What Men Don’t Understand About Women and Safety
…they think their partners are boring.
There are the addict wives…the ones who come home after midnight and expect their husbands to put the kids to bed. There are the other addict wives who end up being grateful their spouses are patient with them and write about it in their 40s. There are wives who try, but can’t quite figure out how to “wife”.
There are all kinds of wives. But there is another kind of wife. And she is me. And this is a story I can tell with brutal honesty.
I was sitting and having “coffee” with a friend last week. I put coffee in quotes because I drink decaf and it’s an insult to coffee drinkers everywhere. Yes, I know, it’s not real coffee.
He and I became friends a few months ago by happenstance. His background and mine are not all that dissimilar. He was an evangelical pastor. I was a music ministry and children’s ministry leader. I was there for over 20 years. He was there for over 10.
He had an affair, left his ministry, and is just barely surviving his divorce. I left my ministry and divorced my husband. I’m in the middle somewhere of his story, but his deconstruction and breaking point are all too familiar to me.
He was telling me a story about his wife:
“We went to Napa on vacation and were visiting wineries. There was one that said, “By Appointment Only” on the door, but I wanted to go in anyway. She didn’t. She wasn’t a risk-taker. But we went in. The whole time, she was uncomfortable, always looking at me like, “We really should not bother them!”. But it was an amazing day. We got a tour, a tasting, and we got to really see the operation and get to know the owners. It was better than if we had made an appointment, for sure.”
I sat back and teased it apart. Her dis-ease was something I was all too familiar with. I know what it’s like to be with a man I don’t really trust to keep me safe, even if I still would rather have him around than not.
But I also know what it’s like to cease having him around, or refuse to have him around and find my own sense of safety. I had been both places.
Where his wife had been that day, I could feel in my bones.
I said to him:
“Did you ever suspect she might not trust your judgement? Did you ever consider her sense of safety in the moment? Or were you just up for an adventure, regardless of her feelings?”
He took it well, which I’m always grateful for (it seems ALL men take my questioning well…unless they are my spouse or partner) He responded that no, he hadn’t.
I explained to him that women like his wife, who had grown up in a protected atmosphere, was pretty conservative, a rule-follower, a “good Christian woman” had a hypervigilance about her own sense of safety. And if a man, no matter what man, would push against those walls, she would push back in order to create her own sense of safety…without him.
Which might be why, several years later, she didn’t struggle in her choice to divorce him. I know it well. I might have been that woman once.
My ex ceased to be safe for me one day, in 1997, in Austria. It was the day he “dropped me off” at the home I was working at as nanny after being in the hospital for three days. My uterus had tried to kill me after miscarrying at 14 weeks. I was anemic, in pain, lonely, homesick, scared, traumatized, and sobbing…in a heap. And he left. He left me alone to go to a meeting.
That was a breaking point. He was no longer going to be my safe space. Up until then, we had almost nearly only struggled. There had been no honeymoon period after our marriage. He never had figured out what he would do with his life. But he knew he wanted to study languages. So he did that…without a plan. Nothing about that man ever said: Here is a stable, solid, man who will provide for you and a family.
But I ignored the signs and moved on with our life.
My friend and I talked about his former wife’s breaking points. We talked about his current pain and shame and lack of hope. It’s funny, I get both of them, his ex and him. Their situation feels all too familiar to me.
He wasn’t safe for her. She was not willing to take risks with him because of it. She was boring and predictable. I had been the same. Until one day.
For me, it all changed in an instant. And it was a day I’ll never forget. It was a day that had nothing whatsoever to do with my then-husband. For me to get a sense of safety I needed to be as far away from him as possible. And I was blessed with that moment. I was finally shown my exit route.
It took several years, but I took it. And there has never been a single regret.
I was a boring wife once. I might be a boring partner now. But it has less to do with me than it does the man I am with. I love adventure and exploring the world. But if I don’t feel safe, he isn’t going to be a part of any of it.
