Here are some thoughts. And I'm going to stop referring to Archer (see previous post) in the third person. It's annoying to write, and I imagine it is annoying to read.
- Archer didn't tell me to take down the "deleted post." When I realized how upset he was, I offered. He thought about it for a while, and then asked me to take it down. When he saw my reaction, which as I indicated before, I was totally unprepared for, he immediately changed his mind. He stood over my shoulder as I took it down and asked me to leave it up. It was important to me that I keep my word though, so I took it down.
- Since I've deleted the post, I can't go back and reread it to tell if it was about my own failings, as Anastasia suggested. I do know I wrote that I was uncomfortable with my feelings and that I do feel like some of the feelings stem from my own insecurities.
- After leaving the situation alone for a while, Archer and I talked again at length. I now understand that he wasn't mad at my post. He was upset that I wrote before he and I had really discussed it. While that makes sense to me, I still don't feel like I did anything wrong. I explained to him (again) that I often blog in an attempt to process thoughts and feelings before I talk those feelings out. In lots of cases, it helps me to blog as I don't totally lose my cool about something that isn't worth losing my cool over (see every post I've ever written about Yetta, Pita, and my sister). In this particular case, I didn't want to be jealous, so I wrote about why I was jealous before we talked about it.
- It also seems that the some of the comments were what made him the most angry. I pointed out that I have no control over what people comment, and that comments are a part of the blogging process.
- Archer has apologized. In fact, he's done a lot of apologizing over the past few days as we both process the entire situation more. He now realizes that he didn't handle the situation with his grad student very well. He explained his thinking behind the process, and while I'm still bothered by it all, I see his logic (I won't share his logic though; that's his story to tell, not mine.). I also don't believe he had any intention of making me jealous. But I also don't think that he was thinking of me or of us when he was spending so much time with the GS, which he admitted. He has also admitted that he's not great at balancing work and home and that he becomes consumed by work really easily. He has instituted some house rules to make sure things like this never happen again.
- I've explained my changed feelings about blogging to him. When I told him I was contemplating no longer blogging, Archer went silent. He told me that he realizes how important this is to me. He said he was very sorry that his actions changed my view of blogging. He has urged me to continue blogging. In fact, every time I've been at the computer to check email or steal a few moments of work in the past few days he has said to the boys, "Let's leave Mommy alone. She needs some time to herself." Ordinarily I would assume he was just trying to help me find a moment or two to finish a thought, but I think he was trying to tell me that he knows my blogging has value for me. That means a lot to me.
I also now realize that adjusting to life in CU Land has been much more difficult on on both Archer and me than I realized. While we've made some friends, we don't have the network we had in the States. I've come to rely on my blog as a way to maintain connections with people, even though some of the people I stay connected to I don't know in real life. I also value the community I've become a part of through blogging. I'm not willing to give that up, especially not when there is still so much uncertainty in our lives because of the job market and academia in general. I don't know if we're going to be in CU Land next August, but I do know I can open up my laptop, write a post about anything, and start a conversation with people whose opinions I respect and value. It also enables me to have conversations with dear friends that I don't get to see as often as I'd like. Frankly, this blog and the friendships I've made through it brings me a lot of comfort. It helps me feel a little less alone. It also gives me a space to talk about things, like not always liking CU Land or being lonely, that I don't necessarily want to talk about with Archer because I don't want his feelings about CU Land to be completely influenced by my feelings.
As everyone who commented on the previous post stated, this is a blog for me and one that is mostly about me. That is why I've renamed the blog. This is a name that feels more appropriate to the kind of blogging I do now.
Thanks for all the support. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.
6 comments:
I really appreciate what you wrote here, and what you said about Archer. I see some of my husband in him (probably, many of us do): sometimes unaware of how he is functioning in a way that is not helpful to his family (but is culturally sanctioned -- after all, men are the breadwinners. And I wish this was dying but where I now live I hear it ALL THE TIME), but when the issue is pointed out, incredibly sensitive and sweet (at least, that's how I'm reading what you've written here).
TD has not made the same mistakes, but similar ones over the years. We talk it out, he realizes what happened, sometimes to the point of feeling really awful, but things do change. Sometimes it's two steps forward, one step back, but that forward progress does happen.
I think the only thing that's tough about this kind of stuff, at least to me, is that in these relationships it's on the woman to figure it out and approach the man. We are so often in charge of the physical, emotional and mental health of our whole family. Sometimes I wish men were better trained culturally to do that themselves, so we aren't doing it as often for them. It's not their fault they've been trained to expect the help, and not our fault we've been trained to give the help. And the biggest thing we can do is try to model something different for our kids.
Ditto what Kate said. And I want to add it's exhausting to be the person who has to focus on the mental health of the family/relationship, etc. Technically, I'm the breadwinner in our home but I still feel like I have to balance all the other traditional "woman roles" as well. It's nice to hear someone else say it.
I'm glad you're still blogging and that we can all keep supporting each other.
You are both so right. In fact, Archer and I talked about this as well. I pointed out that I feel as though I have to take care of it all so he can focus on work, and while I know this isn't true (we do, in fact, have an incredibly equal relationship), I did list a whole bunch of things that I do that he never considers. For example, I'm the one who knows when Wild Man and Bear need new shoes, clothes, diapers, wipes, school supplies, art supplies, or socks. I'm also the one who does all the menu planning and shopping for the family, although he does about half of the cooking. Granted, Archer does the majority of the home maintenance, but that comes in cycles rather than all year round. Sure, I like doing some of this stuff, but I don't always want to be the one to notice that Wild Man needs new shoes or that Bear has outgrown all his socks. It isn't that he doesn't care; Archer just doesn't recognize these things. If I say to him, "Hey, Wild Man needs new shoes. Can you take him to X for shoes?" He'll happily take him, but he won't do it unprompted.
And let's not even talk about emotional well being. I'm lucky to have what I consider to be an enlightened, sensitive, feminist husband, but I'm definitely the one who is in charge of the mental and emotional needs of the family.
Holy moly, I see I missed a lot this past week! I imagine I would have felt very similar to the way you felt in that situation. And although I can see why Archer felt the way he felt (upset that you didn't talk to him about it before posting), I also think it is very typical for women to work through (or at least organize) their own feelings about something (often by talking about it with another woman, or on your blog as you did) before broaching the conversation with the person in question. I don't think men tend to operate that way, which may be why it was upsetting to him to read it. You two are a strong couple, that much is clear.
As far as adjusting to life in CU Land, I have heard from countless friends that the hardest part about beginning an academic profession is losing the grad school cohort. No new environment can compare to a bunch of similarly minded people all beginning the journey that is a doctoral program together. Most are coming to a new place at the same time, all open to developing new relationships, having classes and experiences and common topical interests....that's just difficult, if not impossible, to replicate outside the grad school setting. Coupled with that, the uncertainty of your staying in CU Land and you wanting to present yourself in the best light to be hired make the task of developing genuinely deep friendships that much more complicated. I think it's only going to get easier for you, M, the worst has passed.
I talked the whole thing over with K (my husband) last night and also a bit more today. The first thing he said to me has everything to do with the third bullet above -- "I would have been very angry if you'd posted something about me/us without talking to me about it first!" And at the time I thought that you had in fact already talked to him when you wrote the post, but I guess I'm wrong. After I said you had talked to him he immediately thought it was not that bad!
So... as so many things in married life, I think that this whole situation was one of those "Mars vs. Venus" situations that sneak up on heterosexual couples once in a while! ;-) We think we're perfectly OK, but it's something that's a big NO to our husbands. Sigh.
In any case, I'm sorry you deleted the post instead of saving it as a draft (it would have completely disappeared from the blog). If you'd like to re-read it you can just ask a friend who reads blogs through a feed reader (like bloglines or something) to send the text to you, I think, but obviously I could be wrong. In light of what Anastasia wrote it might be a good exercise to analyze your own post & feelings.
Anyway. I'm glad you're sticking to blogging!! :-) And thanks for sharing things that make for interesting and also very important -- given that K is just beginning his academic career -- conversations for K and I!
Hi Lilian,
Archer and I did talk about it before I blogged, but we didn't talk about it at length. It was something like this:
Me: I don't want to be upset all day, so I'm going to say this now. I don't like that you did X b/c it made me feel X.
Archer: Wow, I hadn't thought of it that way. I totally understand why you're upset, and I'm sorry. I will make sure it won't happen again.
We then went about our mornings, and discussed it more depth later after I had written about it. I do understand that Archer felt betrayed that I wrote about it before we had fully discussed it. I clearly didn't handle the situation the best either, and I have apologized for that.
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