The Idiot's Guide To Marriage

Part One: Reality Bites but Fantasies Lick

How do you incorporate comedy into tragic, heart wrenching bitter endings?

I think it was some time in my late 30's after my second divorce when I realized that love had not just passed me by, it had never arrived in the first place. It's different to care deeply about someone, or to love them in the verb sense of the word.. but true, deep and fascinating love had not once camped on my doorstep. I might have mistaken it for such a few times but quickly realized it was nothing but a farce, wrapped up in a glittery package. The minute I opened it up, the wrapping blew away and what was inside stung my eyeballs with the reality that nothing is ever as it seems on the outside. A fart is a fart, and the only thing that changes is it is how many beans someone ate for dinner and when they last took a healthy dump.

I have a penchant for choosing men who are horribly selfish, overbearing, emotionally abusive, and boundary busting assholes. Granted it's only taken me twice to realize that marrying one of them will never happen again... I wish I had determined that the first time. Sometime around the early part of my life, probably when I first appeared outside my mothers womb, I knew that to my father I was nothing. My father had 3 girls, and nary a day went past that he did not remind us how useless we were to him. Mind you he never came right out and said it, but you can only be called demeaning names so many times with no love in the mix before you figure it out. I don't care how young you are. Suffice it to say none of us were very sad when he decided to be an absent father who worked away from home. Eventually he left altogether when keeping up the farce of father and husband twice a year became too much for him to bear. A more selfish man I have never met.

To this day, I have never heard him utter a compliment, or loving word to either myself, or my two older sisters. The words "I love you' do not exist in his alter universe. The words "I'm proud of you" never crossed his mind. O he's plenty proud of HIS good old self.. after all he's worked by the sweat of his brow and earned his keep. He has amassed tangible wealth of which value we have no idea, and won't know until he decides to exit his earthly shell. He's a walking, talking check book with a balance that means more to him than any girl child ever could.

However, this is not to be a story where I blame my tragic existence on my father, rather I use it to reflect on how I got to where I am, and how I can exonerate myself for the embarrassing mistakes I call my x husbands. At least for this one time, I'm blaming those on my father. He really has it coming, you have no idea. If this is the least I can do to get retribution for being called a knot-head clown when having the audacity to breath in his presence, we're on the right track.

Much to the chagrin of my father, we girls have continued to exist in the world, and cause problems by simply opening our mouths, and talking. "Kids are a pain in the ass" he said not too long ago. I'm not sure where he garnered this knowledge, since he's never really been around kids, or had to deal with them being a daily pain in the ass. He must be speaking through the experience of his friends whom I'm sure have kids that are REAL painsintheasses, imagine that. But to our father, we have been nothing more than an excuse to reiterate how useless women are and how everything they do, think and want is ridiculous and stupid.

So, blame my father for my lack of self worth? My overcompensation and desire to please men and make them like me? Make them think I'm worth something, smart and useful? Right... no blame there. Let's just say for the sake of argument that all the mistakes I have made have nothing to do with that, and everything to do with not employing rationalization at the start of every potential relationship. That takes the edge off the bitterness and puts the blame back where it belongs, right on my head.

I'm a tragic soul with a mysterious and wandering mind, hard to read with a heart bound up in sinew. I have no plans to change at any time in the future. From what I've seen, appearing weak and vulnerable only gives men yet another chance to make you feel small. So I think I'll keep my frosty facade in place thank you very much. They can keep their ego on their own side of the fence. I'd rather stroke the blades of a running prop plane than give up the slightest inclination I care about their fragile egos. Many a male has probably thought me a bitter old bitch but to them I say, better bitter than your kitty cat, chasing the laser pointer you so flippantly pull out whenever the mood strikes you, laughing maniacally while I fruitlessly try to capture it. Wait, whose hearts were we talking about?

posted by Doozie at 1:10 AM