On Being Sacrificial

Something I didn’t expect was to hold so hard to my identity as a wife. Over the past few years I’ve released my identity as yoga teacher, dutiful daughter, and even my married name. But not my claim to “wife.” 

It’s the identity that I couldn’t freely give, so he took it away–and carried it, heavy on his shoulders, so that I didn’t have to. He sacrificed our marriage and himself, so I didn’t keep sacrificing myself. 

These are hard, big things to say–to admit really. I always want to come out looking like the clean and spiffy one who was loyal to the end. My body and intentions were loyal. My heart and my gut were not, but not in the I-wasn’t-faithful-in-my-marriage way. I wasn’t faithful to myself.

For 13 years, I was the willing sacrifice. At all costs, I would save my marriage.

/ / /

I was not the girl who grew up fantasizing about her wedding day and having babies. I didn’t put on my maternal smock of tenderness while holding baby dolls, or pursue babysitting in my teens. I hated it, actually. 

Ok–I did say that I always wanted to get married on home plate at Dodger Stadium. So, I guess I dreamt enough to include baseball.

But the implicit message of my childhood was that marriage was IT. It was the god, the savior, the thing that all good, Christian people do, especially the women. Because, without a husband, what are you? A bitter spinster who couldn’t have sex. God no–I couldn’t be that.

When I was 23, fresh off my solo European travels, I had no thought of being married. I was young, confident, unattached, and ready to take on whatever was coming next. I was still deeply devoted to my evangelical roots, but staunchly liberal in my social views. George W. was satan and the Iraq war was hell. And I was going to tell everyone about it. (Note: George, please come back.)

I was an anomaly. Hard to pin down and fierce. I thought I had a lot to defend. But only because I didn’t feel like what I was living or feeling was truly mine. That’s the thing–when we’re grasping for our own Truth, we take on others’ truth and start defending it. We don’t know anything else. Even though I thought I was so sure of my eternal path, something never quite sat right.

While I wasn’t particularly interested in seeking out a life partner, somewhere in my mind I knew that it would eventually happen. Why not at 23? It seemed like a fine time– an attractive, intelligent, Christian good-girl: prime marrying material. It was (marriage), after all, the end of all things. Death and heaven seemed like distant finalities compared to marriage. And everyone seemed ready to let me know that.

I was setup with numerous people. Everyone wanted to pair me with their cute friend, their Christian musician type that exuded creativity, or better yet, sign me up for Eharmony, which I reluctantly did and went out with a guy twice. It didn’t work out. 

Over and over again, I heard the message that something was amiss. If I wasn’t actively pursuing a man, then what was my purpose? I mean, I dropped out of college to take off and travel. But no one encouraged finishing school the way they encouraged dating and marriage.

And it’s not their fault. I willingly believed it all because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. My identity, my worth, was always wrapped up in other people, in doing good for them, in supporting them. My humanity was defined by my ability to give to others–to sacrifice myself.  

Not to mention, if I was ever going to have sex without feeling eternally guilty, I was going to have to get married. And I really wanted to have sex. 

So, when J. came along–this tall, handsome, witty, quirky, Christian man–it was a match made in heaven. We filled all of each other’s neuroses. We bonded over a shared love of baseball, music, and shitty childhoods. Our hurt inner children absolutely fell in love with one another. 

But there were many red flags. I’m sure he saw them as much as I did. Even through my reluctant acceptance of coupledom before I knew who he was, and my baffling acceptance of his proposal under the condition that we’d get married sooner and I’d transfer colleges (again), I stayed true to my god–my idol–of marriage. I stayed true to my identity as the sacrificial lamb.

We got married. 

I did it: I sacrificed everything for my god. That’s what I was supposed to do, right? That’s what I was taught, that I had to be willing to give up everything for my god and what I believed in. I was faithful. I fell into the good graces of the church around me and thought that I’d be more loved and justified by my identity as wife. Perhaps it was the identity that would finally feel like it fit. 

I took on my new role with fervor. And it felt pretty good for awhile. I was a giving machine. I was married, I had a kid, we lived in San Diego, we had a church. I was following all the rules. If marriage was my god, the rules were the altar at which I’d sacrifice my deeper, wiser self to feel justified.

But if one part of you is still alive, and the other part of you is dying, survival instincts kick in. The vivacious, independent, intelligent, free-thinking Kelly was suffocating. She was alive, but clinging to that life through a few small shreds of dubious things like yoga and music. To salvage my dying parts, I did other things–like control to try and resurrect the suffering Kelly that I knew was still breathing below the surface. 

The part that was still fully alive was the part that everyone praised me for: my utter devotion to my husband–my responsible, conscientious nature that never let anyone down. It’s not that I didn’t want to be loyal and honest and good–but sacrificing one part to atone for another wasn’t working. 

He knew it and I knew it. We just couldn’t figure out how to reconcile it all. Or, admit that maybe what really needed to be sacrificed was our attachment to the false god of marriage. 

/ / /

As a child of divorce, and a girl who was taught through the church that divorce was basically the scarlet letter for a woman, I refused to sacrifice it. I could not bear the scarlet ‘D’ around my chest. Who would I be? If not defined by my marriage, then I’d be defined by my divorce. And how could I still maintain my air of goodness adorning that dreaded letter? Could I still be worthy if I wasn’t sacrificing something?

The answer is stop making marriage your god, Kelly. Stop making your husband’s, or daughter’s, or parents’ emotional wellbeing your god. Stop making the rules your god. Stop making perfection your god. Stop trying to defend and pretend, open your hands, and welcome back the true Kelly with the joy that the father welcomed his prodigal son. 

Stop taking pride in being the sacrifice and be more willing to accept sacrifice. 

Matronly, maternal, martyrdom was at the crux of my belief system. It’s likely at the crux of so many women’s beliefs. 

What is a woman if she isn’t a wife, a mother, and a martyr?

Perhaps I’m staring her right in the face.