I was the rebel of my age.....I had a completely different view of what I expected out of my marriage. It didn't follow anyone elses ideas & especially didn't agree with my MIL's idea of what I should be.

I set down my expectations with my husband before we ever got married. I told him if he didn't agree with me then we shouldn't get married. This was 31 years ago. Unfortunately, he listened to what I had to say, but didn't understand what I said. He told me later on that he didn't think that I really meant what I said & that I would change after getting married. Boy was he wrong. To this day, I have constantly held with my concept of what I expected out of a marriage.

My basis was to be partners.....50/50 with both. I had my college degree & my career (which was the same as his). I expected that our marriage should be exactly the same. The wedding candle ceremony usually has the common candle lit & then they blow out their own candle. I told him that in our marriage, we would light the common candle but keep our individual candles lit even after coming together in marriage. I told him I had no intention of loosing myself in marriage. My idea of marriage is that there are tasks that have to be done & they don't have a name on them as to who is to do them. We are both responsible for getting things done & who ever has the time to do it, they are the responsible person for doing it. He was a picky eater when he got married & when he didn't like what his mother cooked, he would walk out & get his dinner somewhere else. I told him if he ever did that to me, that would be the end of him & the marriage. We worked it out so that I cooked one night, he cooked the other. He had to eat my food & I had to eat his. We only had weekends to do the work around the house & we both had to do it. I wasn't going to do all the work & let him sit & watch TV. When we were living in our first appartment, we didn't like using the washer there. We decided to use my mothers washer & she didn't have a drier at the time so the cloths had to be hung on the close line....meaning that the laundry had to be done early enough so that it could get dried before night. This was our first incident. I got up & told him it was time to get going in order to get over to my mothers home & do the laundry. He refused & I told him if he didn't get up I would pour ice water on him. Guess he didn't believe me (like normal) & I doused him with a huge glass of ice water. That was the point he realized that I would do what I said I would do. He grew up with him mommy taking care of him so my concept of marriage was strange to him. The care of our daughter became a huge responsibility for him also. I told him when we got married that I didn't want children & that if we did, there would only be 1. Another disagreement. He wanted at least 2 (he came from 4 children). We ended up with 1 & that was the end no matter what. I wasn't going to let another 1 sneek in. I am very happy that we had our daughter & wouldn't change it for anything. It was a very difficult time but the relationship now is wonderful. He knew how to take care of babies....I didn't (I was an only child & never babysat). He did most of the care of our daughter & since I was working....I would never get up at night with her. I would feed her well around 11 pm & she would sleep the whole night through from the time she was born.

Being the rebel, & not having any other marriage to use as an example, I had to wing it to make sure that we were both sharing the responsibilities 50/50. In my mind, I had looked at my parents & my own mother. She wanted to be the housewife & do all the wifely duties. I looked at them & my feelings were that I didn't want to be the slave & hold down my career & also have to be the housewife allowing my husband to have time to relax & not me!!! I had no desire to be superwoman & if the marriage wasn't going to be 50/50 on responsibilities, I didn't want to be married. I knew it would be hard enough to take care of just myself with a career....I didn't want to have to take care of someone else.

As I said, I have always been a rebel & way ahead of my time 30 years ago. Having no example to use, it was up to me to define what I expected. I was completely up front before we got married so nothing should have been a surprise except that he really didn't believe what I told him until it happened.

The rebel,
Debbie