I Don’t Want Your Husband


I Don’t Want Your Husband

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

Breaking up your marriage isn’t on my to-do list

Dear Mean Mommies,

I do not want your husbands.

Just because my marriage ended and I find myself a single mom doesn’t mean I now covet your man. When I was 10 years old, I didn’t lie on my canopy bed for hours on end, gazing at my Shaun Cassidy posters, listening to Barry Manilow records thinking, When I grow up, I want to be a 45-year-old woman with two kids, two dogs, two birds, two fish, a mortgage, and no husband. It’s just how life turned out.

That doesn’t mean I want your husbands.

Remember when you and the other mean mommies stopped including me in your coupled events . . . after I became uncoupled?

I didn’t want your husbands then.

Remember that night when “the party was canceled,” so I brought over the chocolate-chip cookies I’d baked, just to be nice, and it turns out the party wasn’t canceled? There you all were, coupled, with your glasses of champagne and your mouths hanging open.

I didn’t want your husbands then, either. I did want to climb into my bed and cry, but I didn’t because I have kids.

Mean Mommy Number Three, remember when I asked you, “Why am I not invited anymore?” You shrugged your shoulders, “I don’t know.” So I said, “Is it because I’m single?” And you reluctantly answered, “Yes.”

Well, I didn’t want your husband. I wanted to be Katharine Hepburn, dramatically slap you, throw my scotch in your face, and saunter from the room wearing a fabulous pantsuit. But I didn’t. I went home and had a glass of chardonnay with another single mom. She doesn’t want your husband, either.

You complain about your husbands, “He works too much.” “He doesn’t help around the house.” Your sprinkler has been broken for a month. Your trip to Thailand was downgraded to a trip to Hawaii. He got the scent wrong when he bought you that $100 candle. Doesn’t he know your favorite candle scent? He’d asked me what scent to buy you. I guessed. I got it wrong. And I also didn’t want him.

The thought of kissing your husband makes me ill. The thought of sleeping with him makes me vomit in my mouth a little. You tell me he snores, farts, burps, has erectile dysfunction, and watches too much football. That does not turn me on.

And even if it did, I wouldn’t want him.

Even when he grabs my ass, shows up on my Tinder feed, or sends me a picture of his dick in the middle of the night—I don’t want him.

I don’t want your two kids on the weekends. I don’t want to deal with his dry cleaning, laundry, and office dramas. I don’t want to take care of yet another human being . . . three more human beings. And, frankly, I just don’t want him!

Ladies, I like your husbands. They are nice. I enjoy conversing with them. They have interesting careers. They relate to me as an equal. They ask me about my job. They read books, tell jokes, and even follow The Young and the Restless. They don’t complain about their wives. They gossip a little, but not too much. They barbecue.

And they don’t want me, either.

For the record, I would never want a friend’s husband. Because I am a friend . . . who just happens to be single. “Single” is just a tiny part of me. It does not define me. You are defining me because you are afraid I will steal your husband.

Truth be told, deep down you are terrified of me, not because I will steal your husband, but because of what I represent. I am the embodiment of your greatest fear: that your husband will leave you—by divorce, by death, by some unforeseen, unimagined circumstance. You are terrified that you might have to deal with the challenges that come with solo parenting and the stigma you’ve attached to it. You fear that one day you could be the uninvited, that your friends will do to you what you’ve done to others. And that you, too, won’t want someone else’s husband.

Single parenting is not contagious. It does result when 50% of all marriages end, and only a few of those “ends” come from someone wanting someone else’s husband. Generally, it’s just how life turns out.

So now that we’ve cleared this up, I hope you will include me—invite me to your next soiree, school event, or weekend getaway with the gang. I probably won’t go because not only do I not want your husbands but I also don’t want you . . . because you think I want your husbands.

Oh, and Mrs. Clooney, Mrs. Reynolds, Mrs. Tatum, and Mrs. McConaughey . . . I want your husbands.

Love,

P. Charlotte Lindsay


P. Charlotte Lindsay is a middle-aged Solo Mom. She shares her newfound expertise as a user of a dating app that can help you meet guys, get laid, and maybe even find love. She is a real person, though her name has been changed to protect the innocent, namely her children and parents. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Please feel free to contact us with any comments or questions.


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