Not Your Ordinary Housewife: How the man I loved led me into a world I had never imagined by Nikki Stern
Authors: Nikki Stern
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defiance of male stereotypes. By contrast, Paul’s transvestitism seemed clandestine and somehow sordid.
After a week in hospital, it was time to leave. My joy in coming home was destroyed when I discovered that Paul had failed to perform the tasks he’d promised to do. The baby’s bassinet was still filthy and her room was a pigsty. The whole house was in chaos, but I was in no fit state to do housework.
‘You were supposed to have some food in the house and have it moderately clean. This isn’t fair—what the hell have you been doing?’ I demanded.
I noticed evidence of recent dope-smoking and could guess the answer to my rhetorical question. Paul admitted he’d gone round to Dirk’s for some grass. ‘It was an early twenty-first present. I guess I smoked a little too much of it. I’ve just been incredibly stressed.’
‘Well, you’d better get a job. We haven’t paid Dory any rent yet and I’ve had to give up my teaching.’
Paul’s 21st birthday fell just days after the birth. He wanted a big party, and seemed bitter at having to settle for a few friends visiting. He made me feel guilty for not celebrating in style.
I informed him I didn’t have a 21st party and he should just get over it. ‘You wanted to be a father and you’ve made choices accordingly . . . So stop sulking.’
‘It’s just that I’ve always had shitty birthdays,’ he said. He related how, when he was fourteen, his mother had promised him a party. He’d come home from school to find her lying comatose on the couch—drunk. He asked about the party; but she screamed hysterically that there wasn’t going to be a party, because she was going to kill herself. He spent the eve of his birthday trying to stop her throwing herself off the fifth-floor balcony. The next day, he’d gone to school with scratch marks all down his face where her fingernails gouged his skin. ‘I told everyone the dog did it.’
It was such tragic episodes, which Paul recounted with incredibly expressive emotion, that always reminded me why I loved him. I could not stay cross with someone who’d suffered as he had. He may have been exaggerating, but my sympathy for his deprived childhood made me feel guilty for criticising him.
I had often thought that perhaps a part of my love for him was bound up with my compassion for his circumstances. Maybe there was even an element of me needing to mother him by giving him what Saskia had withheld—and I suspected that he in turn took succour from my maternal offerings.
To my surprise, I loved motherhood. I was now emotionally fulfilled. I totally devoted myself to my daughter and Paul became a doting father. Immersing himself in Shoshanna’s care, he tackled baby baths, nappies and 2 a.m. feeds—with kindness and love. I was touched by his tenderness and felt vindicated in my decision not to abort. As if making amends for our shaky start to parenthood, Paul got himself a job as a salesman for a firm selling cassette language courses. Another year had passed and it seemed he was no closer to studying.
With Paul’s job came stress and hostility towards me. It was his second summer in Australia and I sensed he resented me, perhaps blaming me for stealing his youth—even though he was the architect of his own predicament. Not unsurprisingly, our sex life waned: Shoshanna was sleeping with me and Paul moved into the spare room. Tensions between us increased.
I was feeling incredibly burdened by guilt, which he played on mercilessly: I had married a young man and now, with the arrival of our child, I was denying him sex. Yet I needed to be true to myself. This was a loving marriage—or so I thought—and I needed the love and tenderness in our daily lives to translate into the bedroom.
Something emotional was definitely shifting in me, changing gears—downwards. Paul rarely respected my needs or wishes, and I was getting little from him emotionally. Despite his consistent devotion to his child, our
After a week in hospital, it was time to leave. My joy in coming home was destroyed when I discovered that Paul had failed to perform the tasks he’d promised to do. The baby’s bassinet was still filthy and her room was a pigsty. The whole house was in chaos, but I was in no fit state to do housework.
‘You were supposed to have some food in the house and have it moderately clean. This isn’t fair—what the hell have you been doing?’ I demanded.
I noticed evidence of recent dope-smoking and could guess the answer to my rhetorical question. Paul admitted he’d gone round to Dirk’s for some grass. ‘It was an early twenty-first present. I guess I smoked a little too much of it. I’ve just been incredibly stressed.’
‘Well, you’d better get a job. We haven’t paid Dory any rent yet and I’ve had to give up my teaching.’
Paul’s 21st birthday fell just days after the birth. He wanted a big party, and seemed bitter at having to settle for a few friends visiting. He made me feel guilty for not celebrating in style.
I informed him I didn’t have a 21st party and he should just get over it. ‘You wanted to be a father and you’ve made choices accordingly . . . So stop sulking.’
‘It’s just that I’ve always had shitty birthdays,’ he said. He related how, when he was fourteen, his mother had promised him a party. He’d come home from school to find her lying comatose on the couch—drunk. He asked about the party; but she screamed hysterically that there wasn’t going to be a party, because she was going to kill herself. He spent the eve of his birthday trying to stop her throwing herself off the fifth-floor balcony. The next day, he’d gone to school with scratch marks all down his face where her fingernails gouged his skin. ‘I told everyone the dog did it.’
It was such tragic episodes, which Paul recounted with incredibly expressive emotion, that always reminded me why I loved him. I could not stay cross with someone who’d suffered as he had. He may have been exaggerating, but my sympathy for his deprived childhood made me feel guilty for criticising him.
I had often thought that perhaps a part of my love for him was bound up with my compassion for his circumstances. Maybe there was even an element of me needing to mother him by giving him what Saskia had withheld—and I suspected that he in turn took succour from my maternal offerings.
To my surprise, I loved motherhood. I was now emotionally fulfilled. I totally devoted myself to my daughter and Paul became a doting father. Immersing himself in Shoshanna’s care, he tackled baby baths, nappies and 2 a.m. feeds—with kindness and love. I was touched by his tenderness and felt vindicated in my decision not to abort. As if making amends for our shaky start to parenthood, Paul got himself a job as a salesman for a firm selling cassette language courses. Another year had passed and it seemed he was no closer to studying.
With Paul’s job came stress and hostility towards me. It was his second summer in Australia and I sensed he resented me, perhaps blaming me for stealing his youth—even though he was the architect of his own predicament. Not unsurprisingly, our sex life waned: Shoshanna was sleeping with me and Paul moved into the spare room. Tensions between us increased.
I was feeling incredibly burdened by guilt, which he played on mercilessly: I had married a young man and now, with the arrival of our child, I was denying him sex. Yet I needed to be true to myself. This was a loving marriage—or so I thought—and I needed the love and tenderness in our daily lives to translate into the bedroom.
Something emotional was definitely shifting in me, changing gears—downwards. Paul rarely respected my needs or wishes, and I was getting little from him emotionally. Despite his consistent devotion to his child, our
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