The Worst Marriage Advice I Ever Received.
“Just pick somebody’s sh** and deal with it.”
I love my aunt dearly but she is of a totally different generation. One where you were expected to get married young, have your kids, keep a house and let the man do the earning.
Also, it didn’t matter if he made you completely happy. That wasn’t the point, really. The point was to procreate and provide a home.
The fact that I was in my early thirties and still hadn’t married nor had anyone in the queue that was marriage material worried my aunt a little.
When we talked about it, I said that some men were just not for me because of this thing or that thing. She said I was too choosy. Nobody was going to be perfect in every way. I said that I didn’t need perfection but respectful, nice and not an asshole were kind of my baseline requirements.
She said, “Everyone is going to have shit. You’re going to have to pick someone’s shit and just deal with it.”
I thought that was a bit shitty. I would rather be alone than be stuck with someone who was not a good fit for me. I know that people have baggage to deal with but I wasn’t interested, at that time, to find a man and have a bunch of kids and be a homemaker and I certainly wasn’t going to settle for something just because it was expected of me.
By the time I hit my early 30s, I figured that I wasn’t going to get married and at that time, I didn’t want children. I thought that my genetic makeup was too horrible to saddle another human being with what I had to deal with so I thought it best to have that gene code stop with me. Besides, my brother had a son by this time so my mother could be happy that she had at least one grandchild.
I asked my aunt once if she was happy with the way her life had gone thus far. As of this writing, my Auntie is almost 87 years old. She said that she would have liked to travel more but her husband didn’t really want to do that so she didn’t. My uncle has since passed and my Auntie has been to visit my mom in Florida a few times.
Why should I have to wait for someone to die to be able to do what I want to do?
I certainly didn’t want a relationship that would require me to refrain just because my husband didn’t want to and my religion said that I must follow my husband’s lead.
I did get married. At 42.
Before I had my second child, I told my husband that I wanted to take my son on a trip for his spring break. He said okay. The hubs got a vacation, too. He got the house to himself, he could fall asleep on the couch all night if he wanted, it worked out for him, too.
I wasn’t interested in just picking someone’s “shit” and dealing with it but that’s what ended up happening anyway. Everyone comes with some sort of crap that they have been dragging around. I just wasn’t willing to do that when I was younger. Not that I am now, either, but I understand better now that all people have that. I have a better handle on my own to be able to allow someone else to have theirs, too.
I don’t have to fix anyone and I don’t have to tolerate bad behavior, either. There has to be a compromise, something like “we’re better together than apart” and that’s what I have now. My husband has his stuff to deal with but we are much better together, leaning on each other when we need it, asking for help with anything, giving and taking equally.
It’s a beautiful thing, really.
