Asha Sanaker: Your words ring very true to a man who has loved Nancy, The-Love-of-My-Life, for 53-years, married 51, with two daughters, and one 16-year-old granddaughter, and, let's not forget, the two cats in my granddaughter's life.
I retired from the Air Force (Reserves, Lt Col, Judge Advocate) and from the Navy (Civil-Service, GS-905-15, Navy Office of the General Counsel), and have met many professional women in my 41 years of service.
I have hear many men, like me, happy in their marriages.
During my many years, from the women, I rarely met a woman happy with men, even in her marriage. One woman -- one in 41 years -- described her husband to me as "The Love of Her Life."
Far more good women were disillusioned through three mad marriages.
I do really have a feeling that long-term relationships with women-loving-women work out far, far better, because of the depth of spiritual union, the depth of love and commitment, the depth of intuitive understanding of another, the depth of sensitivity, and the unsentimental ability to speak truth to each other.
As much as I LOVE my relationship with Nancy, I think households with two women may be the happiest.
I'm right there with you about feeling like "wheel spinning" by my late 20s. After growing up outside of DC and attending so many protests; by my mid twenties I was already moving into heavy cynicism, passing a whiskey bottle among friends on the Washington Monument Grounds in the middle of the night, all swearing this whole damn system was a sham we could never escape.
My YES was nature, becoming a "back-to-the-lander", finding value in the natural world, while humans all do their thing. It has certainly morphed quite a bit since those days and fortunately continues to be a yes.
"Are there people who manage to commit to legal, heterosexual marriages and have children together who live radically egalitarian lives that are also happy, healthy, and stable?"
I doubt it! I think one of the only reasons my husband and I have made it 32 years (he was one of the ones drinking on the monument lawn) is because we decided not to have children. There are pros and cons to this of course, both having major impacts on life going forward. It works for us, we're still best friends and share the same values and world views.
These passages - DAMN! So good.
"Boys will be boys becomes men will be men and no one notices anymore. Women drown and men just swim past their bodies, occasionally gripping one close enough to pull themselves along through the current and calling that love."
"There is an epidemic of male loneliness! Our social fabric is crumbling! And the answer is never teaching men emotional intelligence or competency, enshrining equal pay, or expanding the social safety net. It is women. Women are the social safety net, the emotional labor force, the problem and the solution."
“ Women drown and men just swim past their bodies, occasionally gripping one close enough to pull themselves along through the current and calling that love.
Well fuck. The way you put that.
And this
“ She was describing the life I already have. Our culture tells me that I am less, that my life is somehow inadequate or incomplete because I’m not married, yet I am happy, loved, adequately resourced, housed, fed, and creatively engaged. I am free.”
Just made my heart bloom with joy.
I’m finding my yes. It must exist somewhere on the spectrum between outrage and heartbreak at the state of the world and healing, hope, and advocating for better.
"We need those who imagine how it could all be different and who are willing to take the risks necessary to manifest their yes. I need them. Even if their yes isn’t mine, I can follow that ribbon of possibility out of the labyrinth and into a life that is mine, that belongs to me. Is there something else we’re all hoping for?"
Yes, love... let us follow the ribbons with ribbons streaming behind us...<3
I read TAEW on the plane to and from SLC this past week. I wanted to highlight and tab every other page multiple times. I really feel what you are saying about needing an alternative to refusal, especially in these harrowing times, which seem only to get MORE harrowing for women with each passing day. My YES seems to be in what I found in SLC, which was a genealogy conference called RootsTech. I am working on figuring out what comes next, but making those connections and giving them to people who are searching makes me so happy.
FWIW, I DID think her husband was a fucking villain. To just pick up her stuff and HIDE IT because he didn’t like it? WHAT THE FUCK? That absolutely enraged me.
Dance is definitely my YES! Wow excellent video. The dance style is so similar to the Israeli dance style, Gaga that the company I run does. Thanks! https://www.ate9online.com/usa-team
my (first) therapist always said in order to say a true yes, one must also be able to say a true no… thank you for the reminder 💛
Asha Sanaker: Your words ring very true to a man who has loved Nancy, The-Love-of-My-Life, for 53-years, married 51, with two daughters, and one 16-year-old granddaughter, and, let's not forget, the two cats in my granddaughter's life.
I retired from the Air Force (Reserves, Lt Col, Judge Advocate) and from the Navy (Civil-Service, GS-905-15, Navy Office of the General Counsel), and have met many professional women in my 41 years of service.
I have hear many men, like me, happy in their marriages.
During my many years, from the women, I rarely met a woman happy with men, even in her marriage. One woman -- one in 41 years -- described her husband to me as "The Love of Her Life."
Far more good women were disillusioned through three mad marriages.
I do really have a feeling that long-term relationships with women-loving-women work out far, far better, because of the depth of spiritual union, the depth of love and commitment, the depth of intuitive understanding of another, the depth of sensitivity, and the unsentimental ability to speak truth to each other.
As much as I LOVE my relationship with Nancy, I think households with two women may be the happiest.
I'm right there with you about feeling like "wheel spinning" by my late 20s. After growing up outside of DC and attending so many protests; by my mid twenties I was already moving into heavy cynicism, passing a whiskey bottle among friends on the Washington Monument Grounds in the middle of the night, all swearing this whole damn system was a sham we could never escape.
My YES was nature, becoming a "back-to-the-lander", finding value in the natural world, while humans all do their thing. It has certainly morphed quite a bit since those days and fortunately continues to be a yes.
"Are there people who manage to commit to legal, heterosexual marriages and have children together who live radically egalitarian lives that are also happy, healthy, and stable?"
I doubt it! I think one of the only reasons my husband and I have made it 32 years (he was one of the ones drinking on the monument lawn) is because we decided not to have children. There are pros and cons to this of course, both having major impacts on life going forward. It works for us, we're still best friends and share the same values and world views.
These passages - DAMN! So good.
"Boys will be boys becomes men will be men and no one notices anymore. Women drown and men just swim past their bodies, occasionally gripping one close enough to pull themselves along through the current and calling that love."
"There is an epidemic of male loneliness! Our social fabric is crumbling! And the answer is never teaching men emotional intelligence or competency, enshrining equal pay, or expanding the social safety net. It is women. Women are the social safety net, the emotional labor force, the problem and the solution."
Jesus! So well said!
“ Women drown and men just swim past their bodies, occasionally gripping one close enough to pull themselves along through the current and calling that love.
Well fuck. The way you put that.
And this
“ She was describing the life I already have. Our culture tells me that I am less, that my life is somehow inadequate or incomplete because I’m not married, yet I am happy, loved, adequately resourced, housed, fed, and creatively engaged. I am free.”
Just made my heart bloom with joy.
I’m finding my yes. It must exist somewhere on the spectrum between outrage and heartbreak at the state of the world and healing, hope, and advocating for better.
"We need those who imagine how it could all be different and who are willing to take the risks necessary to manifest their yes. I need them. Even if their yes isn’t mine, I can follow that ribbon of possibility out of the labyrinth and into a life that is mine, that belongs to me. Is there something else we’re all hoping for?"
Yes, love... let us follow the ribbons with ribbons streaming behind us...<3
Glad to hear you are free! Still clarifying my ‘yes’ … thanks for the reminder to get clear on that.
I read TAEW on the plane to and from SLC this past week. I wanted to highlight and tab every other page multiple times. I really feel what you are saying about needing an alternative to refusal, especially in these harrowing times, which seem only to get MORE harrowing for women with each passing day. My YES seems to be in what I found in SLC, which was a genealogy conference called RootsTech. I am working on figuring out what comes next, but making those connections and giving them to people who are searching makes me so happy.
FWIW, I DID think her husband was a fucking villain. To just pick up her stuff and HIDE IT because he didn’t like it? WHAT THE FUCK? That absolutely enraged me.
Dance is definitely my YES! Wow excellent video. The dance style is so similar to the Israeli dance style, Gaga that the company I run does. Thanks! https://www.ate9online.com/usa-team