Time to Bring About the Charmpocalypse I think for many women, marriage is like the Wizard of Oz: once you get to the castle, you realize it’s more like a shitty motel room with all of the stuff you don’t really want to have to deal with. You’re told “no” a lot, but really you just don’t want to talk about your life, because it might not be as glamorous as you remember. It’s pretty boring to make a marriage work when everyone knows it’s not what they signed up for. And once you’re in, you can’t leave—not without destroying the whole house of cards. Because after all, they’re too afraid of what might happen if they don’t give you half the money you deserve or let you back out of that nasty abortion. I understand the attraction of people claiming that feminists are holding them down when they want a divorce and won’t support them in finding someone more deserving. It’s a little too convenient to blame feminists for not wanting to stay in these marriages that they never really intended. The truth is that most of us were lulled into it by fairy tales about love and happily ever after and our natural inclination to want to be loved and want to love someone back. So it can be a little depressing to understand that the fairy tale isn’t true and that the “happily ever after” may not really exist. It’s natural to feel a little bitter when you’re betrayed by your marriage. But that’s really what the resentment is about: a betrayal of your best intentions. No one wants a partner who lies to them or makes them feel like shit for wanting out. That is a problem you will not be able to solve by blaming feminism for making it difficult for you to escape from an abusive marriage. We’ve all probably said that being married sucks, but for some people, like you, I’m going to suggest that it sucks more than it did the first time around. Once you’re married, you get to see how much worse it really gets, and the only thing that’s going to make it suck less is getting out. There is a lot of truth to the idea that “we can do it until they pry our fingers from their throats.” Divorce, especially when you’re doing it without a lawyer, can be an incredibly complicated and expensive process. I’ve seen a lot of women who try to hold it together and remain in a bad marriage because they believe their kids need them or that they need their marriage to stay together for the sake of stability and security. If you’re not making your marriage work for yourself, I can’t help you. You have to figure out why it isn’t working for you. There’s no one to blame for that except you, and the idea that some institution is holding you down is nothing more than a distraction. I’m not saying that people who are happy in their marriages aren’t real feminists. I’m sure plenty of women want to stay in their marriages and live happily ever after, and that’s totally respectable. I’m just saying that this whole “feminism has made me lonely, isolated and miserable” doesn’t sound like it’s about feminism at all. This sounds like a normal marriage. I’m willing to bet that if the people in your life who are closest to you are the ones who hurt you most, your marriage probably sucks and it probably always has. Don’t blame feminism for your pain, or try to solve it by staying with the men and women who caused it. And if you stay with them and they do hurt you, don’t blame it on feminism either. You can’t blame the people who make you miserable for the choices you make about how you respond to that misery. It’s not their fault that you’re with them. Just because feminism helped you see the flaws in your marriage doesn’t mean that your feminism is the problem. Feminism doesn’t make you happy in a bad marriage or magically make your spouse suddenly become competent at communicating, respecting your boundaries and honoring you. It’s just an excuse for blame and finger-pointing. Feminism never claimed to be a solution for your relationship problems. Feminism is not the cause of your pain; you are. It’s not the victim. It’s not the cause. This is not a feminist problem. Feminism was never the problem. You are. We Can Find A Better, Easier, Quicker Solution The truth is, feminists don’t have the quick-fix solution to all of life’s woes. But it’s a lie that “we’re just talking about men” and that we never come up with solutions. So if feminism is responsible for our relationships getting screwed up in the first place, then isn’t it feminism that’s going to come up with the fix? No matter how much we hate it, divorce happens. If you want to get out of a bad marriage or divorce, there are plenty of services that can help you do so. The American Association of Divorce Attorneys can direct you to an attorney in your area who might be able to help you out. There are also a lot of resources online. You can find out who your local legal aid society is, as well as how to get help in your state. And while a divorce is expensive, it’s probably not as expensive as your marriage is going to cost you. The thing about divorce is that it’s about you and your own needs and wants and happiness. As much as we like to talk about it like it’s somehow anti-feminist, feminism is not anti-divorce. Feminism isn’t about stopping you from leaving bad relationships; it’s about giving you the tools to do that. It’s about having the knowledge and support that you need to take care of yourself. The idea that feminism is anything other than a force for good in women’s lives is a dangerous illusion. And it’s just not true. Some people will say that feminism is something that is just about you. And that’s partly true. Feminism is about you and your desires and your choices. If feminism is the thing that made you miserable, it was because you choose to let it make you miserable. If feminism is the reason why you stayed in a bad marriage, it was because you chose to stay in a bad marriage. Feminism isn’t stopping you from leaving a bad marriage, because feminism is not bad. If you are with someone who’s beating you, abusing you or cheating on you, feminism isn’t stopping them. If you are married, feminism isn’t stopping your husband from cheating on you or from leaving you and taking half your money. Feminism isn’t responsible for your choices about how you choose to live your life. If you chose to stay with an abuser, it’s because you chose to stay. And if it was the best decision for you at the time, it’s not the feminist’s fault that you can’t get yourself to leave. What About Domestic Abuse? My friend and colleague Julie Bindel recently wrote about the problems with domestic abuse. She pointed out that many of the things that led to her divorce—emotional and psychological abuse, a man who cheated on her multiple times, emotional neglect, physical abuse and violence—were all caused by the patriarchy. Many feminists are just as vulnerable as anyone else to domestic abuse. Our emotional pain doesn’t mean we’re too weak to leave an abusive situation. I can’t promise that if I were going through that I’d be able to figure out how to be free from it, but if I’m the kind of person who’s going to be afraid to leave an abusive relationship, feminism is not the problem. It would be a real shame if someone left a feminist environment believing that her feminism was the cause