Let’s talk about marriage, shall we? What a loaded first sentence for a blog post. And, disclaimer: in this post I’m talking about marriage from a cis-gendered, heterosexual point of view.
One of the things I get the most questions about is marriage. People (friends, family) wonder why Brett and I aren’t married, or talking about getting married, or thinking about getting married. Or *are* we thinking about marriage? If not, why not?
When Brett and I met, we were both rolling off of our previous marriages like hot donuts straight off a Krispy Kreme conveyor belt. We hadn’t even cooled from our previous marriages, and needed time to just BE. And/but we met, and rather than keeping this shit casual, we got deep and stayed deep. What can I say? When you are handed a hot donut, you eat it.
Get yer minds out of the gutter.
So I needed time. I think I have shared before that I walked into this relationship with Brett saying, definitively, that I would never remarry. Brett, being wonderful, took that in stride and said he was okay with it, as long as I was open to commitment.
Time flies when there’s a global pandemic
Fast forward a few years, and we have BEEN THROUGH THIS GODAWFUL LIFE CHANGING GLOBAL PANDEMIC TOGETHER. I have listened to him crunch on apples and carrots for 17 long months of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Side note: for anyone who hasn’t heard Brett chew, he has a hollow jaw that reverberates like a bass drum in a marching band. It’s the apple crunch that can be heard around the world, I swear. Not his fault!
And, I’m sure that his crunch is nothing compared to my constant mindless singing. I don’t even know that I’m doing it, but the pets follow me around the house like a fucking pied piper as I dance and sing my way through every waking hour. THAT must be annoying as fuck.
These are the kinds of things that make this amount of togetherness REALLY real. I digress.
Three plus years into this relationship and I, after much therapy (much much much therapy), have started to realize that it isn’t the marital contract that I take offense to. No. I am offended by the PATRIARCHAL NATURE OF THE MARITAL RELATIONSHIP AND EXPECTATIONS.
I mean, the contract is a contract. It’s an agreement. And in the U.S. it comes with a lot of legal protections, which is why the LGBTQ+ community fought so hard to be allowed to marry. It’s all of the shit around the marriage contract that pisses me off and makes me fall to the floor in a toddler-like tantrum with fists and feet flailing. If this is difficult for you to understand, keep reading.
The voice in my head
I was raised by a very traditional mother who had a fixed mindset about the role of a woman in a relationship. And I went into my first marriage blindly, guided by the very loud mother in my head. She was loud face to face as well, if anyone is wondering. So, in my first marriage, I lost myself. I refuse to do that again.
And even as I type that, I can hear my mothers voice in my head calling me “selfish”. She didn’t hesitate to tut tut at women who, for whatever reason, didn’t follow the traditional path. Childless? Selfish. Had a few hobbies? Selfish. Dual-income-no-kids? Selfish. WOMEN cooked the meals. MEN drove the cars. WOMEN did the kid things, like changing diapers. MEN fixed things, opened jars, and took out the trash.
The thing is, she believed this all so literally that after 2 divorces, she decided to focus all of her energy on her children. When I asked her why she didn’t date, she said, “that part of my life is over now.” Well, ya know, she may have realized that marriage wasn’t for her (whether consciously or subconsciously), because she couldn’t see beyond the traditional construction of it. Hell, it’s only now that *I* am trying to see beyond the traditional construction of it.
My point? This was my training, as a woman. This was what I was taught to do. These are the messages we continue to hear and see and that are reinforced by society daily. I struggle hard to trust MYSELF that I could enter into a marriage contract and maintain the independence I have fought so hard to get.
Marriage needs to evolve.
It’s time to give the traditional marriage paradigm the middle finger. And friends, I’m determined to push the boundaries, change the things, and make it evolve so that it fits my needs, Brett’s needs, and frankly so it seems more palatable to the next generation. If you ask our kids about marriage, they shrug and pragmatically talk about marriages (emphasis on the plural), or they wonder why anyone would need to get married in the first place. They are getting such mixed messages from society and their parents’ first marriages, they are probably very fucking confused.
Note that I said “first” marriages, not “failed” marriages. I am not a failure, nor is my ex. Nor is Brett.
Brett has asked me if there’s anything I’d change about our relationship now, as it stands. And the answer is no, which is why that marriage contract seems so big and scary. I almost think I need to write a Bill of Rights that includes quarterly check-ins to keep myself accountable to the vision of what I WANT a marriage to be. This is not Brett’s responsibility, it’s mine.
What do I want? It has taken me a while to be able to articulate it. I want us to be independent people who enjoy activities and hobbies that make us happy as individuals. And then when we are together, we enjoy each other because we have filled our own buckets, and can now be together as two full humans, enjoying each other and all that makes us who we are. THAT is what I want.
It seems so simple, but it is probably the most complex challenge for all of us – staying truly true to ourselves, and feeling OKAY to put our own oxygen mask before putting on someone else’s (including our kids).
Anyhow – I’m leaving this post here. I don’t have to tell you EVERYTHING about where my brain is right now, do I? Mwah ha ha ha.