ARE MARRIAGES/HUSBANDS JUST AN EXTENDED VERSION OF MOTHERHOOD?

“Motherhood is tough. If you just want a wonderful little creature to love, you can get a puppy.” Barbara Walters

I spent a good bit of my life being a single mother and ushering my children into adulthood. I did a pretty good job, sometimes great, other times not so perfect. But now that the kids are adults, it’s up to them to sort it out. I loved and cared for them to the best of my ability, staying on top of what was most essential and avoiding neglect, attempting to meet each child where they were in life. Like any family, we were perfectly imperfect.

Years after my kids were launched into the world, and after a copious amount of dating, I remarried. He is a wonderful man in more ways than I will bore you with, but sometimes I feel like I am just another version of who I was raising my kids. I try intentionally not to mother my husband (mainly because that is not sexy), even though I have a strong inkling that is precisely what he wants (at times). I married him as a partner, and that is precisely what I wanted.

Then, as years roll along, often there is caregiving. My husband is an athlete and needed two knee replacements. That tallies up to months of caregiving. That is just the tip of the iceberg in our little world. So, my role is taking care of those I love, soldiering on in a way that I am most familiar with. I have single girlfriends and married girlfriends who hit the age of fifty and declare they would never marry again.

Yes, marriage sends me to the place where I, at times, become the sole caregiver. But I think I would choose it again. I am drawn to marriage or partnership like a moth to a flame. The part of me that saw how marriage worked for my parents is naive, childish, and refuses to pop out of a buried bubble, despite knowing that disrupting that bubble would likely lead me to further self-improvement.

Marriage and motherhood shifted my identity; I clung onto that identity like it was a life raft. Within that, I lost my bearings, bobbing about in life as if I were made for taking care of others. It was in that sea, floating about, possibly mad at myself, definitely neglecting myself, lost, that I discovered my identity through my children and husband.

The lesson for me was that it was not who I was. If I strip away those people from my life and stand alone, I am me, still me. I do not have to identify myself as a mother or wife, or caretaker, even. Those roles I take on, I do by choice.

As I embrace self-care, self-interest, and push towards selfish goals, I find I am not only becoming myself, but I am returning to myself. There is unlimited freedom in that. There are still to-do lists and chores, but I am at the top of that list to see to my needs. As banged up as my husband may get, I can still see to myself and continue in the direction I want to go.

Has becoming a mother, or becoming a wife, or losing the role of wife, shifted your self-image?

I have stood in all those shoes with so much confusion that at some point, I lost sight of myself. I resented anyone who asked me “what do you do” like it was an assault on my choices, my identity. I had to climb out of that shallow pool of misunderstanding and into the light. I knew what they asked, or thought, or judged me for; I simply no longer care.

Then the self-realized freedom sank in, and I pulled myself into strength with being me, good with the choices I made, some disasters, some brilliant. Not to be critiqued by others but to be accepted by me, the author of my life. I am okay with that, as it was all a part of my journey.

Next time you are naked in the arms of your lover, husband, boyfriend, and you call him ‘baby’, know you may be speaking into your future.

My Mantra: “You decide your worth outside of titles.”