Remembering that not all relationships end in abuse

After reading for hours and hours through piles and piles of statistics about violence against women around the world and in the United States, my brain and heart needed some cathartic relief. I needed something to remind me that not male-female relationships end in bride burning! And that not all marriages are unions of patriarchal men and brainwashed, uneducated, or helpless women.

However, I took a risk in choosing the book that I did: Traveling While Married: How to take a trip with your spouse and come back together. I was a bit worried that I might be delving deeper into man-hating through reading this book, but I was willing to take the risk since the cover design and cartoon like illustrations seemed to promise it was a comedic approach to the subject.

It proved to be a worthwhile risk. The author, Mary-Lou Weisman, tells her tales of traveling with her husband in an honest and light-hearted way that allows you to see both the flaws of her husband and herself but also the fact that there are humans out there in relationship with each other that do sincerely care about each other and after 30+ years of marriage can still have a good time together (wow . . . what a run-on sentence that was!). Good news for me, who after reading page after heart-throbbing page of statistics and stories of women being victimized at the hands of men and intimate partners, has contemplated swearing off relationships and marriage for the remainder of my life. Just kidding . . . but kinda not . . . life is real and so is abuse.

I have definitely changed my views of how one goes about love and relationships after all this research, but after reading this book I haven’t ditched the thought all together. Perhaps there are worthwhile adventures better experienced with two instead of one—perhaps there are worthwhile people to go on adventures with.