in which the past several years of my life are surmised in a sentence by a man who ive never met

[midnightglobe]

And then it happened again, one of those planned conversations that go quickly awry, that leave you alone with rage, a clarifying rage in this instance, in which it all came back in harsh light: our fading marraige, the two New York years in which she withheld from me all kisses on the mouth, withheld these quietly and steadily and without complaint, averting even her eyes whenever mine sought them out in emotion, all the while cultivating a dutiful domesticity and maternal ethic that armored her in blamelessness, leaving me with no way to approach her, no way to find fault or feelings, waiting for me to lose heart, to put away my most human wants and expectations, to carry my burdens secretly...

--j. O'Neill, _Netherland_, pp 127-128