Page 30 of The Marriage Game

Itturnsoutthatwhen you storm off from a fight with your wife and you’re on a marriage retreat, there really isn’t anywhere great to storm off to. For starters, I don’t know the layout of the ranch at all so I can’t simply decide I want to go to the main restaurant or the stables and then just go because I’m not even sure where those things are located yet. Even more troubling: there are couples everywhere.Happycouples.

I’m not exactly in the mood to be surrounded by that.

In the end, I spot a lined pathway and decide to walk down it and hope for the best. The clear blue sky and wide open landscape seems to stretch so endlessly that one could begin to feel that nowhere in the world is there anything but this Montana skyline.

The vastness of it all calms my body considerably. My heart rate slows and the angry tilt of my breaths disappears. I’m still angry, but I no longer feel like I need to break something. Spending time outdoors has always had a calming effect on me,yet for some reason I can hardly remember the last time I spent a prolonged amount of time in nature.

Our family used to go for walks back when the kids were little. Jill and I would push them in their strollers or, in their preschool and elementary years, send them off on their bikes while we lingered behind. Then for the year or so that Hannah lived in our guest house we’d sneak off for walks just the two of us while she watched the kids for us. Funnily enough, now that the kids are old enough to stay behind all their own Jill and I never go.

Maybe because you’re never around,a nagging voice says.

I pick up my pace.

Let’s focus on the wrongs done to me, I tell the insistent voice. Up first: Jill deciding to sabotage my attorney general campaign rather than simply tell me she didn’t want me to run.

Would you have listened if shehadtold you?The voice demands.

“Of course,” I say this out loud in the hopes that it will give the words more weight, but they still ring flat. I suppose I’m not sure how I would have responded if she’d told me that.

Anyway, none of it makes sense. Why wouldn’t Jill want me to run? She’s always admired my political achievements. Hasn’t she? If not then I’ve basically gotten the last eight years of our marriage wrong. I stop in my tracks. I shouldn’t have stormed out on Jill. I was angry, yes, but that’s no excuse for leaving in the middle of an argument. After all of our years together, she deserves more than that from me.

A sick feeling churns in my gut as I really think about the last few years. Yesterday Ellie telling me I haven’t been around much made me feel guilty, so I promised her a trip and swore to myself that I was going to make some changes. Will I truly be able to follow through on that if I get elected to attorney generalandcontinue working at my family’s law firm?

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I take it out to see a text from Liam.

Liam

Dad are you fr running for attorney general

My initial instinct to correct his punctuation and use of acronyms fades out as his words sink in. I didn’t tell Liam and Ellie about the attorney general thing before we left. I don't really know why not. It just…didn’t come up. How could it have when I barely saw either of them before we left? I guess I expected to be able to sit them down and tell them when we got back. Together. Jill and I as a united front.

But now Liam somehow knows, which means Ellie probably knows too. And I should’ve been the one to tell them.

Max

Uh, it’s only semi-official, but yes, that’s my plan. Mom and I were going to tell you when we got back.

I can’t resist sending a quick second text.

Max

How’d you find out anyway?

Liam

Grandma told me

Jill’s mom knows? Not sure why I’m surprised seeing as the rest of her family knows.

Liam

She thought I knew cuz ya know, I’m your kid

I flinch, all too familiar with the hurt that finding out something you should’ve already known from someone else produces.

Max

I’m sorry, Liam. It’s no excuse, but I really was planning on telling you after this trip.

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