My Enemy, My Friend

I write this today because I promised that I would... and I do it with no little humility and shame. I would like to say that the worst of the emotions that I am feeling are sparked by the fact that they have been brought to the forefront by my talk-radio nemesis, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, but I cannot. It's a source of unearthly chagrin that it was she who has given me my wake-up call, but that's something I'll have to live with. The source of my shame and embarrassment is that she is RIGHT (within certain parameters) and that the truth she's offered to me is so simple and obvious (and even part of my own personal philosophy) that I kick myself for not seeing myself, sooner, and without the prompting by someone who normally enrages me beyond reason.

I've just finished reading The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, a book I would have never even considered reading, much less buying, without the endorsement and high recommendation of a friend who felt that women in general and myself in particular would benefit from some of the observations included therein.

Yes, I am that wife who speaks to her husband with disdain. Yes, I am that wife who bashes her husband to her friends and humiliates him in public. Yes, I am that wife who nags and who looks with an overly critical eye at the efforts my husband makes to help me. Yes, I am that wife who has completely emasculated her husband by failing to offer him the things that he needs in my efforts to maintain, and ultimately control, the household. Yes, I am that wife who, as a victim of pervasive post-modern feminism, has viewed catering to my husband's needs as a relinquishment of power and as a statement of "entitled" reciprocal egoism. Yes, I am that wife who has ignored my husband's simple physical needs because I'm "too tired," "not in the mood," or because "he doesn't meet my emotional needs."

Yes, I am that wife. And as a strong advocate of the differences between men and women and a staunch dissenter to modern and post-modern feminism (apparently only where other people are concerned!), I am ashamed. As a firm believer in the civilizing power of the female in our society and the inherent control women have in interpersonal relationships, I am horribly embarrassed to have not seen this alarming trend of misuse of power in my own life. As a spiritual supporter of the theory that human beings choose their own realities, I offer in consuming humility my realization - brought to life by the written observations of a person whom I have heretofore not respected at all - that I have voluntarily relinquished the domain which I have purported to be my reason for living without even knowing I had abdicated.

When I said I tried, I didn't. When I said I would do anything to save my family, I left out the part where I would protect the needs of my husband as an integral part of that family. When I complained that my emotional needs weren't being met in my marriage, I did so without fully taking into account the fact that I was holding my husband responsible for that failure, when sole culpability resides only with me. I offer the fact that I was badly trained, not as an excuse, but as a prelude to my recent realization that I am smart enough to recognize poor training in other arenas of my life and am bereft at the knowledge that I not only accepted my bad training but RELIED on it as the self-centered yardstick of "how things should be in a marriage." My blithe acceptance of this training as an excuse to fail as a wife is the main source of my disappointment in myself. I'm supposed to be this big genius - how the hell did the false logic of this escape me for so long?

Because I wanted it to, that's why. Because I wanted to blame my failings on anyone but myself. Because I wanted to be lauded as Queen of this Domicile without exercising any honorable reign at all. Because I thought that my way is the only way and because I failed to accept my husband as the man he is and in turn, transformed him into something that is afraid, powerless, and still trying to conform to my endless and ridiculous demands.

So, thank you RT. And though it pains me to say it, thank you Dr. Laura.

My bold advent into saving my family has already begun. I will post updates as they occur!