could utter the words: "No, it's okay. I'm okay."
She nodded: "Thanks anyway." With that she turned around and was gone as quick as she came in.
My wife refused a second drink, not a word was spoken when we went back home.
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