The Woman I Am with Him is the Woman I Am

Look, I’ve read the same memes you have. I have watched the same talk shows, listened to the same gurus, read the same books, flipped through the same articles, conversed over the same meals, and drank the same wine. I know the kind of woman I am supposed to be. The kind of woman I am supposed to want to be. The kind of women I am supposed to have for friends and encourage them to be.

I understand that I am not supposed to need a man. That my self worth isn’t defined in a man. I understand that independent women work on building their own empire, funding their own life, balancing their own checkbook. Strong women take out their own garbage, wash their own cars, fix their own toilets, open their own doors. Self assured and confident women don’t wait on phone calls, giggle over a text, look for validation in the eyes of another soul. No way ma’am. Today’s woman should spend hours, maybe months, nay, ages, all by herself in the solace of her enlightened womaness damning all penis to the box labeled “shit trying to slow down my hustle.”

I get it. Really. Seriously. You can stop now. I. Get. It.

I’ll go one step further. I can do all those things. I can’t tell you how young I was when I started mowing the lawn. I dug my first drainage ditch when I was 10. I changed my first tire at 12. I had my first job at 14. I completed my first brake job and replaced my first fuel pump when I was 15. I won a beauty pageant at 16. I have birthed babies, divorced husbands, served in combat zones on active duty, worked for people who didn’t deserve me, and owned my own business.

I can empire build, solo fly, badass bitch with the best of them. I am a badass warrior woman all by myself.

I prefer to be the woman I am with him.

And before I get that Chanel side eye from my independent sisters who are kicking ass in those smoking hot Jimmy Choo’s that they only put on their credit card for the travel points because they are being super smart about planning that solo vacation to Aruba in the summer, let me be clear. I think you are fucking awesome. I love to watch a women comfortable in her own skin, confident in her own ability, edgy against the history of women who went to university simply to earn a ring. I love you. And I love your joy. And I love that you know who you are and you have found freedom and you are living the life you have always dreamed of on your own terms. Because I know what it takes to be a woman of joyful substance, I am thrilled to no end that you have found what blows your hair back.

But that isn’t me. And in a world that is constantly shoving media manipulated versions of feminism down the throats of too fat, too thin, too hungry, too ambitious, too mommy, too corporate, too religious, too worldly, too strong, too passive, too big, too little, too much women, I say fuck that. I do this this called whatever the fuck I want. I, in my enlightened, self discovered, independent skin.

The woman that I am when I am with him is all the things I think a strong, confident woman should be. Correction – can choose to be. At the end of the day, we are all simply people getting comfortable with our own, strange, peoplness and the bizarre, sometimes foreign, peoplness of others. Much of the discourse and tension I see in relationships stem from the choices made by one creating defensiveness in the feelings of another. Why?

I can’t be for certain, but my best guess would be self doubt. With all the media we consume on a daily basis, we watch hundreds of thousands of alternate lives play out before our eyes. Lives that look amazing – and aren’t one thing like ours. Mommies of Pinterest. Women in corner offices. Bad ass whiskey drinkers. Traveling divas. In love wives. Daredevil thrill seekers. Fitness females. We see it and we wonder, “Did I make the right call?”

Moreover than just seeing the images (which are typically portrayed by folks who would be completely supportive of you and your choices), we are then inundated with the bumper sticker messages about how we are supposed to feel about that. Those choices versus our choices. Who picked right and who picked wrong. Who is honoring their true authentic self. Who is living up to their potential as a warrior goddess. Who, in their utter not enoughness, is disappointing legions of women who have gone before.

To that end I say, I am succeeding in my life as a woman. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that you most likely are too. There is a truth in me that desires to be happy. A part of that happy is his happy. The woman I am makes him happy. I will be the woman I am. And that woman enjoys doing and being for him.

In all fairness there is a lot of paradoxes that happen here in my life. I care what he thinks about how I do my hair because he doesn’t care. I care about my appearance, my manners, my clothes, my conduct…because he doesn’t. He has a faith in me as a person, at my core, that I am the most perfect person in the world for him when I am being whatever it is I am created to be. I don’t pretend to understand that concept fully yet. But I love the way it feels in practice. I love the way it feels to be loved that way and then be able to feel the safety in returning love in that same fashion.

I am not perfect, but he thinks I am. I am strong and wonderful. He will say that’s because that’s just who I am, with or without him. There may be a lot of truth to that. But I also know that it has never been easier, more complete, more true, than when I am with him.

So yes, I believe in the strength of a woman. I believe in her ability to be alone, to steer her own ship, to remain blissfully untethered. I also believe in the strength of a woman with her chosen. I believe in her ability to partner, belong to a team, to fasten her line to that of another. At the end of the day it isn’t a right or wrong choice regardless of what the memes makers of the world would like you to believe. It isn’t a status to be judged or a flaw to be corrected. It is an individual life to be lived, a heart to be cared for, a moment to be fashioned in a way that suits the soul of the owner.

The woman I am with him is the woman I am. I feel more myself here in this moment as part of the union than I ever have alone. And if we were no more, I would still be the woman I am. The woman I choose to be. There’s the prize, right? Loving ourselves so fiercely that we have confidence in and honor our choices. That we feel that in such a way that it allows us to extend that confidence and honor to others – even when their choices are so much different from ours.

Originally written March 9, 2017