Dumbest Smart Person

Today I shared a meme to my Facebook that made a lot of folks giggle or darn right laugh out loud, including myself. But then I got to reflecting on the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And the meme is actually more accurate than funny.

I've blogged about my former relationships before, there were truly two that were trainwrecks. My marriage and then the rebound relationship with the narcissist that I fell into shortly after. Both sure had their moments and both sure taught me a ton about relationships, kindness, myself and what I needed to do to be happy in life. I have said to my husband, Tim, more times than I can count, that I wish I had met him first. He has reminded me, just as many times, that our first marriages and life experiences made us whom we are and prepared us to be the best people we can be for each other. I love his outlook on life and things, but there are a few life experiences that I wish I could be without.

One of them is the "dumbest smart person" story. I had always prided myself on being "smart". I graduate 3rd in my class in high school and magna cum laude from college. Then I got married and he spent the next 15 years trying to convince me that I was anything but smart. Maybe he felt intimidated by smart people or maybe he just had zero respect for "book learning". Who knows. All I know is that he was constantly telling me I was dumb, making fun of how dumb I was, etc... Case in point - one story towards the end of our marriage. I had sold some show clothes. The gal wrote me a personal check at the horse show. The next day I could not find the damn check. I couldn't remember where I had put it and looked everywhere. Knowing I would catch it, I asked him if he had seen it. I definitely caught it and he yelled at me and berated me for a while, calling me "the dumbest smart person he had ever met" and told me I had better fix it. I called the gal and she gladly wrote me another check and put it in the mail. Problem solved. Except my kids had heard yet again how dumb their mom was and I had once again been convinced of how dumb I was.

It wasn't a couple weeks later that he was looking through his wallet for something and guess what he found? Yeah - he had had the check the whole time. I had given it to him for safe keeping. Did I get a profuse apology? No - he laughed and said it was still my fault for not remembering I had given it to him.

Years of being told I was dumb convinced me I was dumb. But worse, it convinced my beautiful baby girls that I was dumb. A final straw was one day when my oh so humble baby girl Sophie said, "I get my good looks from you and my smarts from my daddy." Out of the mouths of the babes as they say. I knew then that it wasn't okay anymore. It wasn't okay that I was being made to feel dumb, but it was for sure not okay that my children were being convinced that their momma was dumb.

I got out of that miserable marriage. A marriage where this dumb person had everyone convinced that things were just great. Where this dumb person covered for her husband's drinking so much, that most people (including her own children) had no idea how bad it had gotten and daddy was passing out at least a couple of nights a week. This dumb person held together a family and raised those two girls almost singlehandedly while working two jobs and 50 - 60 hours a week. Pretty good for a dumb person. Life does get better and don't ever let anyone tell you you're dumb. Especially someone who, when you're having an argument and you tell them not to be condescending, yells back at you not to use big words. Just saying.