I think I'm a walking oxymoron. Let me explain.

My dear mother raised me as a single parent after she and my father parted ways when I was 13. In reality, she was a "single parent" way before that. In all her infinite wisdom and knowledge, she taught me to be independent and cautious of a man's intentions, burning into me the hard lesson that she learned from being with my dad. I really can't blame her for that.

Fast forward 11 years. After a handful of failed long-term relationships, I had finally met someone with very strong potential to be a life partner. All the other boys I'd met (and I do mean boys) struggled with my independent nature. One of them even tried to take me back 100 years to the pre-women's rights era and make me more submissive. I'm sad to say it almost worked. What do they call that type of behavior again? Oh yes, stupid.

So there I was on the brink of tying the knot with a nagging question on my mind. I turned to the one person who I thought could give me an answer: my mother. "Mom," I asked, not even sure how to phrase the question. "How am I supposed to let a man take care of me?"

There was a short pause on her end of the phone before she said, "Well, you have to make your husband feel like a man and you do that by letting him take care of you."

"But you raised me to be independent," I replied, "so I'm not sure I know how to do that."

"It's different when you are married," she explained. "You have to listen to your husband."

I wasn't sure that I was liking her answer at this point, so I said, "You know that goes against everything you taught me growing up."

My mother simply said back, "I know." Go figure my love life feels like a game of Jenga sometimes.