Chapter 12 - MY MARRIAGE LOOKS DIFFERENT
I began replaying six years.
Dustin telling me I was mature for eighteen.
Dustin paying my phone bill when I was pregnant.
Dustin handling taxes.
Dustin saying:
“You hate paperwork. Let me.”
True.
Then every decision.
Car.
Mortgage.
Insurance.
Meadow’s school.
Visits with Judith.
I had opinions.
He had forms.
At twenty-three, I suddenly understood I had spent adulthood assuming competence belonged to the older person in the room.
That did not make everything coercion.
I chose him.
Loved him.
Still.
Power differences do not erase agency.
They do affect habits.
Dustin had become accustomed to translating:
I’ll handle it
May you like
into:
I decide.
