On the surface this picture appears to depict a typical
young couple with their new baby girl, but all is not what it seems. This is
the story of my marriage to Ronald Lewis Mansfield.
I met Ron at the college radio station in the late 60’s. He
bragged to everyone that he worked at a real radio station and I was smitten
with him. Don’t ask me why. Even though he wasn’t tall, dark and handsome,
thought he was my knight in shining armor. I fell head over heels in love with
him and he promised to get a full-time job and rescue me from my Dad who was
strict and controlling.
We were married six months after we met. I soon discovered
he had some pretty serious chinks in his armor. It all started on our wedding
day!
After endless preparation and many mishaps, the day had
finally arrived. I was dressed and ready to leave for the church and the time
had come for Ron to arrive and he was nowhere in sight. Everyone kept looking
at me and I got the feeling that they were all wondering where he was. I was
getting more and more anxious when finally the phone rang. My Mom said that it
was Ron for me. As I walked to the phone, I thought, “He’d better have a good
explanation”. I lashed out at him and told him he was late and asked him where
he was. He shouted back that he knew he was late and that he was trying to
straighten out the mess I had made with the flowers. I didn’t understand how he
could blame me because he had made arrangements with his friends at the radio
station to take care of it all and I told him so. Besides, I was wondering why
didn’t he check on them before today? He said he told me to have them order
flowers for his mother and they weren’t at her house. I wondered why he was so
concerned about his mother. He wouldn’t even tell her we were getting married
and didn’t invite her to the wedding. He said he wasn’t coming until he got
them and by the time he took care of it all, he was over an hour late.
Meanwhile, I alternately cried and seethed with anger. Needless to say, it was
a very unhappy ceremony, but I went through with it and became June Mansfield.
The reception wasn’t any better. My Mom has arranged for
someone to open the presents and write down who they were from and display them
as was the tradition in our church, but Ron wouldn’t have it. He said he wanted
to open the presents himself and made such a stink about it that my Mom backed
down and let him have his way in order to avoid public scene. Our wedding night
wasn’t any better. We spent it in a little motel in town that a friend of his
rented for us as a wedding present. This was because his big job at the radio
station was really just a minimum wage engineering job at a little Spanish
station in San Fernando.
We spent half the night opening presents and by the time we
finished. I was so tired I just want to fall into to bed and go to sleep. Ron,
however, would have none of that and forced me to consummate our marriage then
and there. Our wedding day should have been a wake-up as to how our marriage
would be, but I was young and in love and couldn’t see the writing on the wall
then. I had just jumped on of the frying pan into the fire. My Dad may have
been controlling and strict, but Ron was much worse!
Ron had an explosive temper which erupted no matter where he
was or who he was with. His mother and him often clashed and anyone who was
around would get quite a fireworks display because neither one of them would
back down and it often seemed to me like they were having a contest to see who
could yell the loudest. He tried to get me involved in these arguments, but I
refused to engage in them especially in public. Then he would get mad at me
because I wouldn’t take his side. Ron told me some terrible things about his
mother and his childhood; but I soon found out from his mother, Annette that he
wasn’t the golden boy he painted himself to be. For example, she said that he
would never come right out and ask her for anything but would hint around about
it and she would then try her best to get it for him. She also said that he
could never do a job alone, but would go around Tom Sawyer-like convincing the
neighborhood kids to help him and then put him in the position of sidewalk
supervisor. Ron denied all of this, but I saw evidence of it in our marriage
and tended to believe her. He used his friends the same way and often coerced
her into getting the kid’s stuff by telling her that they really needed it and
that we couldn’t afford it.
We had our first child eight months after we were married.
Our son, Jody was born 7 ½ months later. I was often asked how we managed that.
The easy explanation is that he was born 2 ½ month premature, but by that you
can see that she would only make it 10 months between children. That is because
Ron wouldn’t even wait the recommended 6 weeks after the birth of our first
child to demand sex.
The reason that we couldn’t afford to get some of the things
he wanted for the kids was because Ron was often out of work. I felt that I had
to work just to keep our heads above water. He insisted that he wouldn’t take
any job that wasn’t in his beloved “radio” field. He often chased after one
scheme or another to make money and as often as not, failed at them.
Ron was a fastidious dresser who wanted his clothes to be
laundered and ironed according to his exacting specifications. One time after a
hard day at work, Ron informed me that he had an important appointment and
needed something to wear. I washed his permanent-press pants and shirt and
presented them to him. He became very angry and told me that the shirt was
wrinkled and the pants didn’t have a sharp enough crease in them and that I had
to iron them. We had a big fight about it because I thought they looked fine
and couldn’t see any wrinkles in the shirt and the crease in the pants looked
good as far as I was concerned, but he brow-beat me until I iron them for me.
We couldn’t afford to buy the clothes that he thought he needed to be a big
radio man either and he would get his Mom to buy them for him.
Ron also expected me to do housework according to his standards,
even though I was working full-time and he was home most of the time. I often
came home after a hard day at work to a tirade from Ron about how the house was
a mess and that I needed to clean it up. No matter how tired I was Ron would
insist that I wash the dishes, dry and put them away right after dinner. I was
never allowed to air-dry them in the drainer and put them away later. Weekends,
were often spent with me cleaning the house all day on Saturday and sometimes
on Sunday and Ron wouldn’t let me stop until it passed his inspection.
During the time, that all of this was going on a book came
out called “Diary of a Madhouse”. I never read it (who had the time), but when
I heard the title I thought, “That’s how I feel”.
As I said before, I had to work because Ron couldn’t hold
down a steady job. I started out working when I was pregnant with our first
child, Jessica in a temporary job as a file clerk and during our nearly ten
year marriage, I progressed in my career from there, to an executive secretary,
then an administrative assistant and finally as an assistant buyer for a small
women’s clothing store chain. At work, I was brilliant and confident, but at
home I was reduced to a shy, timid women from Ron’s constant brow-beating.
Because he realized that I was different person at work, he would try and
control me there also. He would often call me about an unpaid bill, an unwashed
dish, an appointment I had forgotten to make for him or some other trivial
thing than could have easily waited until I got home and yell at me until I was
practically reduced to tears which made it hard for me to continue working. I
was always the one who had to take off when the kids were sick or to take them
to doctor’s appointment even though he was home most of the time. We even had
to have a babysitter on call because he might have an appointment with an “important”
client or need to go see about a job.
When he was really depressed because things weren’t going
his way, he would threaten to commit suicide. He was trying to make me feel
guilty and sorry for him. At first, it worked but then I realized that if he
made that decision it was on him and it wasn’t me responsibility to make him
happy. Here is a poem I wrote when I came to that realization:
RESPONSIBILITY
You say I’m your
whole life,
Your reason for
living,
That if you don’t
have me
You have nothing.
I can’t be your life
for you,
You must find the
reason within yourself,
I’m not strong enough
to carry the burden for you.
I don’t need the
responsibility.
I hate to say that the last few years of our marriage were
so bad that I sometimes wished that he would die.
During this time, my father came to California from Utah to
visit us and saw some of the things that Ron did to me. He asked me about it
and we talked some and he told me essentially that I didn’t need to remain
married to a man who tried to control me unrighteously.
Ron finally agreed to give me a divorce, but he refused to
move out of the house. He lived in his recording studio and I felt he would
never let me go until he found someone to take my place as illustrated by this
poem:
FREEDOM
I’ve always given you
your freedom,
Now I want mine,
I’ve not bothered
you,
Now don’t bother me.
Please be fair,
Set me free,
Don’t burden me
With your insecurity.
A song that really resonated with me during this time was “My
Way” by Frank Sinatra. Here is a link to the lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/franksinatra/myway.html
. All I wanted to be able to do was do things “My Way” and not Ron’s way!
In 1981, Ron finally found someone to take my place and she
moved into the house. I found someone also and moved out of the house.
So, back to the picture at the beginning. Do you see what I
see in the seemingly happy picture? What I see is me looking adoringly at our
daughter, Jessica but although Ron is looking at her also, he only has a hint
of a smile on his face. I am holding her and he is in the background looking on
as if he is not really part of the happy picture. What I see is a man who wasn’t really a happy
and because of that made my life miserable too.
No comments:
Post a Comment