Nobody Told Me

"What's wrong babe? Were you crying? I can't have you crying. I don't like it when you cry."

How do you tell him? 

How do you explain everything that's upsetting you when you barely have the words yourself? Without making him feel bad? Or taking it personally and then having the conversation devolve into a fight? I don’t have the bandwidth for another fight. I wouldn't trade my life. I love my kids. I'm still crazy about him after over a decade together.

But nobody told me.

Nobody talked about what getting married and having kids would be like for a career-oriented woman. So, I pretend it’s fine. Everything’s fine. But it’s not. Nobody told me my life would be like this. Is it forever? No. Does it feel like forever? Sometimes. Can I bear it?

...yes?

Nobody told me that I would be responsible for everyone in my family. Every meal. Every piece of clothing. All the groceries. And the dishes. All the household chores. Vacuuming. Mopping. Wiping down of counters and toilets. Emptying of trash receptacles. Teaching kids manners and rules and life skills. Brokering fights and kissing booboos. Validating feelings. Taking them to and from doctors and dental appointments. Setting up school and activity registrations. Buying school supplies and new clothes – because of course, they’ve sprouted overnight, having outgrown everything that fit 24 hours ago.

Constantly having to discuss and explain and educate my spouse on how he can best “help”. Then reminding him again and again when he forgets. Feeling bad when I’m unsatisfied to the point of lashing out in moments of overstimulation and exhaustion. And feeling completely unreasonable and a little insane for suffocating from nameless feelings I constantly shove down, down, and away. 

So, apologize. 

Go to bed exhausted. 

And start it all over again the next day. 

So much pressure. Pressure to be the perfect mother. Perfect wife. Perfect woman. Take care of the family. Keep a spotless house. Have a fulfilling social life full of friends and family and in laws. And hobbies - don’t forget hobbies. Stay fit and trim and healthy. Cook balanced, homemade meals. Oh, and don’t forget…. work a full-time job and excel there too. 

Do my best to be sensitive to my spouse's needs and wants - even though he has more free time and the ability to pursue his professional goals. He deserves that, and he’s “bringing home the bacon”, right? He’s tired after work, and doesn’t have as much patience with the kids when they’re playing or bickering or whining. So, I step in and manage them as best I can so we can all enjoy each other after that long day’s work. Clean up dinner. Get them to bed. Read a bedtime story. Straighten up the house and make the rounds of my home, before finally collapsing into bed – but oh…he’s feeling amorous now. Better persevere to meet his needs…only to feel guilty when I simply can’t. I never feel like it anymore. That's not his fault. So I do. But I resent it. 

So. Much. Resentment. 

Shelve it until he's in a place we can speak rationally and things will not devolve into an argument. Except it does when he won't communicate, and "he doesn't know" what set him off, as if that's an adequate explanation for his poor treatment. Then being gently gaslit with a surprised "I apologized!" when I call him on it - though he never did, or there was a ‘but’ attached. As if his misplaced anger can be written off with a casual, "I'm wasn't yelling at you, I was just yelling" - even though it definitely felt like he was yelling at me, when I did nothing wrong. And I deserve an actual apology.

Instead, deafening silence. And giving him the latitude to take whatever time he needs to calm down to come back to the fold without ever having to explain his behaviors. A peck on the forehead. Pulling me in close for a hug on the couch. "We're good now, right babe?"

Rage. 

So much rage boiling, simmering, roiling, under the surface. All the time. Because I was never told or prepared for this. I could have it all, right? That's what they said. But having to do and be everything to everyone all the time…it’s so unfair. The burden is so heavy when you’re shouldering it alone. It feels as if I’m pulling my family uphill on a weighted sled. At each mile, more gets added to the top of an already onerous load. Sometimes my spouse hops off to chat while I struggle forward, never falling. A pleasant distraction. Maybe he’ll even help push or pull, on occasion – if I ask. 

Because he will – if I ask.

He is a good man, after all. His trying has to be good enough because he doesn't beat or cheat on me. He loves me and the kids. He provides for the family. He tries to be better. Even though he fails a lot... He’s so much better than my friends’ husbands. So just remind him. Make him a list. Or a chart. Synch the calendars and hope he looks. That has to be enough. I’ll get some therapy to cope - because I can control that.

But why then does it always feel like one step forward, one step back? Marching in place and hoping it gets better. More equitable. If I hire help, maybe I can get ahead. Add that to the to-do list. Except I never get ahead. I eat and sleep. Go to work. Do all the things like an automaton, unflagging. Wait – what are my hobbies again? When did I last see my friends? Better get that on the calendar. I’m so lucky. Why do I feel so unhappy?

So then, depression. 

Because I do love him and the kids. But…I’m so tired. Constantly twisting myself into pretzels to be everything for everyone. Stealing grudging moments of self-care that are usually interrupted and never long enough. Tired of pushing myself to the limit, making everything happen for everyone. Having the microscopic details come together so seamlessly, though it's seldom acknowledged or appreciated and usually taken for granted. Never being able to put my needs first - much less to pursue my goals with any sort of predictability. But wait - I’m lucky! My family is healthy. I am loved and provided for. I worry for nothing. …Right?

Why then, does my life feel like a gilded cage? 

I wish I was an artist. Perhaps then I could make him see. Make everyone see. The cacophonous hurricane of thoughts and in comprehensible emotions in tangible, concrete form. Maybe then they would understand. Maybe then they’d care. 

If I was a sculptor, I could hammer and chisel flawless blocks of white marble into brutal submission. Woman, in all her feminine perfection, weeping tears of futile rage. Mouth open in a Munchian scream while hands grab at the softest parts of her. Seizing her wrists and ankles and breasts and belly and thighs in ironclad grip, pulling her down, down, down into despair. A modern-day Sabine mourning the rape of her aggrieved soul while they claim her body and heart and mind for their own greedy, needy gratification. 

Or maybe I could be a painter. Smearing smothered screams upon tattered canvas. Violent swaths of crimson, slate and onyx. Splattering drips and drops and trickles of blue melancholy down the face of it. Swallowed tears for which there is no time to shed, as critics shred my abstraction to pieces with their barbed words of well-intentioned critique.

Perhaps I could be a potter. Molding lumps of virgin clay into serviceable shapes. Custom made and hand painted pottery, glazed and fired in to imperviousness within a roasting kiln. Decorative jars and bowls and pitchers to be put on display. But of course, they must be usable too. Capable of being filled to the brim for emptying and refilling – again and again without breaking. For what are they worth if they are not beautiful and useful too?

Alas, I am not an artist. 

I have only words as my medium. Utterances which fall upon the deaf ears of those who dismiss my silent fury as the bitterness of a woman who isn’t doing enough. Who knew what she signed up for when that ring was placed upon her naïve finger. Whose sole purpose in life is to be wife and mother. Who should take joy in the simple domesticity of those roles. Who should try harder. And be grateful for her blessings. 

Perhaps I could accept my bittersweet fate. 

But my daughter.

Oh…my daughter. How I weep for her future, knowing that things might be better for her, because I am her mother. But in this world, she will still only ever be half human: a commodity to be bought and sold for the uses and pleasures of others. An object of utilitarian beauty meant to gratify and satiate the wants and needs of others – at the expense of her own. 

How I hope our short years together will instill an intrinsic sense of self in her, that is impervious to the whims of those who would demean her. I can only hope her voice is loud and strong and unwavering in a world demanding she be quiet, malleable, and submissive.  I only hope she grows into an unshakeable knowledge that her worth need not be defined by how physically beautiful she is. Or the gratifying effects of her serviceability to others. Or the ceaseless, driving demand she always be productive.

How do I free her from the shackles placed upon her foremothers’ necks and wrists and ankles? From the unwieldy weight of other people’s opinions - to pursue whatever it is that fills her beautiful soul with light and love and happiness. I can only hope against all hope that I will give her the tools she needs to establish he individual and independent worth. Because she is worthy, simply in existing. 

She already sees all. 

She already knows - even though she does not yet understand.

At seven, she sees my struggle and tries to share my burdens. She does her best to make things easier for me. But she’s just a kid. She shouldn't have care for her adult mother. But she already knows "Being a mommy is so hard! You have so much to do all the time and you never get to take a break! Don’t worry, mommy, I'll help you." And I understand when she tells me, already, "I don't want to be a mommy when I grow up. It's too hard." - even as it breaks my heart. 

Will she be be shoved in to this same box? Will she struggle as I do? Finding herself nearing the middle of life, bucking under a bridle she never felt being placed upon her? My husband didn't do it. It was always there. But when the bit started to rub, he didn’t remove it. Will she have one too? Will things be worse? How can I save her? 

"Why are you sad, Mama?"

"......I-I don't know, baby."

Nobody talked about it; but I will.