Beyond the princess cut diamond engagement ring.

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“Yes! ” is the one word that gets repeated over and over and over again the day he pops the question with that beautiful diamond ring that you probably picked out (even if with subtle hints). But then after the guests are gone and the honeymoon over, it seems the three letter word changes to a two letter word just a bit too fast and gets used too often. “Hey babe, I’m feeling a little horny tonight.” No babe, not tonight, I’m not really in the mood. “I think I might need to lay off work for a little while and figure out exactly what I want to do.” Oh No! How come you are just figuring this out? “Honey, do you think you could make my favorite steak casserole dish tonight?” No I don’t think so, I went to work today too.

They aren’t that bad and aren’t that hard to figure out. Men that is. And as much as I hate to admit it, we probably, no, make that we are fifty percent responsible for how things turn out – Good or Bad. Some of our mothers took us through etiquette school even if it was in our own living rooms, and many more of them made sure they instilled in us some superwoman survival power. I often wonder though how many of them successfully passed on the lessons of being a wife, our man’s needed cheerleader, the cook that wins his heart, and the housekeeper that doesn’t see herself as less than a woman because sometimes she has to pick up after him; all just parts of the equation to being his equal. As Black women, we have been raised to pretty much do it all, that I think we’ve gotten in our own way. Some of us don’t know how to talk to our men, feeling that verbal abuse is synonymous to encouragement and refusal of sex is teaching him a lesson? Are you kidding me?

I was twenty-two at the time, and everyone who knew the two of us knew we were definitely walking down the aisle some day very soon. Then he cheated on me and a child came into the picture. There was no way I was standing for that, just no way, and I walked away. Six months later when I was still mourning that relationship and eating comfort food in my aunt’s bedroom, she brought up the subject and of course, I talked about how immature he was that he cheated and much more and she quietly let me get it all out, before she spoke her piece. “Have you considered that you weren’t mature enough to forgive him? I’m not saying it was right for him to cheat on you or that you guys were meant to be, but if that were your husband, the answer isn’t always walking away.” I remember those words today almost a decade later and only now do I appreciate what she was trying to say then.

You might have a friend like mine, who with a two-year old daughter divorced her husband and asserts that “Child, I’m happily divorced, he just wasn’t pulling his weight!” But what she doesn’t share with many is that this man, who didn’t pull his weight, worked two jobs to make sure the huge house that she had picked out wouldn’t foreclose on them. What she hasn’t allowed herself to realize is that she did contribute to him not being able to “pull his weight” as she calls it. The divorce rate is still close to fifty percent of all marriages, and I know we are quick to blame the other, so when he slips that princess cut diamond ring on, take a quick moment to remind yourself that you are committing to say yes even on the not so glamorous days.

This story is filed under: Lifestyle, Women by Design

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