She fell pregnant about a year after getting married and we had our baby. It was after my baby was born, not three months after that she started at a new job and off course, met the bloke,and had a roaring time whilst I had to look after the baby, her parents and all.

I couldnt believe what happened. Begged her to stay, threatened and through my toys.

Now, a year later I am feeling empty. I want out but she is pregnant with our second.

I am forever searching to find answers and feel as though a piece of me died.

How could she do this to me?

One last fantastic book to mention: M Scott Peck’s “The Road Less Travelled”. One interesting point he makes on this note begins by explaining how we project our own thoughts & ideas onto our pets. And how we find a pet agreeable as long when it’s will coincides with our own. He goes on to make a point about GI’s falling in love with non-english speaking women during war time and bringing them home as brides. Ah, true love! …but when the brides learnt English, the marriages began to fall apart. The men could no longer project their thoughts, feelings desires and goals onto the women and feel the same sense of closeness one feels with a pet. The men discovered they had ideas, opinions and aims different from their own. As this happened, love began to grow for some, but for most it ceased. That’s verbatim by the way.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the film with Nicole Kidman where she plays a Russian girl who flies around the world scamming men? Her gang finds lonely bankers on the internet and when its all set up, she flies in. Once the men are in love, the other 2 gang members arrive and *kidnap* her; the banker then raids his works safe to free the object of his affection. Mission accomplished. She can speak perfect english but pretends to be unable to speak even one word of it. When she finally gets found out by the British man whom she’s scamming during the film, he asks her why she lied about this. She tells him that she used to speak english on her heists until one day she experimented with pretending not to. She then discovered the men fall in love much faster ~ instead of weeks, they fall in just a few days.

“its funny because sometimes having a h is not like really having a partner for the most part their just another responsibility instead.”

…absolutely! and that’s indeed the point I was making when I said it was ironic that single mothers had more time for themselves.

That’s not rare unfortunately. It one of the many reasons men benefit so much from marriage and women lose out. It’s covered in *Backlash*. Glad to hear you’re going to read that. It’s by Susan Faludi; Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. She wrote it in the eighties, so it’s not a recent publication but the information inside is both timeless and priceless. You can pick it up for just a few cents via Amazon’s used books! whoopee :)

Is it womens ‘fault’ they sacrifice everything for others? I think it’s the way we’re brought up to be and it’s a self perpetuating cycle. Girls are taught to be ‘good’, to nurse dollies, to play with tea sets, to look pretty, to be mother’s little helper ~ in fact to be ‘good’ means to be ‘useful’ where girls are concerned…it’s all there being fed to us from the start, just as it was fed to our own mothers as children. Boys are always given more freedom to be themselves. Girls only get that freedom from an acutely aware parent who not only avoids ‘mistraining’ their child in such a way, but also prevents society from doing so ~ difficult & rare indeed.

So it seems it is up to us as individuals to break out of the mold as best we can later in life. To undo those years of training! Another fabulous book I can recommend in this respect is “Dorothy Rowe’s Guide To Life” - she’s great; a natural observer from childhood and very humourous to boot. I first read an except of the book in Virgin Atlantic’s [unusually excellent] in-flight magazine and was struck by how sharp, observant, knowledgable and life-changing she was. I bought the book when the plane landed!

And if you’re really geting into this, here’s one more well worth a read: “A Woman In Your Own Right ~ Assertiveness and You” by Anne Dickenson. I inherited that book from my own mother :) It is a must for any woman who needs help being assertive, instead of aggressive/manipulative/doormattish ~ most women run through some [or all] of these behavioural cycles instead of just stating what they want in the first place/putting their foot down and saying *no* to something they dont want! Sad but true.

Finally, I’ll make the point that I am not some rampant feminist. I don’t believe women to be inherantly ‘better’ than men. I just think we have more to overcome and are less able to genuinely be ourselves due to generations of misguidance and the perceptions/expectations of our society as a whole. It’s not a male ‘plot’; we’re all responsible for it. But on the other hand men certainly don’t want us to change things that are of benefit to them. These books help you do a number of things; 1. identify how your up-bringing and society have shaped [and continue to shape] your view of yourself. 2. understand the rules of the game of life as woman. 3. redress the balance to take back control and actually be a genuinely happier and more free person. Many times I’ve read about women who are completely lost when the children fly from the nest and the husband ditches her for a ‘younger model’. Do we really have to wait til that happens to reclaim our lives?

Finally, know that when you start being more observant and strong some people will resent it. THat’s actually a good sign. It’s not always confined to the people who have benefitted from your weakness for years either; it can include strangers who resent the fact that you aren’t the usual pushover! I’ve seen men get very angry when they come along and try to butt in on a deep conversation I’m having with a female friend and we answer his question then continue with the discussion we’re already having. It seems that when a male stranger enters a conversation, all female eyes and ears are meant to be on him until he leaves the arena, regardless of how dull he is! I actually find men damn rude in this respect, tho I’ve been observing this one quite a few years now and it’s definitely a societal expectation ~ that doesn’t make it alright. It also ties in with how women value each other - why do they generally give more respect to the butting-in male than to the good female friend with whom they are already talking? Again, I think we’re trained into believing in the *authority*/*superiority* of men from childhood. Well, not around here ~ respect is earned, not just given on the basis of gender!

I do understand that it’s a different situation when you have kids. The problem is perhaps rooted in the fact that many women give themselves up to become wife and mother ~ until one day it feels like that’s ALL they are. Everyone knows it’s important to keep your own interests and friends, but women are the ones who let that slip. Your own things going on is a must in order to stop yourself literally getting lost in the roles of the people you are for others. Most of the women I know who’ve been most successful at keeping their own lives bubbling with friends and interesting hobbies are in fact single, working mothers. And I find that ironic ~ I mean, shouldn’t they be MORE pressed for time than their married counterparts? Evidently not.

Conversely, the man somehow gets to keep his own ID. Not so lost in his roles, he tends to retain his friends and his time out. So it seems almost as if the woman climbs into the male when she gets married. And as time progresses, she gets lost in there. Strange then, how women are usually the ones pushing to settle down ~ In fact we have the least to gain in terms of health, happiness and even life expectancy. Marriage actually extends a man’s life and shortens a woman’s. Marriage reduces a woman’s confidence but increases a man’s. Marriage makes a man happy and a woman depressed. Of course this is oversimplification for the sake of brevity, and there are indeed exceptions besides, but it seems this grim truth is the norm. And looking at the couples I know who remain together, I can safely say the women are indeed long suffering, each and every one of them.

So why is it that women are the ones who tend to push for marriage in the first place? Why do we believe it will be sweetness and light for us, even tho the evidence around us clearly shows this is not the case? And in regard to the rather strong statements I made above about the negative/positive affects of marriage upon a woman/man, properly gathered scientific data wholly supports these facts ~ you can find it in a book entitled *Backlash*, along with a whole raft of other information that will shock and surprise you but which helps you make an informed decision about where your life is headed. Frankly I beleive it’s essential reading for every woman, be she coupled up or not. If you are going through a difficult time in your marriage tho, it will certainly help you find your own strength. Just beware; it may leave you with the urge to boot him out the door! I read it at the same time as I was undergoing the therapy I referred to in my previous post. And I do believe the timing of those two things combined, in unison with seeing through my git-of-an ex will keep me single for the rest of my days. On one level that could be construed a shame, but that level involves a myth in my opinion. In reality, I can’t help feeling I’ve been spared.

Talking frankly, it is easy for me to be this way because I’ve always been very independent. Please bear that in mind when you read my posts ~ I don’t want to push anyone to leave a marriage that may be mendable. If you think you can make it work and have a huge investment in it already, then do try. And of course marriage is a partnership [tho as Nicki says, not always with equal shares!] so it does take work to make it work. Little crinkles to iron out and all that. Even infidelities can be gotten over; as I mentioned in the first post, I would have wholeheartedly forgiven my first ex his transgression HAD he been straight when the time came for the truth. I really could have let it go. But lies are not OK and this needs to be made clear in simple terms. Ongoing lies despite discovery are the killer tho. They are what completely destroy trust, and at the root of those kind of lies is not some altruistic care for our hurt feelings, but a man trying to ensure he gets off as scot free as possible, make no mistake. I don’t beleive any woman is better of staying with that kind of man. If he really means “sorry” he will tell you the truth about what he’s apologising for. If he says “sorry” whilst still feeding you those same lies to save his own skin, that sorry is just plain rubbish. He’s a waste of space and no role model for your kids in the first place ~ better to have one strong parent than a pair comprised of one lying, cheat and another too fearful to leave him. My own mother brought more than a handful of us up alone, while working and paying for everything herself. All of us turned out extremely well; she was an excellent role model. And she did actually give him a second chance when I was around 7 years old; that was the most awful time of my childhood. I had never seen my mother so embattled nor so unhappy as she was when he came back. The rows were horrendous ~ definitely not something a child benefits from. It’s for sure my own attitude towards these things take some reference from that point in time; the decision not to ever live that way.