YOU ARE NOT THE WOMAN I WAS TOLD MY WIFE WOULD BE

“YOU ARE NOT THE WOMAN I WAS TOLD MY WIFE WOULD BE.”

I was quiet, angry, and upset. There was so much I felt inside of me, and outside I was just numb. I whispered to him, asking why. I wanted to know why I wasn’t enough for him, even though he claimed to love all of me.

He went silent for some time, and then said:

“I am scared to marry a woman like you. I don’t know how my life would be! Possibly would be hard. My mom always told me growing up that all my problems will be sorted out once I get married. My wife will handle every small thing in my household like every other woman has done. I might allow her to work because I am open-minded. But her career and her ambitions should be an option for her, while her new family, me – should be a priority.

And now I met you. I see you. You talk about Feminism, you talk about Equality. You talk about boundaries. You talk about not following the footsteps of women before you. You argue with me. You rarely agree and want to make your own decisions in your life even after marriage. You never hesitate to speak up when you do not agree, and you scare me that if you are my wife, you would call my parents out if they want you to do something, or be someone you do not agree with.

I wish you would just go with how things are. I know what’s best for you. I will keep you happy, if only you listen to me more. And I feel they should be allowed to be who they are even with their old thoughts. You can’t change them. You accept them. But you are supposed to change, or they won’t accept you. All my life I have been told that I would find a woman who will be a good wife who will follow my lead and help around my family, who will live with them. But then I met you, and you are none of that. And I love you. But I can not accept the fact that you can be my life partner. I want you to be, but I find it so hard to imagine a happy married life with you – the one I have been told I would have, growing up.

I need someone more silent. I want someone who follows tradition. I want someone who respects my decisions. Who walks alongside me through the journey of life . Afterall! aren’t women supposed to uproot everything they have, they want, they need, they crave – and then only need what their husband needs? So, what if I don’t do the same for her? That is not my role, it’s supposed to be my wife’s. This is what a marriage is. And no, I won’t let you redefine it just because you want an equal say in it.

It’s frustrating …you know! Why can’t you just be more family-oriented and leave aside all that talk of feminism behind, just for us? For me? Life would be so beautiful, so much easier…if only you would understand this, understand me. That’s all I want from you.

I only want you, and what’s best for you, my love. Yet, you are too stubborn!

You deserve every happiness in the world, all the freedom. I just can’t be that man to accept you with that, to fight with you side by side against everything in this world that wants to hold you back. I am sure there must be a guy out there who will accept you the way you are, but I can’t be that guy. I love you but you are just so…… not how I was told women who make good wives should be. And I don’t love you enough to fight for a better place for you in our society.

But I love you. And it truly breaks my heart to lose you.”

At that point, I wasn’t surprised. I was disappointed. I don’t know if I was disappointed at myself for trusting him… thinking he accepted all of me, or if I was disappointed at him for breaking my heart and insulting me all at once. But whatever it was, I did not want him anymore. There are better things in life than men who willfully cling on to their family’s and society’s sexist idea of a ‘good woman/wife material’.

I replied to him:

” I am very understanding. But I don’t understand why I need to comply and feed sexism to prove that I am ‘understanding’. Marriage is simply a legal Relationship on paper, but it is still a relationship. Why ask so much out of a woman when as a man you don’t even have to compromise and sacrifice a fraction of it? Just enjoy life with the person you love, accept each other, be happy and get that love in return.

You let other people in your life dictate your relationship and fuck up your love life is on you. Because it’s already hard in today’s world to find someone who loves you back equally and completely. You choose to walk away from it and that person, your person is solely on you. Then you will be all middle age, unhappy, and then search for me online n text me “I still love me. I fucked up.” But by then nothing can be fixed. It will be too late. Don’t get me wrong…I am not saying that you will definitely do it, but it does happen way too often to men and women who walk away from one good person in their lives: the regret. Simply because they are too weak to stand up to societal and family pressure.

I will eventually find someone to share my life with. I don’t know if I will love them or not. But I will move on. That’s what I do. I move on and do not look back. I won’t allow my life to be dictated by the failings of weak complicit men who are too coward to stand up for themselves, and the woman they love. You enjoy the privileges of misogyny, I suffer coz of misogyny. We aren’t the same.”

I am just a person trying to live my life on my own terms, and looking for someone to share it with. The whole unfiltered badass me. I didn’t come all this way, suffered all that pain, went to hell and back …only to allow another man to count my strengths as my ‘flaws’. Loving all of me means really loving all of me. And this definitely ain’t it.

I refuse to compromise on things that are only expected for women to do, to sacrifice. I will not be complicit in misogyny. Everything else can be worked around, compromised, and adjusted…you know? But not misogyny. Nope. I refuse to take the losing end of the deal, while the man benefits from it all. That is not equality, and that is definitely not love.

Love is fighting for equality together to ensure your partner doesn’t live a suffocated and unfair life dictated by a misogynistic society. That is the only acceptable love that women need.