Letters to the Editor
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re: not your mommy
Heh, I have this problem that I don't believe in dissing my husband, but I'd like to be able to talk honestly about these issues. So, I remain anonymous out of respect for my husband and my marriage, and I'd like to point out that I really do love him, even when he acts like a turd. I'm aware that I have my own faults, and he loves me in spite of them.
Of course there's friction over housework. No one wants to do it; it brings out the worst in people. Especially lazy people. There are a lot of lazy people in the world; if no one married lazy people, there would be a lot more lonely people.
There isn't a pleasant way to get a slacker to pick up a fair share of the load. If anyone knows one, please share. Men and women can both be slackers. It's more socially acceptable for men to be slackers around the house, and more socially acceptable for women to bully men about it, so I suspect the actual slacking that gets done just about evens out.
So what happens when you divide chores equally, and he (I'm going to use the husband as the example, but it goes either way) agrees that the division of labor is fair, yet he doesn't do his half? Well, either you let it go, or you do it yourself, or you say something about it and try to get him to do what he agreed to do. Say something more than once, and he gets to call it nagging.
That's not any fun. I signed on to be a wife, not a mommy. I don't actually like fighting over housework. I just want it done. I could do it all myself, but living with someone who says he's going to do something and then doesn't doesn't make me feel good about him, or about myself. I want to be married to a man who does what he says he's going to do. I don't want to fight about it. I don't want to give up and leave; I love him. So, what's the answer?
One day many years ago we were arguing about housework and a realization struck me. He had a lot invested in seeing me as the bad guy. It allowed him to justify not doing the work. And he didn't want to do the work because he was lazy. Perhaps I was helped to this realization because I'm lazy myself; it's hard to be a self-starter. It's actually easier to have someone push you to do something you don't want to do than to pick up and do it yourself. It's more fun to blame not wanting to do something on someone else than to admit you're just lazy.
I can't express how much this realization changed my life.
We had this conversation: "You know, I'm not the bad guy and you don't get to make me the bad guy. This is your house too, and the things that need done need done regardless of whether or not I bug you to try to get you to do them. So I'm done bugging you. And by the way, I don't sound like your mother. Your mother never expected you to do a damn thing."
The weird thing is that once he realized I was serious, he started ASKING me to nag him. "Remind me to make a trip to the vet to get cat food before we run out. Remind me to do something about the broken light fixture when the stores are open. Remind me to trim the bushes while there's plenty of daylight." Yes, sir. Gladly.
This is an interim step; perhaps someday, he'll become a true self-starter who develops strategies for remembering things that need done without my help. Right now, it's a huge step forward. I'm willing to do the work of planning and remembering, as long as he gets the work done and doesn't take my head off for reminding him.
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Help the goose, hurt the gander
" My ex has lost every battle so far, even with a fathers' rights judge on the bench, not because he's a man but because he's been exaggerating, lying and acting like a bully."
Yet when women do the same, they win. How many years in prison did the byotch get who lied about being raped at Duke? How many women are jailed for blocking visitation? How many false DV charges go unpunished?
What percentage of women are managers, CEOS, professors, etc.?
Should we care?
What percent of custodial parents are male?
Why DON'T we care?
"A lawyer I know says he sees this behavior from men all the time"
I'm sure there is at least one male CEO who sees incompetence women "all the time."
It's called stereotyping. Why are we only to decry bias when it hurts women?
Feminists made the mistake of believing their lies would never be uncovered, that males would be infinitely patient.
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What's good for the goose
Yet when women do the same, they win. How many years in prison did the byotch get who lied about being raped at Duke? How many women are jailed for blocking visitation? How many false DV charges go unpunished?
My ex isn't getting punished, either. He just isn't getting what he wants, which is to punish me via family court for not being the wife he wanted.
By your standards, he should be jailed. Right?
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"Mommy Mania" In The Loveless Time of Choleric-Colicky Fembotulism
"He is now involved with a woman who controls everything for him--weight loss, medications, vacations, clean house, dinner every night, nurses when sick, etc. He found mommy."
I wonder if he "lost" Mommy around age 5, when most boys get told crying, needing, being vulnerable is unmanly. Maybe it was in highschool when girls danced only with each other, never approaching guys, bedded dudes who played while hurt. Maybe he just got tired of feminists endlessly forcing him to be Big Daddy, paying taxes for 'adult' women who refused work or carry equal loads. Maybe he didn't seek Mommy so much as a female who actually treated him equally, who gets things from him in return... and appreciates it.
" Women did not enter the workforce to work two (or in some cases 3) jobs. Most had no choice..."
Like most men.
", those who did expected cooperation from their well-educated partners."
As men expected equality, too. Instead they met feminists, adult women who nag and throw temper tantrums and think money grows on trees.
"It is incomprehensible to me that anyone tolerates a situation where a man does not pull his weight."
Hence the understandable, albeit belated, male response to feminists who don't pull THEIR weight.
"My spouse will not shape up..."
So...why did you pick him, in all the world?
What does he say about YOUR clay feet?
Is your therapist like those heinous court-appointed DV nazis who scream at men who insist they were, in fact, just protecting themselves from abusive females? Is the "therapy" really a PC, anti-male kangaroo court? That is, does your therapist take the female side in every "complex, nuanced, contexted" situation?
What about YOUR need to pick a mother-seeking man? Why only blame him for his choice? What vibe did YOU put out that attracted him? Why did you agree to marry a man who wants "mothering"?
And does he want a mother...or just a compassionate female? You know, one who doesn't justify her self-centeredness on The Patriarchy.