In our first reader Q&A post, we explore once again the impossibly difficult question of whether to end a marriage. Sometimes, when Mandy's husband drinks, she and her kids get hurt.
No man who accuses a woman of being hyper emotional is "among the most decent of us." Until men stop abusing, killing, and stalking their partners because of their own inability to control their emotions, it's simply ludicrous for them to point the finger at us.
Indeed, one of the core problems in most heterosexual marriages I see is the man's decision to identify as "decent" without establishing any specific standards for decency. I think this is why men see me as controversial and women see me as some kind of prophet. To women, I'm saying what is just obviously true and common sense, but I refuse to accept men who self-identify as nice without interrogating what exactly nice means.
I think what's really happening in marriages that women leave is not an accumulation of small slights at all. The majority of women I work with tell me about years of bad/abusive parenting, sexual abuse, emotional and physical violence. It's that men perceive their terrible behavior as "small," and in so doing, demean the humanity of their partners.
Truly small stuff--getting the wrong flowers or whatever--doesn't actually accumulate with time. But the big stuff does.
My advice to your reader is simple: you are with an abusive alcoholic. This is not small, and it's dangerous to all of you. You deserve better, and your children are entitled to a safer environment. Leave. If he wants to change, he still can. You can always reconcile. But if he wanted to change, he already would have.
I really appreciate you taking time to read this and comment. Thank you, Zawn.
This is intended as a sincere and gentle challenge to your first paragraph: Have you not experienced a situation in which you sincerely believed another person was overreacting to an event or something you said or did? Where your very honest, in-the-moment interpretation was: "Holy shit. I seriously can't believe they're acting like this right now. It makes no sense to me"?
It's not exclusively a sex/gender thing, in my experience (for example, one of my female clients seriously upset her husband when she referred to his sprained ankle he was complaining about as his 'vag-ankle'--she was the invalidator in the relationship), but it certainly cross-pollinates with sexism/misogyny in male-female relationships. I witness it in social media threads daily. It's beyond gross.
Of course we all are dismissive at times, but misunderstanding is qualitatively different from dismissing women as hyperemotional. The former is easily solved with better and more communication; the latter is an inherently misogynistic maneuver designed to escape accountability and stigmatize women. It is absolutely a sex/gender thing to label a person as excessively emotional on an ongoing basis. Come on. Do you really want to play the "but women do it too?" game.
How many times in your life have you been accused of being hysterical or told to calm down? How often do you think it happens to the typical woman?
I think it's worth noting that even in your complimentary write up of me, you buy into this misogynistic trope, asserting that I waste little time on subtlety and nuance. My work is full of both; men sometimes struggle to see it because speaking directly makes them defensive, and they then speak about me as somehow over the top or unable to see nuance.
I promise that I didn’t mean to imply or suggest that you’re unable to see nuance. I also promise that I know I’m still under construction and have ample work to do.
I’m guilty of believing some of this gets lost in semantics. Partners agreeing on what “nice” means is imperative, as you suggested earlier. I don’t think we would observe a couple in conflict and disagree about what we’re seeing and hearing.
I just believe, perhaps foolishly, in human decency and that many good men possess it even if they sometimes foolishly or selfishly or ignorantly or blindly hurt their relationship partners with their behavior.
I'm really confused about what aspect of my commentary makes you think that I don't believe in human decency, or that there aren't men who possess it. Can you explain?
I want to try. I’m in a room full of hundreds of people which is about the worst environment possible for me to communicate effectively.
I also would never mean to imply that you don’t believe in human decency or in good men. I know that you do.
I think this exchange feels a tiny bit like the situations I’m attempting, very poorly, to describe. Not one sentence I’ve written was intended to cast even the smallest ounce of negativity on you or your work, but it feels like I fell into it somehow.
I think people (usually men) feel this way consistently in their relationship conversations. 😬
I was attempting to write in my post that you’re more direct and straightforward than I am. I’m more wishy-washy and typically trying to write around anything too divisive or offensive. I’m Midwest nice. I’m sure it’s annoying. That’s what I meant when I said you don’t waste energy on subtly. You call people out. I think it makes you awesome at what you do.
I’m not trying to discount anything you write or say. I think your writing is important and effective and true.
In my work, I see my job as reaching men who are largely unaware of how their actions are hurting their partner and jeopardizing their marriage.
To do that, I try to write things that won’t trigger defensiveness. And even when I try my best, I still get a bunch of them being defensive in social media and YouTube comments.
I think human relationships are largely comprised of people who want their relationships to be good and peaceful, and often, are made up of people lacking skills, knowledge, awareness of how to cultivate and nurture those.
I think the vast majority of the time, those people are men.
And I don’t think that position contradicts anything you believe (but I may be wrong about that).
I think men working on the same awareness, “skills”, and knowledge I’ve been trying to work on for the past decade (and us raising boys to be good partners and good men) is the most effective way societally, culturally to address the majority of these problems.
I’m just trying to reach them in the only way I know how. And I want every one of them to read and think about and understand all of the important conditions you consistently shine a light on.
And I’m very sorry if any of my article or comment writing “sounded like” anything else.
Thank you for a thoughtful, every-angle-covered essay on the dynamics and dilemmas of less-than-ideal love relationships.
I am a member in a popular on-line, self-publishing site, writing and reading on relationship "issues."
With quote around the word issues because in reality, we mean the bad stuff.
In the essays I've read, 100% focus on issues that are negative, bad stuff ad infinitum, with finger-pointing most by women towards men, men doing what they shouldn't, men not-doing what they should, and a plethora or words like abuse, narcissism, addiction. The word that most threatens my digestion: "deserve." What I deserve., what I don't deserve. Aie!
(Exceptions that prove the rule were two writers expressing their views on the wonders and joys of a love relationship).
An old maxim is "you get what you focus on."
Although I have plenty to agree with in Matthew's piece, and much to add or subtract, my seven-plus decades on Earth in many and varied love relationships showed me that indeed, I got what I focused on. For a long time, with talk-therapy as god -- and who goes to therapy to talk about how wonderful their lives are? --I, too, went down the rabbit-hole of all that was wrong, especially with "him."
One day, with the man I never wanted to leave or lose, I changed my focus.
Praise, nothing but praise, in words, deeds and thoughts about him.
Pointing the finger at him always had three pointing back at me and the thumb towards heaven, so this is what I worked on: my own addictions, faults, limitations, and faith in the great mystery that carries us all.
Twenty years later the impossible relationship flourishes in friendship, love, acceptance and humor.
I am eager for this cyclical trend of "issues" to exhaust itself so that men and women can attend to real life in true love.
Do you tell women she wouldn’t be beat up by her alcoholic partner if she just complimented him and praised him more? This puts more work on her just as she is drowning and trying to survive.
That’s equivalent to telling some literally drowning in swimming pool, “say please and ask nicely and I’ll give you the life preserver”. This women asking for advice doesn’t state how she is hurt...if her feelings are hurt or if she physically is but it doesn’t matter. This is ridiculous to suggest praise is the answer when someone is literally asking about sounds like abuse. JFC
I can’t let this go that abuse isn’t being highlighted in this question first and foremost and at center of this response. I just started listening to your podcast this week was hopeful you’d be a feminist male to listen around my home where I have 2 teen sons who (so far) state they’re heterosexual and are attracted to girls.
I suggest you reach out to Lundy Bancroft to understand more about this issue. There’s many IPV/DV advocates out there but I have a suspicion you’d mostly only hear men on this topic as a starting ground.
No man who accuses a woman of being hyper emotional is "among the most decent of us." Until men stop abusing, killing, and stalking their partners because of their own inability to control their emotions, it's simply ludicrous for them to point the finger at us.
Indeed, one of the core problems in most heterosexual marriages I see is the man's decision to identify as "decent" without establishing any specific standards for decency. I think this is why men see me as controversial and women see me as some kind of prophet. To women, I'm saying what is just obviously true and common sense, but I refuse to accept men who self-identify as nice without interrogating what exactly nice means.
I think what's really happening in marriages that women leave is not an accumulation of small slights at all. The majority of women I work with tell me about years of bad/abusive parenting, sexual abuse, emotional and physical violence. It's that men perceive their terrible behavior as "small," and in so doing, demean the humanity of their partners.
Truly small stuff--getting the wrong flowers or whatever--doesn't actually accumulate with time. But the big stuff does.
My advice to your reader is simple: you are with an abusive alcoholic. This is not small, and it's dangerous to all of you. You deserve better, and your children are entitled to a safer environment. Leave. If he wants to change, he still can. You can always reconcile. But if he wanted to change, he already would have.
I really appreciate you taking time to read this and comment. Thank you, Zawn.
This is intended as a sincere and gentle challenge to your first paragraph: Have you not experienced a situation in which you sincerely believed another person was overreacting to an event or something you said or did? Where your very honest, in-the-moment interpretation was: "Holy shit. I seriously can't believe they're acting like this right now. It makes no sense to me"?
It's not exclusively a sex/gender thing, in my experience (for example, one of my female clients seriously upset her husband when she referred to his sprained ankle he was complaining about as his 'vag-ankle'--she was the invalidator in the relationship), but it certainly cross-pollinates with sexism/misogyny in male-female relationships. I witness it in social media threads daily. It's beyond gross.
Of course we all are dismissive at times, but misunderstanding is qualitatively different from dismissing women as hyperemotional. The former is easily solved with better and more communication; the latter is an inherently misogynistic maneuver designed to escape accountability and stigmatize women. It is absolutely a sex/gender thing to label a person as excessively emotional on an ongoing basis. Come on. Do you really want to play the "but women do it too?" game.
How many times in your life have you been accused of being hysterical or told to calm down? How often do you think it happens to the typical woman?
I think it's worth noting that even in your complimentary write up of me, you buy into this misogynistic trope, asserting that I waste little time on subtlety and nuance. My work is full of both; men sometimes struggle to see it because speaking directly makes them defensive, and they then speak about me as somehow over the top or unable to see nuance.
I promise that I didn’t mean to imply or suggest that you’re unable to see nuance. I also promise that I know I’m still under construction and have ample work to do.
I’m guilty of believing some of this gets lost in semantics. Partners agreeing on what “nice” means is imperative, as you suggested earlier. I don’t think we would observe a couple in conflict and disagree about what we’re seeing and hearing.
I just believe, perhaps foolishly, in human decency and that many good men possess it even if they sometimes foolishly or selfishly or ignorantly or blindly hurt their relationship partners with their behavior.
For clarity: I don’t mean consistently hurt. That becomes abusive and neglectful pretty quickly if it’s on repeat.
I’m ADHD. My capacity for overlooking something is pretty vast. I don’t like it.
I'm really confused about what aspect of my commentary makes you think that I don't believe in human decency, or that there aren't men who possess it. Can you explain?
I want to try. I’m in a room full of hundreds of people which is about the worst environment possible for me to communicate effectively.
I also would never mean to imply that you don’t believe in human decency or in good men. I know that you do.
I think this exchange feels a tiny bit like the situations I’m attempting, very poorly, to describe. Not one sentence I’ve written was intended to cast even the smallest ounce of negativity on you or your work, but it feels like I fell into it somehow.
I think people (usually men) feel this way consistently in their relationship conversations. 😬
I was attempting to write in my post that you’re more direct and straightforward than I am. I’m more wishy-washy and typically trying to write around anything too divisive or offensive. I’m Midwest nice. I’m sure it’s annoying. That’s what I meant when I said you don’t waste energy on subtly. You call people out. I think it makes you awesome at what you do.
I’m not trying to discount anything you write or say. I think your writing is important and effective and true.
In my work, I see my job as reaching men who are largely unaware of how their actions are hurting their partner and jeopardizing their marriage.
To do that, I try to write things that won’t trigger defensiveness. And even when I try my best, I still get a bunch of them being defensive in social media and YouTube comments.
I think human relationships are largely comprised of people who want their relationships to be good and peaceful, and often, are made up of people lacking skills, knowledge, awareness of how to cultivate and nurture those.
I think the vast majority of the time, those people are men.
And I don’t think that position contradicts anything you believe (but I may be wrong about that).
I think men working on the same awareness, “skills”, and knowledge I’ve been trying to work on for the past decade (and us raising boys to be good partners and good men) is the most effective way societally, culturally to address the majority of these problems.
I’m just trying to reach them in the only way I know how. And I want every one of them to read and think about and understand all of the important conditions you consistently shine a light on.
And I’m very sorry if any of my article or comment writing “sounded like” anything else.
Thank you for a thoughtful, every-angle-covered essay on the dynamics and dilemmas of less-than-ideal love relationships.
I am a member in a popular on-line, self-publishing site, writing and reading on relationship "issues."
With quote around the word issues because in reality, we mean the bad stuff.
In the essays I've read, 100% focus on issues that are negative, bad stuff ad infinitum, with finger-pointing most by women towards men, men doing what they shouldn't, men not-doing what they should, and a plethora or words like abuse, narcissism, addiction. The word that most threatens my digestion: "deserve." What I deserve., what I don't deserve. Aie!
(Exceptions that prove the rule were two writers expressing their views on the wonders and joys of a love relationship).
An old maxim is "you get what you focus on."
Although I have plenty to agree with in Matthew's piece, and much to add or subtract, my seven-plus decades on Earth in many and varied love relationships showed me that indeed, I got what I focused on. For a long time, with talk-therapy as god -- and who goes to therapy to talk about how wonderful their lives are? --I, too, went down the rabbit-hole of all that was wrong, especially with "him."
One day, with the man I never wanted to leave or lose, I changed my focus.
Praise, nothing but praise, in words, deeds and thoughts about him.
Pointing the finger at him always had three pointing back at me and the thumb towards heaven, so this is what I worked on: my own addictions, faults, limitations, and faith in the great mystery that carries us all.
Twenty years later the impossible relationship flourishes in friendship, love, acceptance and humor.
I am eager for this cyclical trend of "issues" to exhaust itself so that men and women can attend to real life in true love.
Thank You, Matthew.
Do you tell women she wouldn’t be beat up by her alcoholic partner if she just complimented him and praised him more? This puts more work on her just as she is drowning and trying to survive.
That’s equivalent to telling some literally drowning in swimming pool, “say please and ask nicely and I’ll give you the life preserver”. This women asking for advice doesn’t state how she is hurt...if her feelings are hurt or if she physically is but it doesn’t matter. This is ridiculous to suggest praise is the answer when someone is literally asking about sounds like abuse. JFC
I can’t let this go that abuse isn’t being highlighted in this question first and foremost and at center of this response. I just started listening to your podcast this week was hopeful you’d be a feminist male to listen around my home where I have 2 teen sons who (so far) state they’re heterosexual and are attracted to girls.
I suggest you reach out to Lundy Bancroft to understand more about this issue. There’s many IPV/DV advocates out there but I have a suspicion you’d mostly only hear men on this topic as a starting ground.