Marriage, Self-Abandonment, and Coming Back to the Body
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This is a tough one.
Marriage has always been something I dreamed of. It’s something I craved, not just romantically, but from a desire to build a strong family unit.
And over the years, I’ve had really meaningful experiences within marriage. Experiences that reshaped my life. That changed the way I showed up in the world.
Marriage has been supportive. Anchoring. Healing.
And at the same time, there have been many moments where I lost myself inside of it.
Lost my voice. Lost my ability to come back to myself.
And I think more women and femmes than not can resonate with that.
I was talking to a friend recently about a lyric from a song, going viral these days "Young Hearts" by Candi Staton
“What's the sense in sharing this one and only life? Endin up just another lost and lonely wife. You'll count up the years, and they will be filled with tears."
And that really stayed with me.
Because we can spend so much time overgiving. Overbeing available. Overpouring into someone else.
That we lose sight of what is actually true for us.
What we want. What we need. What we’re feeling.
And in a lot of ways, as a saw a threads post say one day...being a wife can be easier than being fully sovereign over your own life.
That’s something I’ve really had to sit with too.
Am I choosing partnership from a place of sovereignty or survival?
Because there is a certain ease in partnership. In not having to make every decision alone. In having someone to lean on.
But there’s also a delicate balance there.
Between not having to think about what’s next and not actually having full authorship over what comes next.
Because the decision doesn’t solely rest on you.
And sometimes, it may not include you at all.
I’m in a place right now where I’m still married, but separated.
We still function as a family unit in many ways, but I have more independence than I’ve had in almost a decade.
And I’ll be honest, it’s both earth-shattering and liberating.
There are moments where it feels overwhelming to be the adultier adult lol responsible for my own life.
To be the one I have to look to for answers. For direction. For decisions.
And then there are moments where it feels incredibly freeing to be able to ask myself:
What do you want? What makes sense for you?
And to actually honor the answer.
Because I think a lot of the ways that marriage has been structured, especially within patriarchy, as rooted in sacrifice.
Sacrificing parts of yourself in exchange for protection. For provision. For stability.
And if you’re unwilling to make those sacrifices, of your identity, your needs, your voice, your desires, you risk not receiving the rewards that are often associated with marriage.
The “soft life.” Being taken care of. Not having to carry everything on your own.
And I understand that.
I understand the appeal. I understand the pride that can come with that dynamic.
But I also understand the cost.
Because there is a difference between being supported and being disconnected from yourself.
There is a difference between ease and not being in relationship with your own desires.
And I think a lot of us get caught in performing what it means to be the “perfect wife.”
Always ready. Always available. Always able to meet the needs of our partner.
Always solving. Always giving. Always showing up in ways that make someone else feel held, supported, elevated.
And that can come at a deep expense.
An expense you don’t always notice in the moment.
But you feel it over time.
You feel it when something ruptures. When something shifts. When you’re forced to reflect on the last several years of your life and ask yourself where you’ve been in all of it.
And for me, being in this space now has challenged everything I thought I knew about what it means to be a wife.
Because I know that I am no longer willing to be a wife in the ways that I was taught.
Or in the ways that I learned were acceptable.
I’m no longer willing to abandon my body. My pleasure. My voice. My vision for my life.
Those things have to matter.
They have to be included.
And what I’ve noticed is that when I begin to center myself in that way, but in a self-honoring way, it changes how I relate to the structure of marriage entirely.
It changes how I show up. What I’m available for. What I’m no longer willing to carry.
And I think we need more of that.
Because I see so many women and femmes, so many wives, slipping into performance.
Into overfunctioning. Into overgiving. Into always having the answers, the tools, the solutions.
And it’s exhausting.
It’s exhausting to always be that person.
To always be “on.” To always be needed. To always be the one holding everything together.
At some point, we have to ask:
Where am I in all of this?
Where is my body? Where is my truth? Where is my pleasure?
And what would it look like to come back to that, without abandoning the life we’ve built, but also without abandoning ourselves?
Because that’s the work.
Not choosing one or the other.
But learning how to stay connected to yourself… even inside of the structures that asked you to forget.
Learn how to start choosing yourself.
See you on the dance floor,
Rashida KhanBey Miller (she/temptress)
CEO of The Messy Movement Lab
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