Men are from Mars (and they want to rule Venus too)

So, one of my favorite new-to-me bloggers, Jessica over at Bohemian Bowmans, sponsors a weekly theme called Plank Pullin'. Here's her intro:

It’s Plank Pullin’ time!  The one day a week that we strongly resolve to ignore the multitude of specks and sawdust around us and pull one bona fide plank from our own eye. Matthew 7:3-5, style.




I don't know that I'm disciplined enough to do this weekly (besides, how ever will I come up with enough flaws to get past week 3?!), but I'll give 'er a go.

The very wise and very bald Dr. Phil McGraw likes to ask the guests on his show if they'd rather be happy or right.  It is one of life's cruel jokes that so often, you only get to choose one or the other.

And I usually pick:

RIGHT!

I don't know why it's so important to me to be right.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I live in my head, and my intellect has always had my back.  When you're living on the edge of sanity, you grab any handhold you can.  I might be hallucinating Scooby Doo-like messages of warning (Keeeeep Ouuuuuut!) on my ceiling or making sure the doors are shut-locked-and secured exactly 9 times because 9 is a "good number," but my smarts are stable and predictable.  And since I know I can count on my intelligence, it naturally follows that anything I think must be right.  Right?!

For so long, I believed that marriage asks too much of women.  That it makes us servants, permission-askers, second-class citizens.  That the men of the world had all been inducted into the Secret Society of Superior Studs, and that even the nice ones secretly believe that women are inferior.  I came into marriage believing this, even though I married a nice guy who's no Al Bundy (even though he looks like him in this picture).

And since I thought it, it WAS truth in my mind.  A request for something from the kitchen was further evidence that men feel entitled.  The expectation that I (a stay-at-home mom) would cook dinner most nights was straight out the '50s!  A comment about my spending really ticked me off, as it was so obviously an attempt to control me.  It took me about 10 years of marriage to let go of this stubbornly held belief.

I was wrong.  At least when it comes to my own marriage.  I chose to be right instead of happy for those 10 years.  And that sucks.  Happy is much more fun!

Now I'm looking forward to being wrong about more things.

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