Why Did He Leave Me?

Layla was watching her husband's fingers as he broke open an envelope containing a letter from the bank, and she felt an inward tightening while he read it through. Scarcely had he come to the end of it when he said calmly: "Layla, do you know that our financial position is collapsing?" She answered, her mouth gone dry: "How could I know, when I have not seen the letter?"

— "And do you need to see it? Have you forgotten that you drew out a sum of money on the sixth of last month, and another on the twenty-seventh? I knew we were on the brink of the abyss after we came back from the holiday, but you ignored all of that completely."

Layla knew she had no strength or power to defend herself, so she took refuge in silence for a while; then she said resentfully: "Yes, I took the money — and why not? I am tired of scrimping, and I do not suppose you want our children going out in shabby clothes like orphans. I will not accept that for them so long as I am a mother!"

— "But what is your part as a wife? Is it your right to spend the money faster than I can earn it?"

Layla hurled her words like an arrow: "That is not my sin. Why did you marry me if you could not make your family secure?" It was a piercing thrust at the very core of Jamil's pride, and his wife knew it when he walked out of the dining room and slammed the door shut; she stayed where she was, hearing him pace back and forth. At last he left the house in a hateful silence.

Layla came to herself when she looked at the food left untouched on his plate; her anger melted away, and remorse took its place — and then a flood of tears.

Jamil did not come home that night. She searched for him in a panic the next morning and asked the relatives and friends, but no one could tell her anything of him. At last she sent for her mother to come and stay with her, and the mother advised her to come to me. When she entered my office, anxiety showed on her cheeks despite the elegance of her dress, and she handed me a written note in which I read the following:

Dear Layla,

I mean what I say this time; I have no strength to endure any longer. I have noticed that our marriage is going from bad to worse, and, as I have always told you, you are incapable of carrying out your duty as a wife and as a mother: you do not know the value of things, nor have you any grasp of the management of a house.

I did not object at first because I hoped matters would improve, but you never once gave me cause for that. I am tired, Layla — yes! tired — and you never felt how my strength was being numbed... I am going to my mother's so that we may arrange the divorce, and from there I will send you your expenses until we settle our affairs.

Jamil

Hardly had I raised my eyes when Layla pressed me with her questions: "What can I do in the face of this? I did not mean to drive him away like this. Do you think he will come back? He does not mean divorce, does he?" She was silent a moment, then said: "I am sorry for this behavior, and I know I must begin with you from the very beginning."

— "Let us begin with the quarrel that took place recently — and I suppose it had precedents!"

— "Yes, some arguments over expenses. He used to threaten to leave the house, but he would grow calm again after a little — unlike this time, when he walked out in silence and has not come back."

— "Was there any truth in what he accused you of?"

— "You mean what he said about my incapacity? I suppose so. I am not a capable housewife, for I grew up in a well-to-do family and never had to work in my girlhood."

Layla was thirty years old and her husband thirty-six; they had married ten years before and been blessed with a son and two daughters. They began their life relying on financial help from Layla's family, who had opposed the marriage at the outset. She referred to this, saying:

— "They thought Jamil was beneath me in station. He left his studies early, and that stood in the way of his realizing his aims, for he had to take work that did not suffice for the needs of the household. He is very sensitive, and there grew up in him an inferiority complex — if I may rightly call it that — because my family used to help me with my personal expenses."

I asked her how her husband might be brought to come to my office, and she answered: "I do not quite know. I used to ask him to meet my father or someone else to solve our problem, but he never once listened to me, for he does not want to let anyone in on his troubles."

— "That makes the situation more complicated. But try to write and tell him that you have come to my office. He may not like it, but at least he will understand that you are doing nothing in secret from him. I will write to him too, and let him know that I have talked with you, and I will ask him to acquaint me with the other side of the story — his side, I mean. I will persuade him that I found faults in your conduct and called on you to correct them!"

When she came back to me, Jamil had not yet answered my letter, but she told me that he had been somewhat pleased with her, adding: "I telephoned him at his office. He answered me coolly and took a formal attitude toward me at first, but he changed his position the second time, when I made him understand how much love and respect I have for him. I begged him to come back, but he did not. My mother is still helping me, and it appears he does not approve of that?"

— "Did you expect that to be his attitude toward her?"

— "No: my mother has been good and kind to him. And yet, for all that, I do need diversion and help."

— "I understand your position; but make it clear to him that your mother will leave the house the moment he comes back to it."

By these requests I wanted to guide Layla's steps, so that she would keep her husband close to her after winning him back; and she seemed to understand me, for her response was to promise to study household management so as to better her circumstances. When I asked what he thought of that, she said: "I wonder why he bears down on me so! Could it be a feeling of inferiority in himself, because I come from a more prosperous house, so that there is nothing there for him to reproach me with? If that is truly his attitude, then let us study his inner feelings before the household management."

— "Then try to look at the situation with his eyes: why does he feel inferior?"

And indeed Layla tried to clear away the fog that shrouded the situation, and to understand her husband's struggle to rid himself of his sense of cultural and social inferiority. She made this plain with examples from his conduct, and her voice grew soft as she recounted to me how he had striven all these years to obtain a better position and had not succeeded, and how all the help that was extended to him was blame and reproach.

— "His struggle was to secure my future and my children's future, so that we might do without borrowing from my family; and his failure went on breaking down his spirit all the more — while I gave him no support in anything."

— "Then you have understood why he quarreled with you over drawing out the money?"

— "I think I have understood more than that. What you saw from him was not because I took the money — I had a right to that — but because he could not bear the thrust that reminded him that he was not providing for us as the head of a household should."

I asked her to tell me about their sexual relations, because of their importance in the life of a married couple, and I learned from what she related to me that there had been no sexual problem between them until the past year, when coldness began to creep into him after the quarrels, and he would sleep in another room. In that there was an insult to her, for he had not merely dismissed her as a housewife but had cast her off as a wife.

— "He did that when he sensed the coming of the little girl — and that meant an increase in expenses. My thinking led me to believe that he no longer wanted me as a wife: otherwise, why this coldness, if he still loved me? I grew angry, and made no attempt to understand the situation, at the very time when I was in the greatest need of discussing it with him, instead of taking the negative side of the matter."

I encouraged Layla to go on corresponding with her husband, and I kept up my own correspondence with him as well, and I felt a tangible progress. Seven weeks passed after the incident before he came to see me. He was of medium height, good-looking, of composed bearing, and it appeared to me that he had made an extreme effort in his struggle to bring himself to meet me. But he was at ease once he opened the conversation, saying: "Layla has told me about her dealings with you. What I have not understood is that you directed your attention to her faults alone, when I was the one at fault in leaving my home."

— "That is true; but you did not leave the house of your own free will, for you have loved no one but her. You said in your letter that you no longer had the strength to be away from home; a feeling like that moves her to face her faults and mend them. Nothing need have kept you from talking it over with her, for husband and wife take their stand to declare their faults, not to conceal them."

— "I have been at fault in several situations, and before now I never admitted my faults; but ever since Layla began to show her own points of weakness, I have felt it my duty to face this myself."

— "Then tell me: what was going through your mind at the hour you came to me?"

He fell silent a moment, then went on:

— "You want me to go back to the house, and I want that; only I cannot — I feel a paralysis when I think of returning."

— "Can you not make out what stands in the way of your going back?"

— "I think my pride holds me back. I have not faced her family, and I do not like to meet them, or any of the neighbors who learned that I left the house. I burn to see my children — but what shall I say to them if they ask the reason for my absence? I cannot master my feelings."

— "Listen, Jamil. In this situation you need Layla's help, and she will hold out her hand to you if she wants you back. The important thing is that you want to return — are you sure of that?"

— "Completely sure. I have been miserable ever since I left Layla. Tell her that yourself."

I did not think that Jamil's return home would solve the problem at bottom, and I wanted to learn more about him so as to verify what his wife had said. His story came out just as I had imagined: he had thought that his marriage would win him social standing, but with the passing of time it became plain that her effort to raise him up irritated him instead of helping him. She did not understand his feelings, and that added to the difficulty of his position; he bore her treatment until a time came when he defended himself. The marriage he had reckoned an impregnable stronghold in his struggle against inadequacy had itself become the ground of contention. I discussed their sexual relations with him, and his answer came as a confirmation of Layla's statement. By the end of that day I was able to tell Layla that Jamil was coming back home — but that the two of them must not cease seeing me, for he was not content with his work, and he hated his dependence on the help of his wife's people.

The last time I saw Layla, she told me that her husband had been displeased with her social engagements and with the friends she knew: he would direct his criticisms at her parties and show his displeasure at her expenses; and when she invited some friends to dinner a week before, she had been afraid of his wrath.

— "But before the party he asked me what kind of drink I wanted him to serve the guests, and he appeared pleased at their being invited. He spent a happy evening with them, and they liked him too. I felt at ease, and did not stop to reckon what he might say after they had gone. And I understood how I used to criticize his conduct in the past without being aware of it: he would feel my criticism and turn cold. All that has melted away now that I understand the causes of our mistakes. Jamil never knew, in his childhood, the care that would have given him confidence in himself, while I lived in comfort and paid no heed to the feelings of others. And since we have come to understand this, we shall try to work on one and the same level, for the sake of harmony and happiness!"