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Does anyone have some ideas of how to change what this artlcle is describing?. Do you agree with it? Did your relationship survice the kind of thing she describes?

SassyLady 6 June 7
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With my ex I was just glad when he went to work and left the house. He was a total misogynist jerk who thought women were born to serve men. If he ever criticized anything I did, I didn't do it again.

So eventually I stopped cooking for him, stopped going with him to visit his mother, stopped having sex with him, and kicked him out. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

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Excellent article, and demonstrates how clueless most men are. When a guy is passive-aggressive it is disrespectful. For you women, why put up with this? No one is worth ongoing disrespect.

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I get it. I give of myself and my time to some of my male friends, as friends do, but it's not reciprocated in the same way. I'm used to it now.

Not all men and women are the same however. But I have noticed a definite pattern.

Some of this might come from the patriarchy, homophobia and misogyny, which all work together to shame and repress men.

Men are not allowed their finer feelings. They often feel inhibited opening up to other men. So it's no wonder really.

So it's not men's fault. It's our culture.

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I think this is going to be really difficult to change until both boys and girls grow up in equitable households. My marriages did not survive this sort of nonsense. I did discover an object lesson that infuriated them but actually made them think (and get really angry at me). Even if one of them agreed to shop, they always expected me to provide a list -- even if they were going to cook. They never stopped to think about supplies that are always necessary. SO......I would buy and stash some toilet paper. And then I'd wait. Invariably I'd get a frantic shout from the bathroom that there was no toilet paper. I'd ask if there was any in the cupboard. No, there wasn't. Then I asked whether, since they were going to do the shopping, they had bought some. Of course not. I asked whether it had slipped their mind that they would use the bathroom at home at some point and that it would be nice if there was toilet paper. Now they were getting angry. I produced the toilet paper and pointed out how screwed they would have been if I hadn't made sure there was some. To me, if I have to make the damned list (complete with details about brand and specifications) I might as well do the shopping myself. Oh, did I mention I've been divorced twice?

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I really believe that this is changing generationally. I have a grandson who does his own laundry, cleans his room and helps a lot with chores around the house. That is because he was trained to do this. Men in my generation were not trained as children to do what was called "women's work".
If only a couple would talk about these types of things before they married or lived together it might help. If you go to a man's home and it looks like an explosion went off then don't expect anything else If you decide to cohabitate.
I actually thought this article was whiney. Have communication and don't set up expectations. And if you can afford it, get a cleaning lady.

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My marriage did not survive this. It does get exhausting to have to tell a grown man to do the dishes or mow the lawn or pick up the living room or FUCKING ANYTHING since you are unemployed and I work full fucking time and why do I have to do EVERY FUCKING THING?? Sigh...

Remi Level 7 June 8, 2018

Sorry for all the swearing. I didn't get that mad back then, but I can let it out now ?

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Ask for things. Don't expect other people to know what you want. Sure, some things are common sense, such as picking up things that folks could trip over but the rest of it is that utterly infuriating expectation of telepathy that I see time and again. HUMANS CANNOT READ MINDS. Full stop. You want something and it doesn't occur to the other person? Communicate it. That's how you change what's shown in the article. The writer is just putting the onus for her happiness on other people.

How much "mindreading" is needed to wash some dishes, or laundry? Why does one person need to be "in charge" and tell others what needs doing, when it is patently obvious already?

@AnneWimsey because maybe it's not 'patently obvious.'. If you don't want to 'do everything,' then tell them you're feeling used and they should pitch in. Just because something occurs to one person in a specific way doesn't mean it occurs to other people the same way. Bottling it up is a lot more work than making your thoughts known.

I agree with you. As I said in my comment on this post, a lot of this is generational and if a man is raised to believe that certain things are women's work then that is going to be hard to change. If you can see that the man you are dating lives like a junk collector well that is not going to change. People have to talk to each other and agree beforehand on what the expectations are.

@memorylikeasieve and you have tried this (telling them) and it has actually worked??! In 70 years, 2 marriages, it never has for me, or any other woman I have known....you must be the luckiest woman EVER!

@AnneWimsey Yes. With men and with women. I wasn't married to any of them and there weren't children involved but that is irrelevant. I still lived with them and we still had to coexist and keep a living space. I didn't go in with expectations. I was on the other side of those type of mind games with my mother for too long not to learn something from it. I wasn't lucky, I simply knew better. Humans have to communicate with words. Things go a lot more smoothly when one owns one's feelings and voices them.

@SassyLady my experiences won't be yours because we are different people and also your partner is a different person, even if the behaviors are similar. What I have come to realize in my life is that the only person I have control over is myself. I can only control how I act and feel. Seems to me your choices are limited as your husband is who he is and isn't going to miraculously change all of a sudden at this late stage in life. So either you can pick up and you can do what you want him to do and not be passive aggressive about it or you can decide this isn't how you want to live your life and you can leave. It ultimately boils down to which is more important the relationship or the division of chores.

@SassyLady Nope, I sure haven't seen any men post yet. And I realize that it is a valid point about passive aggressive behavior in men. And the bigger issue is lack of respect. But as my Great Aunt Gertie once said, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" I either put up with behaviors for whatever the reason, leave because I won't put up with it but I never try to repeatedly change someone else. It sucks, it truly does but some people are simply just who they are and they don't feel there's enough reason for them to change.

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