They did this for any number of years.
She would tell him, often with tears,
She was suffering—at her job, in her
Personal life. He would say or try
As diplomatically as possible . . .
“Were it me, . . . maybe to find I would try . . .
 
A good therapist.” She then managed
To get angry at him. “I’m not damaged!”
Was one of her lines. That is, she was
Not damaged like he was. She did not help
Need like he did. So he—suffering less?—
Went silent. Until, after months without help
 
She’d be back. She was suffering at her job,
In her personal life. For years, she sobbed,
And he—damaged?—too gentle of mind? . . .
Absorbed the accusations that came his way,
Trying, afterwards, to chase them from his mind.
 
Some people spend their lives this way.
 
— Poem and drawing by William Eaton