Love in times of turmoil

How do you build a healthy relationship after an unhealthy one?

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Last week, as New York temperatures hovered in the single digits and ice sheets floated down the East River, my neighborhood lost power. Around 7 pm, I heard an explosion outside and the lights started flashing like strobes. Then, nothing. No lights, no heat, no hot water.

My partner Par and I bundled up for bed and figured that the power would be back soon. But when I woke the next morning, the cold seeped through my thick wool socks. There were 45 ConEd trucks downstairs and estimates of a day-long outage; road salt had corroded the underground power lines and created a real mess.

I’m a fixer–and the head of my condo board–so I fired up the gas stove and snapped into action. By the time the water boiled, I had emailed my fellow condo residents to open their taps, joined the neighborhood emergency chat, and made plans to work from a friend’s apartment for the day. When I handed Par his coffee and told him what I’d done, I expected praise for being so proactive.

“I’m sure it will be fine,” he said.

Needless to say, Par is a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. He’s my human Prozac and I’m usually soothed by his perpetual chill, our relationship easy in a way my marriage never was. Normally, we can joke about our different styles under stress.

“I love you even in a traffic jam in New Jersey,” he says, after I take three consecutive wrong turns and fume in the gridlock of the Holland Tunnel.

“I love you even when we’re shoveling out of a blizzard,” I say, after he pokes at the waist-high drifts for a few minutes and then asks if we’re done yet.

Does it look like we’re done?

But now, in the chilly apartment, I felt the first prickle of resentment. When the stakes get higher, our different styles start to clash. We slip into patterns from our past marriages: he shuts down and I take over. I function and function and function until I explode.

So how do you build a healthy relationship after an unhealthy one? When Par and I started dating, we swore to do things differently. I would ask for more help and he would shoulder more responsibility. We would communicate through the hard times instead of defaulting to our different modes. We even put the agreement in writing, signed the paper, and sealed it with a kiss.

Now that promise would be put to the test. Par went off to work as usual and I took our puppy to a friend’s apartment, where I obsessively tracked the ConEd outage map. With every hour that went by, the temperature in my building dropped and my anxiety grew. I asked ChatGPT when I needed to turn off the water mains. It told me to call building management.

“I am the management,” I growled at the robots. Unfortunately I am also from Southern California, where cold snaps require mean putting on a sweatshirt. I don’t know what to do about freezing pipes, and there’s little I hate more than not knowing what to do.

At 7 p.m., ConEd bumped the repair estimate to the next day and a serious inconvenience tipped into a serious issue. The temperature outside was a bonkers 2 degrees Fahrenheit and -12 with wind chill, colder than parts of Antarctica. A second night without power would bring our eight-unit building perilously close to freezing. I called a friend who builds condos for a living and asked him what to do besides turning on the taps.

“If your apartment hits 32 degrees inside, the taps are the least of your problems,” he said. “Any line with any water can freeze and explode. Your boiler. Your fridge. Your dishwasher.”

“We just installed a new dishwasher this week,” I said, searching for something I understood.

“Then if the power isn’t back soon, you better drain every last drop,” he said, and walked me through the painstaking process of bleeding the building. It would be easier to rob the Louvre.

I hung up and spiraled about the logistics. It was too late to do anything tonight and unclear when to pull the trigger tomorrow. As soon as the water went off, everyone in the building would need a new place to stay. If I cut it too soon, I’d cause extra chaos. If I waited too long, or couldn’t get into every apartment, we’d face a world of plumbing pain.

I called Par, but he was already in the subway on his way to dinner like it was any other day. Before I could explain the dishwasher developments, the line cut. I felt alone in a way that I hadn’t since my marriage. So what if we had different ways of doing things? I wanted him to read the room and pick up part of the load. By the time he returned to our friends’ apartment, I was already in bed and my shoulder had seized up from the stress.

We woke to reports of partial power and hurried home. I collapsed on our chilly couch, my hands still in mittens, while he made us coffee. As the heat kicked back on, my resentment exploded. I heard myself saying you you you, just as I’d done in the worst moments of my marriage. He went quiet, then spiraled about his shortcomings like he’d done in the worst moments of his.

With my ex, this was the point where communication always collapsed. We would retreat to separate rooms and nurse our separate grudges, both of us too hurt to apologize. The house seethed with a bitter silence for days because we couldn’t find our way back to each other.

Par stood in the kitchen with his back to me, his shoulders slumped. He measured out the coffee, spoon by spoon, and slowly poured the boiling water over the grounds. I watched him from the couch, unsure how this moment would tip.

Finally he turned and handed me a mug.

“I’m sorry I froze up like a pipe,” he said. “I should have been more engaged.”

“I’m sorry I exploded like a dishwasher,” I replied. “I should have asked for more help.”

We both started laughing and the tension melted. He sat down next to me on the couch and we drank our steaming coffee together.

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Liz is a writer based in Brooklyn. She will never take electricity for granted again.

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