Why I’m No Longer The Woman My Husband Married
But 30 years on, we’re still in love.
We’ve been lied to for centuries.
Love songs and fairy tales have led us to believe love is static — that marriage seals the deal and we’re always supposed to want exactly what we wanted in that dopamine filled moment when we put rings on each others fingers.
Love between a married couple doesn’t and shouldn’t evolve or change.
But it’s not true. Even though we’re still together, I’m not the same woman my husband married 30 years ago.
I’m not the same woman my husband married 30 years ago.
I’ve have been many women since then; A newlywed who delighted in a spice rack at her wedding shower, a kindergarten teacher whose tools of the trade were songs, crayons and picture books, a journalist, published author, top blogger, ghost writer.
I’ve been an activist, lawmaker, founder of a fertility non-profit, and a professional agitator of change that has been honored, pandered to AND later fired (but that’s another story).
Behind closed doors, I’ve been sexually satisfied and terribly frustrated.
Behind closed doors, I’ve been terribly frustrated and also sexually satisfied. I’ve been a submissive, a dominatrix — both master and slave. I’ve known what it is to be the object of desire, the seductress and siren —and what it is to be dumped on my ass.
I’ve been the woman who has both loved and hated her body.
I’ve believed in love and felt betrayed by love. I’ve been the gift embraced and cherished, and the gift half-opened and then discarded.
I was a virgin bride that turned into some kind of pleasure revolutionary.
I was a virgin bride that turned into some kind of pleasure revolutionary. I’ve gone from “Straight” to “Something Else” and back again. I’m not the virgin bride who believed in monogamy.
I am not the woman who believed only in monogamy. I am not the woman who has felt betrayed by the promise of polyamory. I keep turning into a different woman with each day.
Vows and promises are never good forever.
A life well-lived is a life full of renegotiation and re-definition and regeneration. Change is the only constant.
In truth, that’s why people lie and cheat. It’s why resentment builds. It’s why people leave each other. We don’t allow for change. For evolution. We think we can box someone in, bind them with wedding rings — forever.
You’re not who you were yesterday and you’re never who you are tomorrow.
But you’re not who you were yesterday and you’re never who you are tomorrow. Not if you look closely. Not if you are willing to be honest.
I am not the woman that my husband married and he is not the same man.
I am some kind of garden. I’m constantly replanting myself. I am not a building or a fixed object. There is no brick. I grow and change each day. I wake up each day and I don’t know what I’m going to write, who I’m going to talk to and what direction my path will take me in.
I am my own mystery.
Notice the pattern and the expectation in your own life. Are you planting a garden or building a skyscraper? Are you making vows with the expectation of Elmer’s Glue or Cryo-Preservation? Or is there a possibility of creating an evolutionary life?
I’m not the woman that my husband married. I’m not the woman that someone dated. Or that a lover left.
I am in the midst of constant reconstruction.
I recommend it.
I hope there is something here for you.
Loving you from here,
Pamela Madsen
