# Are men responsible for women's happiness or unhappiness? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 19, 2022, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061 "2022-04-19T16:56:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/21 "2022-04-20T02:42:16Z")
Michael Connelly, in his fiction book _The Lincoln Lawyer_, had an interesting take on this question, through the guise of protagonist defense lawyer Michael Haller: > The vast majority of my clients were men and I didn’t discriminate, but the truth was I hated representing women who were incarcerated. From prostitutes to murderers-- and I had defended them all-- there was something pitiful about a woman in jail. I had found that almost all of the time, their crimes could be traced back to men. Men who took advantage of them, abused them, deserted them, hurt them. This is not to say they were not responsible for their actions or that some of them did not deserve the punishments they received. There were predators among the female ranks that easily rivaled those among the males. But, even still, the women I saw in jail seemed so different from the men in the other tower. The men still lived by wiles and strength. The women had nothing left by the time they locked the door on them. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/22 "2022-04-20T02:42:25Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > I wonder how much this has changed, if at all, in the years before and after women have been expected to hold a job and still statistically do the vast majority of looking after tasks in the home _and_ taking care of children. [According to a 2015 study, women initiate 69% of all divorces.](https://www.asanet.org/press-center/press-releases/women-more-likely-men-initiate-divorces-not-non-marital-breakups) I went looking for some study, _any_ study on why this is several years ago. I kept coming up with YouTube female-only roundtables about how men are assholes and similar. I’d really like to know if someone has studied this, but googling leads directly to divorce law firms and nonsense. There must be some actual studies of this, why this happens, but it seems ungoogleable. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/23 "2022-04-20T03:01:42Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > my honest opinion, as a man, is that in seeking out a peer woman for a LTR, she is more likely to be more unhappy over time than I am. I don’t think this conclusion is justified from either differences in reported unhappiness or differences in who initiates divorce. It may just be that women are more honest about their feelings, and more prepared to act to change things. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/24 "2022-04-20T03:19:31Z")
I also heard on the radio, although IDR who said it nor do I have a link, years before we had legalized gay marriage in the U.S., that lesbian couples had a higher divorce rate than male couples in areas that did, and (in most cases, anyway!) we can’t blame men for that. I’ve certainly had the misfortune of crossing paths over the years with a few older-than-me women who believed that any woman who said she was happily married and her husband is a good father is either lying, or in denial. What a sad way to live. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/25 "2022-04-20T03:57:43Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > I wonder how much this has changed, if at all, in the years before and after women have been expected to hold a job and still statistically do the vast majority of looking after tasks in the home _and_ taking care of children. “After”? When did we hit the “after” on that societal expectation? [AFAICT we haven’t reached “after” yet:](https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/05/breadwinning-wives-gender-inequality/589237/) > [@](#): > > That women should take on the bulk of domestic responsibilities is still a widespread belief. Married American mothers spend almost [twice](https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/91/1/55/2235879) as much time on housework and child care than do married fathers. Although American mothers—including those with young children—are far more likely to be working now than in past decades, they spend [_more_](https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/03/14/chapter-4-how-mothers-and-fathers-spend-their-time/)[time](https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/03/14/chapter-4-how-mothers-and-fathers-spend-their-time/)on child care today than did moms in the 1960s. […] > > […] couples in the U.S. continue to idealize and privilege a family structure with a male breadwinner and a female homemaker. […] > > As wives’ economic dependence on their husbands increases, women tend to take on [more housework](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2782401). But the more economically dependent men are on their wives, the less housework they do. Even women with unemployed husbands [spend considerably](https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/03/14/chapter-6-time-in-work-and-leisure-patterns-by-gender-and-family-structure/) more time on household chores than their spouses. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/26 "2022-04-20T04:04:43Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > [According to a 2015 study, women initiate 69% of all divorces.](https://www.asanet.org/press-center/press-releases/women-more-likely-men-initiate-divorces-not-non-marital-breakups) > > I went looking for some study, _any_ study on why this is several years ago. For what it’s worth, [this article](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-third-wave/201705/who-initiates-divorce-more-often) claims to discuss such a study: > [@](#): > > […] research since the 1940s has revealed that among heterosexual couples, women are more responsible for initiating divorce than men and that [divorced](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/divorce) women are typically happier after ending their marriages (Brining & Allen, 2000; Rosenfeld, 2016). > > Why? > > Michael Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Stanford University analyzed data from 2009 to 2015 from a nationally representative survey consisting of over 2,000 adults between the ages of 19 and 94 who were in a heterosexual [marriage](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/marriage). Rosenfeld found that nearly 70 percent of women initiated a divorce, but this figure did not translate to break-ups in [dating](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/mating) relationships. > > The author hypothesizes that the difference in results between breakups in dating relationships may be due to the baggage that comes with marriage, particularly for women. Non-marital relationships tend to be more flexible and adaptable. Rosenfeld argues that for women, marriage itself is burdened by outdated expectations and hasn’t evolved to fit current expectations for [gender](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/gender) equality. For instance, the women who reported more dissatisfaction in this study also reported that loss of independence and controlling husbands were the primary cause of their unhappiness (American Sociological Association, 2016). ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/27 "2022-04-20T04:08:37Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > The author hypothesizes This is a problem. I haven’t seen a study that actually asks women why they initiated divorce. Just speculation, same as the link I posted. I’d really like to see something thorough not speculation. I can speculate, so what? I can speculate all kinds of reasons, unflattering to both parties. Why speculate when you can study? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/28 "2022-04-20T04:16:10Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > “After”? When did we hit the “after” on that societal expectation? [AFAICT we haven’t reached “after” yet:](https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/05/breadwinning-wives-gender-inequality/589237/) I don’t think you understood me, or missed “and still statistically do the vast majority of looking after tasks in the home _and_ taking care of children.” In my comparison, before = when women were usually housewives instead of working outside the home. After = the point at which women had been expected to hold a job while still doing everything else. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/29 "2022-04-20T04:16:45Z")
If I’m not mistaken, a couple sentences down in that quote there is a reference to the survey respondents reporting their satisfaction levels and the causes of their unhappiness. So there appears to be something more there than simply the author’s “speculation”. The article I linked to also cites [this study](https://academic.oup.com/aler/article-abstract/2/1/126/141123?redirectedFrom=fulltext), which I don’t have access to beyond the abstract quoted below: > [@](#): > > Furthermore, divorced women in large numbers reveal that they are happier than they were while married. They report relief and certainty that they were right in leaving their marriages. This fundamental puzzle suggests that the incentives to divorce require a reexamination, and that the forces affecting the net benefits from marriage may be quite complicated, and perhaps asymmetric between men and women. This paper considers women’s filing as rational behavior, based on spouses’ relative power in the marriage, their opportunities following divorce, and their anticipation of custody. I mean, I don’t think it’s that much of a mystery: women initiate divorce more often than men because women are more likely to think that they’ll be happier out of their marriages than in them, and according to their post-divorce responses, the women who think that tend to be right about it. It seems reasonable to say that the current reality of marriage is more conducive to the happiness of men than to the happiness of women. Although of course that does not in any way imply that any man is responsible for “making” a woman be happy. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/30 "2022-04-20T04:19:17Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > I don’t think you understood me, or missed “and still statistically do the vast majority of looking after tasks in the home _and_ taking care of children.” Oh, I see, I thought the “expected to” in your sentence referred to both the job-holding and the domestic/childcare tasks. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/31 "2022-04-20T04:24:48Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I mean, I don’t think it’s that much of a mystery: women initiate divorce more often than men because women are more likely to think that they’ll be happier out of their marriages than in them, and according to their post-divorce responses, the women who think that tend to be right about it. This all seems very post-hoc to me. Circular. What was wrong with the marriage? Why did they leave? Why are women _overwhelmingly_ likelier to break up a marriage than a man? > [@](#): > > It seems reasonable to say that the current reality of marriage is more conducive to the happiness of men than to the happiness of women And it seems just as reasonable to say that men are more likely to work at a marriage and women to toss it in the shitter. That men are more likely to care about their partner’s happiness and women to care only for themselves. Either set of assumptions may be bullshit. Your assumptions are not axiomatic. They are assumptions. Let’s ask women why they felt how they did. I’ve yet to see data, just anecdote ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/32 "2022-04-20T04:45:26Z")
As I recall, statistics show lesbian marriages end in divorce at much higher rates than gay mens’ marriages. So, that takes away the assumptions, in hetero marriages, that women initiate divorce because their role expects them to do the majority of the housework and taking care of the kids. Remove those role expectations, in same sex couples, and women still divorce at higher rates. There does seem to be something in the OP’s observation about women and their happiness trajectory in LTRs ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/33 "2022-04-20T04:45:44Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > And it seems just as reasonable to say that men are more likely to work at a marriage and women to toss it in the shitter. That men are more likely to care about their partner’s happiness and women to care only for themselves. Does it seem “just as reasonable”, though? Especially given the fact that women do so much more of the caring for children in a marriage, and that women’s economic security declines so much more than men’s post-divorce? I don’t think you can really make a convincing “bitches be selfish” argument to serve as a primary reason for the divorce statistics. Note also that I’m not trying to claim that men “care only for themselves”. The problem is not men per se, or women per se, but rather the gender-norm crunch that (still) hits married women harder than married men. As elfkin477 noted, and as is abundantly documented, women nowadays are expected by default to earn a living and help support their household, but they’re also still expected to take on a disproportionate share of the domestic responsibilities, even when they’re the primary earners. Why would you consider it suspicious or implausible that that’s a source of dissatisfaction for women in marriage? > [@squeegee](#): > > Let’s ask women why they felt how they did. Well, AFAICT the study authors did ask that. And they found that women who reported more dissatisfaction “also reported that loss of independence and controlling husbands were the primary cause of their unhappiness”. I get that you might not like hearing that, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t data. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/34 "2022-04-20T04:45:45Z")
@kimstu should we start a dedicated thread for this? This seems like a huge hijack to @jay_z counterpoint: women in marriages with grown children are much more likely to initiate divorce from my research ---
**Author:** ![HelenGawn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@HelenGawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenGawn)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/35 "2022-04-20T04:48:15Z")
[Here’s the study](https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_gender_of_breakup.pdf) the article you cited is based on. There are four pages of reference material. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/36 "2022-04-20T04:53:37Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > As I recall, statistics show lesbian marriages end in divorce at much higher rates than gay mens’ marriages. So, that takes away the assumptions, in hetero marriages, that women initiate divorce because their role expects them to do the majority of the housework and taking care of the kids. Remove those role expectations, in same sex couples, and women still divorce at higher rates. No, that doesn’t necessarily “take away the assumptions”. Maybe, for example, lesbian couples are simply much more likely to get married in the first place than gay male couples are. If gay men are less willing to marry in general, and if they tend to require much more stability and commitment in their relationship before they’ll seriously consider marriage, then it would make sense that gay male marriages would be less numerous but also more lasting then lesbian marriages, on average. You can’t simply argue that because lesbians divorce more than gay men do, therefore the gender-norm disparities in hetero marriages can’t be a factor in causing straight women to initiate divorce more than straight men do. Gender norms don’t operate identically in lesbian, gay male and heterosexual marriages. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/37 "2022-04-20T04:55:45Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I think you should stop thinking in terms of men in general and women in general, and think instead in terms of specific individuals. In general this is good advice, but I recall a thread here asking men and women about relationship issues across multiple relationships, and the take away I remember was that many behaviors men complained about in women were observed across relationships, and many behaviors women complained about in men were observed across relationships. Yes, we are all individuals, but we seem to tend to patterns of behavior characteristic of our gender. In broad strokes of course, not exactly ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/38 "2022-04-20T04:56:50Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > counterpoint: women in marriages with grown children are much more likely to initiate divorce from my research How is that a “counterpoint”? Disparities in marital happiness due to unequal gender norms don’t automatically stop existing just because children grow up. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/39 "2022-04-20T04:58:24Z")
Or we can just hijack the hell out of @Jay_Z 's thread and rant how men suck. Enjoy. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/40 "2022-04-20T05:04:43Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > Or we can just hijack the hell out of @Jay_Z 's thread and rant how men suck Who here is “ranting” “how men suck”? As I already said, pointing out that gender-norm expectations in marriage tend to be more onerous for women than for men is in no way saying that “men suck”. I mean, if we can’t talk about systemic pervasive sexism in our social institutions without it being interpreted as making unfair accusations that “men suck” and unjustly hurting men’s feelings, then we might as well be in Florida, ISTM. But if you want to start a separate thread on the subject, or simply cease participating in this one, knock yourself out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061.md?page=3)