i was a stepford husband

I'm guilty. Charged on multiple counts of snivelling insecurity and general player hatation. I watched this scene from The Stepford Wives (2004) and felt compelled to finally turn myself in.

Walter: "Ever since we met, you've beaten me at everything. You're better educated, you're stronger, you're faster, you're a better dancer, a better tennis player, you've always earned at least six figures more than I could ever dream of. you're a better speaker, a better executive, you're even better at sex. Don't deny it."
Joanna: "I wasn't going to."
Walter: "Well don't I get anything?"
Joanna: "You got me!"
Walter: "No, I got to hold your purse. I got to tell the kids that you'd be late again. I got to tell the press that you had no comment. I got to work for you."
Joanna: "With me!"
Walter: "Under you! All of us! We married wonder women! Supergirls! Amazon queens. Well, you know what that makes us?"
Joanna: "Smart! Worthy! Lucky!"
Walter: "We're the wuss. The wind beneath your wings. We're the 'girl'."
All The Men: "And we don't like it!"

Just like this cadre of crossed-up husbands railing away about their relegated positions, I once had a beautiful, talented, and enterprising young lady in love with me. Yet I could not deal with the fact that she was in so many ways better than me. I was one of those guys. So afraid their woman would make more money or get more attention that it all but paralyzed my ability to be the man she fell in love with in the first place. I should be so lucky though. She chose me. All I really had to do was walk slow and let her catch me. I wanted to be the conqueror though, and if I couldn’t, then I was taking my toys and going home. I even confided to a friend that if anyone was going to do the breaking up, it was going to be me. I didn't want to let it be said that I was the one who got left.

We used to talk about our dreams and plans. Mine were vague and liquid (just like an artist), while hers involved her buying a house and moving out of state in the not too distant future. Its very mention was disturbing because for that plan to be carried out, I'd have to be dropped off on the side of the road en route to wherever she was headed. That terrified me. I didn't want to be excluded or abandoned. I didn't want her and her magnetic personality hanging around my friends either, afraid they'd gravitate toward her and forget all about me. Most threatening of all was her success in the music industry. She once invited me to accompany her to a fairly high profile movie premiere, however after being chided by her management for mixing her personal and professional lives, the invite was rescinded. I didn't care so much about the event, but the let down and the rejection more than anything else wounded my pride mortally.

My resident pipe dream has always been to have a successful music career. To me, she was living in reality what I had only dreamed about and I could not stand it. Again, I was afraid that I might never accomplish what I desired, and thus forever resent her. It seems ridiculous to me now, but back then you couldn't tell me that the sky wasn't falling. I was convinced. I was well on the road to becoming poison within the relationship because I could not bring myself to truly be happy for her.

The worst case hypothetical scenarios played in my head on a perpetual loop. I could see us limping badly through a rickshaw marriage and her soaring ever the higher with each door opened. I meanwhile would look on from afar, attached to her in law, but compartmentalized away from a most prominent part of her life and intensely bitter about it. More or less, I would have played a second-fiddle, desiccating Bobby Brown to my own private Whitney Houston.
Worse yet, I feared that if I let myself go long enough, I might even sink to the Ike Turner level. That's the one where you're so out of control of the vice that you begin doing anything within your power to stifle, muzzle, or even subconsciously sabotage the woman you're sworn to love and protect.

"You better love loving and you better behave
You better love loving and you better behave
Woman in chains, woman in chains
Calls her man the great white hope
Says she's fine, she'll always cope
Woman in chains, woman in chains"
- Tears For Fears featuring Oleta Adams, "Woman In Chains"

Turner famously compensated for his own concaved self-image by manipulating what he could to terrorize his wife. I almost empathize with him, tragically driven past the point of losing control by the very fear of losing control. Sad story. Nevertheless, this is not a man. The possible prospect of even becoming someone like this was scary enough for me that I promptly excused myself from the relationship.

My intent was never to use her to attain some high position by way of her coattail. I sincerely appreciated her who she was, but more weighty was the fact that was so disappointed with who I was. A close friend of mine diagnosed the situation correctly when she told me bluntly "you are not mature enough to handle this relationship."

So what are control-obsessed males like me to do when threatened with disenfranchisement? Are we doomed to pair off with submissive, subpar women so we never fear feeling inferior again? Well I don't know what the rest of "ya'll" are gonna do, but I gotta go somewhere and find me a can of GetRight so I won't have to settle for some clueless Barbie doll who has nothing going for her but looks which may all but expire in 20-30 years time. I want a strong, intelligent, capable, beautiful woman. Maybe not quite an "Eva", but in the event that I falter, she needs to be able to stand on her own and not collapse.

What I know is for all of the progress I've made, I still have work to do. When I'm more confident that who I am, what I do, and what I've got is good, I'm unconcerned with who is doing better or getting more. If at the time I dated this girl I would have had that already accomplished, we might still be together today. It's OK though. Water under the bridge, hard lesson learned, better luck next time.