Two Rooms
The couple moved from a house with one room to a house with two rooms, and that’s when the trouble started. In the house with one room, the woman could go to bed earlier than the man and lie there reading or thinking or resting her hands softly on her belly, watching the lights from the television flicker and flash on the wall. Then the man would come to bed and play with his phone a few moments before turning out the light, the signal to the woman to turn on her side so he could curl himself around her and they could lie together quietly before one would shift, signaling to them both the time to move to their own sides of the bed and go to sleep.
But the new house had two rooms, one upstairs and one downstairs, and now when the woman wanted to go bed before the man, she didn’t know whether to go downstairs to tell him this or to assume that he would sense her absence and know that she had initiated the routine. If she announced her plan, would it feel to him like a request or, worse, a challenge to make firm a pattern that before had risen organically? If she did not announce her plan, would he think her behavior purposefully enigmatic, a manipulative tactic to pressure him to come to bed? Even though that’s what they had always done before, without words, and without anxiety.
Yet when she thought back to those days in the house with one room, she wondered if maybe she had felt anxious even then, going to bed earlier and waiting, not knowing when he would come to bed and whether turning on her side early would signal to him a closing off. When she had lived alone, before him, she had gone to bed much earlier. She had turned from her back to her side as she grew sleepy, not having to wait for anyone to turn off the light and curl around her.
So maybe the two-room house only took the wisps of anxiety she had felt in the one-room house and solidified them into something hard between them, like a floor perhaps, or a ceiling. Now she lay in bed and couldn’t hear the television or see its lights, couldn’t sense him watching it, couldn’t gauge his movements toward her. When she grew sleepy, she turned on her side, even though turning on her side without him there, without him knowing for sure that she had gone to bed, only made her lie awake with worry that she was doing something terribly hurtful to him, and that when he came upstairs he would be surprised, and then sullen, and then lie quietly with his phone until he turned off the light, at which point he would turn away from her, to his own side, and go to sleep.
But the new house had two rooms, one upstairs and one downstairs, and now when the woman wanted to go bed before the man, she didn’t know whether to go downstairs to tell him this or to assume that he would sense her absence and know that she had initiated the routine. If she announced her plan, would it feel to him like a request or, worse, a challenge to make firm a pattern that before had risen organically? If she did not announce her plan, would he think her behavior purposefully enigmatic, a manipulative tactic to pressure him to come to bed? Even though that’s what they had always done before, without words, and without anxiety.
Yet when she thought back to those days in the house with one room, she wondered if maybe she had felt anxious even then, going to bed earlier and waiting, not knowing when he would come to bed and whether turning on her side early would signal to him a closing off. When she had lived alone, before him, she had gone to bed much earlier. She had turned from her back to her side as she grew sleepy, not having to wait for anyone to turn off the light and curl around her.
So maybe the two-room house only took the wisps of anxiety she had felt in the one-room house and solidified them into something hard between them, like a floor perhaps, or a ceiling. Now she lay in bed and couldn’t hear the television or see its lights, couldn’t sense him watching it, couldn’t gauge his movements toward her. When she grew sleepy, she turned on her side, even though turning on her side without him there, without him knowing for sure that she had gone to bed, only made her lie awake with worry that she was doing something terribly hurtful to him, and that when he came upstairs he would be surprised, and then sullen, and then lie quietly with his phone until he turned off the light, at which point he would turn away from her, to his own side, and go to sleep.
