Because I’m not inclined to think she’s lying about her feelings. People sometimes feel smothered - even by “nice guy nerds”.
Or she was keeping her trap shut so as not to upset him or hurt his feelings, as civilized people tend to do when folks they care about do piffling little things that nonetheless drive them nuts. Especially when those things are stuff that’s truly piffling or is meant to be “nice,” because saying something about them tends to spur…well, the sorts of comments people have been making about Kim in this thread and nobody likes being perceived or portrayed as a petty bitch actively seeking out offense. It’s easier and more pleasant on most levels to just shut up and try to ignore it.
Except that when the time comes that it’s driving you so nuts you can’t or don’t want to ignore it any longer, you look even pettier, bitchier, and more like you’re actively seeking out offense because “it never bothered you before.” This whole socialization to be nice thing really sucks some serious ass at times.
[quote=“Huerta88, post:72, topic:513429”]
Eye on the ball, please. Did you not note that I was responding to
I thoroughly look forward to your argument that slavery in the U.S. wasn’t that bad because slavery in other places and times was different.
Or that the black civil rights movement originated because lazy blacks had nothing better to do and wanted whitey to feel bad and give them a free ride for the rest of their lives.
You didn’t parse it or keep your eye on the ball, like I asked you to – I never said 1 Peter was cool or not cool (I explicitly said to someone later, apparently you thought those days were bad too) – I reacted narrowly and specifically to the knee jerk “white upper class women” trope that someone lazily introduced as the source of chivarly, when “white, upper class” privilege doesn’t explain or account for (not justify – account for) all chivalry (or, as you may see it, all “sexism”).
I “feel smothered” when someone’s holding a pillow over my head.
Oh, and the other complaint I hear women making about their SOs is “he doesn’t pay enough attention to me and doesn’t seem interested in what I’m doing.”
Stupid guys! Always getting it wrong at one extreme or the other!
A guy I knew a long time ago, let’s call him Huerta44, once endured and attempted to participate in a two hour conversation with a young inamorata who launched the dialogue (such as it was) with the complaint that she “didn’t feel that our communication styles are sufficiently grounded.” Why yes, she was a graduate of a small women’s liberal art school. Huerta44, young fool that he was, attempted to process (ha! that might well be another good vague word), sympathize with, and apologize for, the English-like FemGriev plaints emitting from ArtsyChick but then his aneurysm popped. Huerta88 would say, “I feel grounded when in electrical contact with Earth,” and would be far less shocked (get it?) when ArtsyChick blew him off for a date two weeks later to go “applepicking with my ex-boyfriend, the opportunity just suddenly came up.”
“Smothered.” “Grounded.” Why do I have the feeling that the people who use words about feeling these feelings are using words about feelings for reasons other than actual communication?
Newsflash: women are individuals. I know, it’s hard to believe! But trust me on this. The reason why women don’t march in lock step with each other is because–hold on to your seats cuz I’m about to go deep–they aren’t all the same. What one finds to be smothering could be perfectly fine for another one because they are different people with their own likes, dislikes, and tolerance levels! Isn’t that amazing?
Wow, what a revelation.
It’s not amazing. Another way I might have put it is that IME when I do hear someone complaining about a SO using extreme language (“smothering”/“treats me like I’m invisible”), it significantly more often is a female speaker than a male one. If you want a stipulation that I also hear many women who are copacetic with their relationships and speak well of their SOs – sure thing. It’s just that the OP was, in this case, dealing with the possibly-OTT variety of complaint.
Actually the OP was listening to his wife discuss her feelings in a way both he and she have been encouraged to do in counseling.
What is so extreme, in the things continuum of things to complain about, in saying someone’s behavior is “smothering”? Don’t men complain about women being too needy all the time?
You tend to hear more women using extreme language about their SOs. So some women feel their SOs aren’t attentive enough, and others find their SOs smother them. I don’t understand the problem. You’re aware of women complaining about their boyfriends/spouses. I think it would be a lot weirder if they all had the same problem.
I went back and re-read (or read, I forget) your earlier O-OP, which provided useful context.
Good luck, with the counseling, and overall.
Funny, I could swear that someone was talking about it in the context of sexism in the U.S. (or at least never explicitly stated that that’s what started it all). Can you please point to where somebody said in this thread that white, upper-class privilege was the origin of all sexism? Perhaps you just misunderstood because it wasn’t explicitly stated that this didn’t apply to everything and for all time, because the poster assumed that everyone involved in the conversation would be able to keep up.
Should I make a note to include diagrams for you in the future?
No one but no one today is walking women (black, white, whatever) to their cars to elevate white women and demean black women. [They never were but]If they ever were, in a segregated world that doesn’t exist, that tossed-off tidbit from whoever’s sophomore year advanced the debate (or the ability to answer the OP’s question) exactly as much as would have a discussion of Indian courtly love poetry in the Mogul years.
I have used the word high-maintenance . . . in one instance? Jokingly referred to a couple of SOs who wanted a fairly constant stream of attention as medium-maintenance. Never think I’ve used “needy” – that has an overtone of self-centeredness or learned-helplessness that hopefully I could have pre-screened for.
As for “smothering” – I just can’t imagine myself saying that, so I’m trying to imagine someone feeling a person’s conduct was so extreme as to merit analogy with the fatal deprivation of oxygen (and by extension, with the act of murder). That’s right up there with “emasculating,” and again, I’ve never had to get that hyperbolic. Maybe I’m lucky.
ETA that sharing feelings may or may not be all right, but concluding that it is all right, or even good, in no way compels the conclusion that all feelings or expressions of feelings are equally meritorious or have equal claims to be assuaged. If there’s a therepeutic paradigm in play in other posters’ minds that says they are or do, that would explain a lot of any seeming disconnect.
Oh dear, apparently this is too complicated for you to follow. Let me break it down.
1.) Extending special courtesies to women is sexist.
2.) In the U.S., this behavior is also tied historically to racism and classism.
3.) The tradition of a certain kind of deferential and special treatment for women was usually not extended to women of non-European heritage or women from lower classes. (You wouldn’t lay your coat down over a puddle for a slave, and you wouldn’t give your maid a hand down from a carriage.)
4.) The point is not that this is the origin or cause of “chivalry” in the U.S., nor that it is necessarily true of such behavior today, but that it is an inextricable part of the behavior’s heritage, extending its discrimination beyond sex and into class and race.
5.) Also found in this history is the proof that there is nothing inherent to having a uterus that makes women so weak that they need to be protected by men: entire categories of women have been excluded from this consideration and somehow managed to survive.
Were any of those words too big for you? I can try to simplify it more, if you like.
Here’s a test for you: if you don’t think it’s sexist to be “chivalrous” to women, try reversing your behavior for a month: perform these actions only for men. See how the men react, and see how you feel about it.
Oh dear, another one that went over your head. Here, let me help.
The point was that you were criticizing “women” for saying hyperbolic things like “smothering” (with the implicit statement that men don’t talk about things like that, hah hah, Venus and Mars, don’cha know), while ignoring the fact that men make the same style of complaints but use a different vocabulary.
I’m not talking you. I’m talking about men in general. The “she’s too needy” complaint or its variations are as common as pigeons.
There’s is nothing uniquely extreme or hyperbolic about “smothering”. The word has multiple uses and in the context of relationships usually means clingy or overprotective.
I can kind of see where your ex- was coming from with the whole grounded thing. Earth to Huerta, it ain’t that serious.
Starting from the end does make it a lot easier, I’ll concede you that.