Are we too hard on ourselves..

I am in my second marriage, the first one lasted only half a minute, just long enough to produce my son and realize that getting married at 18 is a really bad idea for most folks. That said when I remarried at 24, I felt more or less ready. The spousal unit and I are a good fit, we are like sour cream and cheddar cheese chips, he is the sour cream and I am the cheddar.

I will admit that when I took that short walk down that aisle the second time I was nervous since second marriages have a high chance of failure, that said this is the hubby’s first and he is committed to making it work

I say all this to say that last night we had a bit of a argument, really it was about bullshit, but in the three years since our daughter was born, these nothing arguments have increased from being at best a yearly event to at least a few per month. I suppose this should not have been a surprise but for a couple that rarely argues, these past three years we have been stretched. However during last night’s argument, I uttered the words my spousal unit hates to hear “Well maybe you should leave”. Truth is I really don’t want him to leave, its just that at those moments when I am most vulnerable and feeling stressed and all I really want is to be left alone, I seem to put on my strong Black woman costume. Sistas if you reading this, you know what I am talking about.

Its in that moment, I look at him and, I hear snatches of ole songs ” I am every woman”, old sayings my Mom and Granny used to utter “You can do bad by yourself” and I get so caught up in the moment and utter the vilest shit.

After the argument I was reminded of a new blog I have been reading that deals with Black women and it hit me that I am perpetuating a lot of the negativity that interferes with relationships that Black women have generally with brothas but truthfully with men in general. The shit that keeps us from being willing to expose our vulnerability, our needs and truth is its got to stop.

Last year when I unexpectedly lost my job, I took on doing all the work around the house except for taking out garbage, thing is I am still doing it and I am working again, plus mini-me is not so little and elder child is home for the summer. Yet the funny thing is the spousal unit never asked me to do everything, but some how in my mind I started thinking I should do everything, even now. As you can imagine this causes a great deal of tension, since as I have been told I walk around with a perpetual scowl on my face.

Yet here I am getting mad as hell when in fact I put this on myself, last night after we made up, I was plagued with the thought that despite growing up in a 2 parent home, I seem to perpetuate all the negative images that many sistas in general have about men, and while some of its true the fact is I think we bring a lot of it on ourselves by not being upfront. Simple stuff like making dinner, I married a man who had been on his own for years and knows how to cook but as he jokes half heartedly it was after we married that I took away his cooking privileges yet I bitch all the time about hating to cook.

The thing is in relationships unless you are truly not well matched, its the little shit that will bring the relationship down, years of cooking when you really didn’t want to.. and so on.

No, the realization hit me this morning that if I am truly committed to making this work, its time to permanently retire my superwoman suit. I am not every woman and I can not do everything and I am not even expected to. I also must be willing to get real and as a old professor of mine in grad school said during a workshop, be prepared to get raggedy. The reality is in a loving relationship its ok to be raggedy at times, no one thinks less of you. I just need to stop thinking less of myself. I suspect I am not the only one out here who needs to ease up on herself either.