What’s the point?
The point of work is that sweet comfort of security and the delightful weight of cash in your pocket.
The point of family is the breath of life, as well as a hopefully life-long security system. An annoying one, but a security system nonetheless.
The point of friends is to have both the comfort and the delicious partner in crime.
The point of romance…
They say it’s to have the ultimate family, and the ultimate partner in crime. Sex. Love. Happiness. We’re told we’ll get the whole caboodle. Or, at least a few parts of it — a few parts that will fuel us to get the rest. We’re supposed to work at it, right?
But this is what someone with a great family and solid partner said to me tonight:
Most women are alone even if they are married.
Well, what the frak is the point then?
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard something so sad. Yes, there are sadder scenarios that occur in this world, but there’s just something about the bite of complacent disappointment.
I could choose to be completely depressed about this sentiment from someone I care about, or I can rebel against it. As a woman in love with the status of devil’s advocate, I’ll take the latter.
The same woman told me once, months ago, that she never thinks things out as much as I do. I can’t help but think that this new comment is a direct result of the old one. If you don’t befriend your rationale, it can’t lead you towards plotting a path that fills your needs. If you don’t speak up for the things that bother you, you will suffer while others thrive.
I know another woman who works full days, then comes home to be a housewife at night to her husband and kids. He cooks sometimes, but she does the planning, the cleaning, the organizing, most of the cooking, and all those wifely duties. And she won’t say a word otherwise because she doesn’t want to bother. She’d rather just do it than put her foot down. I now wonder if she’ll end up saying something similar to me in ten or twenty years, once we hit middle-age.
Frak that.
I will, therefore, wear my rationale and thought as a proud badge. I will continue to give the matters in my life serious thought. I will still let my heart lead me, but not without some rational protection to follow. I would much rather be lonely while knowing and looking for what will fulfill me, than found myself ever truthfully uttering those words.
If the fight of feminism has given women anything, it should be the drive to strive for meaning in our lives, whatever that may be, and not accept anything less.
That is all for now. Welcome and cheers!
PS – I’m not sure why my fingers insist on using “frak” tonight.
I think that there’s a thought to holding things backin a relationship because you don’t want to “rock the boat.” However, if what you’re holding back is going to slowly cause you to drown…what’s the point?
WRT to these women: do they both have children? For some reason, that seems to make a huge difference.
And re: frak – NERD!
I AM POPPING YOUR COMMENT CHERRY!
Yes, the both have children.
And I could think of no better person to pop it, darling!
I agree. Frak = nerd. You’r so going to be watching BSG
As for relationships. It’s no less common for men to complain about their wives and marriage. Most, in fact, feel the opposite of alone. They feel controlled, smothered, and miss many aspects of their bachleorhood they had to give up. Be it something like having to throw out the old football posters or the fact Friday night poker barely happens anymore. Odd that one half feels isolated and the other smothered.
I think it’s even worse when one side is content and the other submissive. The look of a broken spirit is disheartening to say the least.
In the end, neither side is honest if it becomes a problem. Generally, people don’t get married due to random proposals and spontaneous wedding preparations. There’s a bit of work involved, and a period of getting to know one another. This whole time is an opportunity to get out before its too late if things aren’t rosy. If you go through with it, t hen you have to be willing to shoulder the workload that goes with marriage. It’s not easy, but people are lazy.
If one side feels alone, they need to speak up. If the other feels smothered, they need to do the same. It doesn’t mean they get everything they want, but assuming it’s a loving relationship, it should foster discussion and some sort of resolution. Just openly acknowledging that there is a problem can be a big relief. Plus, we fool ourselves. “I never get to see my friends” or “you don’t listen to my needs” could be met with “You see your friends every Wednesday, and the last month was full of birthday parties and barbeques.” or “Every time I ask if something’s bothering you, or if I can do anything to help, you say no.” What’s obvious to someone else could be completely obscured to the person having the problem. People aren’t psychic.
So is the fault of relationships or the fault of the individuals within them? As slackmistress says, not rocking the boat can lead to bigger problems down the road. But everyone’s too afraid of the short-term effects vs the long-term benefits.
I think the emotional impact of “Most women are alone even if they are married.” is explicitly tied to the fact that alycesmythee actually knows this woman and she seemed to have a great family and partner. I don’t think that necessarily leads to the generalization that matches with the statement, but it’s more about the significance of hearing someone who should be happy clearly verbalize unhappiness like that. What I’m implying in a roundabout way is that maybe not all or even most women feel alone, but it’s scary to think of this as potentially resulting from fulfilling our romance “dream.”
If some men feel their wives are controlling/smothering, then I see this as just another side of the same coin – disconnectedness. It’s not just about independence, but about being able to communicate. As a feminist, though, I can see how many relationships might end up in a situation where the woman becomes somewhat controlling/demanding, if the man is shirking responsibility. It’s becoming increasingly common for both parents in a family to work, however, the bulk of housework (and cooking and childcare) still seems societally to be placed on the “mom” and if the husband tries to run with this idea and live mostly free of familial responsibility, that’s going to happen. But if they are in a loving relationship and are able to communicate, they should be able to work things out and neither should feel isolated or smothered.
Unfortunately, there’s a big inertia component to many romantic relationships. People crave the security blanket of a long-term relationship and as long as things are not terrible, many people will stay in a relationship well beyond the point of unhappiness with it. Ttruly, love can fade, people can grow apart and change (no matter how much getting to know each other and planning occurred before the wedding) and to borrow Astin’s phrase, people are lazy. So they stay in bad relationships. To claim that anyone who gets a divorce is “lazy” is someone who’s not had much exposure to the realities of divorce (regular breakups are generally horrible, but divorces are extra horrible with legal ramifications on top of all the emotional ones, it’s certainly not a “lazy” way out). I’m sure there are cases where people get divorced when with a little more effort they could’ve worked things out, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. And honestly, if you’re not willing to work out the marriage and there’s no compelling reason to do so (like children), why should you? For honor?
I think there’s a lot of pressure for people to get married in the first place. If this pressure were absented from the equation, you might have a lot less unsuccessful marriages. And as for kids in the equation, they certainly change a lot, but I’m of mixed minds about divorce and kids (the parents staying unhappily together is not necessarily better than actually getting divorced – it negatively affects the kids either way). My parents were at the point that they were considering divorce when I was a teen, but they stuck it out unhappily until the last kid finished grad school and now they’re going through divorce after all. My life would’ve definitely been different if they divorced when I was a kid, but I doubt it would’ve been much worse than dealing with thinly veiled unhappiness and frequent yelling. And I think my parents would’ve been happier and I feel bad for them now that they’ve spent so much time in an unsuccessful marriage.
In any case, I think being single can be quite wonderful – it’s certainly better than being in any sort of bad (or even mediocre) relationship. I say boo to “settling” and yay to sticking to your standards (using rational thought with heartstrings) and finding someone where there’s both chemistry and compatibility (those two concepts so often erroneously conflated). I have several friends (including one married couple) who are obviously very compatible and I believe have what it takes to get what they want longterm out of romance. And they didn’t settle for each other, but went through a series of bad matches to find someone right. It is hope for the rest of us, I think.
The kicker in all this. She is happy, and she likes where she is. That’s what makes it eerie — this disconnection between isolation and happiness.
To really discuss this would break bounds of privacy, but I just wanted to put that out there.