# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/141 "2022-05-06T20:04:37Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Until you get some effective therapy, nothing any of us say here will do much. This. Every word of this entire post. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/142 "2022-05-06T20:31:05Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > This isn’t about working on your own shortcomings; it’s about being able to live the life you deserve to have, and from what you’ve said, the one you’ve got isn’t it. Until you get some effective therapy, nothing any of us say here will do much. I appreciate the sentence about NOT working on my own shortcomings. Focus more on healing. I do actually have a life coach right now and I go over some of my issues there. The focus of that is reconfiguring some of my relationship/friendship issues in light of the divorce and the ending of my relationship with my GF. I am trying to stay away from some of my “try-hard” issues that are taking away from me projecting a personality in relationships. I’m open to doing further therapy in concert with that. I did two post divorce groups and two rounds of individual therapy post divorce as well. A lot of this comes from the ending of the relationship with the GF. We had some good chemistry but there was just too much damage from prior relationships on both sides. Too many things I just didn’t want to deal with or express at the time. I don’t want to get into another relationship carrying any more baggage than I have to. ---
**Author:** ![SpacemanSpiff\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19adc/32.png) [@SpacemanSpiff\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpacemanSpiff_II)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/143 "2022-05-06T20:39:38Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Kimstu’s attitude reminds me of my college classmate, who was married with a preschooler, who told me that she (allegedly) had legal papers stating that if she died, not only would her child(ren) not live with her husband (her sister would have custody), he would only be allowed a phone call once a week, and a single supervised visit at Christmastime. I assumed that this was what would happen to the kids if they BOTH died, but no, this was also if SHE died, and I should add that the rest of his family would effectively cease to exist. I asked her if her husband knew about this, and she just stared at me. I’m guessing that a lawyer could get in some big trouble for drawing up papers without a spouse’s permission, amirite? It’s unclear what type of “legal papers” these might be. I don’t think a parent has the ability to just unilaterally draw up “legal papers” which have the power to cut off the other parent in the manner you describe, and the law would just disregard any such papers. Unless there’s a lot more to the story than what you’ve described here. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/144 "2022-05-06T23:13:33Z")
A while back, I was at my craft group, and somehow, the division of household chores came up in conversation. I mentioned a woman I knew in my old town whose mother died suddenly, and her father, who was about 70 years old, was basically helpless; he did not know how to, for instance, wash a dish, pay a bill, or heat up food on the stove or even the microwave. He’d just plain old never had to, and she HAD emphasized that if anyone heard that story and thought he was a bad person, he wasn’t; he was a kind, loving, generous, hard-working man who was a good father and treated her mother well, but this was just the way they lived, and it had worked for them. Another woman there prefaced the following by saying “My husband’s a good man, too, but he just didn’t know…” She said she had to teach him how to do laundry after they were married, 50-odd years ago, and he loaded his clothes into the washer and turned it on, as she instructed. Some time later, he opened the DRYER and was surprised to find it empty! Somehow, he thought the clothes would automatically transfer from one machine to another. (D’oh!) They later had two children, whose parenting he shared, and when she was in a near-fatal car accident a few years ago, he did everything he needed to do, without complaints. More recently, my brother decided he wanted to hang laundry to reduce their utility bills, and his wife said, “Great! Then you do it.” AND HE DOES! ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/145 "2022-05-06T23:17:20Z")
Chances are, there is (or was; I lost touch with her after our graduation in 1994, and I do know that they had a second child a couple years later, and AFAIK they are still married). I’ll never forget when she wanted us to take notes for her one Friday, because her son was having tubes put in his ears, and when she came back on Monday, she was completely puzzled as to why her husband was so angry at her, even sleeping on the couch. However, I wasn’t. She hadn’t told her husband about the surgery. She hadn’t thought he would be interested! Wish I was making this one up. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/146 "2022-05-06T23:26:38Z")
I was playing bridge with my mom a few years ago, and several of the players were widows or widowers. The widowers all talked about how much harder they had to work since their wife died, and the widows about how it was now easier to keep house. That being said, my husband does more “routine maintenance” stuff than i do. He pays most of the bills, negotiates with the cleaning lady, makes sure the car is registered, stuff like that. He sometimes says it might have been a mistake to marry the one girl he knew whose college dorm room was messier than his. He was a stay at home dad for several years, and he did basically all of that for those years. Oh my God it’s nice having someone just take care of everything for you! Yeah, we have more money, now, but my lifestyle was awesome when he was a stay at home dad. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/147 "2022-05-06T23:35:41Z")
I’ve never had a divorced woman tell me IRL that single parenthood is harder, although I’ve been told that a few times online. Women who were widowed young have said otherwise. And single fathers, regardless of how they got that way, also have to deal with various kinds of vilification that single mothers do not (most common that he got custody to avoid paying child support if he and the mother split up, or implications that he killed his wife if he’s a widower). Other people have disagreed with me about that, but it’s something I’ve definitely seen more than once. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/148 "2022-05-06T23:55:22Z")
I want to add that my husband has improved enormously over the 40 years we’ve been married. There’s a lot he still doesn’t do, but he is vastly more tidy in the house than he once was, and many another habit which caused friction has smoothed away. If I ask him why he quit some practice that would have tried the patience of a saint much less his irritable wife, he usually said something like, “I was stupid, before.” I’ve also gotten, if not more tolerant, better at shoving his messes into dark corners. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/149 "2022-05-07T00:07:44Z")
> [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > I think you’re missing @MandaJo 's point. You married someone who cared about things like countertops and antiques, and your value system doesn’t align with that. Interests are not values. Personally I do not think long term partners need to be attached at the hip sharing the same interests. I do think they need to have values that are roughly congruent though, and they need to respect and give space for each other’s divergent interests. And communication about what expectations of each other are, what would help to keep each other happy, is important. (Acknowledging from personal experience and nights on the couch how difficult that communication process can be, and how there is often more to it than just the words said.) ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/150 "2022-05-07T01:25:29Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Interests are not values. No, but living a certain kind of lifestyle is a value. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/151 "2022-05-07T10:29:06Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Sometimes almost literally, as in [the viral tale of the husband who was so impressed by the inexhaustible kitchen soap dispenser](https://twitter.com/robinschaer/status/1109096787682492417). Sounds like the [Magic Coffee Table](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_kXIGvB1uU). ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/152 "2022-05-07T17:09:03Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > ETA: “effortlessly” is often used as a positive description for women. Women are supossed to get all the emotional labor and nurturing done through magic female energy. Have you read [this comic](https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/) yet? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/153 "2022-05-07T19:22:50Z")
But think about it: What if a man DID do some of those things - arranging child care, taking kids to the doctor, etc.? Most women would not approve. I personally know three women whose husbands know not to cook for them, because if it isn’t what she wants to eat, she will take the food off the table and make something else, even if the kids say they want it. One of them has even bragged about throwing food into the garbage because she felt he didn’t put enough effort into its preparation! Good heavens, if a man did that, he’d be called abusive. I just can’t get over how people are surprised at any of this, because it’s all over the place. Do they think it won’t happen to them, or what? Is there a switch that flips in a MAN’S brain when he has children, that says “I shot my wad, so my job’s done”? Some people seem to think so. You notice that men never go on boards like this and say, “Yeah, I treat my wife like a maid and a live-in babysitter, because that’s what she is, isn’t she?” ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/154 "2022-05-07T20:09:53Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > But think about it: What if a man DID do some of those things - arranging child care, taking kids to the doctor, etc.? Most women would not approve. WTF? My husband was a stay at home dad for a few years and did all that work. It was awesome. I have never had it better. Do you have a wife? Have you tried discussing this with her? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/155 "2022-05-07T20:11:15Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > But think about it: What if a man DID do some of those things - arranging child care, taking kids to the doctor, etc.? Most women would not approve. > > I personally know three women whose husbands know not to cook for them, because if it isn’t what she wants to eat, she will take the food off the table and make something else, even if the kids say they want it. One of them has even bragged about throwing food into the garbage because she felt he didn’t put enough effort into its preparation! Good heavens, if a man did that, he’d be called abusive. > > I just can’t get over how people are surprised at any of this, because it’s all over the place. I don’t know who you’re hanging out with. I don’t know anybody who behaves like that. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/156 "2022-05-07T21:39:32Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Good heavens, if a man did that, he’d be called abusive. A woman would too. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/157 "2022-05-07T21:43:28Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I don’t know who you’re hanging out with. I don’t know anybody who behaves like that. yeah, this. You have some nasty friends. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/158 "2022-05-07T21:49:41Z")
A woman should, but she probably isn’t. You may not know they act that way, because they haven’t told you. I will add that none of these people were on any kind of special diet. One is my sister-in-law, and the two others are women I used to work with. One of them (not the one who threw food away; it’s not my SIL either) has since gotten divorced, something that didn’t surprise anybody, and on his Facebook page, the kids are standing up straight and smiling, and on hers, they are slumped over and not smiling. As for my post earlier today about men having a switch flipped, I should say SOME men. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/159 "2022-05-07T21:51:00Z")
I don’t have a wife, because I’m not wired that way. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061/160 "2022-05-07T22:11:12Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > You may not know they act that way, because they haven’t told you. Good grief. I see my male friends cooking for, and otherwise caring for, their families. I most certainly don’t see, or hear, their wives who are also my friends complaining about it. I do hear them discussing who’s going to do what when – not as one telling the other what to do, but as both of them sorting out together who will be responsible for which things on a given day. And I can’t imagine any of them, of any gender, putting up with the sort of crap you’re talking about. In whichever direction. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-men-responsible-for-womens-happiness-or-unhappiness/963061.md?page=9)