I’m going to slowly re-post some of my most popular posts from my old blog (around 2003) so that I don’t lose everything before I delete it. That blog is on pMachine and there’s no way to import all of the posts automatically or I’d do that.
My old blog was called Rant-O-Rama and I certainly did just that… it truly was rant after rant. I still think I’m a pretty angry person, but I’m not as angry as I was back then.
The last post, Judgment from “the marrieds”, was written in 2003 and it angrily calls out the “smug marrieds” but doesn’t clarify that I believe “smug marrieds” to be the vast minority of marrieds.
Let’s talk about the majority of married people that I talk to. The “lonely marrieds”. I’d say for every 10 people I meet who are in a marriage or long-term live-in relationship, probably only one of those people are happy.
As a single person, loneliness comes with the territory. But at least being single, I have hope that things could change in the future for me.
Married people who are lonely, who no longer have that connection with their spouse… they’re just trapped. They have no hope.
We’re so conditioned by what we see on TV and in advertising, even by the stories we’re read as a child, that marriage is the solution to a “happily ever after”. Even though logically I know better, I still assume that people who are married have this 24/7 love story going on in their homes. I make assumptions that really cause me to put my foot in my mouth when talking to my married acquaintances. You never know what goes on behind closed doors, and it’s never as magical and fairy-tale-esque as one would assume.
I guess I was lucky in that my marriage was so horrible, I had to leave (it was leave via divorce or leave via bodybag, so that’s kind of a no-brainer). But what about the ones who are in miserable relationships, but relationships that aren’t QUITE bad enough to leave?
Year after year of loneliness in your own home, the gulf between you and your spouse getting larger and larger, with no hope of things turning around because you’ve already tried everything and nothing helps, and the spouse doesn’t even value the relationship enough to go to counseling or put any effort into it on their part… now living with THAT has to be a very, very bad feeling. Especially if you have kids and you know your kids are watching this, growing up to think that a normal marriage is supposed to be like this…
My heart goes out to some of the married people I know. We live in a society where people are selfish, don’t take blame, and think that the world owes them not only someone to love them (with no return effort on their part), but someone to wait on them hand and foot as well. If you find yourself married to someone like that, it’s a sad, desolate dead end.
Entries (RSS)
Commenting on marriage, the British writer Zadie Smith stated that often people perceive love and marriage as something, at the end. Like it’s a prize.
A windfall.
We search and search for it, and once we’ve found it… it’s as though people see it in the same way as purchasing an appliance.
That it’ll just work for you after you’ve got it.
When in reality, love and marriage are just the beginning of another long and hard road.
That it’s hard work, not the “now everything will be just fine” idea that so many people have about it.
That marriage is a “leap of faith” and love being a “life long project”.
It’s true enough that sometimes love just isn’t enough to stay and work at it…especially if you’re the only one who’s working.
“Rowing the boat with one oar, will find you going in circles”, as they say.
Her whole comparison of people seeing others as minor characters in a personal movie, while in reality, we’re all minor characters in someone else’s movie…amused me.
Any time an individual tries to mesh their life with someone else’s, it’s work.
I think I have a relatively good marriage. I love my husband and I feel that he loves me back…sometimes we feel like a team, and sometimes we don’t. It varies…I’ve fallen in and out of love with him over the past 18 years.
But, at the same time…my acute fear of abandonment has made me sit and wait for the other shoe to drop every single one of those years.
Anything can happen, and change things in a blink.
Believe me when I tell you that when I listen to women brag about their relationships..”oh, my husband spoils me”…”oh, not MY husband…he cooks and cleans, and wipes my bum”….I always suspect that they’re lying. That they’re over-compensating for something.
Women do it certainly more than men…I say that because I’ve never heard a man brag about their marriage. This seems to be some sort of currency for some women.
When a woman does this…sometimes I will roll my eyes, right in front of her…or I”ll say something outrageous like…”Well, MY husband wipes my bum!” to sarcastically point out that it sounds like she’s competing with me.
What a stupid thing to compete with…what you tolerate, I may not…and what I tolerate you may not.
It’s a crap shoot.
It’s relieving to hear someone admit after 18 years of a comparatively happy marriage that you still have a fear of abandonment. Marriage used to be security, now there is no security to it. People are always trading in what they have in search of greener grasses, less work, simpler answers, just to find themselves in the same boat with a different partner.
It is an unhappy statement of our society that we’re more alone than we ever were. We move around and lose touch with the community we live in. Families aren’t close, because “me” thinking isn’t compatible with the “putting the group first” philosophies that family used to be about. And now we can’t even be secure with our spouses. Depressing.
My fear of abandonment is my own. I’ve had it since I was a child.
It’s been one of the biggest setbacks I’ve ever (and still do) deal with.
I never, ever wanted to be blindsided…but my rational side tells me that no matter how prepared you are, you can be blindsided.
What it boils down to is trust…and I don’t.
I envy people who can.