Make sure that you always look nice for him. Or else he will make a face and say something like “Why don’t you go and put something else on, honey?” and you will know that you must go and put something else on and that it wasn’t a question at all and that he is just calling you honey because it’s convenient to him. And then later in the night he will say something like “I’ve been thinking about our living arrangements” and he will say that he wants to live together and share a king size bed and you think that there’s nothing that you’d enjoy less but you say yes because you don’t want to make a scene. When you get home you try to tell yourself that you’re relationship is fine and that you love him, you really do.
Make sure to wash AND iron his clothes for him. Don’t dare make him do it. Men hate laundry. If you don’t do his laundry for him, one day he will come downstairs in the morning asking “Where is my damn suit?” and you will mumble an answer about how it just came out of the wash and he will start yelling about things that are irrelevant and then he will tell you that people won’t take him seriously at work if his suit is not washed AND ironed. He will then ask you rhetorically if that’s what you want. You will shake your head no in response to his question, but also to your own interpretation of it. Is this what you want from life? No. He will stomp off and a few minutes later you will hear the front door slam. And then you will run upstairs and collapse in a heap on the king size bed and cry and ask God why this is happening and you will realize then how truly unhappy you are. And then when he comes home later in the evening drunk and smelling of perfume with lipstick marks on his cheeks, you will not scream at him. You will not pack your things and leave immediately. You will calmly walk him to the king size bed and undress him and pull the covers up to his lipstick covered face and you will see how peaceful he looks when he’s asleep and you will almost forget, but you don’t.
Make sure to act happy when you tell him the news. He will yell at you if he thinks that you aren’t happy. So put on a smile and announce in your most sing-song voice that “George.. I’m pregnant” and then hug him and kiss him and then make love to him on the king-size bed. But when he’s asleep, cry as much as you want. Cry because you should be happy that you are having a baby, that you have always wanted to be a mother. Cry because he was overjoyed. Cry because you know that you’re trapped. And when your girl grows up, don’t ever let her see how upset you are. When you’re with him, make sure to give him everything that he wants, that way he won’t yell at you in front of your daughter. Ignore the crude jokes that he makes about you when he’s with his friends. Ignore it when he grabs you and pulls you close and gives you a big, wet kiss on the mouth. Ignore it when he comes home every night smelling of whiskey and cigarettes and sex. Pretend that you don’t care. But make sure to tuck him in every night.
Always prepare his food for him. And tell your daughter to eat her vegetables or else she won’t grow. And as the years progress, your daughter getst older and then all of a sudden there are only be two people to feed again and you suddenly hate that you made her eat her vegetables because she grew up too fast. You begin to think about your daughter and then you start to cry and he asks you for his food and all of a sudden you snap and yell at him and tell him how much you hate him, but watch out for his fist because it hurts. And then you sit on the living room floor cradling your face and cry and cry and cry until you are done crying. Then you can go upstairs and find him asleep in the bed and you stand there and hate him and will yourself to hurt him, but eventually you decide not to. Sit on the bed and think about leaving him but then realize that this is your life and you are old and there is nowhere else for you to go. Then slowly put your pajamas on and get ready to sleep. But make sure to tuck him into the king-size bed. The bed fit for a king.