{"id":315,"date":"2009-01-23T17:43:05","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T22:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/?p=315"},"modified":"2009-01-23T17:43:05","modified_gmt":"2009-01-23T22:43:05","slug":"husbandless-housewife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2009\/20090123-315.htm","title":{"rendered":"Husbandless Housewife"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Marriage is not easy.  Marriage is not the answer to life&#8217;s problems.  Marriage is not happily ever after.  Marriage is not a fairy tale.  Marriage is hard work.<\/p>\n<p>I know all that.<\/p>\n<p>But whenever I get discontent or frustrated with any aspect of my life, my favorite fantasy to retreat to is&#8230;marriage.<\/p>\n<p>In highschool, when I was trying to figure out which of my hundreds of interests to choose as my LIFE pursuit (i.e. career)&#8211;I dreamt of the easy way out.  I could just get married&#8211;then I wouldn&#8217;t have to decide.<\/p>\n<p>When I was overwhelmed by the hamster wheel life of school, work, volunteering, church, family, dorm, friends, Navs&#8211;I longed for an escape.  I could marry, and then (maybe) I wouldn&#8217;t have to bother with half of it (school, work, dorm at least).<\/p>\n<p>When I was in the midst of depression and feeling disconnected from everyone, I thought maybe marriage would be my solution.  How could I feel disconnected if I were married?<\/p>\n<p>When I was blacking out ten to twenty times a day and afraid to drive lest I should black out and kill someone&#8211;I thought getting married would correct my problem.  (Oh wait, <b>I<\/b> didn&#8217;t come up with that.  That was the doctor.  Well, I guess he didn&#8217;t say I had to get married&#8211;he said the only cure for my hypovolemia was pregnancy. But since I don&#8217;t believe in having children out of wedlock, that meant marriage to me.)<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, my most recent frustration has been with being a housewife.<\/p>\n<p>You see, I <i>love<\/i> being a housewife&#8211;and I am one, despite not having a husband.  I revel in cooking homemade meals and keeping my sink shining.  I delight in puttering around my home and neatening things.  Tidying, organizing, even scrubbing is fun for me.  I make breakfast every morning, fill the fridge with homemade food, wash the dishes every evening.  I make sure the house is in order&#8211;and when it is, all is well with my world.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t begrudge the fact that I do 90% or so of the housework in the home I share with several roommates.  I love doing it.  What I don&#8217;t love is that I don&#8217;t have someone else pitching in to give me the time, money, and energy to focus on what I love doing&#8211;being a housewife.<\/p>\n<p>You see, as a husbandless housewife, I have to do double duty.  I have to carry out both the &#8220;housewife&#8221; jobs and the &#8220;husbandry&#8221; jobs.  Not only do I cook all the food, do all the dishes, and clean the kitchen&#8211;I also have to work to pay for all the food and have to eat it all (generally without assistance) when I&#8217;m done.  Not only do I clean the house and make it ready for entertaining&#8211;I also have to work to pay the full portion of rent (leaving much less time and energy to carry out my housewifely tasks.)<\/p>\n<p>So marriage sounds really good to me right now.<\/p>\n<p>I can just imagine it.  He works to pay the bills and takes care of car stuff.  I work to buy us little extras and take care of home stuff.  He can bring home the bacon&#8211;I&#8217;ll cook it up.  I&#8217;ll clean up the kitchen after meals, as long as he&#8217;s there to do his part with eating the meals.<\/p>\n<p>Now I&#8217;ve painted myself a panacea, a delicious too-good-to-be-true fantasy&#8211;but tell me, how is it that girls who hate to cook, despise housework, and are indifferent to children can get married, but I&#8217;m still single?<\/p>\n<p><i>Please don&#8217;t take this wrong.  I&#8217;m not bitter.  I&#8217;m not angry.  I just struggle to understand God&#8217;s purpose in my singleness&#8211;when I seem so clearly cut out for the life of a housewife.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marriage is not easy. Marriage is not the answer to life&#8217;s problems. Marriage is not happily ever after. Marriage is not a fairy tale. Marriage is hard work. I know all that. But whenever I get discontent or frustrated with any aspect of my life, my favorite fantasy to retreat to is&#8230;marriage. In highschool, when &#8230; <a title=\"Husbandless Housewife\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2009\/20090123-315.htm\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Husbandless Housewife<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}