GAMES WE PLAY

“Where’s the boss?” he asks.  With that question I know he has become Mr. Hyde, who is married, but not to me.  “She had to go to work,” I tell him.  “You know she has a very important job at the mall and won’t be home until late.  Furthermore, she’s always on call, that’s why she just seems to disappear and doesn’t have time to say goodbye.”

“Why do you do that?” asked my friend, Jayne,” who is visiting and wonders about this fictional game we play.

“Because it’s easier and this way I don’t have to argue with him,” I answer.  Then I went on to explain to her that at first I would try to convince him I was his wife — “the boss” — the nickname he has given me for more years than I can count.  “No you’re not,” he would insist, looking at me like it was my mind that was gone.  “I am your wife.  We are married.” I used to claim.   “Come into the bedroom and look at our anniversary photo above the dresser.”  He followed, looked at the photo, then at me and said,  “That’s not you!  You don’t hold a candle to her.  Why don’t you leave.”  Other times I would show him our marriage license and my driver’s license.  Anything to convice him that I was, indeed, his wife.  He hid the marriage license and tried to confiscate my driver’s license.  No matter what I did or said when he was/is Mr. Hyde he just won’t believe I am his wife.

Consequently, I have become the “hired girl.”  (He sees me as someone very young, which can’t be all bad, and believes I live with my parents and am still in school.)  Good enough for me.  I tell him that caring for him is my job and I get paid by his wife.  I leave when she comes home.  So I tell Jayne, “I play the part because it keeps the peace.”