Mostly I understand that everyone has different things they want from a partner. When I tell a man that he should expect to help his pregnant wife with diapers, dishes, etc the most common reaction is, “Yeah right”. My husband is better than that. My husband has no desire to sneer at helping me. I try not to judge husbands out loud because they all have different strengths (and it isn’t like Noah is a saint) but man I judge this.

The idea of standing on the precipice of parenthood and thinking, “I’m not going to help” makes me want to spontaneously vomit on the floor. What is wrong with you that you begrudge your partner and your child this help? I fucking guarantee you that it is in your long-term interests to help. To be accommodating. To do way the hell more than you have ever done before.

It strikes me as “That’s your job” thinking and that means these people believe they are responsible for only certain things. If Noah needed my assistance in making money I would do so–I couldn’t make as much as him but I would do it. I wouldn’t be pissy and whiny about how it is supposed to be his job to earn money so whyyyyyyyy do I have to do it too? It wouldn’t occur to me.

Noah has responsibilities with our children. He does a lot of work. He’s part of a family–he is not the lord of some fucking fief.

Marriage is about each person giving absolutely to the maximum of their ability in order to allow both of you to maximize your potential and happiness in life. That is what my marriage is like at least. Kinda socialist because I steal his money and I still make him do work.

I have the general sense that I could have talked a few former partners into kids with me–they wanted kids in general or were on the fence when I knew them. I didn’t want to just have kids with someone. I either wanted a partner or I was going to do it alone.

Yesterday I had a first visit with a new dental hygienist. She has been seeing Noah for almost ten years. She made a crack about how I have “three children” and I almost bit her head off. Don’t you fucking talk about Noah that way. (I didn’t curse at her.) I was adamant that I do not have three children. I have two children and a partner who blows my mind with how enthusiastic he is about participating in my life.

I know dads who work two and three jobs in a day and come home and wash the dishes. That’s a man right there. If you sit on your ass all day doing a computer job and then you whine about how when you come home you need time to go play your video games because you’re tiiiiiiiired then you aren’t a man. We are all tired. That’s the parent condition. Yes, parents need down time. But the dishes also need to be washed and unless you have god damn fairies visiting your house (send them to my house when they are done with you–ok?) by saying that it isn’t your problem you are dumping it all on your partner.

The families I know where the husband stays home and the wife works all seem to involve the wife coming home and helping. Why do husbands resist? Oh yes, women’s work and all that crap.

This is why I hold no desire in my heart to “have it all” in terms of a serious career and doing the domestic shit. There is so little value or respect given to domestic work and yet it must be done. If a woman takes on a job it doesn’t seem to lessen her share of domestic work in most cases and gosh that sounds like she is getting screwed to me.

I like my feminist husband who looks at how many hours we each have to “work” during the day and divides tasks with me and values what I do. My work makes his life better. He is happy about that. So he’s grateful and helpful.

Noah’s work makes my life better. I am ridiculously privileged and lucky. I happened to find someone who has the ability to make a lot of money. I don’t think my expectations of him are less because he makes a lot of money. I treat him like he gets forty hours to go do his job and then he needs to be at home with his family doing his share of the work to raise our kids–you fucking wanted the kids and you want a relationship with them when they are adults. That means bonding and labor while they are children.

Children bond most strongly with the people who meet their needs as opposed to their wants. Weekend-entertainment-daddies aren’t respected and loved the way dads are who are serious caretakers. You can’t trust a weekend-daddy the way you can trust someone who has protected you and cared for you and kissed away your owies.

I looked at my slave contract and realized that was what I was doing with my Owner. I was creating the structure of artificial exchange of needs on a predictable schedule so that I could learn to trust him. I’m glad I did that when I did it. I’m glad I’m not still clinging to the idea of slavery.

I have decided that a life lived as a support source and that is all is not a life I want. I don’t want to be an invisible support leg holding up someone else’s life. I want to matter. I want to be irreplaceable.

If someone is just a paycheque then they are easily replaceable. I am increasingly certain that no one else could ever feel good enough after Noah. I don’t think anyone else will ever do so much to take care of me and make me feel important. No one else will ever have a window into my needs. This breeding period is a uniquely vulnerable time. I have needed help and my husband came through over and over instead of saying it wasn’t his problem. I didn’t think I would ever deserve that.

Marriage is not a proposition where you should each contribute your “half” of the labor. Each of you should act like you have to keep the ship afloat and you are responsible for noticing when things start sliding. You can have frequent role assignments but they are not set in stone.

If Noah walks in the door from work and it looks like a bomb exploded he gives us each hugs and starts working. I don’t think there are any words in the English language to adequately describe what that means to me. What that feels like. I feel honored and seen and loved and respected and acknowledged and appreciated and like he believes that my work is important. Validated may be the closest.

On days when he walks in and everything is nice and tidy and cleaned up and dinner is ready and he gets to just sit around and rest he beams at me all night. He’s thrilled with what I accomplished. He is grateful and flattering and appreciative. He comments and notices me.

I don’t want it to sound like Noah spends allllll his non-work hours slaving around after me. He gets time off. Up to ten hours in a week that he can use for video gaming if he wants to.  For someone with as many irons in the fire as he has that still isn’t enough time but this is the rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul part of our life. We aren’t doing it financially, thank goodness, but we do it with energy stores and finishing projects.

I don’t hate guys who do less than Noah. I’m just deeply grateful I will never have to live with any of them. I would rather live on the streets and openly deal with the fact that other people do not care about my needs than live with someone who will put on a pretense and abandon me when I am desperate. I feel that strongly about it.

I like knowing people who are different from me. They tolerate different things. They like different things. They seek out different things. It isn’t that other people have bad marriages–they have a marriage they are willing to be in. They are happy. That makes it a totally acceptable marriage. But it lets me know how I need to phrase things with Noah. It gives me kind of a shadow edge around our relationship to remind me where I need to encourage and discourage Noah.

Oh my god I appreciate Noah. Knowing that I get to come home to Noah makes any trip out feel ok. I can be brave and go to places even though I am scared. I worry about stupid things like falling in the parking lot. I fell yesterday and hurt my ankle. I had this overwhelming rush of terror and I sat on the curb having a panic attack because I believe so strongly that if  I was desperate people would ignore me. If I had fallen and hit my head and been unable to call for help, would people pass by and leave me? I do not trust my fellow humans much.

Sometimes when I am out I have to sit down and reread the note Noah gave me. I asked him to give me permission to be places. He wrote it down. I carry it in my wallet. When I am scared and I feel overwhelmed with how lonely and isolated and estranged I feel while standing near people I excuse myself to the bathroom and I take out the note and I read it. I remind myself that I can come home and deal with my needs later. I won’t be alone. Noah gave me a pass. He wrote down on a piece of paper that I am allowed to be here. Whichever here I happen to be at right now. He signed it. It’s official. So I’m allowed to go out and I am allowed to be places.

I don’t believe that other people are responsible for my needs but I feel sad that I don’t matter to them. When any partner finds out that his/her partner is about to have increased needs and they respond by saying it isn’t their problem… It isn’t that I think everyone “has” to care. There aren’t rules like that. I just feel this wild grief. I feel like weeping and throwing myself to the floor because there is such a vacuum of love in this world. Everyone is so miserly with their love. I could help but that is icki so I won’t help. I know fathers who have never changed a diaper and they have multiple children over five. That turns my stomach. I know fathers who have never put their child to bed. I know fathers who have never prepared a meal for their child.

I’m glad those children have a mother who is perfectly able to meet their needs full time. I could not do that. I am not competent enough. I would crack. I would be mean. I would get vindictive and nasty. I’m not nice enough to do that. I don’t have enough to give. If I had done single parenting I would have had to work and the kids would have been in daycare. I could not have done the 24/7 available thing.

I have needed help in order to not be abusive. I have needed help in order to be a good mother. I’m very grateful that my partner is invested in his children enough to care about them getting a high level of quality of care. That means he sees me as a person who has needs. If my needs aren’t met the children will suffer. Letting me suffer is not really in his long-term self interests. He has a lot more to lose by being selfish than he has to gain.

I believe it helps enormously that we have a time limit on this all-in period. We would both like it if he was independently employed and did not need a 40 hours/week commitment. In order to get to that point he is going to have to take a big scary leap and pull all his energy away from things he is currently spending energy on and focus on this stuff I can only sort of help with. All of a sudden my support will have to come from elsewhere.

This is what enlightened self-interest looks like. I want a fairly specific life. I’m working like a dog to get there. So is my partner. We have drawn up a list of goals together. We have things we want for both of us. Noah specifically came and asked me to marry him because he wanted to have children and I wanted to have children and he thought I would be a good mother. I was right in thinking he would be a good father. Folks who didn’t see him as I did–well jokes on you. (The hygienist really kind of irritated me. I hate the “all men are immature children” trope. Yes, I bloody well argue with it when I hear it.)

I feel so lucky that I found someone who looks at me and sees my potential. Who sees what I have to give and says, “That would make my life better” and who sees that I am a weak and frail creature. I need help. I am not weak and frail because I am a woman I am weak and frail because I am animal. All animals can only handle a limited amount of work if they are going to perform at a high level. Noah gives unstinting support; that means that I have to do the same.

Gratitude on my part usually translates to sex. You can see where this is going. Enlightened self-interest.

Noah gets up and makes breakfast for us five or six days a week. He says, “I want to make sure that life without me would be so unpleasant that you never ever want to leave. Ha! You would have to make your own breakfast!” And he has over time adjusted his recipes to my taste. Insert swoon here.

Not everyone wants the things I want and not everyone has the needs I have. I can see why people end up partnered with the people they do–they balance one another differently. Their relationship works for them. I am still a judgmental asshole. I can’t understand an attitude of not wanting to help. I don’t think it is good. I judge it. I’m an asshole. Ok fine. I can live with that. I’m trying to be less rude about it in other peoples houses and I failed yesterday thus my outpouring of whining on the internet.

Do other people get to vent about me in the ways that I vent about people? They have to be able to or I have to shut up. That’s only fair.