It’s hard to acknowledge the many ways I registered that my relationship with my husband was out of alignment from the beginning. I remember these instances still, so many years later, because those bits of clarity were real. It wasn’t that I saw things incorrectly, it’s that I didn’t follow what I understood. I proceeded down a path I did not intend to go for a handful for reasons. I traded actively choosing my partner for being chosen, I allowed someone else’s desires to hold more weight than my own. I fell into patterns deeply worn by the women in my family - my mom, my grandma, my aunts. I’d made progress in the right direction so it was tricky to register the similarities between my choices and theirs but the pattern was the still the same- being with a man because I could see his “potential”, the illusion of owing more than I did, and the idea that my value was in helping his brokenness.
I moved forward with him even when I knew on some level it wasn’t right for me. I justified this path of least resistance. I talked myself into continuing with self-told stories of uncertainty, self-doubt, compassion, and curiosity. These stories articulate themselves with words like “Well maybe I’m misunderstanding...”, “Perhaps I’m not seeing it correctly.” “Who am I to judge.”, “I’m probably wrong because I’m too sensitive because of my history/family.”, or “He’s in a bad place, he’s hurting. This isn’t the real him.” I take responsibility for the things I told myself that chipped away at my clarity and resolve. These are also the stories we believe as women in general though, well worn narratives that are hard to push up against and keep us in lives we don’t belong in. These narratives do not support our best interests but keep us in line. They cause us keep ourselves in line. I don’t care to be compliant anymore and I wish I knew enough to not care at 23 either.
I will continue to share the moments I knew better than to choose this future, the ways I ignored my knowing, and why I made these choices at the time. It was my responsibility to choose better and I did not. This was not my husband’s fault. This is what I see as my responsibility in our marriage failing. This was my betrayal. The rest, how I was as a wife and partner I thoroughly stand by, but I wish for my husband that he was with someone for all those years who understood and felt him. Who wasn’t at odds with herself to be with him.
“Learn to trust yourself most.”
This is where the political and societal meets the personal. What is the importance of what a woman wants when what a man wants is contrary to the woman. Who should be trusted? Can a woman trust herself most or does she set aside herself in favor of outsourcing her understanding of the world to someone else - anyone else that is a man. Does a woman deserve to choose or is being chosen by the pinnacle to aspire to.
I was being chosen by a white, driven, conventionally attractive, and very persistent man. I was too naive to even register the unacknowledged influence those things had. I was still taking what the world handed me as truth, not yet far enough along to hold these messages in my own hand and look to see if they were truths I wanted to carry forward. There is so much in our society that teaches little girls that this IS the dream, to be chosen by a man like this. That there are limited things we can expect from a man and we should feel lucky to receive any of their glorified but limited attributes. If a man has any of these things, he feels so fundamentally entitled to what he wants. If he has all of those things, watch out. Things are changing…I hope.
This is patriarchy. This is how patriarchy hurts men and women.
“While the woman thinks she’s having a relationship between two people and talking about their individual problems, she’s really having a relationship with the patriarchy via a man who parrots whatever it teaches him.” -Zawn Villanes
There were many moments when I should have ended it instead of anchoring my life to his. It was not all bad and I’ll share the goodness too but I should have walked away before marrying- for the benefit of our both- regardless of how much he wanted me to be in it with him.
19 years is so much time. Even now, divorced, I’m confronted weekly with how little we share in values, how differently we see and navigate the world. It’s the most painful part for me. I am amazingly free and separate in most ways but I won’t ever be free of him completely because we share our children and I care deeply about the decisions he makes in parenting. The way he treated me in marriage that caused me to separate is still how he treats me. And still, being divorced is very much worth it.
And so I continued casually dating this man who was broken and raw from his wife leaving him, who was scared to do his life alone. He was not casual about our dating, he was determined and persistent. I felt cared for and validated by this persistence even though I see now that it had little to do with me. I was propelled forward by a combination of curiosity, naivete, passivity, pride, and pity.
