My MIL wanted to know why I waited so long to marry..... she used words like "old maid" and asked me if I wasn't desperate when I found her son?
She also said that the only reason her son was marrying me was bc I was blonde.... then asked me how many months along my pregnancy was at the dinner table, with a crowd listening on.
Considering she was pregnant with my husband when she married, the word hypocrite does come gently strolling to mind, lol.
Oh my, this is turning into a rant. ::sigh::
It never occurred to me to be
desperate..... what occurred to me was how bad things could be if I married the wrong man
That's what I thought about.
That's what my mother put in my head.
"Wait wait wait".... she said.....
and so that's what was there.
I didn't think about children, till I was almost 40, btw.
And I wasn't freaked out about it either.
I think my MIL was afraid of being an old maid and that she chose her husband based on shame and desperation... in her day.... she'd been almost 30 when she married. She'd given an ultimatum to her steady, who was going away to medical school, at the time.
Apparently.... he had a controlling mother he paid attention to
. bc he resisted her and she was left shocked and humiliated without a proposal.
All her friend's ultimatums were working!
I'm not making any of this up, btw.
She married a man who lost a bet, and had to go out with her bc neither he nor his friend wanted a date
with her.They tossed a coin to see who would get a date with her friend.
Now..... that's sort'a surprising to me too.... didn't the women have a say in these matters, back in the day?
She laughs about it..... but I didn't laugh when I heard the story.
Her husband set a timetable for marriage.........
and she was available.
You know what?
They dated exactly the same number of months their son dated me, got pregnant and then married in exactly the same number of months my courtship and marriage took place with their son.
When my MIL's mother asked me how I landed her grandson..... I remember her shocked face when I responded with "I suppose not wanting to be caught myself, did the trick."
That's what was in their heads, catching a man, and that's what they thought about... becoming an old maid and shame.
They didn't regard themselves as valuable resourses who had a say in their futures.
My mother told me I wasn't an apple hanging on the tree...... there for a man to pick, if he so chose. What did their mother's tell them? Be perky! Be shiney! Be bright and if you can't be a bright red color..... develop a personality?
Good Lord and Little Fishes..... I don't understand.
My father's old girlfriend's mother told her she wasn't pretty, so she'd have to develop a personality to catch a man.
She was
beautiful and pregnant (with a nice man's child) out of wedlock, puking on her finals in nursing school.
Why would her mother put that in her head? She didn't want to be pregnant..... she bammed down the family staircase on her fanny, trying to dislodge the invasion, as she saw it.
And so.... my MIL was so surprised that it never occurred to me that being unmarried wasn't the worst thing that could happen to me.
In her mind..... it was.
::whispering:: I was very happy working and living on my own.
Men have always been a mixed blessing. I guess all blessings are.
One of my best friends is an unmarried nurse (almost 80now)with her doctorate in teaching.... she's amazing and doesn't regret that she never married.
She's busier than a body should be doing research on her family history, mostly from Ireland, and she travels and put 2 minority nurses aids through nursing school in the last 5 years, taught them how to handle their finances and take control of their lives.
Her life's rich,happy and productive. She's taken care of her own retirement..... has
no regrets.
I have another friend who's well employed, top salesman in her company 90% of the time and she's looking into a sperm bank in January.
She's 35yo and would have regretted horribly marrying any of the men she dated.
Her familie's been putting pressure on her to have a family since she was supposed to marry the boy who took her virginity in high school..... drunken lout that he turned out to be
Her sister's highschool boyfriend strangled her (the sister) and left her for dead in her college dorm. She lived, thanked God but.... we're not always meant to marry the person in our lives when we're very young. This guy was arrested in a parking lot trying to sell his infant daughter (by some other unfortunate woman) to a stranger. I think he was asking under $100.00 for her.
We aren't available for Mr. Good Enough For Us, if we're attached to Mr. Not Good Enough, KWIM?
There are worse things that being single.....
I think we all know that.
RIght?
