After our youngest daughter got married and left home, my husband and I talked ad agreed I could leave my job. It wasn't that I hated my job. The work was stupid easy and I was at the top of heap as far as production went. In typical fashion I had automated many of the tasks that bored me to tears and left me plenty of time for day dreaming. As long as my numbers stayed high, my supervisor did not care one whit. I was still doing my job and the job of several others. All for the privilege of getting some socialization.
I loved my department and most of my co-workers. But not everyone. The place was basically an air-conditioned sweat shop that hired workfare denizens and kept track of their hours and laid them off when they hit the limit they needed to work for three more years of welfare. I found it hilarious to see the first timers getting their first paycheck. FICA, she do take a bite. They were paying their own way and never realized it. I was taken to task the first time I pointed that out. I had a contentious relationship with HR and the head exec over the location because... I was never wrong and they were never right when it came to truth and coercion of the ignorant.
I went to eat lunch one day and one of the welfare denizens came into the break room, ran outside and got a suitable shirt for work from someone out in a car, came back in and, instead of stepping the seven feet to the restroom, she took her shirt off right there and put the new one on, all the while bitching about her supervisor who was making her wear scratchy clothes to work.
I got up, throwing my uneaten lunch in the trash, marched to my desk and immediately put in my notice to my supervisor, who was at lunch and just got back to working.
When my supervisor came back I told her I could no longer stand the environment and had already decided to leave, just not when. Then I told her what went on in the breakroom. She begged me to stay, but she couldn't offer me more money and frankly, I was losing my soul working with people whose only concern was baby daddy paternity suits through the State and how many hours they had left until they would be let go.
My department had lost a lot of people. Many leaving for the same reasons I was. I felt for my supervisor as I truly liked and respected her. She was going through some shit with her husband having cancer, but I could not stay. I gave her three weeks notice and didn't train anyone on my work before I left. Two other women put in their notice shortly after I did. I didn't care. I was about to do what I love.
I love taking care of my home, despite the mess it is most days. I love taking care of my husband, my children and grandchildren. I have a husband who wanted me at home to handle all of the things that he is too busy and scatterbrained to pay attention to. I have time to cook meals I want to, which is pretty rare these days. My husband is working harder than ever meaning many evenings I'm just fixing a sandwich or getting take out.
I run errands, pay bills, do laundry and do all of the shopping for a household of two people and 6 pets needs to stay a going concern. I also watch two of my grandchildren, school runs, toddler tantrums, you know, every day fucking life.
I love it.
I didn't get much of a chance to do this when my kids were little until my youngest was born. I've reveled in this.
I am not subjugated or a slave to my husband. He still does much around the house as it's gotten harder and harder for me to do certain tasks doe to some weird medical issues in my legs and feet. He takes care of me and I give him a haven, a soft place to land when he gets done dealing with his job, which has gotten nightmarish in the past year. We're currently looking at him retiring from his company, paying off the house early and he will look for another job that isn't killing him. You could let him loose in Home Depot and he will enthusiastically sell hammers or whatever strikes his fancy that day.
My husband takes VERY good care of me. He doesn't bitch about my weekly pedicures that I get just to have an hour to myself where no one expects me to do more than lift my foot out of the bath. He lets me buy all the books I want, and is very encouraging of my writing. I keep him happy and he makes sure I have what I need to be happy whether it's peace and quiet when the kids aren't here or enough yarn to make another baby blanket. He loves making me happy. I love him so I want to make him happy right back. Neither one of us is using the other.
So, that makes me think of the bleary-eyed screechers who say that being a housewife makes me a slave to my husband, endlessly abused and terrorized by my husband. It's a laughable idea to think that either of us lords it over the other. My husband is a nice guy. So much nicer than I am. It's the reason I put him on the phone when we have to deal with service issues. I cannot tell you the number of times we have gotten extras or had our bills reduced by him just being him.
Many people think I walk all over him, because I have a forceful personality. It's sort of like the Immovable Mover meeting the Irresistible Force. My forcefulness meets his Dutch Thick Skull. When we do argue, it's glorious, short-lived and usually ends in laughter. We never go to bed, and we're both great at taking our space when we're being too emotional. Usually him. He's such a huge brain and then he reacts to most things with anger or fear.
Are there men out there who would be a bully to their wife? Fuck, yes, there are or Lifetime would have no channel line up. But, for the most part, most couple see it as working together for happiness of themselves and their children. My husband I work together, in different areas, to make sure we're happy and hopefully, that our children and grandchildren are happy. Today, when he gets home from dealing with car issues, we will continue our work out back, making the gardens safer for our grandchildren and more aesthetically pleasing as well as a haven for butterflies, bees, hummingbirds and dragonflies. See? True ecology.
I'm happy because I'm not a victim of my husband's toxic masculinity. Lord God Almighty, I love that masculinity or I would not have married him. He's not henpecked because he's just that stubborn. Do we have bad days. Yes, we do, but they are few and far between twenty plus years in because we have learned to pull our load together, rather than fighting the yoke we both accepted when we wed.
My husband and our family make me very happy. It's not a constant thing. We all have times we get butt hurt or angry. That's family. That's life. If you don't get that, perhaps screeching about misogyny and living with a 50's ideal of women isn't your biggest problem.
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