Haunting

Chapter 2

My Return to Germany

February, 1999, I received a distressed phone call from Maus, my friend in Munich, Germany, who had been more of a sister to me for over 28 years. Maus’ real name is Elisabeth but everyone called her Maus. Her 20 year marriage had fallen apart. Hubert (her husband) kept getting drunk and was violent. I suggested counseling but she dismissed that idea saying they had tried it twice before and got nowhere. She made more progress, she said, by talking to me. Of course I would come and help.

Just a month earlier, in January, Maus had visited me in California. We talked about her fears and traced them back to being molested as a ten-year-old. This caused her to reject sexual contact, even with her husband, Hubert. At the end of our conversation I told her I would fly to Germany and stay about a month.

As we firmed up our plans, Bettina, Maus’ 18-year-old daughter asked if I would mind bringing my black Labrador Retrievers, Wotan and Diva. Bettina had visited us in California in August of 1998 and had grown quite attached to them. I agreed.

Just days before my arrival in Munich, Germany, Maus demanded that Hubert move out after another violent drunken attack. He was now living with their oldest son, Markus, in an apartment just a block away.

The minute I stepped into the house I could feel the intense distress hanging over the family like the Sword of Damocles. We agreed to make the dining area the “counseling room” for the next few weeks, where no one enters while the door is closed. I asked the family to gather there the next morning.

The first question I asked was, did they want to bring this family back together? The three kids said their’s was not a real family, at least not what they thought of as a family. Hubert immediately blamed Maus for spoiling the children and not caring for him as her husband.

I stopped him and explained that we needed to talk about what was bothering everyone; then we would learn how to listen to each other. After some grumbling; they agreed. I realized each of them had stored up a great deal of anger. I decided to talk to them individually every day.

The next few days this family expressed their feelings of guilt, rejection and even a little hatred for each other. Their unrealized expectations had unknowingly separated them as a family. Hubert’s alcoholism and violence started almost at the beginning of their marriage. This made it impossible for Hubert and Maus to talk to each other. The three children disrespected their father and couldn’t listen to each other or to their parents.

Markus 22, had stood up to his father in a violent argument two years earlier, then moved out and into his own apartment. He would have hit his father if his mother hadn’t stopped him.

Bettina fled to a friend’s house to escape the tension. Jochen, the youngest, couldn’t leave the house when his father started his brawls. He cowered, crying and trembling in the corner of his bed pulling the comforter over his face fearing his father would beat his mother.

His family resented Hubert. The neighbors thought he was a joke. The children realized that when their father started drinking beer, his tirades would soon follow. They prepared themselves mentally for it. Maus coped the best she could.

By the end of the week we met as a group. They could now express their distress for the first time without being interrupted. The entire family seemed to understand that each of them had a problem, which needed to be dealt with.

Hubert, we found out, reached for his alcohol to escape his problems. His marriage hadn’t met his expectations. “A good marriage,” he explained, “starts with a wife being like his mother. She cleans, cooks, takes care of the children and fulfills a man’s sexual needs.” What he could not accept was that he repeated his father’s violence and alcoholism, and expected his mother’s submissiveness from his wife. He couldn’t see that he had continued the pattern he hated so much. He claimed to be different because he did not physically abuse his children. He didn’t accept his yelling and belittling as abuse. How could that do any damage? He reasoned.

Time had changed Maus. The last few years she tried to defend herself by avoiding Hubert’s tirades instead of confronting them. She was working full-time, had grown children and couldn’t see why she had to play maid to everyone. From then on, we decided, everyone would have an assigned duty. Maus also directed her stored up resentments at Hubert. She resented having to make every family decision whether it was about rearing the children or making a final decision for their dry-cleaning business.

Hubert complained that he had no say in the family decisions. He turned to the bottle for comfort. Maus explained that this caused her to lose all her feelings for him. It also caused her to reject sex with him. “Each and every day,” she told him, “you have done something to lessen my feelings toward you.”

After ten days we made progress, but we all needed a break.

Our dogs provided a much needed diversion. Diva was pregnant. For days, Maus had provided a nursery and a special bed for Diva in Jochen’s room. The whole family took turns watching Diva. At 6:30 P.M.. March 30, I had just come from Jochen’s room and reported to all in the kitchen Diva was in her bed. Meanwhile, Diva snuck into Bettina’s room. When Maus went to check on Diva we heard her say, “Bettina wake up...don’t move.”

The first puppy was born in her bed while she slept. It had crawled up to her chest. Six more puppies followed. The whole family and friends soon gathered in the little room watching and whispering. Finally, the last puppy arrived at 12:15 a.m., five boys, two girls. We gave the puppies names derived from their mother and father. All male names started with a “W” for Wotan, the girls with “D” for Diva. Unfortunately, the last puppy, Willy, came too late and was born with water in his lungs. Little Willy did not survive the third day. Tearfully we had to say good-bye.

All of the other puppies had doubled their weight by the time we were ready to leave for Sacramento, but I still wondered if they would make the trip safely home. The puppies births brought the life back into the family as they rekindled their caring and love for each other that had gotten lost along the way. In a sense our gentle Diva taught everyone how kindness and caring can bind everyone together.

I knew we had a starting point. If each of Maus’ family continued with what they learned, they would better understand each other. I hated seeing how far apart they had grown in their anger. Simple misunderstandings had escalated into unsolvable problems, and communication among the family had completely broken down.