everything planned from the time we got up until the time we went to bed. We were on a schedule. We couldn’t relax. One year he couldn’t go to Mexico with us and we had a wonderful time. We got up when we woke up and I asked the kids, ‘Well, what should we do today?’ We just did what we wanted, and we rested when we felt like it. It was so much better without him.”
Mike didn’t dispute Debora’s complaint. “I did want to see everything there was to see,” he said. He had been attracted to Debora because of her energy and the air of excitement about her; once married, she seemed to him to have little enthusiasm for anything.
Mike was working punishing hours in his cardiology practice, often leaving the house at six and coming home after eight or nine. When Debora was working, she was usually home by four or five. “Of course, societal mores dictated that she was the one who was home with the kids more,” Mike said. “In her defense, she worked fewer hours because of that.”
Mike was a perfectionist in many aspects of his life. Because he seemed able to compartmentalize his world and concentrate completely on whatever task was at hand, he expected that Debora could do the same. He liked schedules and well-planned trips, with no spur-of-the-moment flights of fancy. He felt most comfortable when he could control his environment and, in a sense, Debora and their three children were part of what he wanted to organize. But Debora was the most disorganized and chaotic woman he had ever known. Her sense of humor and her slapdash approach to life didn’t mesh with Mike’s need for order.
Debora’s poor study habits, lack of social graces, sloppy housekeeping, and, finally, failure at the practice of medicine all disappointed Mike. It seemed almost as if she had decided that if she could not please him, she would displease him, would go out of her way to behave outrageously. Or perhaps she thought her rages were a way to control and manipulate him, to demonstrate her importance and superiority. But, in fact, she was allowing herself to become completely dependent upon Mike and their marriage for her support and survival.
Nevertheless, after Kelly’s birth, Debora tried to reestablish her practice, going on staff at Trinity Hospital. The competition there was rough, particularly because the doctors who had failed to offer her a partnership were well established at Trinity. She failed to attract enough patients to warrant keeping her on staff. And so, in 1989, with her practice failing and her knee bothering her so much, she let her career go.
Mike encouraged her to do so. “She never really seemed to like being in practice, anyway,” he said. “I would get these phone calls from her—and I was trying to do my work—and she would want to sit there and complain how bad things were for her. I would try to console her, tell her what to do. I thought she was depressed.”
That was probably an accurate diagnosis, even though it came from a doctor whose specialty lay in the valves of the heart and not in the more ethereal workings of the psyche. Something was tormenting Debora. Despite all her intelligence, she seemed unable to find anything good about her life—except for her children. And again she began to use drugs to escape.
By now, Mike easily recognized the signs. “She’d get this kind of funny look on her face, a funny smile, and a specific way she talked—and I could tell. I confronted her again and she denied it, multiple times.”
It took a more concentrated search, but he finally found her cache of drugs. And this time, Mike surmised that Debora must be calling in prescriptions for her patients, then going to the pharmacy and picking the drugs up. Some of the narcotics were rigidly controlled substances, which she couldn’t order by phone. Without knowing for sure how she was getting them, Mike assumed Debora was pretending to be the patient. In fact, she didn’t really have any patients;
Mike didn’t dispute Debora’s complaint. “I did want to see everything there was to see,” he said. He had been attracted to Debora because of her energy and the air of excitement about her; once married, she seemed to him to have little enthusiasm for anything.
Mike was working punishing hours in his cardiology practice, often leaving the house at six and coming home after eight or nine. When Debora was working, she was usually home by four or five. “Of course, societal mores dictated that she was the one who was home with the kids more,” Mike said. “In her defense, she worked fewer hours because of that.”
Mike was a perfectionist in many aspects of his life. Because he seemed able to compartmentalize his world and concentrate completely on whatever task was at hand, he expected that Debora could do the same. He liked schedules and well-planned trips, with no spur-of-the-moment flights of fancy. He felt most comfortable when he could control his environment and, in a sense, Debora and their three children were part of what he wanted to organize. But Debora was the most disorganized and chaotic woman he had ever known. Her sense of humor and her slapdash approach to life didn’t mesh with Mike’s need for order.
Debora’s poor study habits, lack of social graces, sloppy housekeeping, and, finally, failure at the practice of medicine all disappointed Mike. It seemed almost as if she had decided that if she could not please him, she would displease him, would go out of her way to behave outrageously. Or perhaps she thought her rages were a way to control and manipulate him, to demonstrate her importance and superiority. But, in fact, she was allowing herself to become completely dependent upon Mike and their marriage for her support and survival.
Nevertheless, after Kelly’s birth, Debora tried to reestablish her practice, going on staff at Trinity Hospital. The competition there was rough, particularly because the doctors who had failed to offer her a partnership were well established at Trinity. She failed to attract enough patients to warrant keeping her on staff. And so, in 1989, with her practice failing and her knee bothering her so much, she let her career go.
Mike encouraged her to do so. “She never really seemed to like being in practice, anyway,” he said. “I would get these phone calls from her—and I was trying to do my work—and she would want to sit there and complain how bad things were for her. I would try to console her, tell her what to do. I thought she was depressed.”
That was probably an accurate diagnosis, even though it came from a doctor whose specialty lay in the valves of the heart and not in the more ethereal workings of the psyche. Something was tormenting Debora. Despite all her intelligence, she seemed unable to find anything good about her life—except for her children. And again she began to use drugs to escape.
By now, Mike easily recognized the signs. “She’d get this kind of funny look on her face, a funny smile, and a specific way she talked—and I could tell. I confronted her again and she denied it, multiple times.”
It took a more concentrated search, but he finally found her cache of drugs. And this time, Mike surmised that Debora must be calling in prescriptions for her patients, then going to the pharmacy and picking the drugs up. Some of the narcotics were rigidly controlled substances, which she couldn’t order by phone. Without knowing for sure how she was getting them, Mike assumed Debora was pretending to be the patient. In fact, she didn’t really have any patients;
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