The Marriage Project, Reflection 11: “In terms of gender roles, I feel like all I get out of being married is the sexist kryptonite.”

Apologies for being off my game re: posting this week. In addition to having recently moved, I’m also planning on experimenting with the timing of the Marriage Project posts,  Any feedback you have on that would be welcome.

Additionally, there is even more good stuff coming up with the project. Get excited, and spread the word!

On with the show.

R lives in Boston.

Why did you decide to get married?

I got married a little more than decade ago at the age of 34. Like many people in my generation, I moved in with my partner before marriage. I wanted to get married because I wanted to perform a public speech act demonstrating that my relationship with my partner was committed. I also wanted to have children and I didn’t think I should do that with someone who wasn’t willing to dress up and dance around like an idiot to show he cared about me. When you have a child with someone, you’re stuck with him for most of your life. If he can’t deal with a little wedding theater in the service of building a family unit, he’s probably not going to be all that great about showing up for the Little League, bar mitzvah, and so on.

There were still people my age ten years ago who argued that marriage was a meaningless piece of paper, a mere social convention and so on and so forth. You know what else is really a meaningless piece of paper and a social convention? A dollar bill. Think I ought to refuse to acknowledge the validity of those, too?

Another way to ask this question is, if you assume, as I do, that marriage is a basic contract for people forming families, why did you decide, when you were ready to choose your own household, to form an exclusive sexual partnership with a man? That’s a much bigger question.

I suppose the best answer is, “it seemed like a good idea at the time.” Another really flippant answer is it was a way to ensure an appreciative audience for my jokes. I think anyone who knew us would say, we were pretty crazy about each other, but that’s not a good reason. You can love someone and be in love with him and smooch him and so on, and not get married. (Or not get—shacked up and committed and everything but!)

Perhaps, if I’m honest with myself, I can admit I decided to marry him because he was cute and played hard to get.

My partner dragged his feet on all aspects of our relationship, from deciding whether he wanted to date me, to moving in together, to getting engaged. His reluctance to commit to me confirmed that I needed to be a hard-ass about formal marriage. Whenever he said anything about not wanting to be bound by social convention, I thought he was bullshitting me. I still think so!

I was ready to break up with my partner because he was not ready to make a decision, when I had a major injury and was hospitalized. He stuck with me and I could see he was committed to me. We both moved a little on our positions—I decided I could stay with him even if he didn’t want to get married, and he decided he wanted to get married. In the end he proposed and we had a huge wedding with dancing. It was all very sweet and romantic.

What did you think marriage would be like?

I’m not sure what I thought it would be like. Probably I thought it would be more like our pre-marital years together than it has been. Our division of household responsibilities and our relationship in general has become less egalitarian over time.

My partner had strong feminist beliefs about how egalitarian our marriage ceremony and contract should be. We spent a lot of our wedding-planning time on what our ceremony meant and what kind of partnership we intended to enter. These did not translate into doing an equal share of household maintenance activities or communicating about money or any of the other things I thought made people partners in marriage.

Where do you think you got your ideas/concept/narrative about marriage?

A combination of observing my parents and other married couples and my husband’s Free to Be You and Me-inspired fantasy marriage narrative. I always thought, growing up, that my parents’ marriage wasn’t very egalitarian or mutually supportive, but in many ways my parents had a more equal and companionate marriage than I do.

I do remember discussing our parents’ marriages with my best friend in high school. We saw our parents mainly socializing with other couples, and therefore not having close friends in whom to confide individually. We thought depending on one person that heavily was a doomed effort, bound to be frustrating. I still think that’s true. There’s always a tension between wanting to have intimacy and being too dependent on one person.

What are your feelings on the word “wife”?

When we first got married, we used to joke about it, saying it with a lot of relish. Saying “my wife!” or “your wife!” still sounds funny to me. It’s like saying “my WOMAN!” We have the same unequal names for husband and wife in English that they do in Hebrew. In Hebrew, a husband is a ba’al, a master of a household, and in English, it’s the same, while the woman is
just—a woman. Now that we have same-sex marriage where I live, the word “wife” seems less fraught and I am feel little more neutral about it.

It would be nice if people slipped up and instead of introducing their partners as “my husband” or “my wife,” said, “this is my good friend.” That’s what you hope—that your spouse will be such a good friend that you decide to hang out with them for years and years, including them in all the important things that happen to you.

Why did you make the decision you made about your name?

I had already published work under my name and I didn’t want to change it. I was willing to hyphenate, but my partner was not. I didn’t think there was anything particularly egalitarian about me changing my name to Smith-Smythe if he was just going to be Smythe. Our child is Smith-Smythe. (Except, neither of us has such a short, easily spelled last name, so our child is actually blessed with a really long hyphenated last name. I hope this will build character.)

Do you think your relationship with your partner has changed since you got married?

Yes, but some of that is because we’re more than ten years older than we were. If we had stayed together without getting married and having a child, we’d probably also have a different relationship than we do today.

What have you learned about yourself since you’ve been married?

Having feminist ideals is not enough to protect me from internalizing every stupid sexist idea about marriage, ever. I am the worst kind of wimp—the kind who knows better and complains. I’m kind of annoyed that I mainly seem to have been socialized to the bad parts of femininity—the parts where you feel like the man gets to make a lot of decisions—and not the good parts.

What are the good parts of femininity, my feminist friends? The good parts are all the negotiating skills, the organization for multi-tasking, the feeling of being capable, that characterized my grandmother’s generation. Yes, she had to wear stockings every day and think her husband was smarter, but in return
she got all these super-powers.

In terms of gender roles, I feel like all I get out of being married is the sexist kryptonite.

Of course, I’ve also learned, at least gradually, what my needs are and how to negotiate for them. That’s a big benefit of being in a long-term, house-sharing relationship with someone other than your parents.

 

in which I now live in brooklyn

So I moved last week, finally, to Brooklyn, which was emotional and exhausting, and now I’m living in the midst of my mostly unpacked stuff, falling asleep at 1030 with my sweatshirt hood pulled up, listening to NPR. There are cats in the basement, and a giant, beautiful kitchen. Yesterday, I bought a lamp on the street from a guy named Henry. (More on this in another post.)

And now, more photos from Northampton.

The Marriage Project, Reflection 10, “It is important to not expect your significant other to fill a void and be everything you need.”

K is 25 and living abroad. She’s been married for 6 months.

Why did you decide to get married? 

We had been together a long time (5 years) and lived together for almost two years when we decided to get married. Because we are from different countries we felt we had to make the decision if we were in this relationship for the long haul and if we were both going to end up living in one place. We had that conversation and then decided together that we wanted to get married. Many have people have said that it’s so unromantic that we got engaged through a conversation but for me it is the most romantic way possible. We both made a mutual decision about our futures and our future together with lots of respect for each other. And isn’t that what a good relationship is all about? And why marriage? For me, it was a statement of showing the permanence of our relationship and saying to each other “I’m here now. Whatever happens.” That is a very powerful and beautiful thing. 

We also spent most of our time planning for the wedding thinking about our relationship and what we wanted it to be and what our goals were for our to be family. Our ceremony had a lot of who we are in it and what are values are. I think that is why everyone loved it so much. Because we focused on the real part of the wedding-the marriage and what we wanted it to be. 

What did you think marriage would like?

Hard. Beautiful. Comforting. And like our relationship before it’s been all of those things. 

Where do you think you got your ideas/concept/narrative about marriage?

From my parents. They have been happily married for 36 years. They also lived together before they got married and also got engaged through a conversation. I think they showed me that marriage is hard, that everyone fights but that having a significant other who loves you and is always supportive of you is a wonderful thing. I originally took my relationship ideas also from movies but realized very fast that they were unrealistic and stupid. The wisest things I learned about relationships I learned from my mom. One, is that one person should not be your world. She taught my brother and me that it is important to not expect your significant other to fill a void and be everything you need. Friends are incredibly important and help you have a better relationship with your significant other. The second lesson I learned when I was speaking to her about how she knew my dad was “the one”. She told me that you never know. That every relationship is a leap of faith. That everyday of a marriage is choosing to be with the other person and love them. That has been very powerful and important for me in my relationship.

What are your feelings on the word “wife”?

I don’t love it. We prefer to call each other spouse, bat zug which means partner in Hebrew, or “very significant other.” Husband and wife have a lot of stereotypes that can come with them. We do call each other husband and wife occasionally mostly because its a hard switch to make. However we never call each other husband and wife in Hebrew. Only ben or bat zug. That somehow has felt less forced and easier to do.

Why did you make the decision you made about your name?

For now we are both keeping our own names. We are both big feminists and neither of us ever thought of me just taking his name. I have been a G for some many years it felt weird to suddenly say I wouldn’t be. For logistical reasons we have not hyphenated yet but are thinking of doing a hyphenation of his name-my name. For now we are going by “the GGs” with our friends and family. Even if we both keep our names I really love the nickname GGs and hope it sticks.

Do you think your relationship with your partner has changed since you got married?

Mostly it has stayed the same. The main difference is that now I feel like we are really family in a different way. For example I have been incredibly home sick every Rosh Hashana I’ve been in Israel. This year I wasn’t because I genuinely felt I have family here-both M and his family. And that is a big step because my relationship with M’s family has had some rough patches. It was so wonderful this holiday to feel like we are really family now.

What have you learned about yourself since you’ve been married? 

That I can be too judgmental and need to set a lower bar for myself and others. That it’s important what battles to choose and what things to let go of. It’s important to be thankful for small things. I’ve also been pleasantly surprised of how much I’ve enjoyed having new family, him and all his siblings, parents and cousins. 

 

The Marriage Project, Reflection 9: “I kind of knew ahead of time -as a feminist- that I was going to get a lot less out of marriage than he was.”

A has been married for almost 20 years. She lives in Washington DC.

Why did you decide to get married?

I was already living with the man I married – we had actually been living together for a couple of years. I wasn’t really that into it, but he felt that if we didn’t marry and take the next step, that probably our relationship wouldn’t continue to grow and we would probably end up splitting. I don’t know why, exactly, I cared if we would split up or not, since I was never particularly interested in getting married- not even as a young kid and less so as a teen or college student.  (I wonder now, oddly, if this might be genetic: my 7 year old son also says he never wants to get married. Although he does want grandchildren. He has a good relationship with his grandfather.) I never dreamed about what my wedding would look like or the dress or anything like that. Apparently however I did, and I did eventually agree to set a date.

What did you think marriage was going to be like?

I don’t know that I ever thought much about what marriage would be like. I did insist, before we married, on hammering out an agreement on housework and keeping accounts separate and children, all of which got ignored (the spouse, to be fair, does most of the actual cleaning, except for dishes and laundry. I don’t do bathrooms, vacuuming, etc. I do do the dishes most of the time, though. Partially, I ended up with someone who really hates clutter (I was probably a poor choice for him in that respect, since I don’t notice it) but he hardly notices actual dirt, which I find disturbing – and by actual dirt, I mean things like dishes sitting on the counter for four or five days, or the fact that prep from dinner two or three days ago hasn’t been wiped up (I do it as I go along, usually)). However, all these agreements ended up getting ignored sooner or later – the cleaning sooner – the accounts later, as it got too complicated and expensive to do taxes separately. And in the end, I turned out to really like my kid and want more (we had actually agreed on four) and he decided he committed to Zero Population Growth, and refuses to have more than one. An odd reversal.

I kind of knew ahead of time -as a feminist- that I was going to get a lot less out of marriage than he was, and I think that that turned out to be true in many respects. It’s odd how traditional our marriage turned out to be, considering that we both consider ourselves feminists, and this should tell us something about the way societal pressure just wears us down in ways that we don’t even notice.

Where do you think you got your ideas/concept/narrative about marriage?

My own parents’ marriage was stable – they’re still married. I suppose I must have gotten al ot of my idea of marriage from them – I can see some of the ways in which my marriage is similar to theirs: there’s an age difference (he’s nearly seven years older than I, my parents have an 11 year difference, the way we relate to each other has some similarities too), although I have spent a large amount of effort in my life to not become my mother. With – predictably- mixed results. The spouse has a theory (he’s a social worker) that all marriages have a deal – usually unspoken, and sometimes not consciously known- and that marriages survive if, as the people change, they are able to change their deal (again, not necessarily consciously), and I think I buy that to some extent.

How do you feel about the word “wife”?

I hate the word “wife.”  Etymologically, it refers to something that is managed (by a husband, that’s what those words actually men) and I don’t much care for that, as I’m not a piece of land, and while I don’t mind getting plowed, I don’t really feel like it’s appropriate to refer to women as something one buys and sells. Especially given the history of marriage. We originally agreed to use the term “partner” in solidarity with our gay friends, but we haven’t always been consistent about it – sometimes we use “spouse,” and I’ ve heard him use “wife” now and then when it would take too long to explain – I don’t though.

 Why did you make the decision you made about your name?

My partner took MY name. It’s actually family custom in my family, and his parents who are big believers in MYOB have never mentioned it in any way. I was very leery of subsuming my identity under his any more than I knew society was going to force on me anyway, and he was fine with taking mine, so we did.

Do you think your relationship with your partner has changed since you got married?

I know our relationship has definitely changed over time. How exactly, I’m not sure I could elaborate. Some obvious things are that my feelings for him have gone through ups and downs over the years. I know that this is natural, but it’s really hard sometimes to get through the times that I don’t much like him. I know that I won’t always feel like he’s a major jerk out to annoy me by his every action and word, though, so I do my best not to be a raging bitch and try to wait it out. I’ve also had to adjust my expectations about all kinds of things – from my sex life (don’t let anyone sell you on the myth that it’s always the guy who wants more sex) to dealing with his way of expressing anger and resentment. Another thing is that when we started out, the attraction was largely via our mutual interest in philosophy, politics and very heavily in the intellectual realm. It was very physical, but a lot of that excitement was mind-generated. Now, life has sort of eroded that away. Most of what we have to do with one another is pragmatic, getting through life kinds of things – which isn’t to say that we don’t talk about politics anymore, but… it’s just not so exciting any more. We basically know what we have to say on the topic, and we agree on most things, and what we don’t agree on… well, mostly better not to argue about it.

What have you learned about yourself since you’ve been married?

I don’t know what I’ve learned about myself: it’s hard to separate things I’ve learned from other arenas… but I could probably say a few things. One is that in the end, I’m kind of a wimp. I always thought I was kind of tough – and in previous relationships, I had been, but now that I’m in it for the duration, when push comes to shove, I often let myself be bullied into things for the sake of getting the shouting to stop.

On the other hand, the way that life has taken us in really different directions in life gives us plenty to learn from each other still, which is good – when we have time for it. Overall, I think that in some ways, I’m a better person for having married him, although I might have been a stronger person before – I compromise more now, and have learned some humility – both of those things in both positive and negative ways.

 

in which we are surprised and pleased (photos by me)

J did two readings at the Greenfield Annual Word Festival today, which was lovely. I ate pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and drank a lot of coffee and we found an awesome used books/record store, where they sell both actual vinyl and legendary feminist prose. It was cold and windy and sunny, and my heart is hurting at the thought of leaving.

“in the long tresses of your hair, I am a babbling brook.” (the mountain goats)

At the café where J and I have been going for breakfast lately, there is a waiter whose name is Amory. He has glasses and wears a black wool hat and says ‘Cheers,’ whenever he brings us food or coffee. I have to ask him if he’s named after the character in the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel (This Side of Paradise). I hope he is.

It feels like I’m bleeding time. Right now, a sun shower and a honey grain bagel in the coffee shop I have probably spent about a thousand hours at since I’ve been in town. The guy beside me is writing in black pen in a journal. On the page, it says, “On the topic of smoking,” and “On the topic of exercise.”  Earlier today, granola and photography and a bus ride and playing the same song about a thousand times. Last night, chocolate and tv in a hotel room, and before that, people with big imaginations and great intention.

Yesterday, I was on a panel at my alma mater about what happens after college for English majors who go to work in higher education.  I got there five minutes before things started, sweaty from running around in a Great Song Seizure. My colleagues on the panel said constructive things about resumes and cover letters and transferrable skills. I, on the other hand, used the word “fuck” a lot. I told I’ve sent out resumes with huge mistakes in them, and how they should stop thinking of their lives in linear terms, which is the closest I could come to telling them to resist the pressure to be and/or become who people think they should be, since in a way, that’s just about to begin.  What I should have said is, you guys, I have seen some shit. I bet you have too. You probably know that there is no such thing as a straight line.

clever. (northampton, photos by me)

The Marriage Project, Reflection 8: “I wanted to be connected in every way.”

L lives in the South with her daughters and her husband.

Why did you decide to get married?

I got married because after dating for 8 years, I felt I wanted a family of my own. At the time I didn’t think I could have children, but I wanted to know I was connected in a familial sense to someone besides my immediate family. This was my one chance to pick my family because I wouldn’t have picked the lot I was born with. We did live together before we were married, but I wanted to be connected in every way.

What did you think marriage was going to be like?

I wasn’t really sure what I thought marriage was going to be like. For a long time I did not think I wanted to get married so I didn’t put much thought into it. I hadn’t wanted to because I saw how it destroyed my mom after my dad died and I remember how it hurt me and I didn’t ever want to deal with that again. I didn’t think I could handle that devastation again so it was easier to keep that distance. What changed was I met someone I would rather be with and take the chance of future hurt, rather than miss out on what I had with him now.

Where do you think you got your ideas/concept/narrative about marriage?

I think my perception of marriage is based on what I saw from my parents. They were a true partnership where each individual success was truly shared by the whole family.

How do you feel about the word “wife”?

I don’t have much thought about the word wife. To me it is a title much like Doctor, Attorney, Mr., Ms. or Mother.

Why did you make the decision you made about your name?

I did not change my name as a way to keep hold of something only my father could give me. That and it is a part of my identity and i did not want to lose that part of my individual self just because I am now part of a new unit.

Do you think your relationship with your partner has changed since you got married?

I do not think our relationship has changed because we married. I do think it has changed, but because of the amount of time we have been together and the nature of sharing responsibility for the lives of our daughters.

What have you learned about yourself since you’ve been married?

I have learned that even thought I feel very secure about my relationship with my husband, I still have moments where i don’t feel as if I deserve the amazing man I married.

 

The Marriage Project, Reflection 7: “Some aspects of my identity as a woman have surprised me.”

 

E is 32 and  lives in the Northeast. She has an MSW and has been married for almost 5 years.

Why did you decide to get married?

I wanted to be with J. J really wanted to get married. We lived together for a while before getting married, even before getting engaged. Marriage was a way to legitimize the relationship in other people’s eyes. I was shocked to hear people’s responses when I told them I was getting married. We’d been together for 2 years before getting engaged, so we were a pretty established couple. All of a sudden, because we were getting married, we were real, legitimate. It made me pretty uncomfortable.

What did you think marriage would be like?

I envisioned marriage as a partnership – a way for me to share a life with J. In some ways, I assumed that our lives would continue in the ways that they had before – I would still do my stuff, he would do his stuff. He envisioned it to be more of us doing a lot of stuff together. A huge part of what I expected from marriage was having children – it was something both of us wanted and we went into the marriage knowing that. We’ve been trying to have a baby for three years; it’s become a theme of our marriage, the non-baby. So, my vision for marriage and the reality of my marriage are quite different.

Where do you think you got your ideas/concept/narrative about marriage? 

It’s funny – I was raised in a unique family situation, where I didn’t have clear marriage role models. My father died when I was young and my mother remarried, but after I was out of the house. Once I was talking with other people about getting married, they were telling me their ideas, and I think I absorbed a lot of those, because I didn’t have well-formed ideas of my own. A lot of the married people I knew growing up (parents of friends) had relationships that I would not have thought I’d want to emulate. Very domineering women, meek men. But, I’ve found that I managed to absorb, somehow, very traditional ideas about man as provider, etc. And, the “traditional” idea of Jewish wives as domineering and Jewish men as meek. It’s simultaneously fascinating and disturbing to me that I took in all of these ideas fairly subconsciously.

How do you feel about the word “wife”?

My husband has me in his e-mail contacts as “Wife.” I remember when he told me that I was appalled. These words are so loaded: husband, wife. For him, “Wife” is something he’s proud of, excited about – he has a wife. For me, I was like, “What does that mean? What does “wife” mean to you?”

Why did you make the decision you made about your name?

It was a very difficult decision for me and one that I still wrestle with years later. I chose to legally change my last name to match my husband’s so that our family would have the same name. Because we haven’t been able to have children, it is a little like a cut that won’t heal. Here I have this name that I probably wouldn’t have taken if not for planning to have children… it’s a constant reminder. Most of the time, though, and always in my professional life, I use both my name and my married name. It’s very interesting to hear people’s reactions to my different names – there are people in my life who only call me by my married name, having met me some time in the past five years. I imagine they assume my use of my name is just for Facebook so old friends can find me. But, really, I use it, I keep it, because it’s a connection to my father.

Do you think your relationship with your partner has changed since you got married?

Absolutely. I think going through the experience of infertility has changed us both as individual people and in relationship. We used to be more fun, more laid-back with each other. I was always the more serious one, but he’s now very serious, too. We kind of have to make an effort to remember to have fun.

What have you learned about yourself since you’ve been married?

I am a mean lady! It’s not that I’ve learned something new, but that I’ve had reinforced the reality that I have very high expectations for myself and other people. It’s not easy to be my husband. I hold him to very high standards. I’ve also been surprised by how much I want to be a mother. At different times in the last few years it’s felt differently – stronger, weaker – but when it became a question of whether or not it would ever happen, I had to ask myself if this was something I really wanted. I think some aspects of my identity as a woman have surprised me.

The Burning House

I like this blog, The Burning House, which features photographs of what people would rescue if their dwelling was burning down. I sent this photo in, and who knows if it will actually get posted, so here it is:

Pictured: 

1. sweater (black) 2. scarf (mauve?) 3. journal 4. passport 5. bank card (tucked into passport) 6. lipstick 7. medicinals 8. ipod 9. hair elastics 10. pen 11. laptop 12. cat. (he wouldn’t get off the computer, but I would save him anyway.)