I find it difficult to maintain high levels of pique for long. After writing yesterday’s update, I found that even just the writing-it-out of the whole thing brought me down another level or two, and the rest of the day I was feeling markedly better: forgetting about it, feeling like it didn’t matter so much, feeling sheepishly like I’d built a mountain out of a molehill, feeling things slipping back into normal. It was hard to tell which feelings/thoughts were the Right Ones: the earlier ones, when I was thinking this incident (and others like it) could be THE BEGINNING OF THE END? Or the later ones, when I was thinking this incident (and others like it) were the routine disappointments of sharing life with others, and just meant I needed to tweak things a bit in the future? Or maybe some of each? It is so hard to tell.
Anyway, I wasn’t sure how to approach it with Paul, but then there was a sort of perfect set-up of quiet children and the right sort of moods and me Feeling Able, and I pounced on the chance. And even just in the first few minutes, seeing his open uncomprehending face, I could see what this was going to be: more work than I wanted to do. I finished expressing how sad I’d been; I told him what it was like seeing my Facebook feed ALL DAY full of other families doing things to celebrate; I told him that the whole thing had been so inexplicable, I’d considered explanations such as him having brain tumor, or him wanting a divorce, or the children thinking I was a crummy mother.
And he was just so baffled by it all. He couldn’t even respond except with a sort of soothing patting. He was listening, he was paying attention, he wasn’t defensive or making excuses—but I could see that it was going to take SO MUCH WORK to get him from seeing things his way to understanding my point of view. I would need metaphors and similes and relevant examples from the world of computers. I would need to work HARD, and it would be EXHAUSTING, and it would involve frustration and fighting and tears—and at the end of it he would briefly understand, and that understanding would last for about a day, and then without endless shoring up it would drop away again and I’d have to start at the very beginning next time. And after more than 20 years of this, I am tired of it. I don’t think I want to do any more of it. I don’t think I can change this about him. I am Sisyphus deciding to leave the rock at the bottom of the hill this time and maybe put that energy into country line-dancing or my friendships or something.
The thing I realized last night as I was deciding NOT to take on that workload is that he really does not care. I don’t think he can help it. I think with huge effort on his part and mine he can get to the point where he understands what it would be LIKE to care or why OTHER PEOPLE care, but it doesn’t make HIM care. He cares about my feelings only to the extent that they affect him: if I’m sad or angry, he wants to fix that because it’s uncomfortable for him if I’m sad or angry. But he’s not thinking, like, “I wish I could KNOW HER MIND better! I want to UNDERSTAND her! I wish I knew what she was feeling!” At all. And he’s not going to. He is willing to sit and listen to me try to explain it to him, but it’s similar to the way I am willing to let him explain the computer problem he’s trying to solve at work: I don’t care about it at all, and I don’t really understand it either, but I don’t mind if he wants to tell me about it.
I realized I do a lot of routine system checks to see how I’m doing as a person/mother/wife: things like, this isn’t working, what can I think of to fix it or improve it? Or: this is a temperament flaw of mine; can I fix the flaw, or do I need to find a way to work with it, or do I need to find a way to keep it from harming others? What are some relatively easy ways I could make the kids’ lives happier? What are some things I could do to keep myself from getting frustrated or yelling at them? What are some things I could do to make Paul feel happier at home? What are the things that seem to make him feel more content, and are there any of those I could improve on? Are there things I could do (sock-pairing, bed-making) that would be small and easy for me but make him feel a lot happier? Things like that are routine things for me to be thinking about.
What has occurred to me is that Paul does not do this at all, and that is part of what is hurting my feelings and confusing me. He is not evaluating his own behavior, wondering what he could do to be a better father or husband and then working on those things. He is not wondering what he could do to to make our marriage better. Because of the way language works, it sounds harsh to say he “doesn’t care” about those things, or that those things are “not priorities,” though I think both statements are accurate. It would be fairer to say something more along the lines of those issues not being on his radar, or not being part of his own systems-scan, or not being included in his pre-sets, or whatever. It’s not that he thinks “Be a better husband? Who cares about THAT?,” it’s that he never analyzes himself in that way or wonders about things like that. He cares about being a better programmer, and he cares about acquiring more knowledge about things, and he cares about being a better gardener. (I would have to use all of this in a conversation trying to make him care about caring about being a better husband, and then I would have to draw careful parallels, and we’d still only just be getting started on a long, long road.)
I don’t want to treat him like a child or like someone who is just soooooooo rational he needs irrational woman-things explained to him carefully, and I don’t want to buy into the idea that he needs me to tell him what to do because he can’t figure this stuff out—but it seems like what is needed here is a way to cope with this gap for the duration of our relationship, considering the gap IS THERE. Like, am I willing, in exchange for a happier, more peaceful life, to say things to him such as, “This upcoming event is important to me. It will make me sad if you do x or y. It will make me happy if you do anything within the category z, with z defined as ‘thoughtful things that show appreciation/caring’. Some candy and/or a non-browning supermarket bouquet would also be pleasing, but not necessary. I like tulips, btw, or mixed bouquets.”
This all just SMACKS of being his personal puppeteer. It’s not that I don’t think I could do this; it’s that it’s hard to see the results being satisfying: if I’m going to program him through the actions, why not save myself the time/effort and do it myself? How is “he” doing it if I’m the one writing the script and the stage directions? Why, in this relationship of two adults, am I in charge of how both of us behave? And I suppose the answer is “Because I care about that” and/or “Because his behavior affects me, and he evidently can’t/won’t handle his own.” Honestly, who DID think marriage was a good idea? Two people who can’t figure each other out or get what they need from each other, living together for decades until one of them LITERALLY DIES AND THEIR LIFE IS OVER? What a great plan!
Well. Despite getting a little ranty just now, this morning I am feeling even less pique than yesterday. I feel like I can talk to the children about what happened and make them feel the right amount of bad without there being any weeping or overdoing it on my part. I feel like I can continue living with Paul and allow things to go back to normal (with tweaks and preventative tweaks as things go along), and I am no longer thinking things like “Let’s see, what makes most sense is if I stay in the house with the kids and we get him a condo in the same neighborhood…,” and I will be alert for signs of mental deterioration, hearing loss, mental issues, mid-life crisis, etc., that could be having their own effects. I liked a LOT of the things you guys said that I hadn’t even thought of, like life changes and stressors and so forth. On one hand it’s hard to see those things having an affect on how he treats me on Mother’s Day; on the other hand, thinking back to my OWN times of stress and/or despair, I know there were things where I would think “I just can’t deal with that right now”—and they often were things unrelated to the source of stress. Like, I’d be stressed about something happening with politics, and it would give me that panicky “I just CAN’T” feeling about sending in stuff for a bake sale. That’s not a good comparison because no one person is personally neglected by me if I don’t contribute to the bake sale, but I’m having trouble thinking of a better one. BECAUSE I WOULD NOT HAVE DROPPED SOMETHING THAT WOULD MAKE ANOTHER PERSON FEEL PERSONALLY NEGLECTED BY ME, I WOULD HAVE DROPPED SOMETHING ELSE.
I am curious to know how to conversation goes with the children. Obviously you are realizing some hard things about your marriage, but it seems like your kids are old enough to have really dropped the ball here too. Did they not know it was Mother’s Day? Even a six-year-old can make a card with supplies from around the house. Maybe Paul can’t be taught how important it is be consistently thoughtful to his loved ones on their special days, but you have four potential future husbands-to-other-people within your sphere of influence, and maybe it’s not too late to help them understand that all people who want to have healthy relationships should do their share of emotional labor.
Also, how would Paul feel if you took the same hands-off approach to Father’s Day and his birthday? I’m asking not in a tit-for-tat way, but in a genuine curiosity way. Does his lack of interest in doing Special Occasion things for you mean that he doesn’t care much either way if you do or don’t do Special Occasion things for him?
This is a smart question. Maybe he genuinely wouldn’t care if you took a hands off approach to Father’s Day and his birthday. It would be a hugely interesting experiment.
This was almost exactly what I was thinking. Both as to the children and Paul. My husband does try to make these days special, but requires a frustrating amount of explanation about what I would like. But, I am not hurt by it, because he doesn’t particularly want a celebration on his days.
Aww, Swistle. I very much understand the feeling of, “Why are we, two extremely opposite people, in this relationship? Who thought this was a good idea?!” I know in your last post you briefly mentioned counseling as a Last Resort sort of thing, but I would gently encourage you to give it a try–if not marital counseling for the both of you, then just for you alone. It’s very helpful even when things aren’t dire or an emergency–it can really help you process your feelings and give you some strategies for deciding what’s a hill worth dying on and what can be let go. Plus, someone HAS to listen to you for a whole hour, and what’s better than that? :) Take care of yourself–your little community here is rooting for you.
Yes! The part that struck me the most was , “what is needed here is a way to cope with this gap for the duration of our relationship…” This is exactly the type of thing that a couple of sessions with a marriage counselor can help with. Let them do the work with you, and it won’t feel so heavy. You’d be surprised at what just one or two sessions can do.
This seems to me to be the great benefit of marriage: you’re stuck with someone long enough that your annoyances about their shortcomings fade a little and seem not worth fighting about.
That said, it’s been my experience that giving my husband explicit directions about what I want (e.g., I want you to coach the kids to do something nice to mark the occasion, like doing my chores for me, and get me a card and maybe flowers) and him executing on those instructions gives me exactly the same kind of happiness as if he had just thought of it himself. I didn’t think it would — I wanted him to be thoughtful enough to figure it out himself–but it turns out it’s ALSO thoughtful to listen and do exactly what the other person is telling you they need.
I hope you feel recognized and appreciated, however that comes.
Yes, I agree with this point. I also have learned that I need to give my husband specific instructions, multiple times of my exact expectations for any holiday or event. While I don’t know if it would equal the happiness I’d have if he had been thoughtful of his own initiative (he doesn’t tend toward that, so I can’t compare it), it is remarkably better than how I felt in previous situations–him at the store at 5pm on my birthday calling me to ask what I want while I’m at home with the kids; him completely forgetting that I am also a mother on my first mother’s day when our first child was 2 weeks old and not acknowledging that holiday for me at all; and many, many more. So in an ideal world, he’d remember special days in advance and put thought into what would make me happy. But in reality, I put the thought into what will make me feel happy and appreciated, and I tell him what that is several times.
I agree with this point as well — another data point for you. Specifically regarding my birthday, our anniversary, and Mother’s Day, I spent several years feeling sad and deflated and guilty and then this year I simply decided to make the plans myself. I told my husband what I wanted for my birthday, which was a day off, and I made an appointment for a massage and a facial, and I told him where I wanted to go for dinner. Same exact thing for Mother’s Day. And even though I thought it would INCREASE the despairing hopeless martyrish feelings — the feelings that I Alone Am In Charge And No One Else Can Be Bothered To Think Of Me At All — it instead relieved me of all of them. I got exactly what I wanted. I did not spend any energy resenting anyone’s lack of preparation or thoughtfulness. And I enjoyed both days. It was a pleasant surprise. I am going to do the same thing with my anniversary.
It’s not the same as having someone be thoughtful and generous and thinking all about you. It’s not. But it’s a very good second best.
Oh Swistle, I love you! I have not commented on either Mother’s Day post but I did read them and relate to them. But I relate to this one the most. My husband has some serious character flaws (as do I) but, in general, I let them slide. He does mostly try. (And I KNOW there are lots of things about me that completely baffle my husband- he is a type A all the way and I am… not. Do people actually pick things up off the floor the first time they see them?) For my last birthday, he forgot to order me flowers, went to the store to buy some and came home without them, but with a buggy full of groceries. I mean, what in the actual heck?? But I, similar to you, recognized that I did not want to expend the emotional energy being upset and just pretended I wasn’t. And he did order me flowers and chocolate for Mother’s Day, which was a nice surprise but also a rare occurrence.
Anyway, the main thing I was thinking about through all these posts is that before I even got married I started to notice that lots of the men in my family were annoying in ways and that for the most part, their wives ignored it. Both my grandparents made it 50+ years – both my grandfathers had decidedly annoying characteristics that my grandmas mostly put up with. I have one uncle who is just obnoxious (but not mean) when drinking and my aunt (who is a successful,pretty, wealthy business exec in her late 50s – not a doormat by any stretch of the imagination) mostly just leaves the room and ignores him completely. I do find my Dad to be annoying too and my mom actually goes after him, but that doesn’t result in a change of action/behavior. I don’t know what this means. Maybe all the men find it to be opposite and see the women as annoying and the men as tolerant- I don’t know! I also always think of that saying – “You’d never want to be married to your best friend’s husband” because you know so much about their marriage and the individual faults involved.
That is such a good point, and one I’ve noticed as well as I am getting older and more seasoned in my marriage and motherhood. I also have noticed that with every passing year, I personally enjoy the company of women more (and enjoy the company of men much less), and I notice that I give women many more passes for any mistakes/personality issues. Maybe because I understand them more, or maybe because I understand the world we all have to live in? I do wonder if men experience the same thing as well.
Yup.
Yup. My give-a-damn is busted. I just cannot with men and their ways anymore.
In situations like this, and I have a lot of them, I think of ways I can teach my kids how to be the partner I wish my husband was. How they can learn to listen to others feelings and anticipate what others might enjoy. How to be a good, caring partner and friend, so their partner won’t have to wonder why my sons’ mom (it’s always the mom that gets blamed for this) didnt teach her children how to be a good life mate. It turns my focus away from the awful task of trying to change a fully formed man onto shaping my little kids into better humans. It doesn’t help the moment of my own disappointment, but it does give me something to do. And often that helps. xo
Do you know about the Love Languages? I know couples for whom it’s been very very helpful to recognize their own Love Language and their partner’s. I wonder if what you’re interpreting as “don’t know, don’t care” would fit a little differently into the Love Language model?
http://www.5lovelanguages.com/
This! “Gifts” (giving & receiving) is the lowest on my husband’s Love Language list and once I learned that (the hard way, of course), our marriage improved greatly. I still get a little down and disappointed around my birthday, Mother’s Day and Christmas because he’d rather *do* something that I’ve asked for – put in a sprinkler system, build a firepit in the backyard, etc. and then the actual day rolls around and there is barely a mention of the occasion. But, when he does buy me something, for a special occasion or just because he happened upon it and he knew I’d love it, I am overwhelmed by his thoughtfulness because I know it’s super hard for him to think of showing love that way.
I’ll also add that my husband, like Paul, is a computer/software development guy. Perhaps it’s just that “engineering” brain that cannot grasp the concept?
This 2X !
I was going to mention this as well. Please take a look at the definitions bc it sure clarified all of my relationships ( sibling/bf/bosses) where I was continuously thinking wth?!
I would be really surprised to learn that Swistle has not heard about the Love Languages.
I have heard of them but never actually read the book. SIGH OKAY FINE I WILL READ IT
You can just take the quiz, I think!
Or just read what they are — if you have any self-awareness, you’ll know what yours is.
I was thinking about suggesting this book/test/philosophy, too (and assuming you knew about it)! I will add my annoyance that when my husband and I took the test, he thought the “best” result was to have roughly equal scores in the various languages, which to him indicated that one was well rounded. (Um, there is no “best” result in a self-analytic tool.)
By the way, the “gifts” language for me is way low, and I realized that I have probably been disappointing my own mother, who I believe values gifts very much. Sigh.
I find the Love Languages thing helpful, and realizing that Physical Touch is my top love language really was a lightbulb moment for me. HOWEVER, it only goes so far if the other person not only doesn’t understand their own love language or can’t express what it is, but is in fact completely MUTE and also DEAF and SPEAKS AND/OR UNDERSTANDS NO LOVE LANGUAGE AT ALL, living instead an emotional Hellen Keller-esque existence. The entire concept relies on the premise that the people affected care to begin with, and also are even ABLE to hear/speak love languages.
I took the test recently and was initially shocked – and then not so much after thinking about it – that gifts barely registered on my language list. But that’s because it is receiving gifts that I don’t care about, in comparison to all the other things. I like to give gifts I know people (e.g., my kids) will like almost as much as I like to receive (and give) acts of service, which was far and away my highest score. I wish they distinguished between the love language you like to have spoken to you versus the love language you like to speak, if that makes sense, because they can be quite different.
Oh, Tessie — Is it bad that your heartfelt and valid rant also made me laugh?
I see the same problem with Love Languages that I saw with Deborah Tannen’s “You Just Don’t Understand,” which made some good points about different ways/goals of talking. A friend’s husband read it and understood the point about differences, but his follow-up was “If all ways of communicating are equally valid and you know I want to problem-solve, why can’t I keep indulging in this behavior you do not like? Why can’t you use your knowledge to change the way you react rather than asking me to use my knowledge to change the behavior that triggers that reaction?”
Which is to say that if the only reason someone is willing to learn about human interaction is to get himself more slack, rather than also to understand how to accommodate their partner’s preferences, why bother with the learning/teaching? I don’t want the earrings or the backrub or the dead mouse, and if you are capable of adjusting your behavior, I expect you to make that effort.
This is a similar kind of thing…and although I technically know that the evidence behind Myers Briggs is pretty iffy, I still find it helpful.
https://personalityhacker.com/personality-type-ask-love/
Unfortunately, supposedly I’m “Do you think I’m totally competent?” and my husband is “I will check in regularly and make sure you’re okay.” which explains why so many of our arguments are about how he constantly second guesses everything I do.
I would also strongly suggest enneagram work. It has been extremely eye opening for me and my relationships (husband, family, etc.). It’s way more than Myers-Briggs, it’s therapeutic.
There are quizzes you can take online, but I think extensive reading about the types is the most accurate way of figuring out which number you are.
https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-descriptions/
Recommended reads:
The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery Hardcover by Ian Morgan Cron
The Path Between Us: An Enneagram Journey to Healthy Relationships by Suzanne Stabile
Yesss, the Enneagram is amazing on a personal level and for understanding your relationship. Of course this assumes willingness on the part of both parties to take the damn test.
Yes, this! I’m curious what Paul’s love language is and if he attempts to show his love in the same language.
That’s a good point. I recently took the quiz with my boyfriend and it was helpful but I wished there were two quizzes. One on how you like to receive love and one for how you like to give it, because they might not be the same.
I have thoughts too. Of course this resonates – it must with every longish-married couple, even if the particulars vary. For example, my husband is constantly telling me he wants me to show more affection. And so I will go out of my way to get his favorite beer or make a dinner he likes or do dishes for him (dishes are ‘his’ chore and laundry is ‘mine’ – we have a sort of flexible division like this down the line, although we are off loading more to the children as they age). And none of that will work because it’s not what he wants – he wants goopy professions of love, which is very much Not My Thing and makes my skin crawl, to receive or give. Meanwhile I want him to notice little things I like, like pick up a favorite ice cream or totally do bedtime on a night I’m
Exhausted (we usually handle it together). And he gives me goopy professions of love instead. It’s the Five Love Languages clear as day, and we are both fully aware of it and yet when other life stresses get us down, we revert to these Less Useful And Frankly Ineffective ways of showing love, which is just depleting. How, 15 years later, can we still be missing the mark? I suppose it is because our lives are hard and we are tired, and there is only so much bandwidth to go around. Not very satisfying. Anyhow I guess the point is I feel you. After much training, my spouse is better about Mothers Day and such. But there are still lots of areas where we both need more work than we have capacity to give, and I sometimes wonder if marriage is just about slogging through these child rearing years hoping you stay connected enough to reconnect for real once they’re gone, and you have actual energy to work on you again (in particular, You Not Being An Asshole Spouse). I don’t know. I turn 40 soon, it’s a contemplative time for me I guess.
One thing that I’ve seen people like your husband do in order to maintain their relationships (and something I’ve done in the past to maintain relationships in periods when I was depressed and not feelin’ it naturally) is schedule calendar reminders with task lists. Even if his only goal is to avoid having to have this conversation with you next year, he can set reminders for the week before Mother’s Day, birthday, etc. to do specific things. There are technological solutions to being emotionally oblivious.
(Also: a woman who behaved in the way he does would have a very hard time staying married, especially with children. Typically at least one partner needs to step up to do the emotional labor you do, or everyone is miserable. Men are often allowed to push that all off onto women, which isn’t cool, and saying “oh it’s just because men are men/ because that’s who he is” doesn’t really cut it, especially when this behavior is being modeled to their children as totally fine. It’s still his responsibility, as a father and a spouse, to step up even if it doesn’t come naturally.)
This is…..really important.
Especially especially especially re: the modeling of behavior.
Thanks for articulating this.
I just want to thank you for putting words to the way I have been feeling about my own marriage and being the one who does the routine checks with a spouse who does not think that way. Even though I have no idea how to mold this into a better situation or even if I want to take on that work (SO MUCH WORK), at least I have words to frame the feeling. I’m sorry for the situation altogether but glad for someone else who gets it and to see several options more clearly. Sending good vibes for a more positive trajectory in the very near future.
The line that stuck out to me in this post was “What are some relatively easy ways I could make the kids’ lives happier?” What ARE some ways (let’s forget the husbands for a moment)? Can we circle back to this when you’re in the mood? I’d like to hear your thoughts, and also copy them.
I occasionally struggling with the thought that I put more effort into my romantic relationship than into my relationship with my kid these days (low maintenance kid/easy age, but still). I’d like to brainstorm some easy ways to make her life better!
It’s most likely to be the kind of stuff you’re already doing; I feel a little embarrassed listing things as if they are special. But sometimes I turn my mind to a child and I realize there are things I’m preventing because of my own preferences (like, I’d prefer not to go places or do things or spend money), and they’re things that would actually be easy and fun to do (like, I can take them somewhere where I can sit and play on my phone while they do something they’ll love, and yes it’ll cost some money but it’s worth it to THEM even if not to me; or yes it’ll be boring for me but it’s cheap and it’s only an hour; or whatever). Or, like, a kid likes to try different fruits, and it is not all that much trouble for me to sometimes bring home a fun fruit. Or I’ve noticed they all seem to get a big lift if there is a Little Treat of some sort when they come home from school, so I try to regularly bring home Little Treats: a new kind of weird Oreo, some Little Debbie cakes, some cookies. Or I’ll force myself to take them all to see a movie even though that is Hella Expensive To Bring So Many Kids, because it is the one movie they have asked to see in the theater. Or a kid will seem to be having a rough time, so I’ll offer to make their lunch that day (normally they have to make their own lunches and they hate it) or I’ll ask if they want to get hot lunch at school that day. Or they all like page-a-day calendars, so I make sure to get a few of those each year. Or I’ll offer to play a game, even though I don’t really want to (VERY RARE). Or Elizabeth will clearly be losing the fight with her long hair (she’s supposed to take care of it herself) and I’ll just casually appear while she’s watching TV and I’ll work on her tangles for awhile. Or I’ll make an extra effort to really PAY ATTENTION when a kid is telling me an extremely boring thing, and I’ll set a goal of asking One Question That Makes Me Sound Interested Even Though I’m Totally Not.
I’ve had to read this twice. And I think I’ll read it a few more times. It does sort of beg the question about marriage – which I have asked myself many times. Who came up with this terrible idea? But, this post did inspire me to give words of affirmation to my DH (his love language, absolutely not mine) because I was thinking that I want him to be happy. And it’s a small thing that I can do, even though it feels unnatural and awkward, but whatevs.
Another comment. This post is going to haunt me, I think. In times I have asked DH whether he loves me, because I am truly unsure of the answer. And he is positively puzzled by this. Because in his mind – he comes home, he devotes his time to his family, he does not run around on me or spend his income on frivolous selfish things. Those are the things to him that are proof of his love. And I’m like, I want to see that me and my needs and wants and feelings enter into your thought process occasionally. It’s like we are operating in two distinct dimensions and everything looks upside down to the other. Because that list he gives me, is just a given to me. You do those things because you are a moral person. Or because it’s too much damn work to do otherwise. Those things don’t mean that you love me. And then he looks at me like I have three heads and we go back to our TV shows.
I have read your posts and all of the comments with much head nodding and understanding but have not commented until now because everyone else was covering it so well.
I don’t have advice to add but I wanted to commiserate that these kind of sore spots definitely plague my relationship too. H and I have been together for 21 years and there are two areas (let’s call mine area A and his area B) that we seem to regularly (every 6 months or so) argue about/let each other down on. They are such well worn issues that the last time we started on argument about area B, I actually asked H if we could just skip to the part where we admit we don’t see eye to eye and I will try to do better rather than spend the next hour talking/crying/hurting each other’s feelings. H was so taken aback that it actually worked. That said, the problem with both these areas is that both of us don’t just want the other to do better, they want the other to want to be better. After 21 years we fight about them less often and less angrily but they seem to be more exhausting because we are just so tired of having this same stupid fight. I don’t really have a conclusion here other than to say I feel like H and I have a really strong marriage, but area A and area B have always and probably will always plague us – the only bright light is that they plague us less often now probably because after 21 year we both try harder and expect less.
“try harder and expect less” — that would make an excellent wedding vow! (not kidding)
I highly recommend this podcast episode: “When Did Marriage Become So Hard” https://www.npr.org/2018/02/12/584531641/when-did-marriage-become-so-hard
“[A] marriage that would have been acceptable to us in the 1950s is a disappointment to us today because of those high expectations” is just one nugget from the episode.
Thank you! Rushing to download that right now!
Circling back to say I listened to this podcast and it was so interesting and insightful. Thank you for recommending it, it makes me feel less, I’m not sure what? Needy? Unusual? Frustrated?
Oh yay! I think it normalizes what a lot of people experience. It helped me think “OK, this relationship doesn’t have to fulfill X, Y, and Z. I can find other ways to do that.”
I think back to when my husband and I were first together, and we were often selfish, and also often caring, and there was a partnership going on. And then we had kids, and by having kids and being the primary caregiver, I ended up managing the feelings of other people. (Which is a normal part of raising and civilizing tiny humans.). And SOMEHOW, marriage + kids + patriarchy means that I am now apparently in charge of all the feelings and emotional management in this house. And it is exhausting.
When you are so accustomed to monitoring behavior in order fulfill needs to prevent a meltdown, does it just become normal to do that to everyone in the house? Or because you do it for everyone else, does the spouse feel entitled to it too?
At any rate, I have been the type to say “I want x, y ,z for this occasion”. It isn’t quite as lovely as when it is a surprise but I still find being celebrated to feel good.
One final thought I had, which would require some effort at the beginning, would be to sit down with Paul and have him call a florist shop and schedule flower delivery for certain dates every year, leave the credit card on file, and then every year you will have flowers. I wonder if a candy shop does this? Someone out there MuST have a subscription service for this sort of thing.
Thanks for the update.
Also, what was the Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfieffrr movie where they were getting a divorce but (spoiler) decided everyone is annoying and difficult, but they might as well stick with what they know?
The Story of Us
Thanks. I always found it sort of depressingly encouraging, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Although I remember it mostly as that movie where the preview montage was literally just a montage cut straight from the movie. Now that I’m old and married, I feel like I should give it another shot. Maybe on my birthday I can watch This Is Forty and The Story of Us and feel really good about life ;)
I was disappointed to read your update only because my husband has the same flaws with regards to caring about other people’s feelings etc and I had thought maybe there was hope he was trainable. Although why after 10 years together with no change I would think that year 11 would be the magic one, I don’t know.
My first Mother’s Day last year was extremely disappointing. Our daughter was two weeks old and I had said all I wanted was for him to make me breakfast and he forgot. He did after I reminded him, but it really wasn’t the same. This year, I lowered my expectations and bought myself a pair of earrings from him, but somehow, that wasn’t satisfying either. I just wanted some acknowledgement of the day.
I’m torn as to what to for Father’s Day as I am very much a “be the change” kind of a person. And yet, why should I have to make a big to-do, or even a medium to-do, when he couldn’t be bothered at all. Buying and writing a card about what a great dad he is seems a bit hollow, because although he is a great dad in most ways, he’s sort of a terrible husband and partner. Given we’ve been fighting about that very subject, it seems a bit confusing to suddenly say, “I couldn’t do this without you” when in fact, all signs point to the fact that I already do.
So thank you for writing as you explore your feelings about this. I don’t want to not be together. I want him to be better. But that seems a difficult lesson to sink in.
My husband’s birthday is always on or around Mother’s Day. This year, it was 2 days before. SO. As always, I took the kids and we got him cards and a gift, his favorite for dinner, his favorite drinks, baked him a from-scratch cake. The whole thing.
*I would like to interject here and say that our marriage has been rocky – and that’s being kind – for quite some time. We for sure have different love languages but after all this time and all this disappointment and bitterness, I have no desire to actually try to speak his and he sure as hell doesn’t ever try to speak mine. We also greatly disagree on the concepts of GROWING vs. CHANGING. I was NINETEEN when we got together and am 35 now. I mean, DUH, I have changed but to me it is not a fundamental change in who I am but moreso a GROWTH. He says that I want him to change and how dare I want him to change and be a totally different person! Why don’t I love on him like I did before (um, because I was 20 something with no kids or mortgage or…)?? And I’m all like wellll, I certainly don’t expect you to fundamentally change everything about you but like you could have at least grown frigging mentally in the last 15 years. Anyway…*
The day before MD, he makes this big todo about having to go out and “run errands” so I (stupidly) assume he is going out to prep for MD. Sunday morning rolls around and there is a card from him and one from the kids (ok, at least a card) but nothing else. No effort besides a card that HE KNOWS because I’ve said 10000 times, I’m not the biggest fan of. I’m just not a store bought card kind of girl. I tell him this bothers me, that I’m hurt after I put forth effort on his bday, etc. And what does he do? Turn it around. Why would he buy me something if I’ve told him I don’t want chocolates or flowers? Um, how about a gift card? That’s lame. I was like LAME IS BETTER THAN NOTHING. Then — and ohhhhh here is the KICKER I tell you — he finally says “you know, I don’t want to start anything but I want to tell you that I’m hurt.” Hurt about what?? “I’m hurt that you didn’t say Happy Birthday to me on Facebook and a few people asked me why [i.e. his winning parents and stepparents I guarantee]?” I was like ARE YOU FOR REAL. Are we in high school??? If I don’t profess my birthday tidings for you on FACEBOOK then it didn’t happen?? (See above: GROWTH, lack thereof) A) people need to mind there own business and B) I legit celebrated you – a man I am growing to greatly dislike at a faster and faster rate – but because I didn’t post to your social media wall and you’re butthurt over it, I don’t deserve any recognition on Mother’s Day?!?!
So, yeah.
Oh Lauren. I just want you to know I read this. And wow oh wow the “I don’t want to start anything but…” UGH.
This is not really additive, just restating what you’ve already said. But I was reading very intently the way you described your own system scans and how the things that are part of your normal checklist are not on Paul’s. I can relate to this so very much. And — by doing some creative thinking — I can *understand* how that is possible. (It’s the way I feel about car engines and plumbing; I just don’t think about them aside from regularly scheduled maintenance or unless something goes wrong.) And it’s useful to know what you’re dealing with, of course. But… what do you DO with that? Do you just shrug and say, okay, this is a fundamental incompatibility with our wiring, let’s find a way to work around it (sad/impossible)? Do you try to reprogram one or both of you (exhausting/impossible)? Do you trade in the incompatible model for one with a more compatible system (sad, exhausting)?
Right now, ten years in, I feel like this issue isn’t insurmountable for me and my husband. We (I) have found endurable workarounds. But I can see how it could continue to erode the other happy, working aspects of the relationship. So I guess I am just, like you, also hoping for guidance and strategies to navigate/overcome/bridge that gap in system compatibility.
Would you guys consider marriage counseling? I really don’t think of it as a last resort, but rather something that can help a lot when your relationship needs kind of a tune-up, and a lot of the things that you’re describing here fall into that category for me. Torsten and I did marriage counseling when we were in a similar place, albeit with a clear root cause (he wasn’t yet diagnosed or medicated for his ADD and anxiety the way he is now, plus he was at a horribly stressful job), and it helped SO MUCH. I am very familiar with the issue of it taking a lot of incredible work and slow conversation to help your husband understand basic things about your feelings and how to be a good spouse. Marriage counseling was like… taking a shortcut. Not having to push a rock up a mountain but going around the mountain instead, or something. He was SO MUCH MORE ABLE to hear and understand this in the counseling sessions than when it was just me there. I DO think Paul is capable of learning to be more thoughtful, and it sounds like he’s in some habits where he’s stopped noticing ways in which he could improve, and all of that is something that counseling can help with TREMENDOUSLY. And I am very much in the camp of: when you start feeling like there are things about your marriage that aren’t sustainable, but that you’re overall still satisfied with your marriage, THAT is the time to go to counseling, rather than waiting for everything to get terrible and everyone to have reached unfixable levels of resentment, defensiveness, contempt, etc.
In our counseling sessions we worked specifically on some of the issues you identify: I didn’t want to be the marital puppeteer, I wanted an equal marriage where my husband thought about me and noticed what needed doing and made me feel SEEN. Torsten needed coaching on how to proactively think about these things instead of just assuming everything was fine and/or I’d take care of it. Torsten was prioritizing other things like his job without realizing it and it was hurting my feelings. Our expectations weren’t aligned. Having a third party there really helped, not just by sharing insights that Torsten could hear better from her than from me, but also by forcing us to explain and consider how our actions and explanations sounded when said out loud to a neutral external person.
Also, if you do counseling, make sure the counselor is a woman. Insist if you have to. It will be so much better.
How how HOW can it be hard for him to understand??? “This is a day that mothers are honored and celebrated. I am the mother of your children. I would like to be honored and celebrated in some small way by you and our children, and my feelings are hurt when you don’t make the effort to do that.” WHY is that hard to understand? Why does he need much explanation and analogies drawn for him to get that??? I could explain that to a five year-old boy, and he would totally get it. Nope, I’m not buying it. This is an incredibly simple concept to grasp. I don’t think you should be letting him get by with the fabricated innocence, Swistle, the man cannot be that dumb. I bet he opened up those big ol’ innocent eyes every time he got in trouble with his mom and it totally worked on her. I say break that cycle and be married to a grownup who is accountable for his choices.
If you haven’t already I think you should choose something off your Amazon wish list and Treat. Your. Self. This is all so hard.
Oh Paaaaaul! The readers of Swistle were hoping for a satisfying explanation.
But then, your marriage isn’t there to satisfy or entertain us. So glad it’s hurting less, Swistle.
So I’m not a big holiday-celebrating person. All I got for MD was the handmade “art” that the kids brought home from daycare, but my husband said “Happy Mother’s Day!” very cheerfully when we first woke up, and he bathed the kids alone so I could go for a walk that night. I’m totally fine with that, and if I had wanted something I would’ve told him what it was and he would have bought it (or I would’ve bought it myself). In no event was I ever going to get a creative or thoughtful MD gift from him, and it’s not a problem for me. However, there are plenty of other marital issues that i am or have been concerned about over the years, so it is deeply bouying to me to read these posts and comments from you internet strangers. So I thank all of you for chiming in and sharing your stories! Thank you so much.
Thank you for these last 3 posts, Swistle. Hugs to you. I’m glad it is hurting less and I hope some change happens and things get better. I do like Jess’s comment on counselling. I think with the right counsellor things could get better/easier/brighter/more sustainable/happier….that is time and money well spent. (And I know that persuading Paul to go and finding the RIGHT FIT of a counsellor probably feels like a mammoth task).
The comments in general are gold. Great readers here.
It is disheartening to read this update and the responses from you all. But I appreciate this conversation and I hope the next generation of women find a way to make the labor in marriage more even. I sometimes wonder if our generation is stuck at this crossroads where we can clearly see and can express the inequities but can’t make the shift because the men are too old to change.
I have had the same problems in my marriage and have found myself often saying, okay yelling, “why did you want to get married if you don’t want the basic responsibilities of thinking about another person”! I have had a lot of long talks with my husband about being more considerate and his lame defense is that if he was single he would just not do the thing (cleaning, picking up, asking before making plans etc.) therefore it doesn’t occur to him. Like you said, he’s not a child who needs parenting but he acts like one. Basically, my ultimatum was “fine, do what you want and you will have a detached, distant partner and let’s see how long we both want to live like that”. He has gotten somewhat better since these talks. I don’t get as mad anymore. I also quit cooking for him. I hate doing it and he never appreciates it or thanks me. He has gained weight as a result and he has pointed out that his lack of self care has led to this. I think this has helped him see where putting effort into areas of his life that he doesn’t want to, actually benefits him. Dear Sugars podcast covered emotional labor a couple of weeks ago. I liked what they had to say about cultural norms https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/podcasts/listen-to-dear-sugars-the-invisible-work-most-women-do-with-gemma-hartley.html
That was a superior podcast.
The “standards” excuse is ridiculous. Imagine one partner has high standards for financial security (6 months safety net, pension contributions …) and the other partner has low standards. Does the low-standards partner get to do all of the spending and none of the saving? Hell no, that is free-loading and sabotaging. The financial security is everyone’s financial security, both partners are responsible for contributing, even if not evenly. Same with housekeeping. It is everyone’s home, everyone is responsible for contributing to its upkeep. It might be fair for the high-standards partner to do more of the work, but certainly not all of it just because their labour would keep the home constantly above the point where the other would notice independently.
Another vote for the Love Languages thing… it’s all I can think about when reading your posts.
I hope I do a good job of explaining this, as I barely feel like I have my head wrapped around it but — reading this entry, I kept thinking of the whole Aniz Ansari debacle, in which a woman detailed her experience dating him, and felt pressured into sex by him.
In the whole blow up of whether the story was just an embarrassing date gone wrong or something more, I read a comment I thought incredibly interesting.
I wish I had a direct link, but it pointed out that we often talk about men as socially inept or ‘not getting it’. But if you looked carefully at all of Ansari’s alleged behavior, you could make the argument that men are VERY clever at social situations — how many women have been in situation in which the man knows exactly how far they can push to get sex without doing something that is overtly inappropriate (even if it makes the other person super uncomfortable).
Men know how to maneuver in work settings to get raises, hired, etc. Men do all kinds of subtle, purposeful social interactions (All the varied responses to Trump’s hard jerk handshake come to mind). Men are mostly not socially awkward dim-bulbs who must be hand-held through any interaction with emotional content. Except in relationships, where the social standard is that they are allowed/required to be.
Anyway, this was a bit of a lightbulb for me in my marriage, when I felt trapped in whether to continue to explain myself on a certain point or simply give him a to-do check-list. Individuals of course are individuals, with their own stresses and other things going on. But after that Ansari comment, I felt like I could snap out of it and think, “Hey, I married an equal partner, and there’s nothing super complicated about what I want. Why am I treating him like this some barely comprehensible high level maneuvering when it’s actually pretty simple?” I was surprised that once I took that option out of the equation from my end that my husband was more likely to change his behavior.
In that regard, I was also able to reframe my thought process about my actions as well. Now, if I want something like you did on MD, and I don’t get it, I think to myself, “I’m doing it for myself, because I am modeling that this is what I deserve.”
Whew, I had a lot to say. Hope this helps and doesn’t hurt. You are definitely hitting on something that goes on in a lot of relationships, so I hope you get some good feedback that helps.
What an interesting comment! You are so right, men can read a room, and they “lean in” all the time, so why are they given a pass on the emotional work. Like you said, treating them like they are socially inept and can’t figure things out-that is a pass they’ve been given by many people. Lots of food for thought…
Aww, thank you for taking the time to say so! I was sweating it a little putting that comment out there :D
I also agree with a lot of this, and I’m pretty sure I read something pretty similar about the Ansari stuff. And I caught myself thinking something similar about my husband the other day: that he can teach and meet the needs of large groups of students, surely he is capable of reading the room where I am concerned. (Ok, he isn’t actually a teacher but to keep his profession a little secret I borrowed it.). But seriously, he excels at work, why do I accept/treat him as incompetent when it comes to dishes?!
I have been thinking about something sort of related to this. My thought is that when women are in traditionally male-dominated areas — which is, frankly, almost anything outside of the home — we are expected to adapt immediately and not only conform to the male model of that role but to EXCEED whatever the generally accepted standards are for men. Women have to work harder and smarter to get ahead because of the intrinsic bias against women in leadership/corporate/power positions. And women have more than stepped up to the plate to do this — not only to meet but to exceed standards. To some degree this is finally paying off with more women in high-powered positions, but we have a LONG way to go to get to equity because even when a woman has a flawless performance record, she will still be smacked down for some slight real or perceived infraction (she doesn’t smile enough or smiles too much or something absurd).
Yet here we are, in 2018, and people are still willing to find all KINDS of explanations and excuses for men when they fail to act in a way that is consistent with fundamental human decency. Here, in the context of a long-term marriage with children, it is an absolutely BASELINE, very LOW standard to be thoughtful on a particular special occasion. Not to organize a parade or find an obscure, extravagant gift, but to do EXTREMELY SIMPLE things to make the wife’s day nicer than an average day.
So on the one hand, we have women practically killing themselves to exceed expectations (at home, because the standards for parenting keep ratcheting up, AND in the workplace/in volunteer positions/in friendships, etc — and, by the way, being fired/criticized/dismissed as incompetent if they so much as hit the bar by which men are measured instead of the higher, women-standards bar) yet if a man fails COMPLETELY, he’s handed 100 Get Out of Jail Free cards. IT MAKES ME NUTS.
With due respect to everyone, I’m not able to countenance the argument that there is any excuse for Paul’s behavior or that Swistle has to be responsible for setting things up so that he’ll succeed in the future. Let’s start holding men to a higher standard than that, quit giving them medals for doing the bare minimum, and not take on even MORE invisible work for ourselves by doing things for ourselves so they don’t have to bother.
Consign all of the above.
I don’t have anything especially profound to say – man, marriage is hard.
I think part of the issue is that a lot of men (this is a BROAD, SWEEPING generalization, based on my knowledge of exactly my husband and Paul) may just…. lack natural empathy. It’s not that they’re complete sociopaths, but that it’s not a always a natural instinct the same way it is for a lot of women.
This is going to be me just kind of running with this in a direction that’s related but mostly tied up in my own thoughts about marriage…but I wonder if part of the problem is the misogynistic baggage we have in which a woman’s worth based on what quality of a man she can “land.”
A husband is fundamentally a member of your family (one that you chose, and could theoretically get rid of, but when there’s multiple decades and children involved, I’m not sure how much that matters). Wouldn’t it be nice if we could feel the same way about a disappointing husband as we do about a disappointing parent or sibling? Hold onto the love and commitment (and as relevant, shared responsibilities), but not be embarrassed as if this one person has the power to define your worth in the world, or if you find yourself needing some space and autonomy.
I keep thinking about all the aunts and great aunts I’ve read about in books, or heard about in my own family history. Did they have husbands? Nobody seems to really know or care.
Forgive me if someone has already brought this up, but is there a possibility that Paul is on the autism spectrum and has not been diagnosed? This relationship reminds me so much of my own marriage. My husband is very loving, compassionate, and good at lots of things, but there is often a large disconnect on things like this. After my oldest son was diagnosed with high functioning autism, my husband and I both realized, after re-examining some of his childhood behavior along with how he his now, that my husband is likely a little autism-y as well. He’s a computer programmer, too, by the way. I bring all this up because it helps me take my hurt feelings and reframe them and also let go of some things. I still get upset when he totally bails on holidays and birthdays, because I know he can do better, and he has in the past, but I no longer get upset by having to spell out in detail what I would like for him to do. I hope you can feel my good intentions and that this comes off in the spirit in which I intended, which is as a data point to consider, not as a character judgement.
I was just coming to say this too. I remember thinking on another post that Paul sounded very Aspie-ish but it was ages ago and I don’t remember which one now…
I have thought the same thing several times.
For some levity in these dark times may I share the Worst Mother’s Day gift I’ve ever received. The scene: I have our second child, a one year old, nursing and not sleeping still after doing all the nights and all the days and working full time and nonstop.
Part I: He asks me what I want for Mother’s Day. I say (having learned to be specific even after the previous year when I asked for bath stuff and he loaded it in the online cart but NEVER CLICKED ORDER) family photos please. Like, real ones.
Part II: Guys no joke but on Mother’s Day, I open a wrapped present and it. Is. LINGERIE. I am a f**ing exhausted mother of two. My nightmare is real. I cried.
Part III: Life happens, we move on. I say “he’s a terrible gift giver” and I’m done or so I think. Until a Father’s Day three years later when he’s mad that I didn’t make “more of a weekend out of it” after planning a camping trip and getting him a special ordered special gift he wanted and had the kids write sweet cards etc. When we got home, I a) said I believed he had narcissistic personality disorder b) said he had one year to figure himself out or else and c) took that lingerie which I had saved but never worn (of course!) and CUT IT TO SHREDS BEFORE HIS VERY EYES.
Rock bottom in a marriage looks like that! And guess what. He went to counseling, then we went to counseling and he got better and we got better and this year I planned a special camping trip for Mother’s Day and accidentally got a nice outdoor table and life is good. Marriages can and do come back from deep despair.
This is the best, thank you.
I love absolutely everything about this story.
You held on to that lingerie for three years. I love it.
This reminds me of the time when Oldest was 2, I was working FT, and H was traveling for work fairly often. For Mother’s Day he gave me a hammock. It was all I could do not to scream at him something like “when the hell was the last time I had 2 minutes to myself, never mind time to relax in a hammock?!” Note: I never really had a chance to use the hammock because Youngest came along and we gave the hammock away last year (12 years later) virtually untouched. I mean at least he tried, but his attempt was so tone deaf to the way my actual life was going it made me more hostile.
When you mentioned that you thought Paul was reading your blog (or had read the original Mother’s Day post) I originally thought that was a bad thing because knowing he doesn’t has allowed you to write a different kind of blog than the one you’d write if you knew he was reading. In some ways it’s a lot more honest than my blog which I censor because my wife and my kids and my mom and all kinds of other people I know read it. The best I can do sometimes is not say anything UNtrue but leave out or just hint at a lot of true (and relevant) things.
But after reading this post, I thought it might actually be a GOOD thing if he’s reading along. It will allow him to see into your thought process (and it’s a sign he has some interest in it). Clearly, you’re not letting this suspicion change the way you write.
As for love languages, I haven’t read the book either, but I’ve read some articles about them, which maybe oversimplify, but it’s clear to me my wife and I have different primary love languages and it’s one of the hardest things in our marriage to navigate. I often feel hurt by her devaluing what’s important to me and I know I’ve done the same to her. And this is despite both of us having a basic understanding of the problem and not wanting to hurt each other.
Ah, this makes sense. It’s like the idea of love languages. One of your love languages is the self scanning you were talking about: seeing how you can improve life for him and the kids. That is not his language at all – he shows you love in other ways. So when you’re talking in your language and wanting the same from him, he almost literally can’t comprehend it as a way to express love. It’s just not in his repertoire. He could repeat the words you’re saying (giving flowers, etc.) but that doesn’t mean he really understands it. It’s a foreign language for him. His love languages are another dialect.
Ha, scanning the comments above I see that I am not the first to make this connection. :-)
Honestly, your description of Paul’s mood-blindness when it comes to other people sounds more like a disorder than a character trait. I don’t know exactly what, but– it doesn’t sound like a brain that’s firing the way it’s supposed to.
I’m saying this as someone whose husband was diagnosed with a mood disorder about two years ago. He was having such issues that I pushed him to talk to a doctor about it. And, much to my surprise, he did. She referred him to a psychiatrist. He’s been on medication, which has helped immeasurably, but from what he says, him just knowing that the problem was his brain really changed how he dealt with things. He says that while he does still feel the moods, just knowing that it’s coming from within him and aren’t the fault of other people makes a difference in what he does.
If you can get Paul to a doctor to talk about it, see if he’ll let you come along to describe what you’re seeing? My husband was so unhappy that he recognized that there was a problem and he wanted it to be better. I don’t think Paul sounds like he has that insight or desire.
Ok your newest update is like reading my own brain. WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA. I am trying to find the right analogy lately and dogs/cats isn’t quite right but it’s the best I can come up with at the moment. Women are dogs. We are hardworking and loyal and care deeply about being useful and pleasing people. We will fetch and run and rescue and never give up. We put others’ needs above our own instinctually, we want to be the best dogs we can be. Men are cats. They are self-focused and emotionally inward and will take a break whenever they feel like it, thanks. They can be great to cuddle but it’s on their terms and then they’re going right back to sleep. It has been scientifically proven that they know their names but simply aren’t interested in answering to them. If you work very, very hard you can teach them to do something but no amount of bribing or cajoling is going to make them self-motivated to do that thing or be interested in it. Yet the only way for us to get puppies, something most of us desperately want, is to mate with a cat. And then we spend the rest of our lives trying to get that cat, who may love the puppies and us dogs very much, to take equal stake in their and our emotional needs. We try ceaselessly to make the cats more like dogs. It never sticks and we are always disappointed.
So on the one hand, women are martyrous fools. Of course it doesn’t work. We can love men and stay with them but they will never fulfill us as true teammates. Only other women can do that. We need to take action in making sure that we always have a pack. That’s on us and we (me) need to change to a Themyscira mindset. Men can give us babies and pleasure and fun but they are not built to meet all of our needs and so we spare ourselves the disappointment of expecting them to.
BUT ON THE OTHER HAND it takes an extraordinarily large amount of time and energy to maintain both a husband and children, all while men use their power to institute policies that pay us less money for more work and make us less safe, less educated, less respected, less free. In every society on earth. While also shoving down our throats from infancy the lies that we should both always be striving to please men and that we will never be good enough at it, and that if we ARE good enough at it this magical man will fulfill us. And so when we shave and starve and toil and sacrifice and still our needs aren’t met we think it is our own fault. Having the spare time and emotional reserves to maintain the female village we desperately need after that is almost impossible. It slips farther and farther down the priority list as we drown in people who take take take from us and fail at building us up.
In conclusion, women need other women and we (me) need to take some of our power back by redistributing the time and emotional resources we are putting into men to instead making those female relationships who really see us a priority. Also who the fuck put men in charge of the world.
/EndRant
Hmmm. My husband definitely meets your description of a dog and I am your cat all the way.
Amy, this is perfect in every way. Thank you for spending the time to type it out and share it. The kicker for me is that I am raising all boys and my priority is to raise them to be equal partners and fully ready for their share of emotional labor in their future relationships. My husband doesn’t fully understand my vision, but at least he’s not trying to thwart it.
Trying to think who my village would be…came up with a list of women who have moved away because of their husbands’ jobs = /.
Yes, that’s the thing…I had kind of given up on making progress on my relationship with my husband, and then we moved last summer, and I have been in bad shape since then. So it might be better to put the work in on your marriage now…eventually you’re going to be stuck in a nursing home together anyway. ;)
At least at the nursing home, there will be plenty of time for fostering female friendships.
I don’t in any way want you to think I’m telling you to go do more work with Paul, as I completely understand the decision to accept and move on to the coping rather than fixing stage… But I thought you would like to know that your posts have made me do a lot of soul searching about my own behaviour. I’m single, but I have to confess to having a slightly Paulish attitude to my Mum. Recently Mum has made quiet protestations about feeling like her needs and wants are always the lowest priority and I’m realising through your posts how right she is. My Dad is a Paul on steroids (sorry, I don’t mean to use your husband’s name as a synonym for acting like a pinehole, it just felt succinct) and it’s definitely filtered down into the ways us kids interact with Mum. The GOOD news, is that I actually feel his behaviour has had a POSITIVE effect on how we treat our partners, although how much of that is down to being women I don’t know. It has also given all 3 of us an absolute intolerance to being the sole emotional labourer, so maybe the most valuable trickle down is for Elizabeth to be seeing how to stand up for what she wants in a relationship. Do any of the kids show a particular leaning towards Swistle vs Paul tendencies?
Swistle! I think you’re fantastic, fwiw. I appreciate very much your honesty in talking about this rough patch you are going through. It resonates. I feel you, sis. Maybe I’ve been very dim, but only now I am realising how rigged the system is against women – SO much is expected from women. Basically PERFECTION. We have to work SO hard at keeping everyone happy and caring about every little detail, and this invisible work is not even seen by the world. And yes OF COURSE we want to be seen, at least by our partners! Surely that’s why we get married! So someone can bear witness to our lives! [Deep breaths, deep breaths.] EVERYONE wants to be seen.
It’s so simple, a Mother’s Day card would do it. A bunch of flowers! Some chocolates! So why is it so difficult? We’ve been talking about it recently, my husband and I, oh we have, the toll these expectations take on women, the way the responsibility for the emotional/physical wellness of the whole family defaults to us. One thing that helped take [some of] the heat out of the discussion is this podcast which helped me understand that a lot of this is caused by very deep societal conditioning. http://www.wbur.org/dearsugar/2018/05/05/emotional-labor-invisible-work
Be well, Swistle. WE see you.
You know, regardless of how this ends, how Swistle deals with it, how we all deal with our own situations that are the same level of despair whether or not the detail look the same, these posts and these comments are so helpful and soothing and thought-provoking.
I thank, you, Swistle, for starting the conversation and I thank every one of your readers for their thoughtful replies and sharing of stories. And the fact that literally everyone has been so respectful and thoughtful and there is not one troll comment (which maybe Swistle is doing some editing, idk) is lovely.
This is what the world needs, at least the female bit, earnest thought, sharing of stories, empathy, and kindness to one another without judgement.
I so agree with this—and I have not had to delete a single comment. I’d expected to need to, but no. This is a great comments section.
That is incredible you haven’t had to delete a comment. Let’s face it, this is a tough topic! So much food for thought, and a renewed appreciation of my husband of 24 years. Sometimes I feel at the end of my rope over something stupid, like I don’t want the TV on all waking hours. Then I see a post like this with all the comments, and I realize I married a great guy who has always been emotionally accessible to me and my daughter.
Plus, he is a wonderful cook! I’m a lucky woman :)
I am not married because I dont like people enough but I love you and I hav been reading you for like a decade and shit is just really, really hard sometimes. I WOULD suggest marriage counseling, though, because my experience in watching people has been that that is the single best thing many couples (except those in abusive marriages) can do.
I think for a lot of us the Trump Era is bringing out just how fucking TIRED we are. I dont know about you, but I am EXHAUSTED by men, and what they expect from us vs what we are allowed to expect from them, and anyway all this to say you are totally in the right here and I hope that things get better.
And also, I really appreciate your honesty. I’ve been writing a lot lately about living with serious mental illness, and it is terrifying to write about publicly, but you know what? if we possibly can, I think it’s important to be honest. We aren’t alone in this, not any of us.
Lots of love.
My ex finally ‘got it’ when I left him.