My Future

Wow, what a downer. With each of these essays from the Bitch in the House more of the disheartening and terrifying side of married life is shown and this time from all sides. Right after reading the essay of how unfair one woman's marriage was with her dotcom husband I vowed that I would make any partner of mine be sure that they knew what they were getting into with kids and that I wouldn't always have to be the one picking up the pieces. Then, the very next essay showed the negative effects competing over your child with your partner. Now I have to be terrified that if I am too nervous about not being able to share everything equally that I will push my relationships into competitive time bombs that will undoubtly explode.

Both of these opposite problems seem to have the same core problem though. They both have forgotten that raising a child is a joined process which two people share. Both parents need to be seen as an agreeable team that will get through the difficult stuff as well as the fun easy stuff together. While these women seem somewhat better at communicating with their husbands than earlier essay's writers with their boyfriends, they couldn't solve their logistical and therefore emotional problems. When Edelman comments that she didn't realize what she was getting into with her husband following the carreer path he chose I got the sense that maybe he hadn't known either. And the competition shown by Abraham seemed more driven by both of their individual personalities. However, both of these problems seem much scarier to me than the earlier essays in The Bitch in The House because they both seem much harder to solve. They are here because of very real situations that I can see happening to myself and these are much harder to shrug off as just something that I simply won't let happen to me.

But at the same time I agree with Amanda that the couple in My Mother's Ring who still manages to kiss after everything that they've been through physically, is awe inspiring. The story of the author's mother losing her ring at the beginning of the essay and their marriage had me expecting the worst, but they actually seemed like a stable loving couple. And by the end of the crunch period of her husband's company the author of The Myth of Co-Parenting they seem to be happy and they seem to be equals. I'm impressed and I'm not giving up. These glimmers of love and equality are endearing and I'm hoping that they're worth it.