Relationships part two: Comparing mine to other people's in The Big, Blue House, year one.

Comparing my situation to other people I’ve known in decade + long relationships: The long and short of it is I’ve never personally seen one without some kind of animosity and/or uneven power dynamic. Usually the women are what I would call doormats.

My mother would slam the kitchen cupboards and huff, after my father made some new household rule proclamation, like “Don’t hang these plants in this window!”, or “Goddamned coffee table! Get rid of that thing!”, or “How about some fried pies?”, (after she’d worked all day and did the housework too).

My aunts, and their daughters, and my sister, and hers, and my brother, and cousins, and numerous coworkers, were all in relationships where the woman just accepted her role of perpetually being “the bigger person” and absorbing her partner’s angry outbursts.

I was raised, predominantly in Tennessee, by women who classified “a good husband” as any man who worked regularly, and didn’t beat his wife.

That is a VERY low bar.

I think the first time I told my mother that I wished she’d leave my father, I was in third grade. I told her I wouldn’t blame her. I’d seen on television how children are often very upset when their parents split. I assured her I wouldn’t be.

That was at least 50% because of the names he called me, and how he threatened me. He loved me, and he did his best, but he wasn’t a compassionate person.

But of course she didn’t. I never did figure out why. Unlike me she ALWAYS had supportive brothers and sisters she could’ve stayed with.

But it set in my mind that that would NOT be me.

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Relevant Sidetrack:

What I lack in brawn I make up for in sheer attitude. An old coworker came to work one day with a black eye. She stayed with that sh!tstain anyway. Every time he’d come to pick her up from work, I’d say, “Hey! Wifebeater!” with a big grin, like it was the most affectionate nickname. I give no shits. That’s my father, rubbed off on me.

Someone’s ex came in once, drunk and yelling, and came behind the counter. I grabbed a bucket opener, (think aluminum crowbar), fully prepared to bean the asshole. Thankfully he left. I weighed 95 lbs at the time. It might not have gone in my favor.

I probably take more after my father than my mother, in terms of my personality, though neither was an ideal role model.

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From Day One, Don has always conceded to whatever I wanted to do. The day we met, basically stuck together in Columbus, Ohio, I asked him where he wanted to eat. (Because it was my car.) He said he didn’t care. I didn’t either. I wound up writing the names of restaurants on strips of paper, and having him pull one of of my hat.

He says his grandmother, and his mother, never got to do what they wanted. He doesn’t want to be like that. So I pick literally everything. It’s comical when I honestly don’t care what we watch, or what we eat, or whatever, and he doesn’t either. I’m reduced to flipping a quarter.

I gave him half the rooms in this house to decorate. He still hasn’t chosen wallpaper. He keeps trying to get me to say what I’d like. Facepalm.

I am at least satisfied that our relationship is fair.