"Men are given permission to be ruled by their urges. Women are given responsibility to manage the consequences." This was part of a thread on Threads that echoed in my head as I re-read it. It is kind of in the same line of thought as my colleague who once said that men play checkers (only focused on the next move) while women play chess (focused on how that next move will impact things many moves down the line).
The comments my ex-husband made as I was trying to get some explanation out of him demonstrate a bit of this thinking. He wanted freedom. He didn't believe humans were meant to be monogamous long-term. Just like with every new car he purchased, he seemed to think the grass was always greener on the other side.
And his abrupt departure left me with all the consequences. Even negotiating the settlement only happened because of my resourcefulness to figure out how to value retirement accounts, my request that we exchange copies of all our financial documents, and my communication of what I wanted. Our material belongings mostly got divided as I did the work to sort through so much of them. And his original plan was for me to help him find an attorney to draw up the divorce paperwork - I drew the line in the sand on that one and insisted I would be hiring my own to review whatever documents he had someone else draft.
Back to the original quote, if my ex-husband who is a fairly decent man when looking at the society as a whole, has bought into this mindset created by society, imagine all the ways it is affecting so many women far worse off than I am. The more I view this world as a single woman, the less I want to participate in dating again.
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