contempt

people who've been married for any amount of time need to be showing us what love looks like

they should be smiling at each other and laughing at each other's jokes not making jokes at each other's expense, they should hold hands and make beautiful homes full of pictures and paintings and candles, they should plant roses if they can - or cacti - they should share lives not rooms

they should not live their lives handcuffed to each other, skirting conversation and confrontation, running in circles from the truth of having missed out-of having sold out-of never searching-of it never having even been an option

They should be celebrating their children's relationships, they should be rooting for their happiness, they should be ambassadors of the institution that claims it stands for love and mutual support but looks like systemic social content and tax breaks
like quiet houses when the kids have left, like jokes about husbands installing Blue Whale in their wives' phones, like fathers rolling their eyes as mothers nag, like children insecure in love, like children unsure of love, like children hurt because they don't know what love looks like

//

you cannot love who you think is beneath you