Tell him a story he can’t imagine.
Tell him how desperately your parents wanted you to find him. How they told you that your body must be preserved for him; look good enough to attract him.
Tell him about the ice cream and candy you could not eat or enjoy.
Tell him about your mother’s hope chest that she filled for your first home and the money your parents saved for a big wedding.
Tell him that grandchildren were always your responsibility.
Tell him how excited your mother was when he proposed, because now, you would be like her.
Tell him he was part of a dream that had nothing to do with him, or you.
It was a dream without a soul. It was a dream that felt like a scheme.
Tell him, so you both can be free to dream in your own ways.
Tell him your story, so he knows your life completely and all the reasons you need to change it.
Commentary:
How many young women feel an intense pressure to have
a boyfriend,
be engaged,
get married,
and be a mother?
The pressure is so intense that woman could marry for convenience… not love.
Too eager to wait, too responsible to rebel… she does what makes others happy and makes herself acceptable.
Men are usually perplexed and suspicious by the anxiety women have to be committed promaturely. Men realize that she is too intense to be casual,
too moral to be free
too fearful to wait,
too pre-occupied to relaxed,
too conscientious to rebel.
No one knows a woman’s personal confusion better than the man who loves her.
If she understood the pressure of gender she could explain to him her inner conflicts so each of them could “design their own way to love”.
Participate in this monthly conversation about gender and life, so you can live freely.
