I am still reading this but have you ever had a moment of pause? I just had mine today. I am almost done with the book and I had to take a pause. There are a thousand and one things in this book that made me jump, cry, or just sit and pause but today’s pause I have to share.
In her chapter, “On mean women and good dogs, Gabrielle describes a boxing session she had with her trainer and life coach. The coach asked her what 10 things made her happy. She couldn’t think of 10 things. The coach reminded her if she couldn’t find 10 things to make her happy what made her so sure she should have gotten married. Pause. This was my pause. I have been in this dark place. I cried thinking of how I cried in marriage counseling with my husband snotting and having an entire fit over what he was doing, what he wasn’t doing, and why I was ready to leave him. Pause. I was ready to leave my college sweetheart for a few reasons. One we have an extremely long and interesting history. It spans over 10 years almost 20 to be exact off and on. This alone was not a recipe to be married. Two, I got married because I loved him but I also loved what I thought he was when we were together in college. Pause. This is not marital love. This is not one of those things that you rush down the aisle for. I was miserable in my own skin. I loved my husband, I knew we had been through HELL and back but I didn’t know who I was. I was a 30/31-year-old women who had put all of my eggs in one basket and with this basket he was supposed to come in and do all the work. He was supposed to make me smile with gifts. He was supposed to initiate sex while I went with the flow. He was supposed to be my happiness. How did that work out? Not good if you can imagine. He did it for a while. He opened my life even when we met in college to the finest of things. If things was what I wanted, he got it. His love language is gifts. He did it well. I can’t even remember what I could have wanted that he wouldn’t have worked his entire behind to get me. However after the gifts, what did I have to give. Not a damn thing. He was supposed to do the work while I sat pretty. I was more like pretty damn miserable and it was causing a wedge in our marriage and relationship.
Ladies this is not how marriage starts off. This is how marriage will end. Had I not taken a chance to go to martial counseling the divorce would have been finalized. Ladies, had I not gone to counseling on my own after that, I would be a miserable rut. NO man or woman is your source. Let me repeat that for the folks way, way in the back-they are not your source. You have to come with more than some thighs or checking account to make things work. You have to be able to be whole before you can unite. We had done it backwards or at least I did. I take full responsiblity for my part. I came in looking for a dream. College sweethearts unite, marry and build a family. It sounded cliché and enough until it wasn’t. Gabrielle is spilling the tea that every woman and man better get with as your progress through life. If Gabrielle or you or me can’t find things that make you happy, that gives you purpose how in God’s green Earth are you to survive?
Take a point in this book and the tea I am spilling on what I did or didn’t do to get secure. So many women and men want marriage but have done zero work on themselves. You haven’t pulled one credit report to fix your own junk. You realize that when you get married they marry that junk. You can’t just let it pile up and hope it goes away because it won’t. You work a job instead of finding a career. You have never been out of the country or traveled with friends or even by yourself but you’re ready for marriage or just life. Remember not everyone wants to be married. Marriage is not the end all. So to my married friends stop selling these fast dreams. You walk around with your piece of rock and feel and act as if you have made it. You are the main ones like me (I was) out here stunting on your single friends like you got some badge of honor. Your husband ain’t seen a genuine smile out of you in years. You are miserable and you making his life just as miserable. Just stop. Your husband or wife ain’t seen the real you since Jesus was a baby. You hide with the lights off and you fake like everything is everything-just stop!
Get clear. Self love is important. You should be able to name more than 10 things that make you happy. These are not to be thought of things that make you temporary smile. I mean 10 genuine things that make you happy. The things that makes you smile about yourself. If you can’t say that, work on that before you connect with another person. Do that while you are with another person. I had to be real with myself during the months it took. I was frustrated with the fact that I had to go to counseling but I was serious that even if he and I went our separate ways, at least I could walk out whole and happy even if that meant I had to revert to my maiden name. Ladies and gentleman the time for this soul-searching is ever-present. Get there and get clear. To say it lightly, I need a glass of wine just bringing up these old emotions. Well played Gabrielle, well-played.
