Expectations

Living up to people's expectations can be exhausting. Sometimes I wouldn't mind being labeled as "crazy" by a psychiatrist so that I could behave like I'd like to behave. People would just claim that I'm crazy and wouldn't think any less or more of me. I was reading "Veronika Decides to Die" by Paulo Coelho which describes the crazy folks scenario. Veronika acts on instinct and will without hesitation, at least towards the end of the story. Real life isn't so. It isn't ok for a mother to crave a break from her child. It isn't ok to want to remain in bed an entire day when there's a child in need of attention. It isn't ok to act promiscuous when you've claimed to be happily married. No one talks about the trials of marriage and how difficult it is to maintain a happy facade. I have to pretend to be the perfect wife, the amazing mother, the favorite daughter and best friend. Well, I'm done pretending. I am none of those things. I have moments of failure, fatigue and regret. I have moments that appear successful and yet I remain unhappy.

Just the other day, I received a certificate of appreciation for work well done and had my 1 minute of glory. Did that make my day? No, it only reminded me that there's no one who'd be proud of me when I came home. My estranged spouse, Ernie, is interested in other women so why share this grain of success with him? I always expected to marry a man who would respect, honor, cherish and grow with me. I expected to marry a man who would be interested in who I was and in who I was going to become. I expected to marry a man that saw me as an equal and held me in high regard. Instead, I married the father I never had. I married a condescending man with arrogant ways. I married a man whom when asked what his wife did would respond, "My wife is a career student." A man, who only stepped ground at the university I attended ONCE only to pick up our son. I married a man who turned and said to me one day, "I like that I can control you. I can tell you what to do and you'll do it." I married a man who gave me hell when it was time for me to purchase my monthly tampons/pads because I had to use HIS money. I married a man who assumed he was better than me because he had a full time job. It never mattered that I was a full-time student, freelancing from home, a mother and homemaker.

Oh! And need I forget, I married a man who's word I clung to until it was revealed that he'd had a 2nd wife and I was the 3rd. The same man who constantly claimed never to have time or money to have a girlfriend on the side, had been in a relationship with at least one other woman during our marriage. I say, at least, because now I believe there were others. Which in reality, I don't understand since he wasn't fond of any type of foreplay much less initiate anything in the bedroom. I married a man who would only respond, "Busy" when I'd ask about his day. I married a man who showed little if any interest in who I was. I married a man whom as I was attempting a conversation with would walk out of the room. I married a man who put football and beer before his wife and son. I thought I'd married a man who'd resolved to do better with marriage. I thought I'd married a man who'd love and care for me. Instead, I married a man I never truly knew.

Thank God for divorce!