So I didn't move. I welcomed a new roommate to share expenses with. My partner's mother moved in with me over the winter holidays. She is a nonogenarian, a refugee. She survived somehow, in precarious circumstances, and has lived alone in a trailer for the past 30 years.
Moving here proved to be difficult for her, predictably, I guess. Just imagine giving up your independence, whether or not it's necessary.
She has started sliding into serious dementia. My partner has been here almost constantly, since moving her mother here.
Enter my younger daughter, 2 months ago. She is consigned to the basement, coming and going through a basement door.
Enter my older daughter, a few days ago. She's in a bedroom, with kitchen/bathroom privileges.
Enter my older daughter's romantic interest (male).
Call me idealistic. I thought we would be a collective--a house of women.
But it's not to be. My partner feels crowded here, with the boyfriend hanging out with Older Daughter. So she's taking her mother and moving on.
What happens to our relationship, hers and mine, remains to be seen.
4 comments:
I'm sorry to learn that your life has not moved (to a 'next stage', perhaps) as it had seemed it might. I was excited for you. I hope I am not overstepping by saying that if I were you, I imagine I would be feeling, at least in part, righteously rankled by this turn of events, no matter how it all came about. (Just in case you might need or find it useful to hear that it's okay to be angry, as well as...sad, regretful, disappointed, hurt?)
"I thought we would be a collective--a house of women."
Had you and your partner discussed this thought together?
Because, unless you and your partner had explicitly stated that male persons were not to cross the threshold for recreational/relational purposes then... well, why would the majority of womenfolk even consider such a thing - that men would be generally excluded from your (collective) home?
If all it took for your partner to be comfortable staying on with her mother, was to ask your daughters not to bring men into the house, would you, could you do that?
Or is it more along other lines that difficulties have arisen; that your partner does not get that most women who have birthed and raised children are either never able to, do not wish to, or wish (at least a little bit) to but do not feel free to reposition themselves as not, or no longer, Mothers? From a couple of other things you've mentioned about your partner and your children, I gather she's more in the authoritarian/'tough love' vein when it comes to children, and you, not so much?
Perhaps, rather than only those contemplating raising children together talking about, checking for compatibility in "parenting style", maybe those couples/collectives who do or will have adult children (and potentially, grandchildren-type human beings and their attendant co-parents/carers) in their lives also need to have that discussion?
Difficult to find the time and space to do when partners/couples are already busy and stretched by the ramifications (those variously perceived good and worthy, as well as otherwise) of the caring-relationship roles and other responsibilities outside of the personal, intimate relationship that is two alone...
Which has brought me in my (theoretical) thoughts, to the point of throwing up my hands about coupleism, nuclear and extended-by-blood-and-yet-more neverending-bloody-coupleism families, and how life as we know it is socioeconomically constructed altogether, and blargh! on and on, BLARGH! The saying of most of which, above, does absolutely nothing useful for you, I know. Pardon my rant.
If we knew each other in real life and were speaking about this face to face, I would doubtless feel the urge to give you at least one big hug, so if you would be okay with that, here 'tis.
{{{{{SW}}}}}}
starfish - still on hiatus from blogland, but reading more again lately.
Secondwaver, I want to think over what I just read both in your post and in starfish's comment. I'm sorry your group home idea didn't work out, though. I'll come back with something more. But, yeah...the same as starfish - sending you big hugs.
I've been spending uncomfortable amounts of time by myself. It's been excruciating to have to actually deal with what is rather than struggle against it and fabricate things that don't exist. I haven't been able to sleep...sleep being really an escape from doing the work of grounding and dealing with the pain that comes when I actually touch what's here. I realize I spend much more time inventing/fabricating, as a way to survive reality, than I'd like to admit.
sigh...
Oh, Second Waver...
A collective is a group of people who agree to work together in ways that are politically/socially/historically conscious, agreed upon and based hopefully, on consensus.
I suspect that what you had in your home was an ad hoc coming together of people who needed, for various reasons, to share space.
It sounds as if people had different ideas about what sharing space would entail. I'm not sure they actually came together and verbalized their individual visions, shared them with each other.
It doesn't sound as if they decided to consensually build something together that would make space for what they all saw happening.
Given what I know of you, I understand why you wanted to have a life shared take shape as a collective. I understand why this would have spoken to you in so many ways.
Speaking/writing/engaging from an experience of having to deal with folks who aren't politicized in the ways I am, who don't speak from a place of consciousness of the political, I can attest to how difficult it can be to communicate or even to share a life/ relationship/ home, let alone build a collective from the ground up with people who don't really understand what that means.
It's been painful and disappointing for me to struggle to build life at different points with people who just didn't get what I was on about or what I was after.
It sounds as if this experience has been deeply painful and disappointing for you.
It must have been really difficult for you to hope for something, for some place that would sustain you and those you love, something healthy only to have your partner, also moved by her own visions and dreams, decide that this wasn't the right time or place for her or for her mother.
I'm so sorry.
Has she just left the house? Or has the relationship ended, as well?
In either case, hugs to you, Second Waver.
Starfish and DD, thanks for commenting and for your caring. I'm going to post my updated thoughts when I can.
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