Winston, over at The Center for Artificial indifference, made a noteworthy comment on Rain's post today at Rainy Day Thoughts2. He commented on wasted resources--self and financial--on marriages that should never have happened. I am in my third marriage, albeit the first one was legal, the second one sanctioned by our church, and the third one legal in San Francisco for a few weeks before being nullified by the state.
So, as a part of cleaning my emotional house, I want to delve into this one a bit. Why in the hell do we marry people that we know we are unsuited for? And they us? Then, when we think we've learned our lessons, ha! We do it again! Then, oh brother, do we REALLY learn our lessons! And -- you guessed it -- we do it again. And the statistics for subsequent unions just get worse and worse. When gay marriage is made legal in the states (it already happens in many churches in the states), what will the statistics 10, 20, 30 years tell us? It may well be that we homos fair even worse that straight folk, given the pressure we are often under as second class citizens. Having the right to legally register with the state as a married couples is not going to lift that pressure any time soon, my friends.
In the 1890's the median age for women to get married was 22. That's a lot higher than I expected. Well, gosh darn it, you marry at 22 and die at, oh 35, in child birth--no wonder divorce was rare! The median age goes down until the past decade or so, where it climbs to its current 25.
I married at 21 -- my mother married at 20. Both my sisters married early -- one at 19 and the other 21. None of us are with our first spouses. Another interesting tidbit: we all left our spouses when our children were small - 2 years and under. So did my paternal grandmother, who was married 5 times (twice to the same guy). I've always thought, we would endure a bad marriage on our own, but when children came in to it, well, that was the time to stand up and say, "No more!" I know that was the case for me.
I married because I was smitten with an artistic, tortured loner who had soft hazel eyes that melted my heart. And I was deathly afraid to be on my own. And, more subconsciously, he was like my father. I have since discovered, and learned about the phenomena of marrying one's parents to play out that dynamic over and over again until we work something out, come to some kind of resolution. I was married for ten years. I've been out of that marriage for sixteen. It was a good decision that was very difficult to make. So difficult, that it took me many years to come to it. Many years and a sweet little baby who deserved better than a terribly unhappy mother. I never looked back. And she got the mom she deserved.
Well, here's what my stomach would have looked like as of January 9, but my surgery has been postponed to February 13 because my diabetes is raging out of control right now. Surgery with sugars as high as mine is too risky. I'm terribly dissapointed. I cried all the way home -- luckily my partner was with me and navigated the storm tossed roads. My mood mirrored the weather. Anyone who has ever untaken weight loss can tell you, it's mostly mental. I must have been in denial for the last month, as I ate holiday treats with abandon and covered it with insulin injections. I thought I was taking care of the problem. Not so. I'm dissapointed in myself, pretty mad at myself actually. In large part I have sabotoged myself. What was I thinking? How did I possibly believe that my high sugars would not affect my surgery date? I feel like an idiot. My dear partner stopped by the store on the way home, and we picked up the right, healthy foods for dinner. We had a lovely simple dinner. And right now my sugars are fine. Now, onward to tomorrow...If it's not raining TOO hard, my support group is planning a walk in the redwoods.
