Well, I haven't really talked about this yet. It has been a work in progress, and the progress has been zig zag and diagonal all over the place, but today I learned some things that made me ready to talk about it.
A little personal history
I have 4 children from 3 different guys. I married the father of the first one. That marriage ended abruptly - crash and burn style after about 3 years. A few months after we separated, I got pregnant in a rebound fling type deal. I hadn't been pregnant long when I started dating the guy who, in the end, took on the role of father to my second child. We were together for seven years, though we never married. That relationship ended even worse. We will call it nuclear explosion style.
My current husband and I started dating in December 2010. We were pregnant by July. Yes, I know. I am rather fertile. It was touch and go at that point. During the pregnancy, there were a few months we didn't speak to each other. Toward the end, we started to patch things up. As soon as Solomon was born, he was quite smitten and things seemed to be turning. Then came Lulu, and shortly after her birth, he proposed, and we just started referring to ourselves as married, including on taxes. In the state of SC, common law marriage is still a thing.
Without going into a lot of detail, things have turned for the worse. I have been ready to split up for more than a year and a half now, but I wanted it to be a mutual decision. I wanted to avoid the crash and burn scenarios of the past. I wanted us to part amicably. After all, this is the one guy I have more than one child with!
Is it possible?!
As it turns out that shit is more complicated than it sounds. I want to be amicable, but I also want to avoid encouraging him to think everything is ok. It's a very difficult balance, but you know what makes it easier? Honesty.
Every time I say what's going on and how I feel, the air is cleared of the toxic wasteland of tension, and when I'm clear about where I'm at, I don't have to worry about him thinking we are getting back together.
I'll give you an example. A few weeks ago, we finally definitively decided to split up. An amicable agreement. Just what I was praying for. Then he started talking about both of us moving to a different village, as though we were moving together. I started to panic. In my mind he had convinced himself we weren't splitting up. When we finally actually talked about it today, he said, “no, of course I haven't forgotten. We just can't afford to live separate yet, and we both need to get out of here. We both move out, and then we separate when we can afford it. I think we can tolerate each other that long.” Let me tell you. I have been freaking out for weeks. For absolutely no reason.
What the ever loving f is going on here?!
Well, I never ever ever want to hurt anyone's feelings. So there's that. I'm afraid to tell him how I feel. I can't say what's going on for his part, but this is a pattern between women and men, as well as girls and boys. I see my 4 yo daughter trying to protect the feelings of my 6 yo son. It's ingrained in us, but why?
This comes up on a search on pixabay for hurt feelings. I think this is pretty telling.
I suppose the base of it is that men are physically larger. Not wanting to upset them probably has some sort of biological intuition at its core, though in my case I have never felt physically threatened. Then culturally, we see it rampant. In movies and shows and music. Women are forever protecting men’s feelings and egos. If a man hollers out inappropriately and a woman calls him out, she's being a bitch? How does that work? How is it ok for a man to be rude and vulgar but not ok for a woman to tell him to stand down? Why are his feelings more important than hers? Good question. It is hard to imagine a situation where this dynamic is more toxic than in recent school shooting incidents where girls are shamed for having rejected the advances of someone so toxic they ended up shooting large numbers of people in a school. Gee. I can't imagine why she didn't want to date a psychopath. Yet she "should have been nicer to him." So he wouldn't shoot people? I can dig deeper into this, but it's really just quite honestly a simple outcome of a patriarchal society. It just is, and it's one of the things we have to change.
Now, clearly, part of this is just my particular personality, but it is certain that women often hold their tongues to protect men's feelings. Men, of course, aren't allowed much in the realm of emotions, but they are certainly allowed and encouraged to determine what they want and go for it, regardless of whose feelings get hurt. This is easily seen in the way women and men are treated differently when they have an affair.
Let’s make a change
When I see my daughter doing this, I make sure she knows it's not just ok to say how she feels but important. I make sure she knows to be kind, but also clear. I also make sure my son knows that it's ok for others to say how they feel and that his own sense of self worth is independent of others’ opinions.
In the end, though, I have to lead by example. I have to say how I feel and not be afraid of the effects of those words on others. I have to be clear and open and honest. I will always try to be kind, but I have to make an effort to be more open. It's very interesting because I just did a whole post about how open I am with my emotions, but it seems my daughter nailed it that I am willing to show happy, sad or angry but not necessarily talk about what I'm really feeling underneath or what's bothering me.
Much love, y’all!
As always, all pics are mine or pixabay unless otherwise noted.
