# What Makes a Man Say It's the \_\_\_\_ or Me and Why Do Women Stay WIth Them? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 3, 2009, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-man-say-its-the-____-or-me-and-why-do-women-stay-with-them/484238 "2009-02-03T11:38:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-man-say-its-the-____-or-me-and-why-do-women-stay-with-them/484238/41 "2009-02-04T16:04:14Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > When I was still dating, pet hair everywhere was, in fact, enough reason for me to stop dating that person. I ditched the women, though, rather than telling them to give up the pet. If you’re that much of a neatnik, the cat hair would only be the tip of the iceberg of reasons you wouldn’t want to date me. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-man-say-its-the-____-or-me-and-why-do-women-stay-with-them/484238/42 "2009-02-04T16:10:15Z")
Not so much of a neatnik. My own house is clean, but it is cluttered. Pet hair on everything is just icky to me personally. Human hair, too, for that matter. Pulling a clump of hair out of a drain makes me want to hurl. IAC, I’d never have dreamed of issuing any kind of “either Fifi goes or I do!” ultimatum. I was the one bothered by the hair. The ladies were content to live with it. It just made more sense for me to find somebody more like me than to try to force them to change. ---
**Author:** ![Elret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Elret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elret)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-man-say-its-the-____-or-me-and-why-do-women-stay-with-them/484238/43 "2009-02-05T16:53:58Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > I get that sometimes you really _can’t_ live with X, but isn’t it more mature to say “I really have a problem with X, and I’d like you to give it up” vs. “Give it up or I’m leaving you.”? > > Obviously, if they’re not taking your concern seriously, you may end up leaving them, but phrasing it as “Do this or else” just seems needlessly adversarial. Agreed. Whatever happened to compromise? “Honey, I know you love Fluffy, but I’m really having trouble sleeping when he insists on sleeping on my face. Let’s set up a nice cozy bed for him in the basement rec room!” “Sweetheart, I know how important your guns are to you, but they really scare me. How about you keep them locked up out in the shed, and I’ll take a gun safety course?” “Snookums, your motorcycle is truly bitchin, but you’re spending so much money on its maintenance that we couldn’t afford to pay the heating bill this month. Is there a way you could bring a few extra bucks in to help keep up, or some other luxury you’d be able to cut back on?” I mean, I know it’s not always as cut and dried as that but it does seem like a good place to start… ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-man-say-its-the-____-or-me-and-why-do-women-stay-with-them/484238/44 "2009-02-05T19:36:24Z")
I think we all have our “deal breakers”. I think what’s so backwards here is that one can have gotten so deep into the relationship before discovering the problem. Did she hide the fact that she had a daughter for the first six months of the relationship? I also have to say just looking at the picture that these two have a lot of the physical characteristics of heavy drug use. I think addiction is often a factor in people choosing a “relationship” over a child. They are really choosing availability of the crutch, be it drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever they’re addicted to. Anyone who isn’t utterly thrilled at the presence of my daughter my life and completely respectful of the fact that her needs come first (note the word “needs”) can go . . .er . . . urinate up a rope. ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2009, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-man-say-its-the-____-or-me-and-why-do-women-stay-with-them/484238/45 "2009-02-05T22:01:44Z")
Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout, For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out. We quarrelled about Havanas – we fought o’er a good cheroot, And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute. … Open the old cigar-box – let me consider anew – Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you? A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke; And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke. Light me another Cuba – I hold to my first-sworn vows. If Maggie will have no rival, I’ll have no Maggie for Spouse! ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2009, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-man-say-its-the-____-or-me-and-why-do-women-stay-with-them/484238/46 "2009-02-06T00:51:49Z")
> [@Siege](#): > > Rather than hijack [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=504633) about a woman who killed her child, I wanted to ask a separate question. You see, she killed her 12 year old daughter because her boyfriend said it was the child or him. This is an extreme case, but I know of animals who’ve been put up for adoption because their owner was told it was the animal or the boyfriend and I’ve read of people who give up hobbies because their SO has told them they must, unless the pet or the hobby is posing some kind of explicit danger. > > This is something I don’t understand. If someone has someone or something they love and they had that before you came into their lives, why would you issue such an ulitmatum and expect them to pick you? Yes, I know some animals can be pretty badly behaved, but that doesn’t apply all the time. Why do people do these things and, just as importantly, why do people give in to the ultimatums? If someone told me “Either the cat goes or I go!” I’d tell him (I am _not_ going there!) I’d be seeing and petting the cat, not him. My opinion is that anyone who gives up something that brings them joy or is important to them because of a demand by someone else has little to no “self-esteem” (to use an overused and less than ideal term). They simply feel they are worth NOTHING without whoever it is they are seeking to hold onto, and, by extension, neither are their own children. This happens too often to be dismissed as rare, as the article in that other thread seemed to do. Of course it is unusual, but rare? It is common enough to fall outside that definition imo. Of course, I am including the cases in which a mother effectively chooses a man over her children but doesn’t actively kill her children for his sake, but essentially allows him to. A not too long ago case in Texas in which a single mom of a 3 yr old daughter who was raped, tortured, and murdered by her live-in, ex-felon boyfriend is a case in point. This woman knew of this asshole’s incredibly violent history, yet she not only struck up a relationship with im, she allowed him to move in with her and BABYSIT her daughter! When she came home and found her baby dead with cigarette burns and other wounds all over her body and the evidence of her child having been raped with a pot handle at hand, what did she do? Why, she warned the killer to run away before he could be apprehended, then lied to police to protect him, THEN, after he was imprisoned for the crime, visited him and sent love letters regularly. Sweet weeping Jesus. There is simply no other explaination imo than women who have somehow arrived at a place where they place zero value on themselves or anything they value or produce, including their children. The only value they can ever feel is in relation to a man, any man. As for why some ask/demand such things, same issue, I think; they display an over-inflated sense of self-worth which masks an underlying lack of self-esteem/worth/value. They demand such things in order to reinforce their shaky security. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-man-say-its-the-____-or-me-and-why-do-women-stay-with-them/484238.md?page=2)