Kindred Spirits in Housekeeper Hell

I found a post from a horrible housekeeper with PTSD today: MENTAL housekeeping - the diary of a working housewife with PTSD

It really helps me that she's with a woman.

I've been thinking about it a lot  - being in a subservient position and how much that has ALWAYS disturbed me. The men in my relationships have always expected me to do the cleaning - one to the point that the day after we married, he plopped in front of the TV and I didn't exist anymore. He expected to fall asleep in his chair and get food and clean dishes like his dad did. It always earned a boatload of resentment. My second husband just wanted me to work where he could see me. This one says I just "should want to".

But I don't. I never have, well, except for my first lady love. Man, I was such a lap dog. I'm sure that'd pass right quick if gay marriage had been legal. :-/ I guess that's why she was stringing me along, though. Of course, 15 some-odd years later, the next lady wanted to stay home, and bless her, some gals do. (Then again, I'm not a normal girl.) I can only express my whole-hearted desire to want to be the yang to her yin. I wanted to work, and earn, and give her the world. We'd be partners.

That's what my husband says he wants, but he doesn't see how my being gay really messes with this perspective. Whether or not the abuse played any part doesn't matter; that's many decades beyond debate. It's not a fetish, or a "political statement", or a choice; it's how I relate fundamentally. (And, sure, I suppose the people who wield it as a political statement are ruining it's credibility for those of us who are sincerely attracted to our own gender for the same reasons straight people are.)

What I need to pull off any relationship, especially one that feels unnatural and unequal, is equality of choice. We both need to be able to embrace the roles we need to be in, and fill the ones that we suck at and make us wish we were dead. It's like hiring a carpenter because you know you both suck at it and wouldn't check it as a career option on a job site. BUT, I'm not given a choice. I'm the girl. Girls clean toilets.

I see how this woman helps me, though. She has a lot of the same reactions that I do, like constant anxiety over expecting severe punishment. She beats herself up all the time and flashbacks take her down hard. She's transgender, and has gone through a lot of personal and marital issues due to her sexuality. 

Like my last post, she made cleaning about taking care of herself, and, it sounds like, in healing, she cleaned house in more ways than one. Go her. 

I'm beginning to think the growth and healing process is inevitable once it's really begun. It's like the huge-ass boulder chasing Indiana Jones: it gains speed until it's done, and nobody is going to stand in the way. 

~DC

"Its not a sacrifice to be with me, or to love or be loved by me. My femaleness is not a curse, my prettiness is not a slap in anyone's face, my womanly voice is not an affectation or a subtle form of sarcasm. Facial hair removal is not a selfish indulgence. SRS is not a terrible irreversible mistake I may later regret. Transition is not a clever way of getting out of commitments, a form of midlife crisis, or a desperate attempt to get sex. I reject the assertion that I can never be a real woman. A woman is the only thing I have ever been, even though I hid from it for many years. I do have needs. I do have feelings. I do have passions. I do have fears. I am real. Pinocchio does not have strings." Maddy, or someone who understands, if not from a different angle.