Watching Strife

My friend S mentioned a few days ago that spending time with her parents is like watching a tragi-comedy unfold. She is at their home trying resolve some serious and long-neglected health conditions that have rendered her father almost immobile. She experienced some guilt over her reaction to their way of communicating with each other. The parents have been in a love-less marriage for as long as S remembers. They are deeply incompatible but managed to raise a couple of kids and build a family together - each contributing equally. When they were younger, S recalls loud arguments, her mother crying because she felt completely unheard and misunderstood. 

Her father would rage and sulk by turn for similar reasons. Nothing ever changed for the better. The two kids learned to isolate themselves from the chaos and take care of each other while their parents returned to whatever normalcy was attainable in this family. As time passed, both the frequency and intensity of these events reduced. It seems they lost both the hope that things could change along with the energy to fight for it. Yet they had no intention of parting ways. It was tossed around as a threat during the most vicious arguments but even the kids knew it was not to be taken seriously - just a way for the parents to imagine a different life that would never be.

S says, it made her and her brother wonder if the would be fundamentally flawed as humans because they were the products of such strifeful union. S was married very briefly and seemed to have exited at the first hint of trouble, anticipating a turn for the worse, ending up like her parents. Her brother is in his late 40s and single. She has not had occasion to see her parents' interact daily for decades until recently. 

She likens it to two equally skilled fencers jousting. It starts strong and at some point devolves into chaos - the verbal jabs turn more caustic and condescending but they are not protracted. Then they shift gears to more teasing and bantering which suddenly changes to mean-spirited jokes about each other. Then all at once there is silence. Typically her mother leaves the scene to go to the kitchen. When she reemerges from there after a long while it is as if none of earlier events had transpired. They may sit together in the living room and watch their favorite soap opera in silence.

If S is there, she might join them for a bit and try to spark some conversation but it does not work always but there are days when it does - there is an hour of perfect normalcy in the home. I believe this is how her parents cope with the dysfunction of their marriage of close to sixty years now. Outsiders like S may see the absurdity of it and find it tragic-comic like she does but it is what it takes to live.