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If you ask my sister she’ll tell you I have a terrible habit of staring when I shouldn’t. I get it from our Dad so I place the convenient blame on genetics. I’ve always been an eavesdropper though - not for malicious reasons, I’m just terribly invested in how human beings interact. I’m constantly wondering why we do what we do and more specifically, what makes a relationship between a man and a woman work. I will often ask married couples how they knew they found the one, what they do to make it last and if it’s as hard as it looks. Because yeah, if you pay attention as much as I do, it looks fucking hard. I have no misconceptions about marriage – I’m very much of the opinion that it can be the best and simultaneously the most difficult commitment you’ll ever make. People promise for better or for worse never knowing what the worst may actually entail. One minute you’re saying your vows at the most expensive party you’ve ever thrown and the next you’re facing off with one of the dreaded D’s. Divorce, Disrespect, Disease, Dejection, Disappointment, Deception, Destruction, Death, Desertion…you get the picture.
At this point in the blog I always reiterate that I’m not married or in a relationship and this is by no means a blueprint of what those things should be. It’s just an observation about people. And life. And things that happen in life. Come to think of it, it’s not necessarily about marriage at all. It’s kind of just about me.
When I was in my 20’s and had my first relationship, I had no idea who I was. I didn’t know why I was building the Great Wall of China around myself or why I could never “give in” and say I was upset or why I could never EVER ask for what I truly wanted. I thought it was better to be stoic, take it on the chin, act like nothing hurt and pretend I didn’t care when things were going pear shaped. And trust me – they were always going pear shaped. The guy I was with would break up with me again and again so I’d go out with my friends and have a good time to appease my misery again and again. Who needs a man anyway, right? We can live without them, right? Wrong. We cannot. I know that I have written many times in this blog about shitty men who treat women poorly and I stand by that 100%. But I’ve also said that sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs to get to your Prince and I stand by that too. The male race is not disposable, no matter how many extreme feminist blogs try to convince you otherwise. Don’t believe me? That’s cool. But I’m sitting in an apartment block built by men. My air-conditioning system was recently fixed by men. I have the job I do because a good man started a great company. Men do security sweeps of my unit when I feel uneasy about something. They tail me home at night to make sure I get there safely. I’m alive because a man fell in love with a woman. I don’t want to live in a world without men and I don’t want any woman being convinced that we should. Or that we’d be better off if we did.
I’ve had a lot of time on my own to think about why my past relationships have been the source of a lot of frustration, disrespect, resentment, bickering and disappointment. I by no means have it all figured out but what I do know is that I have never chosen in alignment with who I truly am. Because up until now, I’m not sure I’ve really known who that woman is. I can tell you who she used to be though.
My life circumstances meant I had to grow up pretty quickly and learn how to be independent from a young age. In my formative years my sister and I relied heavily on each other and thanks to doing the ‘inner work’ that a lot of people shy away from, I know we had no choice but to be very firmly seated in our masculine energy. For that reason and so many others that this blog doesn’t have enough space for, I’ve rarely let a man take the reins in a partnership. I saw these men I’D chosen as incapable, incompetent and weak. I almost always had more money than them which eventually diminished the levels of mutual respect. They were still carrying around their adolescent ego’s which they would never live up to. When it came to stepping up and ‘protecting’ I knew they had no follow through. I took on the role of mother or babysitter just trying to make sure they took care of themselves and I absolutely resented it. As it turns out, when you go looking for yourself in someone else the reflection can get pretty ugly. I was awful and dismissive and hard to deal with let alone be with – a truth that I’m very ok with admitting. I perched myself up on a pedestal and exerted my dominance over whoever I was with. There were never any power struggles because I was always in charge. Call it my toxic trait if you will but I was “the man” as much as I was the woman and I hated it. Not only had I chosen wrong but from hindsight’s perspective, I never should have chosen at all. I had no good reason to.
I’m of the firm belief that if I had married young I would have been fucking miserable (and after reading what an asshole I could be in relationships, I’m sure you’ll agree). My first love and I would have had a messy divorce filled with destruction and disappointment and dejection. I know people who have been together years and walked through fire to get to where they are. I have girlfriends who displayed Jesus levels of patience as their boyfriends dragged them to the depths of hell while they fought their own demons. Those people are happily and purposefully married and are some of the most healed couples I know. There is simply no way I could have fought it out in my 20’s. I didn’t have it in me.
Do I have it in me now? I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that for the past few years I have chosen myself. Loved myself. Simultaneously healed and rebuilt myself. Met my own needs. Asked myself what I truly wanted. Taken myself on dates. Put on candles just because. Made beautiful dinners with my best crystal and enjoyed what it has meant to get to know even the worst parts of who I am. And as I’ve done that I have come to realise that the real me isn’t the independent little girl who can’t trust anyone to do anything for her. I don’t want to feign stoicism with a man and act like nothing hurts or pretend that I don’t care. I don’t want to manipulate a man to get what I want and I don’t want to be with someone who requires endless external validation to stroke his ego.
What I want is to feel safe. All women do. It’s why we build walls around everything. Our hearts, our minds, our vaginas, our emotions, our hopes and dreams and fears. We’re scared. And the only men who make us feel less so are the ones that show up everyday and prove it. Not with their words but with their actions. I know this because I have a friend who was once just like me. So easily repulsed by the simplest things men did. Offer to iron the clothes? Sissy. Make the morning coffees? Pathetic. Send a sweet text? Cringe. That is until she met her current partner. If you want to see someone switch from being “the man” to being with the man, she’s the perfect example. If you want to see someone step out of her masculine and into her glorious feminine, she's it.
We spent a long time on the phone today trying to verbalise what makes everything about her partner different and the one thing we could agree on is this: it’s the unasked questions that he already knows the answers to. The bins that magically go out, the hooks that appear in her bathroom for her hair tools, the lightbulbs that get replaced, the water next to her bed every night. It’s the way he immediately gets up if she hears a noise while they’re sleeping, it’s the look he gives that guy eying her up and down, it’s the way he opens her door and never let’s her walk closest to the road. It’s his acceptance of everything that she is, for good or for bad. There is no ego or bravado. There is simply a knowing. A knowing that when shit hits the fan, he will have her back. In every way. He is dependable and confident and self-assured and she has no choice but to respect him because he will lovingly call her out if she doesn’t. For me personally it’s how he picks her up from the valley kebab shop at 5am when we’ve been out on the turps too long. Does he like the morning wake up calls? Of course not. Does he make her feel guilty about it? Never. You know why? Because all he wants is his girl home safe and there is no one better to get her there than him.
I have witnessed that when the right man shows up in your life in these ways, you can’t help but want to do the same. Without mandate or obligation there is constant consideration for who he is, how he feels and what he needs. And if that’s a blowjob on a Sunday morning or his favourite meal on a Tuesday night, the right man will make us want to do both. The wrong man will make us want to do neither.
Sometimes it’s not about how you love, but who you choose to love you back. That makes all the difference.
With love, always
J
