The Complimentary Marriage

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Clarissa

June 22, 2023

In the previous generations, when women were completely helpless, who did stuff for them when their husbands died?

My mother is such a woman of olden times, and I can’t figure out who’s supposed to be managing her life now that she’s a widow. It can’t be me because it’s a full-time job. She doesn’t know how to listen to messages on her answering machine, send or receive an email or a text message, or pay bills. She has no idea where any of her paperwork is, she doesn’t know how to pay taxes, fill up the tank of her car, schedule a doctor appointment.

Honestly, it’s easier to list what she can that what she can’t do.

My father would have been just as helpless without her but in a different way. He couldn’t make a cup of tea, feed himself, or find his own underwear in the house, let alone wash it, or anything adventurous like that.

We aren’t talking about a helpless, senile woman who needs constant (or any) medical care. This is a woman who simply hasn’t been self-sufficient since 1974. I really don’t know what to do.

These complimentary marriage models are terrible unless the participants die at the exact same time.

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5 responses to “The Complimentary Marriage”

Demotrash

June 23, 2023

My widowed great grandmother seemed to manage just fine. But she was not so helpless (until she did, eventually, become senile, but that was decades after her husband’s death.) I have no advice for you, unfortunately.

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Physpostdoc

June 23, 2023

This level of complementarity is almost prehistoric in nature (irrespective of exact nature of roles).

People often confuse cooperation for codependence in relationships. And it has nothing to do with actual skills or lack thereof — which can be picked or commissioned if needed —it’s really a manifestation of collective herd mentality of our cave-dwelling ancestors and indication of lack of an individual psyche.

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1. Clarissa
  
  June 23, 2023
  
  Right?
  
  All couples do division of duties in some way or another. I don’t do finances because that’s N’s responsibility. He doesn’t cook because I do it. But the difference from my parents’ model is that N won’t starve if I stop cooking and I can handle the finances just fine if we wants to take a break.
  
  Once my mother traveled to Ukraine, and my father literally stopped eating. He was living 200 feet from a mall with several restaurants but he wasn’t used to making those decisions. The poor guy lost weight and was looking wild when I came over and cooked for him.
  
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bluebird of bitterness

June 23, 2023

If my husband dies before me, I will still be able to call on my son (who lives nearby) for anything I can’t handle myself — such as anything that involves heavy lifting or requires mechanical ability. But if I die first, my husband might not survive for long, because he can’t cook to save his life. When I’m not around to make supper, he always goes to Culver’s for a double bacon cheeseburger and fries. Don’t know how many nights in a row a guy can do that before he keels over.

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1. methylethyl
  
  June 23, 2023
  
  I’m not at all sure my husband could get bills paid or do his own laundry. But there are YouTube tutorials for everything these days, and he could figure it out if he had to 😉
  
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