Unwifeable(91)

I find myself slowly having a meltdown.

“You need to take care of yourself, Mandy,” Pat says as I’m trying to figure out the perfect dress, the perfect hair, and the perfect everything. “We don’t have to get married at the show if it’s too stressful. But you have to go to a meeting, see your therapist, something. Because we can’t do this at the expense of your personal well-being.”

And so, as he runs around the city making last-minute preparations, I sit in a small dingy room with other people who are facing the same demons that I am.

Only today is my wedding day, and I have never felt so grateful.

“Hi, my name is Mandy, and I’m an alcoholic.”

Later that night, onstage, surrounded by three hundred friends and fans in a packed comedy club, we recite vows we have written that day.

Pat takes my hands and speaks to my heart.

“You know, Mandy, when we met, everything changed for me,” Pat says. “I really didn’t know somebody like you existed, and if I had known, I wouldn’t have given up on all that shit before.”

A wave of laughter ripples through the audience, and tears well up in my eyes.

“You’re unlike anybody I’ve ever met,” he says. “It’s been the best year of my life. I promise to honor that by never forgetting how bad life was when I didn’t know you.”

Then he looks in my eyes, pauses, and says, “And I’m never going to put you in a home.”

The audience bursts into laughter—at both the irreverence and the surprise of the line—but I know how profound what he says really is. I squeeze his hand.

It is a moment only we understand.

Later that night, when it is just the two of us alone in a romantic hotel suite with roses strewn everywhere, Pat surprises me by pulling out a copy of the letter that I wrote to my “future self,” the one I showed him months earlier.

Nervously, I open the seal.

I read it aloud for us both.

“Dear Mandy, what a beautiful experience these past few years have been,” I say, fully crying now. “You know who you are. You have a heart filled with love—for yourself and others. And you only partner with a man who has earned the right to be with you.”

At that last part, Pat reaches out and caresses the ruby on my ring.

“That’s you,” I say.

“That’s me.”



* * *




IF YOU LOOK deep inside every woman, you will find a black box that records the wreckage of her past relationships.

It’s an intimidating excavation, to be sure. Digging through all the dust and debris until you finally find it buried beneath the surface with the ominous seal on the outside reading DO NOT OPEN.

I know better now than to blithely obey.

I am not and will not be afraid to look and to listen and to learn. I want to go there. I need to find the bigger picture, and in the process, myself. While I relive the most terrifying moments recorded, the most disturbing memories, the darkest nights, I can’t help but shudder.

But I’m no longer afraid of the fear. I’m no longer paralyzed by humiliation or the notion of what others might think of me. Fear will not kill you. Humiliation holds no real power. But being too afraid to look and listen just might.

At first, the voices sound haunting. Taunting even. But I don’t stop. I can’t stop. I refuse to. I will go deeper until I find out what I am really made of and where I have been all this time.

Goddammit I just can’t take it!

This never happened, and if you tell anyone different, I’ll deny it.

I’m disappointed in you, Mandy.

You’re not smart, you’re not funny, you’re not a good writer, and you’re not pretty.

Do you want me to fuck the shit out of you?

If I were you, I would have put a gun in my mouth a long time ago.

Please don’t say I dated Mandy Stadtmiller.

I’d suggest you stay away from marriage going forward?

You took a little nap. I had to wake you up.

That was not sex. That was rape.

I don’t want a Post reporter to die on me.

Are you high yet? You want some more?

You know, there are these swinger parties they have.

Our black boxes really are such extraordinary devices, built for a level of toughness that is nearly unimaginable. But what we don’t know when we are younger is that sometimes what feels on impact like a fiery crash is just the terrifying last moments of an emergency landing that ultimately saves your life. For me, it was rejecting a deeply negative self-concept that became a twisted, masochistic sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yes, I may have felt safe and certain with the concept of “unwifeability.” But I never really had any kind of fixed identity. Because no one does. Unless you treat yourself that way, you are always pure potential—always limitless possibility. It was me who felt unworthy. It was me who felt unlovable. It was me who felt unredeemable. So I chose relationships that affirmed my self-hatred. Because if everything is pain, then nothing is.

See that burning wreckage? I did that. That was me.

But empowerment is not self-sabotage—even when you are the one wreaking the havoc. Empowerment, I think, is deciding what you want your final destination to be, developing a plan to protect your heart, and never letting anyone tell you differently.