- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
One Poster wrote:
"If you're going to make such explicit complaints about your private life to the whole world, you have to expect some feedback. Do you want to solve your problem, or do you just want to complain and complain and complain?"
Clarification since the poster didn't bother to, you know, actually READ my posts or simply didnt understand them -- I never claimed these were my problems.
I'm not married and I don't have kids.
So I never said these are my problems -- these are simply the complaints I've heard from my married friends who have had children.
Confusing matter further is that ANOTHER poster called Annoymous responded -- and not very adeptly (sorry other Annoymous).
These exchanges are actually very illustrative of the communication problems some married couples have.
A spouse makes a statement and the other spouse refuses to listen, purposefuly mischaracterizes their partners positon --- or just dismisses their concerns out of hand.
Isn't that basically what's happened here between the (ugh. I can't believe I'm actually writing this, but it's true!) male and the female posters?
The men say that sometimes problems do occur post-child and they can be a serious issues.
The women (at least some women, not all) immediately misrepresent what's said and try to dismiss the issues that are raised.
When I said that a siginifcant loss of sex drive after child birth that lasts for YEARS can be a serious issue in a marriage -- posters immediately complained that men are barbaric and insenstive for demanding that women resume normal sexual function within weeks of child birth!
A classic misrespresentation.
Next I brought up that other significant personality changes can occur after child birth -- including radical changes in wardrobe and appearence, changes that may bother a spouse. Posters then immediately mischaracterized that statement by arguing that it was ridiculous for men to demand that their wives dress like hookers immediately after giving birth?
Go back and re-read the posts and you'll see the female posters acting (ahem) emotional and somewhat irrational to some very mild observations.
Why is that?
Where is this hyper-defensiveness coming from?
Why do some posters feel the need, the urgency if you will, to insist that no problems exist?
