i don't care what anyone thinks, i want britney to succeed

It's not just for me, it's for all of my fellow Southern girls, the smart and the bless-her-heart-dumb alike. Even if Brit were a rocket scientist ('cuz God knows she ain't), as soon as an exaggerated diphthong comes out of our mouths, they assume our IQ drops at least 20 points.

The girl does make me angry sometimes though - like when she uses the "but we're country!" excuse. I let loose an involuntary "uuuggghhh," watching her blow an opportunity to actually break, not live up to, stereotype.

I digress. Once her mental health issues became apparent last year, I started looking at her in a different way. A girl in a strange town, family on the other side of the country, trying to find some semblance of stability and a family of her own. I know that feeling all too well.

I, too, rushed into a marriage. And as the child of divorced parents, you're that much more determined to "succeed" at marriage. Granted, Britney's parents have only recently divorced, while mine have been divorced since I was 12. But her fresher pain only drove her that much more intently. *She* proposed to KFed. I planned my own proposal, down to the ring style and location. And we found men willing to go along, whatever their motivation. I wanted children, my ex didn't. He too preferred to lay around the house while I worked, while accusing *me* of being materialistic.

The moral of the story is the same - turn a girl's world upside down, especially a Southern girl whose family is always top on the priority list, she will grasp at the first chance for anything that feels familiar, comfortable and stable. Marriage, with its predefined societal roles, feels safe - the parts we are expected to play are already known to both partners. And what are you supposed to do after you're married? Have babies, of course! And then we'll have the happy family we always wanted because, damnit, we learned from watching our parents mess it up.

Only, we didn't learn from it. What we learned was what we saw. Our blueprint for adult relationships was imprinted from those childhood observations.

The Britney I see now is in a place I also know - on the other side of divorce, but in control again, on the uphill climb. The light is in her eyes again, her determination is back. She's survived some very real pain, and she's ten times as confident for having those experiences. Maybe it's time she revisited her song, "Stronger," for a grown-up remix.

I also went through a mistake of a marriage and the inevitable divorce that followed. But we learn that we create our own stability. We as strong women can buy our own homes, secure our own lives, earn our own money - and enough to live on.

I feel that in my own life, I have finally found the person I was always meant to end up marrying. He saw me through it all, and in going through it all, I saw what I really wanted in a life partner.

I hope Brit has learned some of the same things. And I hope that now that that first marriage, and all the expectations attached to it, is over, she'll be freer to choose someone for exactly who they are, not who they may become or what roles they're willing to play. As my own Southern momma says, "just because a man asks to marry you, doesn't mean you have to say yes."

But the next time it happens, and you know its for real, the yes will probably pop out of your mouth, with surprise and genuine happiness. Not because you're playing a part in a play you've written or because you're trying to hurry your life along faster than you should - but because you've found stability *and* love.