Things have come up recently which have made me think a lot on what it means to me to be female. Particularly about what I feel it means to be a female in the dynamics of a relationship. This is a long winded post which is reflective of my personal experiences. I know it might read a little like social commentary, but this is all about me. There are much bigger issues relating to this topic, and I could write you an essay on all my thoughts, but for now please just allow me to work through some personal stuff 🙂
I often feel like I am in an odd juncture in time as a woman. On one hand, I am the first generation of female in my own family to make the concerted choice to not raise a family, and strides in social acceptance means that this is unquestionably an option for me.
On the other hand… being the first generation of female in my family to make this choice means I often don’t know what I’m doing.
The women I grew up knowing personally as role models were wives and mothers. Some focused solely on raising and supporting the needs of their families. Some shook the world with careers while also raising and supporting their families. Even those with the most supportive of partners still took on the double load of career and wife (as the term was used then, meaning the role of caring for the family’s needs). As a child, I did not personally know any adult women who were living, well, like I am now.
I have great respect for mothers, wives, partners and all the ways women embody who they are and live their truth. I just always knew I didn’t want to live that life. However, I did (and do) know that I want to be a partner with someone.
I did get married, but I could never settle into the ‘wife’ role which had been the relationship style role modeled to me. I wanted to be my own person, for us to live independent lives but still be a support for each other. Ultimately, he wanted his partner to be more of a wife figure than I was willing to be. Also, I was young and didn’t have the capacity to reconcile the discord between what had been modeled to me in my formative years and what I actually wanted, resulting in me rebelling against doing anything remotely ‘wife-like’. Our relationship ended because neither of us had the kind of partnership we wanted. He also grew to want children. I could never bring myself to commit to anything more than ‘later’ in regards to having children. I subconsciously stopped any sexual intimacy between us as it dawned on me that if I fell pregnant I would have no real choice in the outcome. I’m often grateful for my stubbornness during that time, as hard as it was for both of us.
And now I (finally) come to my actual point. I had no real references in my formative years for the kind of relationship and life I want, so I find myself poorly equipped to tackle the difficulties I come up against in ‘my’ relationships. In my early 20s, I coveted the idea of a Frida and Diego relationship. Two creatives pushing each other’s passions, living separately but still together… but their relationships was notoriously tumultuous and unhealthy, so there is a real flaw (and danger) in that plan.
Luckily, the very foundations of relationships are changing and are much more fluid so there are plenty of examples of other people’s experiences for me to draw from. These are all in theory though. When it comes to the reality of living it, and living it with another person and all of their own experiences, history and hopes, it becomes hard. Nothing short of honest, open and often painful communication between individuals can even come close to navigating it. Even then, it’s exhausting and confusing. There are no guarantees and none of the traditional tools or reasons to even make us try to stay together when things get hard- no children, mortgage, joint home, grand plans for investments. What we are left with is just two independent people striving for value in their own lives and seeing value and joy in the other person’s pursuits. This is a long cry from the certainty and stability I grew up being taught to expect from relationships. It turns out that what I want in a relationship comes with far more personal responsibility, accountability and self awareness than I expected.
Is it worth it? Yes, I think it is, despite being far from easy and care free, but what relationship (or anything of importance) is? What I do know is that it is mine.
And the truth? I do enjoy cooking for him, and doing little things which make his day nicer. And he does enjoy it when I do. I enjoy it when he takes me out for dinner and buys me little gifts or just makes me feel pretty. I want to support him in living the life he wants and make it easier for him when I can. He most definitely supports and pushes me to live the life I want as an artist, even though it means I have less time for him. I don’t need to rebel against what I was taught is expected anymore, and I have learnt that resisting these simple and lovely parts of a relationship that, I personally enjoy, out of principle actually hinders my attempts to create the relationship I truly want.
While I haven’t got it all figured out, this is what I do know: I would certainly place my hands beneath his feet. I also know that he would never ask or expect that of me just as I would never ask or expect it of him.
On that note- Shakespeare Retold: The Taming of the Shrew (2005) says it all.