Stand By Your Man

Tonight I went out for dinner and drinks with two female friends who are choosing to remain in marriages that are less than fulfilling. Before I went through it myself, I would have judged them for this -- but now I am fully aware of what is lost when you give up on a love, not to mention a family, and I'm also really conscious of what it is like not to have the strength or the self-love necessary to demand more for yourself. Particularly in a culture where woman are expected to make sacrifices (and I'd probably be hard pressed to find an example of a culture with different expectations of women, since this expectation is largely driven by biology), it isn't easy to embark on a path of putting your own happiness first. I firmly believe that one of the things we model as parents is tending to our own happiness (or not), and that to do so is a gift to everyone else in the family too. My ex-husband had a tacky plate collection that hung in the kitchen of the first house we lived in together, and one of them read:

When Momma Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy

And I reckon that's true, to some degree.

I also had tea today with a friend who has decided, after years of being unhappy in her marriage, to leave. She's in a much better place with herself than she has been in years -- living from a space of truth. But she's about to experience the horrifying feeling of waking up in the middle of the night (or the morning if she's lucky) and knowing something is profoundly wrong, and then realizing that your children aren't sleeping in your house, or, in my case, you're not sleeping in theirs. I've never experienced anything more painful than that.

There are no easy answers to this conundrum. And it's not for anyone else to say whether it's the right or wrong thing to stay in an unhappy union. For my part, I feel super lucky to be in a position of having the possibility of a more amazing union than I'd ever dreamt of, and as hard it was to get used to and as difficult as it can still be, I wouldn't trade that possibility for the chance to wake up in the same house as my children every day. I went through wishing it didn't come down to one or the other, and then realizing it did, and knowing that following Tammy's admonition just wasn't right for me, even though I can see that it is right for many people:

Sometimes its hard to be a woman

Giving all your love to just one man

You'll have bad times

And he'll have good times

Doing things that you don't understand

But if you love him you'll forgive him

Even though he's hard to understand

And if you love him

Oh be proud of him

'Cause after all he's just a man

Stand by your man

Give him two arms to cling to

And something warm to come to

When nights are cold and lonely

Stand by your man

And tell the world you love him

Keep giving all the love you can

Stand by your man