The good men in my life

The good men in my life, my Husband of 5 years, my Dad of well as long as I have been around and my granddad, as long as he has been around. The men in my year 12 class were also classy guys.

I wrote a list about 18 months before I “met” my husband, as a potential suitor – he didn’t fit the entire criteria because it required, a job was on it! I decided that studying and applying yourself to something even though not financial, was a good way to go about getting a job.

The main purpose of  this list, was to act as a guide to ensure that I was getting in to a relationship with someone of similar values, goals and aspirations. Someone I could grow old with and not just get it on with. I believe the reason I found a wonderful man who is perfect for me is because I knew what I wanted.

My husband is a wonderful man. Even though he has been through great trials, which you’d expect a person to not to cope with and not even continue on in a healthy existence, he has. Not only does he have a healthy existence, he excels at it.

What he does:

He works a technical job, that he studied for while we dated and when were married. He also came home every night for over four months to renovate our house. I assisted, but have no where near the technical ability or problem solving ability for the nightmare that was our bathroom.

He has fixed every bomb we ever drove; he would stay up until 3am and go to work the next day. He would worry about every knocking noise, every whirring noise, every time the temperature crept up to high.

When he was having trouble getting in to the work force, he agreed to work at the local abattoirs, getting up at 1am working until 4pm some days. We barely saw each other, just passing ships – although we weren’t - the 1 hour we spent from when I got home was quality time. Thankfully this only lasted 6 months before he started his current job.

He listens to me, understands me, and he knows me; he knows that I love being challenged and increasing my skills and abilities. He is also a great sounding board for when I am too eccentric.

He knows that connect best to him when we have quality time, even though he appreciates gifts – He used to buy me flowers until I truly convinced him I didn’t want them! It was adorable and just a nice feeling. He helps out with the house work.
He talks me up everywhere we go, it used to be a little embarrassing, he is better in social situations than I am, he would circle the party before I would leave my safe post of somebody I knew well. Then I would go around to be told how wonderful and fantastic I was, for the job that I did was helping people. I would spend my time helping them see that they were just as fantastic. However it was so nice that he held me in such high esteem.

In our household, he gave me the “control” of the finances, which means that I am responsible for ensuring the bills are paid, and we have fun too. He doesn’t want weekly meetings to ensure I am doing it fairly – he trusts me. Even when I messed up and had to pay interest on the credit card, or got a late fee when I wasn’t coping – he never got mad. He still believed in me. He always calls before he spends, I never have to worry about financial insecurity because he wastes it away. I in turn ensure that he has the money to work on his projects.

He has such big dreams and wants to do so much, its so amazing to see the energy and cleverness. He wants to fully restore a car, which he nearly did with his ’86 Ford Escort. Although he didn’t paint it and that is something he would like to master.
He hates being bored and is always up for a spontaneous adventure.

I also love how he loves to help other people. He is so generous, with his time, with his resources. He helps out with out asking for anything.

I am so lucky that I found him and he loved me. I could go on forever and when I read this topic, I thought I would run out of things to write, but I am actually thinking I could hub some more about this and how and why our relationship is so wonderful.

We have grown together, we make plans together. We incorporate each of our dreams goals and aspirations.

My Dad too is a wonderful man, and without his work ethic – I doubt I would have valued a work ethic in my husband if my Dad didn’t work so hard, and for so little.

I am so lucky that my Dad was an honourable and decent man that I recognised, his good qualities and found a great mate for myself.

My dad taught me to ride a two wheel bike. I used to ride for hours in our yard. Dad let us roller blade inside. My dad used to run the Youth Group that I belonged to and he took us Go Karting, and to many other activities.

My dad taught me to drive a manual (aka stick) and reverse a trailer.

My Dad believed that I could do anything and always listened to the stories I told.

Dad is also a heap of fun to talk to, he currently works on a rubbish truck, and as he is out and about from early in the morning travelling around he sees lots of different things. He always has stories to tell.

My Dad is a bit of hoarder, but it always means that when my husband needs something we rarely have to pay for it.

My Granddad is a very intellectual man, and listening to him and sounding ideas off him is always eye opening.

Granddad, is my Mum’s Father. I don’t see him often. I did stay with him and Grandma on and off while I studied.

Granddad rides a motorbike and I think that is really cool.

Men in general

I think sometimes people find it easier to have a defined role. However we cannot create a blanket role for all men. In my experiences and these relationships the men I describe have roles.

I think each relationship needs to understand the strengths that each person brings to the relationship and organise roles accordingly.

I think that when we brought in more rights for women we took away some rights for men. It makes it hard for them to be able to say when they are being abused – because your kidding right you could stop her – This thinking proliferates problems that are trying to be broken. We didn’t replace it with service’s right away to help them adjust. When things got hard for them like they lost their job, which lets face it is a really big part of their identity, they lost part of themselves and without support things can get very hard. But honey I am earning the money now, even if there is still cash flow, it is just a small part of the entire complexity.

It’s always interesting that men who work around children are treated more suspiciously than women who work around children – When you do come across a predatory woman they aren’t as caught as quickly and easily and are very dangerous.
My point is too many things are still left gender/sex specific, without good cause and we are not keeping up with the changes that women’s rights caused that have left gaps for our men.

Even though men are generally (a generalization not the rule) the last to seek help, this is also possibly why because there is a service gap and legislative gap. When I think of equality, I would imagine that man being abused in a relationship would have the same supports as a woman who is in need. This is sadly not the case.

As a woman I like my rights, however I can see how the inequality of these rights causes some problems.