Once again I am both outraged and bewildered that the battle of the
sexes ensues.
I was reading this wordpress.com column, "One French Woman's Opinion,"
and realized that yes, these things are still being talked about and
it's all still quite mixed up.
http://whatisyourownopinion.wordpress.com/category/love/ is the
website in case anyone here is interested.
Anywho, this is how I chose to marry, and how I choose to stay married:
1. Preconceived notions. I had serious doubts that I'd ever marry.
I was raised fiercely independent of men. I grew up without a
father. I was very dependent on Mother and she was dependent on me.
We had each other for support in the cold harsh reality we called
life. So I saw marriage as something only "delusional" people had.
They weren't being truthful with themselves and simply following
society's rules. To me, marriage was completely unnecessary. If you
actually met someone you really liked and got along with, you chose to
be with someone forever, and you simply did it. You didn't have to
marry to prove that to everyone.
2. Engagement. In walked Dale. It's funny, how suddenly my opinions
about the matter changed once I found out how capable of love I was
(am). Suddenly I wanted to shout it out to the whole world. One day
I told him that if he ever asked me "that question" I'd probably say
yes, but I didn't expect him to or anything, I just wanted to make
sure he wasn't too scared to ask if he was so inclined. Months later
that day came. I was stunned but I did say yes! He knew me well
enough, too, than to go about it story-book style: Instead of a
diamond ring, I received a blue plastic one made on a machine I was
most interested in hearing more about. He thought he needed to give
me a gift, too, though, so he gave me a computer that I'd been lusting
after and saving for.
3. The wedding. We did not believe in spending a lot of money on a
wedding because it was only one day and both of us preferred to spend
money on gadgets instead, and save for our trip across the country.
So we walked up a mountain in our new home town with a JP and two
relatives. I dressed myself in purple with a few green accents and a
silver circlet. The whole thing cost me under $120. (Although I will
admit that the dress I purchased originally for the occasion was $400
- it did not show up in time so now I use it for Halloween and
Renfaires. Why waste a good Medieval outfit?)
4. The honeymoon. People are telling me it's not quite over yet. We
did not have a honeymoon per se, but we call our trip out west just
that because it was three months after we were married and the only
major, special thing we really did (aside from getting married). We'd
been talking about it for a while before the question was popped,
though.
5. How do we get along? I think we get along pretty darned well.
Growing up, I heard a lot of neighbours yelling at each other. I
didn't want to be like that, and that's one reason I didn't want to
get married for so long. But Dale respects me, listens, offers good
advice, has good ideas, and is receptive to my needs. Further, he's
excited about life and all it has to offer. His bad moods are hardly
that; he just wanders off by himself and releases it quietly,
occasionally asking if he can vent to me about whatever it is. Then
it's over. I know my own moods shift like waves in the sea and it
amazes me that he doesn't take it personally most of the time. The
key component here, though, is that we listen to each other and
respect one another. I can't stress how important sensitivity,
understanding, and communication are to our relationship. And, not
everything is based on what each of us wants. Typically, if he wants
to go here and I want to go there and we're both going to xyz, we look
at it logically to decide whether we go his way or my way. Which is
closer? Which makes a more complete circuit for our itinerary? What
is the timing of both? Can we do both or only one? Who else might be
involved? I distinctly remember the first time this method of
decision-making became obvious in our relationship. We wanted to go
to about five or six places and it was agreed upon in advance. We
were preparing to leave and Dale says, "I know we said we'd go here,
but... I wondered if we could go here first, then here. The reason
is ... xyz ... it's fine if you don't want to, I know you really
wanted to do THIS first. It's just that if we do /this/ first then I
might miss out on /this/." I said, "Well, yeah, I do want to do my
thing first, but... let's think about this. Your thing is here on the
map, mine is here. The rest are here, here, here, and here. So if we
did my thing, really, it's out of the way, whereas your thing is over
here... Yeah, it makes logical sense anyway. I say we do it your
way." So we try to implement that now. The idea is to set aside your
desires and look at it in black and white. Make it the most efficient
you can, and know that you both want to do this, and accept that you
won't get to do what you want all the time. Now, it's not to say that
it always works this way, but having established this early on, I
think, has helped us stick with it. One day I proposed something that
Dale really didn't want to do, but it logically fit into our plan. By
his tone I knew he was rather peeved about it, but I knew I'd given up
things I wanted to do out of logic, and my thing was, this time,
logical. So I didn't get upset, I simply stated fact and then backed
away, saying that if he really disliked the idea, then we didn't have
to do it, but that it was logical and something I very much wanted to
do. He ventured off for a quarter of an hour and finally came back
saying no, he was OK with it. Other times, we simply went our
separate ways. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the logical
approach is extremely helpful to us, but in the end, our consideration
for each other is what keeps our relationship so awesome.
Perhaps it's the combination of an engineer geek with a computer
geek? I don't know. But instead of bickering, it seems far more
productive to create solutions to potential disagreements before they
turn into unnecessary arguments for the neighbours to hear. We're
just happy we have someone to do these things with, and that we can
afford to do things. Not everyone can say that. Why ruin it?
In summary, I don't get why there's a battle of the sexes. Yes, there
are physical differences, both out in the open and inside. But in
this world of equality concerns, I hope these battles fade - and
fast. That folks still have notions of ownership, manipulation,
revenge, jealousy, and resentment is utterly flabbergasting. To each
their own, man, but egads... how do some of you live like that?
~nv
