It really resonated when Zawn pointed out that this advice harkens back to a different time. Older women will counsel younger women that marriage involves being miserable especially if they themselves were, because it's easier to believe that all marriages are as miserable as yours rather than face the fact that your husband stole your life from you, you can never get that time back, and you deserved far better than you got.
Oh wow, Elphie, this really speaks to me: at 66 I have faced the fact the I was complicit in my ex stealing a key 20 years of my life, key earning years for sure, and I can never get that time (or money) back.
But a good friend of mine to whom the very same thing happened, still cannot admit the truth of how bad her marriage was. I remember it! She just finds it---exactly as you say---easier to go along with the sentimentalized version, that women luuuuuv their kids and that makes it all worth it, losing half your life, and marriages "aren't so bad, they're just like that" as she still says with a shrug.
Me, I want ALL young women to avoid what I went through.
I’ve told my mother on multiple occasions that marriage does not appeal to me. But she says that just because I saw the struggles she and my dad continue to go through, I shouldn’t let that be a deterrent. It was just their relationship, though. It’s all the data, other anecdotes, and women now happily divorced that informed my decision.
A quote I once read: If you don’t get fed love by spoons, you learn to lick it off knives.
I have been scammed into romantic abusive relationships three times with unevolved manipulative men, with the last two having terrible lasting consequences for my life and health.
I cannot express enough this dangerous romantic mythology to other women, and I’m so very relieved when they agree non-mutual relationships are not worth their energy and efforts. It brings peace to my nervous system to realise that many women are increasingly choosing themselves.
I think CHOOSE YOU as the love of your life.
Endless thanks to you Zawn ♥️ for all these vital messages for womankind.
I probably should have divorced my ex earlier when major issues started cropping up in our first year of marriage, but I had this notion that “the first year of marriage is the hardest.” We hadn’t lived together prior to getting married so I just assumed these were growing pains. I read so many books and talked to so many women thinking this was just normal and the way of things.
Flash forward a decade and now I’m in a different relationship. Together we are raising the two kids from my prior relationship. Granted we aren’t married, but we’ve lived together for over a year and - even with young children - it has been a very positive experience living with him. He relieves stress, not adds it. None of this “the first year is the hardest…” nonsense I previously thought was normal.
I’m so tired of the constant brainwashing on this. And my husband certainly weaponizes it too. Like no, it shouldn’t be THIS hard. I shouldn’t be this MISERABLE. It’s been so normalized (cue the sitcom married couple) and I feel crazy when I’m like no I don’t want this wtf
I just irritably pointed out a task that my husband had every intention of blowing right over. I got “you just have to ask. It isn’t that hard. I’m not a mind reader. Just ask for what you want. It doesn’t work that way. Ask nicely. I’m happy to help. Everything can’t be done whenever you want it done. It can’t just be about you getting whatever you want. I’m not dropping everything to do what you want. Just ask.” I’m sure I left a few off. I kept bucking back at every statement and he was getting pretty prickly. He did do the task, silently and oddly. I just left it. I thanked him, because that is expected.
Ever since reading Zawn *I see these things*. There’s a whole other situation about my not dispensing sex, but I’m uncomfortable to say online.
Isn't it odd how they need to be asked to do what they should have already done, while no one asks us to do the obvious because any adult should have already seen and done what needs to be done on a regular basis in a household? This HORSE SHIT of having to be asked, which puts us immediately on the defensive as if cleaning his poo or pee off the toilet where he splattered it, washing the sheets on a regular basis, preparing or ordering food for dinner, litter boxes, dogs getting walked, children being tended to, etc....and THEN having to be thanked for it, is patently absurd.
Like in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I can almost see, hear, and smell visions of days repeated in my life from 50+/- years ago as clear as a bell:
It would be of my father sitting in his chair waiting to be served a meal and my mother saying, "Now you girls THANK YOUR FATHER for the wonderful job he did on......"Take your pick: He boiled the noodles for the meal, he picked up take out, he ordered a pizza, he replaced the guest "powder room" toilet handle, he ran the vaccum over the den(which was one of our chores)since we had to go to the dentist and get teeth pulled for braces that afternoon or something, he cut the dried dog shit out of the green shag carpet from under the piano instead of waiting for us to get home to do it; Ad Infinitum. REAL "special occasions". (Eye Roll)
My mother would get on the phone with her friends in the mornings while we were all still alseep(I'd often be awake and eavesdrop) and drone on and on about how awful and childlike their husbands were. It was the old, "Men will be men" chatter that ended in one or both of them having to get off the phone to take the husbands coffee and cigarettes while they were on the toilet or something else just as gross or ridiculous.
I can't recall how many times, because there were so many, that he'd not have stopped on his way home to pick up grocery items when asked and he'd run out of toilet paper WHILE on the toilet, that my mother had to run up to the corner store and buy some. He would just SIT THERE on the toilet while poo dried on his butt until she got back instead of checking before he sat down, using Kleenex or paper towels, or just getting in the shower.
Ebenezer ain't got nothing on my father when it comes to gross ghosts of Christmas' past.
Dispensing sex: sounds like he’s already given you the responses.
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Everything can’t be done whenever you want it done.”
“I’m not dropping everything to do what you want.”
I was once in an unbalanced relationship where it became clear he expected to get everything he wanted, and do very little for me in return. At the same time he was very concerned about “fairness” as it related to him.
I started pointing out the imbalance and because of the lack of FAIRNESS I would have to downgrade him and his needs to the same priority he assigned me and my needs. It’s not my preference, as I’d prefer reciprocal generosity and consideration, but he leaves me no choice.
When he would be dimissive, I would say, “Oh, that’s a good one. I’ll use that next time you want something.”
Sure enough, later I would say “Now last time I asked *you* for something, you told me XYZ. Well, XYZ.”
And go on about my merry way. Obviously the relationship was over but it was incredibly satisfying to do this while I was getting my ducks in a row to leave.
It’s so normalized that I’ve learned to stay quiet about my happy, equitable marriage of nearly two decades in some circles, or I risk pitying side-eyes or comments about “feeling so bad” for my husband. For the first few years, it was “just you wait,” and now, after 17, if I’m happy, he must be miserable, emasculated, gay, or cheating (or some combination). And I get it - it's one of those built in systems that props up patriarchy because if equitable partnerships where both people are happy simply exist, other men might have to treat their partners as something other than a convenience item who’s supposed to run on fumes to support his picket fence dreams. So when people encounter a marriage that is genuinely happy, they assume it must be fake, delusional, or hiding something rotten.
It's tragic you have to keep quiet about your happy marriage lest people think badly of you, but I know exactly what you are talking about and have seen it with my own eyes. FEW people, men or women, want to hear any of that because like you said, they feel awful for your husband or say things or display feelings that don't portray jealously really, rather disbelief or that something must be "wrong".
I find their behavior insulting on the one hand and sad on the other that an equitable happy heterosexual marriage is so incredibly rare that it isn't to be believed.
I am the one who wrote the comment about having a previous toxic marriage who is now in a healthy relationship. I fully agree that I felt it was more socially acceptable to talk about my past relationship. The contrast is bizarre.
In the early days after my partner met my kids (and stepped up in a big way), even some close friends were in disbelief that a man who didn’t have kids himself would step up for me and mine. Like, well we wouldn’t be together otherwise! 🤷🏽♀️
I appreciate you comparing relationships to a job where you get paid what seems fair. Because I think there is also a weird faux-leftist argument that goes something like, "believing relationships should be reciprocal is a product of capitalism! Are you really going to keep an account of how much your partner does for you??"
And like, yeah maybe in a community where everyone depends on everyone else and reciprocity is built in, it is natural that some people will receive more and some will give more over time. But what we are being asked to accept is ALWAYS being the Default Giver. There is nothing anti-capitalist about that.
Where, in any other relationship, including friends, co-workers, bosses, siblings, friends, neighbors, etc...would anyone anywhere believe it's healthy for one party to always give 95% and the other to give 5%?
I agree so much!! Maybe there’s two types of reciprocity - there’s the financial accounting type of tit for tat, bean counting, cold, calculating type…then there’s the relational type which isn’t directly measured but felt, a feeling of “I give to you because it makes my life more wonderful and you give to me because it makes your life more wonderful because seeing you happy makes me happy and vice versa, you seeing me happy makes you happy”. I dunno
Yes, absolutely. My ex internally "kept score" and then would bring it up when it suited him. He did it just this past weekend when we got into an argument because he was being disrespectful to me and tried to prove to his dad that he's actually a "nice guy."
His dad happened to be there and was getting after him for how he was treating me. My ex proceeded to say, "I'm nice! I paid her traffic ticket for her recently!" I proceeded to calmy say, "Yes, that was nice of you. I also pay for 100% of our children's health insurance every month so there's that..." and walked away. (He paid for my traffic ticket because I asked if he could cover it for me since he has never helped pay for our children's health insurance, which costs me a lot of money, but said recently he would contribute.)
Meanwhile, my boyfriend generously gives to me in all sorts of ways without me asking because it makes me happy and that makes him happy and vice versa. There is no accounting, tit for tat, in our relationship. Sometimes he's giving more and sometimes I'm giving more depending on our needs at the moment. But in the end, it's equal in love and generosity.
It really resonated when Zawn pointed out that this advice harkens back to a different time. Older women will counsel younger women that marriage involves being miserable especially if they themselves were, because it's easier to believe that all marriages are as miserable as yours rather than face the fact that your husband stole your life from you, you can never get that time back, and you deserved far better than you got.
Oh wow, Elphie, this really speaks to me: at 66 I have faced the fact the I was complicit in my ex stealing a key 20 years of my life, key earning years for sure, and I can never get that time (or money) back.
But a good friend of mine to whom the very same thing happened, still cannot admit the truth of how bad her marriage was. I remember it! She just finds it---exactly as you say---easier to go along with the sentimentalized version, that women luuuuuv their kids and that makes it all worth it, losing half your life, and marriages "aren't so bad, they're just like that" as she still says with a shrug.
Me, I want ALL young women to avoid what I went through.
Thank you for your words!
I’ve told my mother on multiple occasions that marriage does not appeal to me. But she says that just because I saw the struggles she and my dad continue to go through, I shouldn’t let that be a deterrent. It was just their relationship, though. It’s all the data, other anecdotes, and women now happily divorced that informed my decision.
A quote I once read: If you don’t get fed love by spoons, you learn to lick it off knives.
I have been scammed into romantic abusive relationships three times with unevolved manipulative men, with the last two having terrible lasting consequences for my life and health.
I cannot express enough this dangerous romantic mythology to other women, and I’m so very relieved when they agree non-mutual relationships are not worth their energy and efforts. It brings peace to my nervous system to realise that many women are increasingly choosing themselves.
I think CHOOSE YOU as the love of your life.
Endless thanks to you Zawn ♥️ for all these vital messages for womankind.
I probably should have divorced my ex earlier when major issues started cropping up in our first year of marriage, but I had this notion that “the first year of marriage is the hardest.” We hadn’t lived together prior to getting married so I just assumed these were growing pains. I read so many books and talked to so many women thinking this was just normal and the way of things.
Flash forward a decade and now I’m in a different relationship. Together we are raising the two kids from my prior relationship. Granted we aren’t married, but we’ve lived together for over a year and - even with young children - it has been a very positive experience living with him. He relieves stress, not adds it. None of this “the first year is the hardest…” nonsense I previously thought was normal.
And the classic “it takes two to tango”!
What utter shit.
I can vouch for the fact that abusers tango into abusing their partners all on their own.
I’m so tired of the constant brainwashing on this. And my husband certainly weaponizes it too. Like no, it shouldn’t be THIS hard. I shouldn’t be this MISERABLE. It’s been so normalized (cue the sitcom married couple) and I feel crazy when I’m like no I don’t want this wtf
I just irritably pointed out a task that my husband had every intention of blowing right over. I got “you just have to ask. It isn’t that hard. I’m not a mind reader. Just ask for what you want. It doesn’t work that way. Ask nicely. I’m happy to help. Everything can’t be done whenever you want it done. It can’t just be about you getting whatever you want. I’m not dropping everything to do what you want. Just ask.” I’m sure I left a few off. I kept bucking back at every statement and he was getting pretty prickly. He did do the task, silently and oddly. I just left it. I thanked him, because that is expected.
Ever since reading Zawn *I see these things*. There’s a whole other situation about my not dispensing sex, but I’m uncomfortable to say online.
Me too, to all you wrote. Hugs, Shell.
Isn't it odd how they need to be asked to do what they should have already done, while no one asks us to do the obvious because any adult should have already seen and done what needs to be done on a regular basis in a household? This HORSE SHIT of having to be asked, which puts us immediately on the defensive as if cleaning his poo or pee off the toilet where he splattered it, washing the sheets on a regular basis, preparing or ordering food for dinner, litter boxes, dogs getting walked, children being tended to, etc....and THEN having to be thanked for it, is patently absurd.
Like in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I can almost see, hear, and smell visions of days repeated in my life from 50+/- years ago as clear as a bell:
It would be of my father sitting in his chair waiting to be served a meal and my mother saying, "Now you girls THANK YOUR FATHER for the wonderful job he did on......"Take your pick: He boiled the noodles for the meal, he picked up take out, he ordered a pizza, he replaced the guest "powder room" toilet handle, he ran the vaccum over the den(which was one of our chores)since we had to go to the dentist and get teeth pulled for braces that afternoon or something, he cut the dried dog shit out of the green shag carpet from under the piano instead of waiting for us to get home to do it; Ad Infinitum. REAL "special occasions". (Eye Roll)
My mother would get on the phone with her friends in the mornings while we were all still alseep(I'd often be awake and eavesdrop) and drone on and on about how awful and childlike their husbands were. It was the old, "Men will be men" chatter that ended in one or both of them having to get off the phone to take the husbands coffee and cigarettes while they were on the toilet or something else just as gross or ridiculous.
I can't recall how many times, because there were so many, that he'd not have stopped on his way home to pick up grocery items when asked and he'd run out of toilet paper WHILE on the toilet, that my mother had to run up to the corner store and buy some. He would just SIT THERE on the toilet while poo dried on his butt until she got back instead of checking before he sat down, using Kleenex or paper towels, or just getting in the shower.
Ebenezer ain't got nothing on my father when it comes to gross ghosts of Christmas' past.
Dispensing sex: sounds like he’s already given you the responses.
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Everything can’t be done whenever you want it done.”
“I’m not dropping everything to do what you want.”
I was once in an unbalanced relationship where it became clear he expected to get everything he wanted, and do very little for me in return. At the same time he was very concerned about “fairness” as it related to him.
I started pointing out the imbalance and because of the lack of FAIRNESS I would have to downgrade him and his needs to the same priority he assigned me and my needs. It’s not my preference, as I’d prefer reciprocal generosity and consideration, but he leaves me no choice.
When he would be dimissive, I would say, “Oh, that’s a good one. I’ll use that next time you want something.”
Sure enough, later I would say “Now last time I asked *you* for something, you told me XYZ. Well, XYZ.”
And go on about my merry way. Obviously the relationship was over but it was incredibly satisfying to do this while I was getting my ducks in a row to leave.
It’s so normalized that I’ve learned to stay quiet about my happy, equitable marriage of nearly two decades in some circles, or I risk pitying side-eyes or comments about “feeling so bad” for my husband. For the first few years, it was “just you wait,” and now, after 17, if I’m happy, he must be miserable, emasculated, gay, or cheating (or some combination). And I get it - it's one of those built in systems that props up patriarchy because if equitable partnerships where both people are happy simply exist, other men might have to treat their partners as something other than a convenience item who’s supposed to run on fumes to support his picket fence dreams. So when people encounter a marriage that is genuinely happy, they assume it must be fake, delusional, or hiding something rotten.
It's tragic you have to keep quiet about your happy marriage lest people think badly of you, but I know exactly what you are talking about and have seen it with my own eyes. FEW people, men or women, want to hear any of that because like you said, they feel awful for your husband or say things or display feelings that don't portray jealously really, rather disbelief or that something must be "wrong".
I find their behavior insulting on the one hand and sad on the other that an equitable happy heterosexual marriage is so incredibly rare that it isn't to be believed.
Friend, SAME
This is so sad and yet spot on.
I am the one who wrote the comment about having a previous toxic marriage who is now in a healthy relationship. I fully agree that I felt it was more socially acceptable to talk about my past relationship. The contrast is bizarre.
In the early days after my partner met my kids (and stepped up in a big way), even some close friends were in disbelief that a man who didn’t have kids himself would step up for me and mine. Like, well we wouldn’t be together otherwise! 🤷🏽♀️
I appreciate you comparing relationships to a job where you get paid what seems fair. Because I think there is also a weird faux-leftist argument that goes something like, "believing relationships should be reciprocal is a product of capitalism! Are you really going to keep an account of how much your partner does for you??"
And like, yeah maybe in a community where everyone depends on everyone else and reciprocity is built in, it is natural that some people will receive more and some will give more over time. But what we are being asked to accept is ALWAYS being the Default Giver. There is nothing anti-capitalist about that.
Where, in any other relationship, including friends, co-workers, bosses, siblings, friends, neighbors, etc...would anyone anywhere believe it's healthy for one party to always give 95% and the other to give 5%?
I agree so much!! Maybe there’s two types of reciprocity - there’s the financial accounting type of tit for tat, bean counting, cold, calculating type…then there’s the relational type which isn’t directly measured but felt, a feeling of “I give to you because it makes my life more wonderful and you give to me because it makes your life more wonderful because seeing you happy makes me happy and vice versa, you seeing me happy makes you happy”. I dunno
Yes, absolutely. My ex internally "kept score" and then would bring it up when it suited him. He did it just this past weekend when we got into an argument because he was being disrespectful to me and tried to prove to his dad that he's actually a "nice guy."
His dad happened to be there and was getting after him for how he was treating me. My ex proceeded to say, "I'm nice! I paid her traffic ticket for her recently!" I proceeded to calmy say, "Yes, that was nice of you. I also pay for 100% of our children's health insurance every month so there's that..." and walked away. (He paid for my traffic ticket because I asked if he could cover it for me since he has never helped pay for our children's health insurance, which costs me a lot of money, but said recently he would contribute.)
Meanwhile, my boyfriend generously gives to me in all sorts of ways without me asking because it makes me happy and that makes him happy and vice versa. There is no accounting, tit for tat, in our relationship. Sometimes he's giving more and sometimes I'm giving more depending on our needs at the moment. But in the end, it's equal in love and generosity.