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Zonie63 -> RE: Do you have contempt for submissive males? (4/29/2011 10:39:42 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: NuevaVida
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. [;)]
My story is somewhat the opposite of that. The happiest couple I ever knew in my life was my paternal grandparents. My grandmother pretty much ruled the household while my grandfather puttered around in the garage or the basement. She pretty much made most of the decisions, while my grandfather would just kick back and tell old stories about his life. It wasn't always like that, though.
At one time, my grandfather ruled the house with an iron fist, but when their eldest child reached the eighth grade, my grandfather decided that nobody needed any more education than an 8th-grade education. That's all he had, so that should be good enough for everyone. That's when my grandmother put her foot down and started to take over the reins of control in the family. They were also staunchly religious. They never watched movies, no dancing was allowed, and you couldn't do much of anything on Sunday. Still, they seemed much closer and in love with each other more than my own parents, who got divorced when I was six.
My father never hit my mother, and in fact, none of the men in my family were ever abusive or wife-beaters. To me, the concept was totally alien. Even when I would see shows about it on TV or even hear real-life stories, I was very skeptical: "No way would a man ever hit a woman. No such person exists on this planet." It wasn't until I reached my college that I finally started to believe that such things really do happen.
I took more after my father than after my mother. My father was very logical and analytical, but my mother's primary complaint was that he was weak. That was part of the reason they got divorced, probably the main reason from her point of view. But my mother was not exactly a tower of strength either. In the years following the divorce, she was a basket case, always crying all the time, could never manage her finances, and was in no condition to be taking custody of my brother and me. Fortunately, her parents lived close-by, so my brother and I stayed with them a lot, but eventually, we had to go back to live with our father.
As I matured, I began to look and act more and more like my father, and (while I didn't realize why until years later) my mother started to resent me more because of it. It wasn't intentional; it was just an emotional reaction which my mother was famous for. But again, it wasn't until years later that I was able to understand this. While it was going on, I was horribly confused about a lot of things. It was the 1970s, so it was kind of weird back then. My mother also was a staunch supporter of women's lib and talked a lot about strong women, but she wasn't strong herself. Maybe my father was weak, but at least he took care of us, while my mother could not. My father and I used to watch Star Trek together, and I was just amazed at how much he knew. He knew about science, technology, engineering, math - the man was a genius.
Where it started to go downhill for my father and me was when he got remarried, and that's when his perceived "weakness" might have impacted on me more negatively. He was giving in and deferring to his new wife a bit too much for my taste. I was 16 at the time, but at least it gave me the incentive to move out, be self-sufficient, and more independent. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. My new step-mother also had three kids of her own, so I suddenly had three younger siblings. It wasn't exactly The Brady Bunch.
I was born into the world of Leave it to Beaver, but by the time I came of age, it was Dawn of the Dead.
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