stuck again, or still

When something gets broken (a relationship) and it feels like the only way to fix it is to apologize for something you don't feel you were in the wrong for, then what?

You can say, well, I value this relationship and I want to do what's necessary to ____ (have to fill in that blank later).

Is it stubborn pride? Sometimes.

But what if it's something deeper than that? Like a fear that if you let that little thing slip by, without comment, it sets a precedent for other (boy am I having a hard time writing this, even thinking about it! It so goes against everything my family seems to believe. The 'rules', so to speak.)

It's like, either you play by our rules, or you aren't welcome here. Kind of like belonging to a club. Even when I was a little girl I didn't like their rules - didn't like being bossed around, didn't like being treated like my feelings didn't matter. Stood up to my father, as best I could (though something happened in my teenage years - puberty, maybe? that put me in a tailspin of self-doubt from which I seem to have never recovered. This is ringing some bells about works that discuss how strong, outspoken 11- and 12-year-old girls suddenly go silent at puberty, something to do with the social pressures to conform to being 'feminine'. Carol Gilligan wrote about this, if I'm remembering right. Have to go look later.)

So once again, the same damn lightbulb, over and over again: Fucking patriarchy. Either you conform, or you're out. You're on the outside, in the cold, alone, shunned (makes me think of Clan of the Cave Bear).

I sit here in my hermitage whiling away the hours, safely far away from all these conflicts. Then, bam! The instant I leave the house I'm confronted with the ugliness in some form or other, whether from some random guy passing on the street, or a neighbor, or what have you.

There's a pretense at respect from some men; and as I say that I realize it's not quite what I mean. But I'm going to leave it there until I figure out exactly what I do mean.