Assuming Marital Gender Roles May Kill Your Marriage and Your Individuality

My husband wanted a traditional marriage and I regret it

“I want the court to consider Colleen has made no contribution to the family,” says my husband.

I am outraged by these words.

The man I once considered my best friend and love of my life has trivialized my being, my heart, my soul, and my most important role.

I am a wife and mother.

He’s written this arrogant comment in his legal interrogatories.

It’s an extreme departure from the man who once looked to me to duplicate his own upbringing. The one that includes a supremely traditional stay-at-home mother and an off-to-work father.

We’ve just had our first son.

“What are you thinking?” says my husband.

“I want to stay home with him,” I say.

“Good,” says my husband. “That’s what I want. My Mother was home with us and that’s what I want for our children.”

It seemed like an easy conversation. A good one in fact. We were in alignment. Or so I thought. I felt like we were capable of making difficult life decisions together.

But now in divorce, I was an unwanted castaway.

A seemingly lazy and self-indulged woman who had glided through marriage.

I think back to another conversation between my ‘best friend’ and me.

“I think you should quit your job,” says my husband. “I don’t like all those people (guys) you work with and I need to grow my business.”

I think about it and don’t argue with him.

Do I realize he’s being silly referencing men I work with? Sure.

But the fixer in me only hears one thing…he needs help to grow the business.

It’s a few years before we have our first son.

My husband is narrowing my world but I am unaware of this. I do not have a manipulative bone in my body and don’t realize the man I have married is a full set of manipulative bones.

When we make the decision for me to be a stay-at-home mother I’m clueless.

I’ve now surrendered to the entire traditional matrimonial gender role.

My status is wife.

My complete status is a wife who is a stay-at-home mother.

I have no idea Colleen the woman just left the room. Colleen the individual just exited the building. Colleen the independent girl just left the country.

Colleen the best friend and love of a man’s life just surrendered her passport.

I am a kept woman.

At least, in one man’s delusional perception.

Because this surrendered gal is taking care of everything. She’s driving the cars to get serviced. She’s paying the bills. She’s organizing things with his family. She’s taking care of the home.

I dare say…She, aka, the wife, aka the stay-at-home mom is contributing.

Shush, don’t tell the marital big guy who oppressively believes none of this.

Because ‘He’s the husband’ and well, I’m just the wife.

But I don’t really know this.

I think we are working this marital thing out really well. I think we’ve come to all of these ‘joint’ decisions. When I say I will be a stay-at-home mom, I’m a 30-year-old who has just lost her mother.

I am making a highly charged emotional decision.

I think my husband is too. I don’t realize he and I have entirely different motivating factors. He’s making a different type of decision.

It’s not emotional on his part.

It’s a traditional role designation.

It’s a practical matter. I don’t see this. I think he wants to duplicate the way he has grown up. I think he’s making an earnest emotional decision too. I think it’s coming from his heart.

But it isn’t.

It’s coming from his ego.

My husband views the traditional relationship as less about impact and emotion and more about his status. He will be the breadwinner, aka the big man, aka the marital male status symbol.

He will be ‘The Husband.’

He will be the man who built our entire marital life.

He will be the man who one day says, “I want the court to consider Colleen has made no contributions to the family.”

Assuming marital gender roles may kill your marriage and your individuality. It creates a relationship imbalance. It destroys individual equilibrium.

It can give one spouse the power (scratch that) the financial power to make another spouse feel worthless and meaningless and take every ounce of your earnings and your self-respect.

My husband wanted a traditional marriage.

And I regret it.