To leave or not to leave, When your Bliss is on the Brink of being lost....Settling

I have been noticing a trend among a majority of my female friends and I am wondering why women who are smart and vibrant and beautiful, settle....I am guilty of it too. My relationship is what I would like to think "different", but I have chosen to stay with my Love who I probably should have left 10 years ago. Unlike my friends there is a reason that my "husband" was an asshole, and it was his addiction. He is just getting to a point in his life where it is not controlling him. I don't know what the future holds for us but I want to be positive that whatever happens we will always love each other. That is the key here, my girlfriends either are not in love, or have fallen out of love, or don't know what they are supposed to feel for the significant other in their life. They don't feel appreciated by their male counterparts...yet they choose to stay with them because they are afforded having a sense of financial stability. Not to mention that the sex is either nonexistent or matter of fact "wham bam thank you ma'am"....how sad to live that way.


No, sex is not what a relationship is based on but if you think about it looking back at the one you fell for was it the size of his earning potential or the butterflies in your stomach that had you falling down when he walked in the room? Ideally it would be great to have both, but realistically I think women choose one or the other. I have told my daughters to never depend on a man to support them. I actually like a quote by famed Diarist and lover to many literary men, Anais Nin, “How wrong is it for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, ... Some never awaken.”  As women we look for something to complete us as if we were incomplete all alone, when the fact is we are what men need to reproduce....Don't get me wrong I love my children and had my Love been a provider financially I probably would have had 10. If I did not have any I don't think I would have felt I was missing something.... I would have learned to like the me I had become. Lets face it, as women we loose a great deal of me time when we have a family or a demanding husband. That is why you see so many women divorcing as their kids grow and leave the nest because they then have this freedom they never thought they would have. They want to live the life they did not get to as a mother and wife.

When we are young we have this idealistic/unrealistic vision of what marriage and a relationship should be.We formulate this by what we see and live as children. If your parents had a warm and loving relationship chances are you will too, maybe you will even wait till later in life to find that compatible person. If you saw your parents in what you now know to be an unhealthy relationship, chances are you will follow that suit or avoid it altogether. Whatever the reason we end up in unhappy marriages inevitably we need to be happy with who we are first, no one will complete us or make us who we should become, we can only do that on our own.

If you expect your mate to change after 20 years of feeling unappreciated, you will have better luck winning the lottery. But on the other hand if your mate is willing to look at what got you here and work on it together then maybe there is hope. Listen up men when your women are telling you what they want, chances are they have said it a thousand times but you only filtered out the part where they are telling you to take out the trash and even then not doing what they ask, not the part where they are telling you they want more foreplay.

I am not an expert at relationships, quite the contrary but I do know how to communicate well with my Love. I think that is what makes it different for us we actually talk to and listen to each other. We share our hopes and dreams and fears and insecurities, and we talk frankly and openly about sex and what we need from the other. Look if you cannot talk about sex then you probably should not be having it.......just sayin' come to think of  it you probably aren't. It takes two to make a relationship thrive and it also takes two to grow the weed of discontent, one partner plants it, the other neglects it. Maybe that's why so many women go after the gardener....the other man who will tell them what they want to hear, woo them in all the right ways  and make them feel the best they ever have....until the weed creeps back in because as women we really need to love ourselves and nurture ourselves first, we are in fact the Master Gardeners of our lives.

Life is too short to live in an unhappy and unfulfilling relationship, bliss is attainable either in or out of the relationship but the first thing you need to do is decide what YOU really want.

"religion" and "politics" versus "real life" and the "A" word...

Do you notice how in these election times the issue of the day becomes abortion? There I said it the dreaded "A" word. It is the hot button topic on a good portion of todays candidates agendas, especially here in California. This is when religious groups also promote their beliefs the most, during election time. So much for keeping church and state seperate. It is even the topic of the day in my little central California town. Our local newspaper has run articles for the second or third year about teenage pregnancy. This year they added a story about the fact that a young woman interviewed for the article under conditions of anonymity talk about her abortion experience. Then in todays paper there was an article about a teen who came forward in the public eye and talked about her abortion, and how at the time she thought it was the best decision for her, but now with renewed faith she talks about being pro-life and even shared her story at a faith based rally against abortion. I am glad she came forward about her situation but I do not feel that she has the right to put her beliefs on me or my daughters. Say what ever you want I am all for free speech! I do it all the time! I just feel that by saying that she felt overwhelmingly depressed over her choices and that through faith she was set free, is a dangerous prescription for the next young girl in her situation. Why? Faith is not the cure all for everything that ails you. I also feel counseling is important in working through any choices that one makes, like deciding to have an abortion. Faith has saved me many times but until and unless I addressed the deeper issues that caused my actions faith was not going to heal me alone. I find that it is not only my walk with God but my choices that shape the outcome of my future. That is quite obvious one would think. Is God going to cast me out of the opportunity of eternal life because of my sins? That is not the God I know. Because if that were the case I suppose I would burn in hell for my multitude of transgressions.

One of them being to choose the alternative to having a fourth child. I chose instead to have an abortion. I do not say "alternative" as cold and callously as you read it. It was a choice I agonized over, one that still haunts me today. I will say that I made the choice that was and has been right for me. I was a single mom with three young daughters I was barely able to take care of. In my moment of weakness with my childrens father who was still in his addiction it was not what was on my mind. I am grateful that I live in a country where I have the freedom to do whatever I want with my body, and it is a scary thought that some legislator usually a male can tell me what is right for me. I find it hypocritical that people complain about welfare recipients having babies but when we choose to have an abortion we are even worse, because we have done so on their taxes. Maybe they feel they have dirtied their hands with my dirty little secret. I think choice should exist and so should sex education. I was not some teenager at the time. I knew the consequences of my behavior I just made a foolish decision. When I found out I was pregnant I was furious at myself and my love. More so with myself. Because I had to live emotionally  and physically with whatever choice I did make. Not that it had not affected my love, it did and he was wracked with guilt too.

I remember that day like it was yesterday and I remember feeling overwhelmed and questioning myself, was this the right thing for me to do? I remember the tears streaming down my face as my love touched my hand as he drove me to the clinic. I remember the dimmly lit waiting area that seemed serene and tranquil with couches and green plants. I remember seeing the fear on the face of a young woman who was under 16 and her boyfriend sitting on the waiting room couch just as scared. I also remember the well coiffed and manicured mother of a beautiful teen girl, and her sister sitting with her. I remember the mother saying, "this is what will be best for you, you have your whole life ahead of you." Then there I was another nameless woman who like everyone else would not look into the face or eyes of one another. I thought about my daughters at home and I thought of how much we had all been through.When they called my name and I went alone to the back area I felt the door close and I turned to glance at my love whose face was sad. The nurse was matter of fact and went about telling me to change into the gown methodically and in a droning monotone, because this was all routine to her. I remember the anonymous voices of the other women in the dressing rooms as they changed into dressing gowns. I remember one woman saying, "I had to take a half day off of work and I am supposed to be back to work tommorrow or I am gonna loose my job."  She said she was a waitress and really needed her job. Another said "My ole man gets out in a week and if he found out I was pregnant he would beat the shit out of me." I do not agree with women who use abortion as a method of birth control. Contraceptives are readily available and free at Planned Parenthood. I went to a Planned Parenthood for my procedure.. I was working full time at a job as a floral designer that did not have benefits and going to college. I qualified for medi-cal but if I did not I still would have went through with the procedure. My boss at the time who did not believe in abortion knew my situation and she did not judge me or shun me. The procedure for me was different because I was under 10 weeks pregnant. I ingested some pills and had a suppository inserted that opened up my cervix. I was sent home and I slept and cried and had what amounted to cramps. I hated my love, who for all of his sorrow that he felt, could  never fully  know my heartache. That was what seems like a lifetime ago, but it has not left me. The thoughts of what if and I wonder what... still exist today. I also know that being in my 30s at the time was far different than being 16, and alone and scared.

I am not here to make a stand on abortion or a stand against it. I am here to make a stand on the fact that I as a woman face many more issues regarding my body than a body of legislators who will be predominately male. One candidate even vows no abortions not even for victims of rape or incest. That is one candidate who will never be able to fathom what it is like to be a woman. He is a man. Why arent candidates talking about how to prevent teen pregnancies? Hmm. I feel on that day I did choose life! I chose the lives of my 3 daughters, that they have a better life, that I have the opportunity to give them more. We still struggle today we are finally getting above the water almost 9 years later, but we love eachother and want to see eachother succeed. That is what I want for my eighteen year old daughter, success, she is also the teen mom of my beautiful grandson. There is no perfection in my life. Things happen in life the way they are supposed to. Do I fear repurcussions of telling my story? No, I fear living in a country that would not allow choice for a rape or incest survivor.  I fear that some young woman go to some drastic measure to hide her pregnancy in a dumpster.  I fear some woman somewhere feeling that she will not be allowed into Heaven because of a choice she made. Is God going to forgive me? He already has. My God is a forgiving God, he knows me,  he created me.