Should You Try To Change Your Partner?

by Karen Karbo

“Was,” I said. “He’s dead.”

Marriages can survive more catastrophes than we could ever imagine. But they cannot survive contempt. It didn’t end there, of course. I didn’t throw my bag over my shoulder, march out to the theater to meet my friend, and return home to find he’d packed a bag and left a note. But the damage was done.

We fought some more. I moved out, even though we were living in a house I owned. He was unhappy with this arrangement. He said he was going to try; part of his effort was subscribing to the New York Times.

I lived at Kiki’s house all summer. Once, when I returned to pick up something in the basement, I passed the newspaper recycling pile. It was a towering, several foot-high pile of unread Times, still captive in their blue plastic bags. Once I was gone, CB didn’t have the interest or aptitude to slog through a daily newspaper.

I realized then that I could neither change my soon-to-be ex-husband into the sort of person who would be interested in the day’s news, nor co-exist with someone who wasn’t. To this day, the thought of that stupendous pile still makes me sad.