Originally posted July 22, 2010
I've had so little time in front of a computer for the last 7 months that I haven't bothered with either of my blogs. I've had so much on my mind lately that I decided I'm going to somehow find the time to come here and write something. It's been so long that I forgot which email account I was using, and had to reset my password...snicker...but here I am!
I do a lot of processing in my car...I drive a LOT. My drive each way to work is about 40 minutes, and driving to and from my love's house each week takes 45 minutes to an hour. That gives me approximately 7 hours per week to think. Having no stereo in my vehicle is a huge incentive to do such thinking, too.
So, I was driving and thinking recently. I ordered this book from paperbackswap called "From Wedded Wife To Lesbian Life", and I'm finding myself in the pages. What had me thinking during my 40 minute drive to work was a story of a woman who was a feminist, very independent in her marriage, and once she left and came out of the closet, she realized that despite all her insistence to the contrary, she had spent her entire life trying to live up to a patriarchal ideal.
Yep, that would be me.
Oh goddess no, not me...never! My husband was a feminist, too! I mean, he never actually said that...and he never really spoke up about sexist comments his friends would make...and he never really defended women when men were harassing them...and he never exactly DID anything that would sorta "prove" that he's a feminist...but he supported me. That makes him a feminist...right? Sorta?
Yeah, no. Notsomuch.
After I left my first [abusive] husband, I did everything I could to distance myself from anything that might suggest a patriarchal system...family, marriage...I learned about abuse, I spent 4 1/2 years immersing myself in self-help books, support groups, literature, you name it...all to avoid the same pattern.
Then, I met my second husband. He wasn't abusive. He was hilarious. He and I have similar personalities, we get along great, and the only problem I could see was his INTENSE, ALL-CONSUMING need to procrastinate. He was...I can now say, honestly...the best I thought I'd ever find. I settled. That makes me so sad for him. But it's true. I loved him, and still do, as a person, as a friend, as a nice guy that I'm proud to have in my life...but I was never in love with him.
I didn't believe in marriage and didn't want kids when I met him. Eventually, I developed an almost desperate...no, not almost...a desperate need - NEED! - to have our union on paper. Marriage was my idea. Me, the feminist, anti-patriarchy, anti-marriage, anti-societal "norms", free woman...I NEEDED marriage. I was terrified that my "good enough" catch was going to leave me, that I wasn't good enough.
Oh gods, this is painful. To admit, to write, to recognize! To finally understand that this was where I was coming from! I didn't understand at the time why I felt so compelled to convince him to love me, to marry me, to start a family with me...he was reluctant. He would deny it til he was blue in the face, but it took him a year and three months to tell me he LOVED me...just those words, no commitment, no long-term NOTHING...just "I love you" took THATLONG. My ass he wasn't reluctant. I refused to see it. I'd just tell him, "if you don't hurry up, I'm going to leave you"...so then, he'd hurry up, to prove that he wasn't reluctant after all. Pfft. Just TRY and tell me this marriage was meant to be. Ha!
I was desperate to fit into society...under the auspices of having a "feminist" husband. I was a free woman...with a wedding ring. I was liberated...the legal document that tied me to another person was just for the legal rights...right? I'm ashamed to admit this now, having learned a little about the world of adoption...but I was terrified to get pregnant (and he made it impossible anyway...long story that I probably won't delve into in this blog)...so, wanting that whitepicketfence American Dream family, we decided to adopt (and by "we decided", I mean that I talked him into it...just like everything else).
Thankfully, we were never chosen. It horrifies me to look back on that time in my life - my entire relationship with husband #2 - and recognize how caught up I was in a patriarchal society, the expectation of my parents and community that I would be "normal", straight, that I would have a nice little house in a nice little neighborhood with a nice little husband and some nice little children that I would be a perfect cake-baking, soccer team Mommy to...like forever. The fact that I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA (at least, not that I was willing to admit to myself or anyone else) that I'm a lesbian, or that I was disavowing my own convictions by my actions, that I just kind of put on my blinders and focused on the end goal of achieving this family unit that I have never in my life had any interest in having (save for the purpose of appearances)...it's insane. I was working toward the opposite of my life goals, having convinced myself that this path was right in line with what I wanted.
How did I convince myself that THAT was who I am? And WHY?
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