Do You Realise you Married a Man

I have had this said to me.

Interestingly when you talk to people about the issues in your relationship and stressors in your life and what makes you unhappy and how you wish you had never gotten married and especially had kids, it turns out it is because apparently this is what all/many/most heterosexual couples are experiencing: "you are describing pretty much every hetero couple I know".

....ok, so maybe I am.

Does that matter? Should I adjust my thinking, my feelings, my version of my lived experience, my happiness because apparently its like that for everyone? Does that mean there is something wrong with me that I am not happy? Am I secretly lesbian? They seem to have more balanced partnerships and parental/ work /life balance (but my sample size is small). Is this the whole gender is not binary, and although I'm attracted to men physically I am actually lesbian when it comes to relationships? Is that even possible? Who knows. I think (and I study gender, and I'm a woman, so therefore I know it all..?!) any thing is possible.

I am just a misfit...??

Oohh,... maybe, but then there are the other women who also complain!

So are they complaining because it is the thing to do (in our community - clearly not in others where it is very important to always be joyously happy and Love, Love, Love everything in life)? Or are they complaining because it is impossible to be a woman and have it all, if having it all involves an intimate partner, kids, a job (career, I hear of that word, but have sadly never had one) that you actually like, enough money to live on, and a life, friends, and fulfillment?

It may be possible for some.

It just may be. I would argue that they are in the vast minority (yes that is an oxymoron apparently), and they either have AMAZING support from outside the nuclear family, or they have made compromises and are comfortable with those compromises, which perhaps may not sit so well with other people. There is, by the way, no judgment here. I am not here to judge. If you are living the dream and all is awesome and you don't have times or days (or all day every day) in which you think 'there has to be a better way; we have this whole societal set up wrong; I am not fulfilled as mother/ lover/ company director', then power to you. I salute you and would happily take any real practical and achievable advice you have to offer. Because I know I clearly have no F'ing idea how to make it work.

This is a topic much debated and attested in the media- radio, TV, books, magazines (apparently we do still have some of those), blogs, and probably the literature, and something I would happily explore in my astounding academic career that is yet to take off.

So taking the position that I am NOT alone in my misery (did I say misery, one should not describe one's life like that should they, but yet, I struggle for an alternative- I'll look up options in the thesaurus later) I am going to ponder the alternatives.

Restore the 1950's vibe.

We see it everywhere. Check out the clip art on google. 1950's stereotypes. They were so happy! Ok, all us radical/ non-radical/ proto/ bla bla bla feminists do not believe for an instant that they were happy. They had instant coffee, tv, nice clothes and hair that only needed doing once per week and that was at the hairdresser so you had

your social life too.

The kids were all amazingly polite and well behaved, loved school, and did whatever they were asked. All you had to do as a woman was cook, clean, make dinner, bring shoes and pipe to the front door at 5 pm (assuming you didn't have a well trained dog to do this for you) and lay back and think of England a couple of times a week.

No stress about OSHClub and how much it costs, especially when the kids are sick, you stayed home to mind them, earnt no money, but still paid for OSHC. No stress about school holidays and how to juggle them and work (which parents didn't I hit up last holidays that I still have a remotely strong enough bond with that I can ask for help in the full knowledge that I may never return the favour (because I'm a failure)). No job to worry about, no PT to catch or peak hour to avoid. No negotiating time off to take the kids to the dentist (yep, haven't had time to even make the call to the dentist let alone actually take anyone there in the past 18months-- oh that's right, my last appointment was cancelled by him because he had to go skiing and then complained about it?! WTF??!)

So did they have it all?

No. But it worked. I know this is political, but it did kind of work.

Not saying it worked and was perfect, but it worked.

However as liberalised, intellectualised and femininist-ized women, we know that some of the negatives of this model are pretty negative for many women.

No career, ok no hassle about kids and schedules, but no career, nothing to strive for and focus on. No independent money, no superannuation, no freedom.

Oh and if you are like me and do not enjoy cooking, in any form at all ever - big negative because that was one of your main jobs.

Indeed I do wonder if I would feel differently about my life of embittered domestic thraldom, if it would be a lot less gloomy, if I thoroughly enjoyed all things kitchen. I know I am clearly really weird and in the minority here. I have been involved in conversations (well not actively involved. More like sitting there feeling like I'm a fly on the wall in a Japanese ladies afternoon tea party wondering what could be so enthralling) about kitchen utensils and equipment that I did not understand a single word in about 20 minutes. All jargon and things I clearly do not possess, and quite frankly don't want to- as I would then have to use them presumably, and worse still find somewhere to store them.

I lack this gene. I prefer to study.

Yep that's weird too and takes a lot of time. And nothing else remotely domestic gets done. Again is this because I am not gender normal? What is it with me? My mum was the archetypal 1950's mum. And she was great at it. She did it all, and didn't complain- well not in earshot of me. I'm sure there were times and things she did hate, but essentially she was good at it and I was lucky enough to have a mum who was at home and cooked and baked and we had cake every day (well nearly) and desert everyday. My kids know cake comes in a packet and are still trying to conceptualise the meaning of the word desert.

I'm not rebelling because I watched her misery,

or because she told me to. I just don't enjoy being a domestic goddess. I know some people love being at home and doing all the housey stuff, and again, no criticism, that's great. Power to you too. But I don't get it. I don't mind doing some of it some of the time, but I need something else to keep my mind engaged, otherwise my mind goes wandering into dark places of anger and resentment. And I get why people who don't work go shopping (another task I do not inherently love in fact I avoid it all costs and would rather write an essay), but I get why they do it, because it gets you out, and if you had oodles of money you could probably make your house look lovely, really lovely, and that would be nice. But see, if I'm not working, I have no money, so I cant shop, which leaves me cleaning the same boring stuff all the time, and feeling resentful. Am I resentful that I don't have nice stuff, or resentful that I don't have money, or resentful that I am at home not doing some kind of amazing work that inspires my imagination and is contributing to improving the world on at least some small scale every day?

Here is one of my issues.

Not an issue for everyone, but an issue for me.

My work must be meaningful for me. And that means I have to feel that I am contributing something really worthwhile. Essentially it needs to be beneficent, I need to be helping. I want to make the world a better place. I wish I wanted to make money or even make money for others because then by default I would probably be making money for me also. Don't get me wrong, I DO want to make money and lots of it, I am no altruist, but sadly the humanitarian in me is not drawn to industries that make lots of money.

Oh, I seem to have digressed.

Where was I? Oh yes, I did apparently marry a man, and therefore should not be unhappy with the consequences of this arrangement.

However, the man has failed to live up to the expectations of the contract negotiated.

There were conversations about equality, both working part time and raising kids part time (from baby/toddler-hood, not just from when they turn 9 and become articulate and interesting and EASY to be around!). From when they are little and relentless and soul-destroying, and life is full of routine, routine, routine, sleeps, feeds, no sleeps for mummy, juggling playgroups, GP's, kinder, other activities. Trying to make remotely comprehensible conversations with people you have never met and would probably not have befriended in past life, but now at least they are another human being with some semblance of the same lived experience as you and although they seem to be doing it soooooo much better and with much more happiness and grace, they are at least an adult and can have a broken conversation in between telling kids not to kill each other.

Yes, it was meant to be shared.

Not you go to work and come home tired from a hard day talking to adults and thinking about adult ideas and listening to the radio on the way and being up to date with the news, and you may have even eaten something for lunch that was not the leftover toast crusts from your kids lunch because god forbid crusts will surely kill you if you are less than 6 years of age!!

I discovered a few months ago that men are only able to notice that clocks don't work. Presumably because the battery is flat. Who knows. What's important is that they told they someone that the clock has stopped again. And that someone, that mysterious 'do-er of amazing things' fairy will fix it. Just like "oh, it didn't occur to me that they have homework".

Refund policy

If I bought a washing machine that was meant to have 12 different cycles, yet only 2 of them worked I would return it and I would be justified. However, if one partners with man who only performs 2 out of the previously agreed 12 functions should I therefore be happy with this? I think not.

I expect not, and yet because it is a man, apparently I should. I should naturally accept that there will be frequent functions that are defunct and have never worked or certainly no longer do, and many that were never enabled in the first place. There may have been an indicator light that said it existed, but that was just for show. Bit like the kids toy mobile phone. You can press all the buttons you like but the text will not go through and the call will not connect.

So why do we settle for this?

Why do we? Are we? Some say 'well you take the good with the bad'. I think time to upgrade to a model that comes from at least this century, and preferably the last decade, as it may have some functions that I deem essential to my current existence.

Now where would I find that exchange receipt and where do I go to claim it?