In the OP of the GD thread Lesbian Civil Unions Breaking Up at Nearly Twice the Gay Rate, Fotheringay-Phipps offers this:
I don’t know if he or she is correct or not, but I found the statement to be provocative enough to start a new discussion thread. What do you think?
I tend to think so. I think it may be because men have less complex needs than women, give them sex and food and a routine and they are pretty happy. What women want emotionally is often more complicated and men don’t understand it or can’t/won’t provide it.
Nor can other women, apparently.
Many times, I’ve heard “Why would a man want to leave if he’s got a woman who cooks and cleans for him, and has sex with him?” but it can be a lot more complex than that. Honestly, these days if a woman leaves a marriage, it seems that in most cases, everyone who knows her throws confetti at her (figuratively speaking) even if they know nothing about why the couple split up. A man who leaves a marriage, especially if there are children, is, however, pond scum and he’s often interpreted as leaving his children too.
I’m guessing this is a throwback to the old culture of men being the providers/breadwinners of the family. Leaving means leaving the wife and kids destitute (even though that’s mostly not true anymore). The children tend to initially go with the woman during a split-up, anyway.
Also, when posting a response, would you please provide whether you are male or female (optionally, of course)? I think that lends some perspective on your answer. Thanks.
Just anecdotal, but I would believe that women would tend to be the least happy party in a heterosexual union. I’m female FWIW.
I can tell you that I’m more likely to be unhappy in my own marriage than my husband is. I mean, I’m not going to leave him or anything and at this point I’m very happy; however, the distribution of work is imbalanced. I do more, mostly because I’m a) the one who thinks of it, b) the one who knows how (cooking) and/or c) the one who is most likely to give more importance to certain things that may or may not be a huge issue (i.e., don’t want to devastate my daughter b/c I can’t go on a field trip, so will kill myself to make it and get annoyed when my husband won’t).
As noted above, a lot of this is due to pressure I put on myself, and I think that is frequently true of most women at some time or another - that they put more or different types of pressure on themselves than men. And like it or not, you do wind up taking it out on those closest to you. That said, I do think more is expected from women. Not only do I work a full-time job at a really competitive organization, I also do the lion’s share of the childcare, cooking, cleaning, purchasing, etc. It’s stressful and pisses me off and my husband IS taking more on than he used to. But it’s really slow-going and sometimes I crack.
So anecdotally, yeah, I’d say women are more likely to be unhappy.
I’m female.
I do believe that in a lot of marriages, if a father DID make a major decision about a child, he would never hear the end of it from his wife (“How dare you go behind my back!” that kind of thing) and if a father suggested that a child might have a behavior, health or learning problem, the mother’s response would be “And if she does, it will be your fault because you don’t take proper care of her.”
Anecdotes, of course, based on my own experiences and observances. I think women and men seem to be equally likely to be unhappy or unsatisfied in a bad relationship, but more often than not it is the woman who actually picks up and ends it. Men seem to be more likely to let things go unless they have a more solid reason to leave - often another relationship. In my own prior LTRs we were both equally dissatisfied but while he was more likely to seek a solution that did not involve leaving, like having sex on the side or just not coming home, I was always the one who finally had to pick up my stuff and leave. This is consistent with most relationships I have seen end. He only left if it was to be with a new, already vetted girlfriend.
I think it’s a matter of expectations. It seems to me that the male expectations are fewer and more easily satisfied, and female ones are more numerous, and more difficult to satisfy.
There’s also poor communication on both sides- men because they tend to be happy and not ask about the other’s happiness or expectations, and women because they tend to beat around the bush like crazy on this stuff and not clearly articulate their expectations.
Combine that and you have what seems to be female-centric dissatisfaction.
I will totally cop to this. One of our biggest issues is that I assume he thinks like I do. So, if I do something nice to show him I love him, my expectation is that he’ll do the same without me having to ask because that’s what I’d do. So I’m thinking that we think the same way when in reality our minds work kinda like this:
Him: “Oh, thanks for making my favorite meal, overly. This is fabulous.” <wanders off to watch some TV, probably thinking, “Hey, that was nice. Hmmm, wonder what we’re going to do tomorrow?”>
Me: “Oh, thank you so much for washing the dishes! You didn’t have to do that.” <I wander off, thinking, “Hmmm, what can I do for him that he’d really appreciate?”>
It’s not that he doesn’t want to reciprocate, but it really just doesn’t occur to him. And in my head, I’m thinking, “Well, I did this and this and this, but he just didn’t notice. I wish he’d do something.” And when I get aggravated he’s thinking, “Why didn’t she ask? I would’ve gotten her whatever she wanted or done anything she asked if only I’d known she wanted me to do something.”
I’ve had similar experiences, as have my sister and many female friends. Several of my exes, I don’t exactly consider that I was the one who broke up with them, because duh, wtf else choice did they give me? But they certainly see it that way, and think the breakup was all on me.
As I just said in a different thread. I did a lot of soul searching after the end of my first marriage, and discovered a lot of things I could have done better. This is one of those things.
I wish I could get the following idea to sink for any/everyone:
The Golden Rule is not going to cut it. It is not enough to treat someone how you want to be treated. You should treat them how they want to be treated.
I am like overly, I will DO things to show you I love you…cook you a fantastic meal, surprise you with presents, or plan special dates. That’s what I want! My wife thinks that’s nice, but what she really wants to feel loved is for me to park my ass next to her on the couch and watch a movie, or go for a walk together, just spend some time.
We have gotten in arguments because of this. If she’s had a bad day at work, I’ll hand her a glass of wine when she walks in the door, cook her an amazing meal from scratch (with dessert!), and maybe make her a bath. Then on a day when it’s her turn to cook, she’ll make Sloppy Joes. I get butthurt because she didn’t put any effort into dinner, but that’s not really on her is it? I mean, it kind of is, yeah, but it’s my expectations that are making me whiny. It’s not like she doesn’t show me she loves me in other ways.
I will also admit, as a dude, that I am likely to stick around even though I am completely miserable. This is mostly because I cling to the hope that you will someday stop making me miserable, all evidence to the contrary.
I think women tend to be unhappy in relationships if they buy into the idea that you only have one soul mate and that that person will meet all your emotional needs.
I’ve found that in order to feel satisfied in my social relationships I need a variety of people and levels of intimacy. That includes males and females. I’m not talking about sex.
I don’t know if my experience is exemplar of the Lesbian population in general but the Lesbian friends I’ve had who are in relationships seem to need a considerable amount of affirmation from each other. And that has proved a drain on the relationship.
I’ll need explanation if I’m mistaken, but I’m also guessing that because of the added sexual nature of Lesbian relationships there would be a degree of jealousy involved if one of them needed to expand her close emotional relationships to other women.
That leaves her with males to fill the unfilled emotional needs which may leave her with some unmet needs.
I’m reminded of Matt Damon’s best line in The Departed.
He said to his girlfriend, "If we’re not gonna make it, it’s gotta be you that gets out, cause I’m not capable. I’m fucking Irish. I’ll deal with something being wrong for the rest of my life. "
You can break up directly, or you can break up passively. The passive breakup involves pulling away emotionally and just not putting any effort into the relationship (or sometimes actively violating the relationship) until the other partner eventually finds things intolerable and pulls the plug.
While it is not the sole domain of men, I think men are more likely to do the passive breakup. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because in household with somewhat typical gender roles, men just have an easier time in terms of logistics pulling away from the family- they have an easier time “staying late in the office” and “playing golf” and are less likely to have a lot of kid-related duties keeping them actively engaged.
It may also be that women know they are often risking a lot in terms of finances and security in a divorce, so if they are going to divorce, it’s going to be a very decisive action with a great deal of intention behind it. If you are just vaguely hoping for something better and it won’t really affect you too much either way, it can be easy to coast along and see what happens. But if you are likely taking a huge living standard hit (and statistically, women tend to make out poorly after a divorce), then it’s probably over something you’ve made up your mind about fairly clearly and are going to execute quite decisively.
How does this fit with the fact that gay men are better at staying married? Are both partners just passively refusing to split up, and thus the unhappy relationship soldiers on out of laziness?
I’m a man.
I think it’s about equal. For every woman I know who was in a loveless relationship that was on auto-pilot who eventually ended it, I can also point to a male friend who got into a relationship with a hot/crazy girl. Over time, the scale always moved more towards ‘crazy’ as the relationship went on, and the men were the ones that had to break it off while the nutty woman did everything she could to try to get the guys to stay, including threats of suicide, trying to get pregnant, and the less subtle “let’s stay friends” while trying to constantly get the guy to sleep with her again.
Yes absolutely. Women are naturally more selfish. They’re taught from a young age that their happiness is the only thing that matters by feminist brain washing. The truth is that in family and relationships what matters most is making the other person happy. Modern, particularly modern American women forget this.
My mother is very selfish, being a woman I suspect that is something she has no control over, but she is always making sure that everyone else in the family is happy because that is what she was raised to do.
Women are very easy to control and lot of gender topics are about how feminism has made women miserable.