I just had lunch with a friend and now I am totally depressed. She is getting divorced. Another one bites the dust. This lovely woman is a new friend so I have just made her acquaintance and therefore knew pretty much nothing about her husband or her marriage. We spent the lunch with her recanting the highs and mostly lows of her over 20 year marriage. The husband turned out to be a liar, cheater, drug user, and overall a-hole. (sigh). The woman is a typical stand-by-your-man, upstanding citizen, hardworking career woman, non-cheating, truthful wife. So I am in my car, driving home, thinking Why, Why, Why? I feel my stomach turning and my throat get dry. I am anxiety-ridden. “Why are you feeling this way?” you ask. It isn’t MY marriage that is falling apart. It isn’t MY husband who is cheating. So what's my deal? Why do I feel threatened?
Well, I will share a little secret with you – I am PARANOID that my husband will cheat. I am not making scenarios up now my dear ladies. My feelings have some solid ground from which my annoying weed is growing, threatening to destroy my garden of Eden. Look at the statistics. So many cheaters out there. I have two friends who just went through divorces this year. The husbands? Cheaters. I have a friend who just found out her longtime boyfriend is cheating. It seems to be all around me. Has it been like this forever or is it a new epidemic? Was I NUTS to get married? Are we doomed?
I feel as though I am realistic about marriage. It is hard work and anything can happen. After all, I have many divorces in my family so I have been up close and personal with it and all the ugliness that goes with divorce and know that it can happen to anyone. And it happened to some pretty great people. Sure, my marriage is great now – it’s been only 6 months. My friend going through this divorce is so pretty and in great shape and she said that her husband said he wouldn’t have sex with her until she lost weight!!! I told her I would have told him to shove it up his ass. But after 10 years of marriage, will I still stand up for myself? Would I let my husband talk to me like that? God I hope not. Perhaps I am being Chicken Little by thinking so gloomily about the possibilities or am I simply being smart and realistic that it could happen?
WHY CAN’T MEN KEEP THEIR PENIS TO THEMSELVES? WHY ARE THEY SO WEAK?
What’s the secret to a non-cheating marriage? I know the men blame the women a lot – you neglected me, you got fat, you’re like my mother now…. And women do the same – you never tell me I’m pretty, we never go out…. So how to keep the love alive? Faith? Sexy lingerie? Threatening death and dismemberment? Do I keep him tied up and not let him outside the house? That's seems a little.....extreme.
I really don’t know. I can only try to stifle that voice inside me that says “it happens all the time…it is so common…” and believe that my marriage is not going to fall into that cliché. I will do everything I can. I wouldn’t have gotten married in the first place if I didn’t believe in him, in us, in marriage. So, like George Michael says, “You Gotta Have Faith.”
So true George, so true.
LESSON FOR THE LADIES – Have faith in yourself. If you know that you are strong and can deal with anything and deserve respect, love and a kind man then I think you can have that. I constantly have to “remind” my husband to comment when I look nice or to take me out to dinner once in a while. If we are rude to each other, we remind each other that we are being rude. You have to constantly demand respect. It can be tiring but it is worth it. Stand up for yourself. And he will respect you and love you for it. And COMMUNICATE with your husband. As soon as you stop talking to each other about what’s bothering you and how you feel, your foundation can collapse and then, all of a sudden, your marriage is like THE WAR OF THE ROSES movie. Scary.
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