Funny how we associate colors with gender identity. No right minded parent would paint a little boy's room pink. (Although we did have a rush of pink casts last summer for the 8-12 aged boys in the ortho dept of the hospital.) Gender identity is a big deal.
My fiance recently pointed out that when you visit the gender studies section of the local Barnes and Noble, most books are feminist theory based. Rarely do you find a male pov unless of course its male bashing. If you have been following my "what I'm reading" profile, you may have noticed quite a few feminist authors. I've been picking up Margaret Atwood (famous for The Handmaids Tale), Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel, and The Bitch in the House by Cathy Hanauer. I've been craving other womens' pov about marriage, independence, men, sex, finances, and power. Turns out I wasn't the only one craving this type of knowledge.
I ventured to Indiana on the red eye this past weekend for job interviews this week. (Thats a complete separate entry to come) My fiance, who never gets enough sleep, is working terrible ward months, and should be studying for step 3 medical boards, made a recent purchase entitled, Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man by Sam Keen. I couldn't help but smile. No wonder we've been declaring war on every little decision lately. Both of us have been empowering our own sense of individuality and identity through our respective gender studies so no longer is the fight about the invitations really about the invitations. Oh no, it is so much bigger than that.
Everything becomes a battle about the sense of "me" in the "we." Questions arise if our styles will mesh, blend, and somehow become one while still retaining our inner cores. Yesterday I spent the day in the condo going mad. Normally I take pride in doing the small domestic stuff that is nurturing for my guy, stuff that he really doesn't have time to do. I do laundry, polish off the hard water stains in the shower, dust, etc.. The first time I did this was exactly one year ago and he almost broke into joyous tears when he got home. That was extremely rewarding. I did it again in March.
Like I said, I went mad yesterday. My impulse was to embark in the cleaning ritual and organization, but I found myself getting pissed. Did he even make an effort to straighten things before I got here? Was it now an expectation that I clean? Was he entrapping me back to the house like an unliberated female? Was I expected to be the superwoman the feminist revolution created by being a high powered executive and the homemaker? Hell, no!
Now I began to pace. When he visited me in April did he offer to do any of the male tasks to make my life easier while I was at work like mow the lawn? Nope. He sketched, journaled, went to visit his parents. Selfish bastard. In fact, when I asked for a few hours by myself that week in April I spent it doing things like mowing the lawn while he watched the sunset with a beer. Now I was really pissed. Was I expected to take care of everything? How in the hell did he become this overbearing guy? (Note all the projection going on.)
I turned back to my therapist roots. Mom. His mother is to blame. That woman was the superwoman putting herself through graduate school as a single mom to two kiddos. This must have formulated his being and view of what a woman should be. He once told me that his mother made him begin to pump the gas when he was 8 years old. Was it instilling responsibility or molding him to be the man of her house. (Note I didn't say "the" house, but "her" house.) Was part of the pain him psychologically removing himself as the pseudo head of the household in his family of origin and transferring it to our sense of family?
Every friend I've talked with has pain with their MIL (aka Mother in Law). Every guy has been a mama's boy. They say that you want to find a guy who treats his mother like gold, because that is how they will treat you. However, that transfer of love, loyalty, and identity is painful and it takes a very long time. Every friend has sworn that they will never ever be like their MIL with their sons and when it comes time for marriage, they will easily let their sons go. Famous last words, right? Perhaps we do marry our respective parents.
Ok, back to the story of yesterday. So I did realize I was on the edge. By 3:00 I was raging. I did an hour of yoga to center myself, but that failed. As I wandered the small condo I realized that my fiance had not cleared out space for me. The closets were full, the back room still full of boxes, alcohol, a space to dry laundry, a CO2 tank for his brew master hobby, and various odd purchases like muppet finger puppets from Christmas 2004 for "gifts." He knows I'm moving here. What the hell?!? The message was clear: he hasn't made room for ME in his life/space/etc and is resistant to it.
The words of my MIL from a lunch back in May echoed, "Oh no," she said as I told her about the back room, "You will move back there to that room of boxes because he doesn't throw anything out." At the time I poo pooed it and assured her it would be cleared and ready for me. The words, "I told you so," began to echo. I called my girlfriend in SF to calm me down. She normalized the whole thing and told me I had to calm down before he got home.
When my fiance arrived at 5:30 he met a not so rageful female, but an upset one none the less. While he was happy to be home and see me, I was edgy. Within about 10 minutes I explained why I was upset and he began to rub his eyes (a stressful response he normally has). He was doing just fine listening to me go on and on, some tears, and my cry for action.
I pointed out that if I got the job I've been interviewing for, I could move as early as August. He said he would have the back room for me, but no progress had been made but a few boxes, I pointed out. He weighed the safety of this next statement and then took the risk, "You know, worst thing is you get back here and we just put your stuff in with my stuff to sort out later." Later?!? I walked away in anger trying to be calm. Later?!? To which I then replied, "If that happens, I will envoke the right to purge." The red flashing button was pushed for both of us and he reacted. My calm mild mannered guy exploded for one small moment and then returned to his quiet self, although still hostile. I broke first and apologized. Not necessarily for the message, but the timing.
We weren't fighting about some stupid cubic feet. We were fighting about our stuff, its right to be in a place and stake our claim. We may as well have been peeing in the back room marking our territory. Nope, we were fighting about how our stuff represents who each of us are as individuals. I didn't have the right to throw any of him away just as I was worried he wasn't making any room for me.
Today I'm back in the condo while he is on call. We came to the agreement that I could take my action oriented self and begin to breakdown empty boxes and organize the space, but I couldn't throw anything away. I respect that. I see moving as a great opportunity to purge things and keep things that are truly important. For instance, the love letters I have hung onto for years seemed to be so easy to throw away last weekend, but I had to do it on my terms and with my timing. I suppose the same thing goes for him and his sense of incorporation and purging of things/symbols of who he is and who he wants to be.
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