Yeah, I am pretty pissed off right now.
I had some down time and wanted a little
distraction from work to reset before the next task. So I was reading a popular website that we
have probably all been to before. I
noticed on the ‘Living’ tab there was an article about “11 Ways You May Be
Sabotaging Your Marriage” This was further
sub-categorized under the ‘Relationships’ section of the ‘Living’ section.
Notice that the title of these sections is not gender
specific so I figured this would be some nice all-purpose info about how
couples unconsciously mess up. Who doesn’t
want to check this out so they can be armed and ready to avoid divorce
court? (Should that be capitalized? Hmmm).
The actual article is called ‘Collateral Damage 11 Ways You May Be
Sabotaging Your Marriage’ by Jenna Birch for Woman’s Day. I don’t
know who Jenna Birch is and I don’t read Woman’s Day but I still figured it
would be couple centric not gender specific.
It has slides – I liked that – it made the ‘article’ a quick read,
perfect for my little break. But that is
probably where I erred – thinking that relationship advice could be supplied in
something that was a ‘quick read’.
So why are my panties in a bunch? Probably
I wasn’t supposed to get this emotion from the article I read but I did. See what I got from this article was that women
are the saboteurs of marriage.
Here let
me give you the list from the article and tell you why:
11. You wait for your husband to speak up if he
needs something, especially sex.
22. You don’t tell your husband you appreciate him
33. You complain he doesn’t show affection when he
actually does.
44. You ignore your lack of libido
55. You subconsciously put your ex on a pedestal
66. You think all men are bad
77. You try to make the relationship work all by
yourself
88. You assume you know what he’s thinking
9. During disagreements you ignore his perspective
10. You rely on sarcasm to communicate
11. You don’t connect with him every day
That list is word for word from the article so thank you to Ms.
Birch.
After I cleaned the brains off my desk, because yes, my head
exploded, I really got angry. Is this
the 1950’s? It’s the woman who does the
bad things and needs to guard against it?
It’s not alternately the woman or the man in the RELATIONSHIP who may be
guilty of any of these acts? Are you
kidding me? And aren’t a couple of those
items contradictory to each other? Maybe
not on the surface of the list alone but when you read the little helpful
paragraph after each item – yep, absolutely.
Now to be sure this list does apply to women – but it
applies to men too. It applies to PEOPLE.
Let’s examine what was in those little bits of brain that I
had to clean up, item by item:
1. Don’t men
do this as well? Especially men of a
certain age who are hung up on item 4, (don’t worry we will get there)? And what about when someone does speak up and
is IGNORED? Or told that the needs are
somehow wrong or bad? Or God Forbid
something along the lines of ‘Get over it, real life is not like books, movies
and TV – no one is passionate or holds hands or kisses like that in real life!’
? (That one really sucks on a lot of
levels because it discounts your feelings and your intelligence!)
22. Men do this – everyone does this – we all forget
to let someone know that we appreciate them sometimes. It is not the sole responsibility of the
person with the vagina to safeguard the feelings of the person with the penis.
33. OK – this one was special. The little paragraph after this one went on
to explain in not so many words about how men show feelings by mowing the grass
not waxing poetic about how they love, love, love their girl to the moon and
back. So remember ladies nothing says ‘I
love you‘ like a well-manicured lawn and stop expecting words, chocolates and
sex OK?
44. Uh, men do this – they blame it on stress, or
Low T and then won’t go to the doctor. They don’t go to the doctor because it seems
a lot of guys can’t quite face the reality that their buddy Mr. Jones doesn’t
want to go to the night club anymore.
Can’t tell anyone, like a doctor who spent years learning about the
physiology of the human body and might have a suggestion to help, about that. Somehow, it is much better if only the little
woman knows, and if she doesn’t understand that this is just the way it is from
now on well that is her issue –the horny slut!
Mr. Jones is retired and the Pink
Palace better be too! Sometimes, women
get told that the man’s low libido is because we are over-weight, have wrinkles
or don’t wear the ‘right’ lingerie. We
aren’t sexy enough either. Some women
are told it was always a bad idea to be with them because they never were
sexy. And some are told that they are
not sexy ‘anymore’ i.e. we are getting older and when we lay down so do our
breasts. Well I got news for you Peter
Pan – this ain’t Neverland.
55. I really didn’t have a problem with this beyond
that it didn’t acknowledge that men can do this. If you do this you are a special kind of
stupid and you have been lying to yourself and your significant other – your ex
is your ex for a reason and everybody really is better off so STOP IT.
66. Who has heard something like this: ‘I hate that women cry to get their way in an argument’?
Imma bet a lot of you. Isn’t that a huge generalization that means ‘all
women are bad’? I kinda think it
is. No, you jackass, I cry because you hurt my
feelings. Just as another example, I’ve
also heard from a man studying to be a police officer: ‘I can’t wait to be a
cop because all women cry to get out of tickets and I will NEVER give a woman a
break’. I shudder to think what other
awesomeness is rolling around in that guys’ brain because he has a license to
carry a gun!
77. See 4 – if men don’t show feelings, how are you
supposed to NOT try to make the relationship work all by yourself? A relationship implies more than one person is
involved in it and for the purpose of this diatribe a relationship is a boy and
a girl. The article in question implies
that the girl tries to do it all in a relationship and that is a no no. That really discounts men doesn’t it? That sucks because ALL MEN are not bad. I know men who would move Heaven and Earth
for their women. The women in some of those
relationships? Yeah, they are some of the most entitled
bitches I’ve ever met, the only thing that they deserve to have moved for them
is a boulder, moved right on top of them.
Boys and Girls (or Boys and Boys or Girls and Girls but that is another
topic) have to work together – it doesn’t matter if one tries to do it all –
eventually it will break.
88. Oh yeah, ‘cause no man in the history of history
ever assumed that they knew what a woman was thinking! Puh-leeze. Everyone does this, regardless of which set
of naughty bits they have – we assume we know exactly what another person is
thinking. I think humans in general are
hardwired to do this. It leads to all
kinds of problems. Tons.
99. See my comments on item 8 – enough said.
10. Ditto
111.
Again I go back to 4. If men are just emotionless sperm banks who
mow the lawn, who cares? Why
bother? But if they are really needing ‘connection’
why is the responsibility of the woman to provide the connection and make sure
that the connection happens so the men feel better? Don’t men need to consider a connection to
women? Don’t men need to be responsible
to share that they need something? Just
because it’s not good to wait around for someone to ask for something doesn’t
mean asking for something is bad.
Now, I intend no disrespect to the author of this list and
article because advice is a good thing.
Exposing oneself to the opinions of others is a good for the brain. You stretch the brain and you select off what
works for you and perhaps get better. Ms. Birch gave us some suggestions to help
prevent a bad situation, because surely a damaged marriage is a bad situation. She probably never intended to incite any ire
at all let alone what came to my mind.
What I disrespect and object to is the idea that marital
sabotage is the work of women and therefore the responsibility of women to fix. I object to the idea that a man mowing the
grass is AFFECTION but that I must show appreciation to a man in ways tangible
to him. I object to the idea that a
woman must take responsibility for her lack of libido in order to resolve an
issue with a man. I object to the idea
that a woman has to connect with the man to make things work and that the man should expect this.
But above all, I object that there are a lot of
women out there who think that there is something wrong with them when a
relationship fails. And this article
brought this feeling in particular to the surface for me. Everyone/Everything in a relationship is
interconnected and if a piece breaks the whole thing breaks. If a relationship is to succeed everyone
involved has to work at it or the dominos will surely fall, one by one.
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