My Mother Thinks I Am Strong

I have been trying to put my thoughts into words and have been really struggling. I was speaking to my mother the other day and she said, more than once during the conversation, how strong of a person I am. I usually don't really believe that because compared to her, I don't always feel like a strong person.

My mother had four children within five years. She was very involved in politics and fighting for equal rights. And she was the head of the family. My father was an alcoholic. By the time my mom figured this all out, she felt that she was unable to do anything but stay with my dad. They did not have a good marriage. My mother was always trying to keep us innocent and keep the family progressing forward. I never knew all the details until I was much older, about my parents marriage - because of my mom. But I was aware and witnessed a very poisonous marriage. When you are growing up, you don't always realise that what you are living isn't the norm, so you just accept it. I always knew that I didn't want a marriage like my parents. I wanted one like the Waltons or the Cunninghams or the Bradys or even the Wilders.

But I was my mother's daughter and I didn't take shit from anyone. Well except my mother, she was the matriarch, the dominant and she wanted to be the one to control me. If you didn't do things her way, then you were wrong. I was the rebel in the family. So at lost my parents funding for college after two years, a year later they stopped paying for everything and even took the car back that I was driving. But still, I moved farther away.

As I was pulling away and becoming my own person, the kind that does exactly what she wants, I met my husband. The first night I met him, he told me that we would have beautiful children some day. I thought he was crazy, I was thinking uh no, I am on the pill. What did I know? We now have five beautiful children together. My husband, boyfriend at the time, encouraged me to grow up and away from my mother. My parents did not like him one bit. And he didn't care. He made me see that it was okay to be my own person.

I married him when I was twenty-three. We have been married for almost twenty-two years. We did not start out knowing about dominance and submission. I thought that I was big and powerful and I debated my husband on everything. Both of us were opinionated and both of us were strong willed.

He and I have gone through so many ups and downs. I don't think that there is much we haven't experienced. Well except death and that is okay is we don't ever have to experience that. Kind of unrealistic since my parents are in their eighties but I can hope. Even during the times that I believed I hated my husband, we never quit. We promised each other that when we had kids, we would never ever divorce. So we fought for our marriage and we fought each other. There was so much blame and so many tears. 

I think that my mom saw a lot of what was going on. She saw the struggles that we went through with things like bankruptcy, unemployment, bad things happening to our kids and so many other struggles. At times I listened to my mom and really blamed my husband for everything. And he was angry at me. He really believed that if I just did what he said, then some of the bad wouldn't have happened. We even had over three years of marriage counseling and we still fought. Oh it was ugly.

But, and this is a very big but,  come the end of the day, the safest and most loved place for me to be, was in his arms. He was my rock. He was where I was safe. And nothing could take that away.

Finally, I realized what I was missing. My husband is the head of the house. He is the one I trust and rely on. And even if the way we do things are different, we have the same goals. Why am I fighting this man? We are a team. And so I began to listen to him and his suggestions. And he was kinder to me. I stopped trying to argue with him and he started listening to me. We then started ttwd and my husband has taken on the role of Hoh as if this was what he always had been. He probably was, I just didn't see it.

There are no hard set rules. We don't have time for him to micro manage me. I continued being the mom, the stay at home parent, the housewife and he continued to be the dad, the husband and the one who went to work and brought in the money. It is up to me, and it always has been, to do the scheduling, to figure out how we are going to pay for this or that, what sports the kids are going to play, sleepovers and parent conferences. But now we are a team, there is no dad and mom, there are us - the parents. There is only us - the couple. I like that.

So when my mom tells me how strong I am. I just think to myself how lucky I am. In my life, I have someone who has my back. I have someone who cares so much about me that he is the head of the household. I have someone who will keep my in line and take control of a situation when needed. It's too bad that my mother didn't have someone like my husband. She probably would have been so much happier if my dad was there to support and love her and to take care of the family. Someone she could rely on.

I am woman and I may roar but when all is said and done, I am my husband's wife.

And he takes care of me.