How Equal Is Your Marriage?

Dealing with conflicting expectations, unsolicited relationship advice, and confusing principles.

Most people like equality and strive for it in their lives. However, I believe that sometimes, our view of equality can often become distorted, for a number of reasons.

I have, in the past, become offended about a seeming inequality in our marriage, when there really wasn’t one.

Let me explain.

Dealing With Conflicting Expectations

As a woman in 21st Century Europe, I have, naturally, been influenced by my family, the people around me, feminism, and society, to fit a certain description— of a strong, independent woman.

So when I became a stay-at-home mother, I did so reluctantly on the outside, but gladly on the inside. My husband absolutely wanted me to stay at home and always voiced this to me, especially considering how much time he spends at work, but I kept putting pressure on myself to want to go back to work and carry on building my career.

My inner self however wouldn’t budge and wanted desperately to stay with my son.

I felt like I was letting down a team of women who had fought so hard for the choice to go back to work and saying, “No, thank you” to the privilege.

The fact that actually, women fought hard for the choices we have today, didn’t really enter my mind because the choice to stay at home is not necessarily the “popular” image you see today of a strong woman. Instead, the stay-at-home mother look reminds me of a submissive, old-fashioned lifestyle lived in the 50s.

I have often felt like the world sees me as a trophy wife, and I have felt the need to both show how offended it makes me feel and how being one might not be as bad as one makes out.

I had conflicting feelings about my role as a woman today that I found confusing. I didn’t know what part of me to embrace.

Outside pressure is strong and the expectations of others can easily become yours. That’s why I was so hard on myself about whether or not to go back to work. If only I hadn’t cared so much about what everyone thought, or what I thought everyone was going to be thinking, I would’ve probably given up my job much earlier on, and saved myself a lot of headaches.

Unsolicited Advice Should Be Taken With A Pinch of Salt

Everyone has an opinion. Everyone is entitled to show it. But I would ask myself whether talking about what I think matters to the person I’m speaking to, or whether I am just fulfilling my own desire to speak.

I received a ton of advice when I got married. Expectations about how we should be with each other as a couple. But it was not taken into consideration how my husband and I are simply not your typical couple.

When I married my husband, I went in knowing full well he would not give me time every single evening after work. I knew he wouldn’t be as available as other men. I knew that, if I wanted to be happy in my marriage, I had to really work on my own growth because he was not going to stop striving upwards. I compare his desire for success to Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. He wants to leave a legacy. Scratch that — he will leave a legacy.

This requires a tonne of his time. I knew there would be times where I would question whether I did indeed come high on his list of priorities.

But it was made harder by society’s comments about how inconsiderate he was for having to work while on vacation. Or when he doesn’t immediately join us for lunch or dinner when it’s ready because he’s finishing up a work task, if he joins at all.

Someone once even implied that I was a victim of domestic abuse because we do not share a joint bank account and that my husband was selfish and hiding things from me. The fact our finances were not joined or accessible to me meant that I was losing and he was taking advantage of my good nature.

I could give you a page’s worth of scenarios where society would question my husband’s lack of communication or unconventional behavior, but I wish not to receive the backlash that might come with it that would prove my point exactly — everyone has an opinion, and everyone has a desire to voice it.

I appreciate the advice when I ask for it. I cherish and respect the words spoken by those I care about the most. I know that mostly, people care about me and want what’s best for me. But they may not know what’s in my best interests, and no one can ever know the full context of the situation to be able to give sound advice — especially marital.

Society Vs Personal Standards

When someone tells me my husband should be consulting me before making decisions when I’m used to him informing me about them, I wonder whether I should be offended.

When someone says I should “force” him to do more at home because it’s unfair of me to take the bulk of the housework, even though that’s simply how it’s always been, I wonder if I’m being taken for granted.

For the most part, it’s OK, but sometimes, it’s really hard for me to differentiate between what society thinks my expectations should be and what my actual expectations are.

I’m OK with the decisions that my husband makes without me because I trust that he considers me and the family. I also trust in his ability to make decisions that won’t be detrimental to us.

I know that I too don’t need my husband’s input when I make decisions. And we do actually talk about our decision-making beforehand, not for the sake of making decisions together, but simply because we like to share our thinking processes.

In addition, I’m OK with taking care of the house. I love tidiness, and I love taking care of the home — I even wrote about how I turned cleaning into a lifehack.

My house is very much in order because of the hard work I put into it. I choose to care about how I lay out the cushions on the couch. I choose how the toys are arranged for our son. I choose the color schemes and arrangement of the rooms and I am good at it.

I am a nurturing, homey person who loves design and loves taking responsibility for those things. He is not. This sometimes makes others tell me how my husband is taking advantage of my OCD, but I just see it as an arrangement that works.

And if there comes a day that I decide it no longer fits our situation, we will change it. For example, we decided to get a cleaner when I was pregnant the first time, and we have kept that going because we can afford it and because it helps us both get on with other things. No argument was had about it.

Owning Your Circumstances

I have taken on the role of a housewife and stay-at-home mother.

This image today is portrayed as a weak-minded, simple woman in the 50s looking after the mundane while the husband does what he wants and expects everything to be done at home. She survives off an allowance and lives for the family.

And I do look after the house, live off an allowance, and live for the family. I identify the needs of my son as he gets bigger and suggest changes or purchases he might benefit from. I go get my nails done every 3 weeks and love a good coffee morning with a friend. In the meantime, my husband works his ass off trying to make more money than is spent.

I fit the 50s image of a married woman and mother, only I don’t feel like I’m weak-minded, or simple, even though I do wish that was the case sometimes. In fact, I more than admire the women who took on this role, whether they wanted to or not — because it’s hard!

Life as a housewife is way more hectic than I thought it would be. I’m sure it’ll get more complicated as my son gets bigger and we have more children.

But I’m excited by it all.

I discovered my love for writing during my time at home and I’m working on building my career this way, so I can say I’m a stay-at-home mother and housewife with a modern twist. It’s because of the role I stopped trying to resist playing that I took on some new goals of the independent woman I also aspire to be.

Basically, I can have the best of all worlds, namely doing everything I want, even though society initially told me I couldn't.

Takeaway

I’m learning that, in a marriage, there doesn’t have to be sacrifices made for both partners to get what they want.

You can compare yourself and your marriage to everyone else. You can listen to the friendly or unfriendly comments, the ideas of society, and the opinions of others. But when you do so, remember that they don’t have the full picture and that their opinions are just that — opinions.

Spend time working out with your partner what your expectations and needs are, and keep the line of communication open at all times.

Telling my husband about the conflicts I have dealt with, especially since becoming a mother, has absolutely helped me understand more about what I and this family needs, regardless of what others might think. I sure have come to accept that my views often collide with other people’s and that it doesn’t make me weak or inferior to them or my husband.

Own your choices, and don’t care for outside pressures — they really don’t have your best interests in mind as much as you do.

Sylvia Emokpae is passionate about self-love and motherhood. See more work like this.

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