Yesterday, I went to my cousin’s baby’s birthday party at his new apartment in Brooklyn. After 1.5 hours of commuting, I finally arrived to a sea of barking orders from my cousin’s wife to my cousin. “Didn’t I tell you to get the cake? Did you even hear me? What did I say about spreading the food out on the table? Can’t you do anything? How did you let Ryan drink out of Zachary’s bottle? Weren’t you watching him?” It was probably one of the worst public treatments of a wife toward her husband I’ve ever seen — it far surpasses how bad it’s been in previous times I have seen them together. The last time I saw them was this time last year, as pathetic as it sounds. My cousin seemed so helpless, squeaking out quiet responses every time each barking order came out of his wife’s mouth.

I wonder if this is part of the reason that my cousin’s baby is seeing five different therapists five days a week. Maybe he can tell in his own way that his parents have an extremely unhappy, horrible marriage, and that they are priming him for a life of anger, resentment, and dysfunction.