Men, Modern Relationships, and the Feminine Crap

Regarding the challenges for men in modern relationships, I wrote the book.

Literally, I wrote it.

And as to the aggravating and frustrating challenges men endure for, uh, femininity, who’s telling men’s story?  Who’s describing their troubles?  For that matter, who cares to listen to men’s story, much less tell it?

In fact, whenever men do try to communicate their frustrations, women say things like: “Women—they’re sooo awful.  Pooor you. The world would be better off without us.”  Or, “Oh, I’m sorry you’re in a relationship and have to tolerate another human being.”

Women can be very sarcastic.

The point is, women say everything but, “I hear you; and I understand.”  Everything but, “I never realized,” and “Perhaps I need to improve on some things.”

Women don’t say those things, because they’re too busy demanding that men say them.

If men want someone to listen to their story, men have to pay someone—as in, a couple’s therapist.  Yet even in the counselor’s quarters men are merely listened to, are more or less tolerated, but not heard—

“Mr. Warren, do you hear what your wife is saying?  I mean, what she’s really saying?”

“Uh, does anyone hear what I’m saying?  What I’m really saying?”

“There it is, doctor—the defiance, the anger.  See what I was talking about?  It’s my life, day-in, day-out.”

“Yes, yes.  Indeed I do see, Mrs. Warren.  Much worse than you described, too.  A very deep-seated defiance and anger.”

“I thought we were paying you to listen to us both, doctor.”

“Yes, well.  I think we’ve heard all we need to hear from you, Mr. Warren.  We get the picture, and it tells the story.”

And then the good doctor spends the next 2 years debriefing Mrs. Warren every week as to my progress, while they both construct a better Mr. Warren, a more compliant Mr. Warren—the tolerated and unheard counseling participant, who’s cutting the checks, no less.

Nobody is telling men’s story, and nobody really cares to hear it, either.

Nevertheless.  The challenges for men, and me having written the book on it—I could have summarized the manuscript this way, and perhaps I should have summarized it this way:

Men don’t have to tolerate the feminine crap that comes with modern women and relationships.

I actually did outline the feminine crap in the book’s epilogue—rather thoroughly, in fact.  I just never directly told men they didn’t have to tolerate it.  Maybe the point was implied, I don’t know.  But I should have communicated it directly.

The point about toleration has to be made to men because they remain traditional-minded in their view towards women, towards relationships, and towards their role in relationships, while women have largely abandoned traditional ideas and roles.

For example, women are working.  And they want to work—if nothing more than for the income that affords them independence from men, which is ultimately a mechanism of control over men.

Interestingly, women complain about not feeling needed and thus wanted by their men, and claim they want to feel needed and wanted.  Yet, here women are wanting their own income and independence, and essentially telling men they don’t need them, by financially arranging it so they don’t need them.

Like I said, it’s interesting.

And of course, women have become exhausted and angrier and more resentful for having to work so hard to overcome their dependence on men.  And for all this effort at independence, women also fancy themselves more entitled—entitled to being served, to being heard, to being accommodated, and so on.

I mean, they do all that extra work, and all.

Naturally, this fresh female perspective towards men and relationships comes with relational acrimony, the likes of abundant criticism, accusation, bitterness, resentment, defensiveness, and uncontrolled emotion.  Otherwise known as the feminine crap men tolerate for remaining traditional-minded in their views toward women and relationships.

Frankly, I’ll never understand why men tolerate the crap.  Yet, they do indeed.

But, why?  There’s no rule in the nuptials dictating that men tolerate it.  Even if there were, who wants to be involved in an acrimonious relationship?  Who wants to live such a miserable existence?  Further, who deserves to live it?

And there’s this:  when all the acrimony finally comes to a head, it’s men being held accountable and severely punished.  The accused, men are alcoholics and drug addicts and various themed abusers.  It’s men, not women, who are the general, all-around assholes that made the marriage a nightmare, and who pay handsomely for the nightmarish ordeal via child support and alimony.

And all of this after enduring years of criticism, accusation, emotional tongue-lashings, and soul-crushing acrimony.

How do you like them apples, big boy?

Why would men want to endure all that?  What man wouldn’t look back on such an ordeal and say, “Gosh, I’d have rather avoided that woeful chapter of my life.”

Trust me.  Men have said it.

And women have said it, too.

Only, women are the ones with the fresh, conventional perspective on men and relationships.  They’re the ones defensively and bitterly and resentfully dishing out the criticisms and accusations, the ones rendering the emotional lashings, and the ones responsible for the acrimony.

Most importantly, they’re the ones refusing to acknowledge their role in the “woeful chapter” that all involved would’ve rather avoided.

The bottom line is men are made ultimately responsible for making relationships and marriages work, and thus, for them failing.  It is an expectation slowly imposed on men for the never ending female need and subsequent demand for multi-faceted security.

In other words, the success or failure of relationships is dependent upon male conformity to the rules women, however slowly and subtly and incrementally, set forth.

Women want good relationships, too, mind you.  They just don’t want to be responsible for the work that makes relationships good.  They don’t want to perform all that outdated, traditional protocol formerly expected of women.  They want men to do the work, and they expect men to do the work.   The traditional work, too.

Women are victims, a role they take to quite naturally and readily.   Why so naturally and readily?

Well, in what aspect of modern society are women not “the victimized?”

Precisely—in every aspect.  Thus, women take to victimhood quite naturally and readily, and even warmly.  Why?  Because it’s advantageous and beneficial.

Here’s how victimhood works relationally:  women are the abused, the undervalued, and the underappreciated.  They make men their victimizers.  Disproving the status, men become the relationship’s employees, doing all the relationship improving work.  Women get used to men doing the work, and to men making concessions.  And ultimately, women come to expect men to do the work, and to carry the relationship bags.

That’s precisely how it works.

Of course, the baggage transfer isn’t something that happens overnight.  It’s a process, slowly evolving, one that gets worse and worse, and more onerous.  Women don’t expect men to carry their bags in the prenuptial phase.  No.  It’s when the documents are signed and the vows are spoken—that’s when women start demanding, and start offloading their bags.

Men aren’t romantic enough.  They aren’t attentive enough, aren’t paying enough attention to the children, and thus aren’t committed enough or involved enough.  They aren’t trying hard enough, aren’t ambitious enough, aren’t sophisticated enough, aren’t fill in the blank.

The process slow and subtle, men never realize what is happening to them—that they’re being held responsible, that they’re conceding, that they’re subject to soul-crushing acrimony, and that they’re the only ones lacing-up relationship work boots to improve things.

Women tend to get angry when this reality is exposed.  They don’t argue that it isn’t reality, mind you, and that these things don’t occur.  Rather, they get defensive and start pointing out men’s flaws.

Only, there’s the reality—the slow and subtle process to establish dominion and the related expectations, which actually does occur.  And rather than getting angry and defensive, women should acknowledge that it occurs, and should simply rid themselves of the bitterness and resentment, stop the criticisms and accusations, end the acrimony, and take responsibility for their own bags.

Yet, women refuse to recognize themselves as merely a part of the problem, much less the problem in total.

It proves the point:  women want good relationships.  They just don’t want to be responsible for the work that creates good relationships.  They want men to do the work, and they expect men to do the work, and to carry their bags.

Being responsible for a relationship’s failure?

Doing all the improvement work?

Expected to do all the improvement work?

Forfeiting my life and desires and happiness, and living a miserable existence in exchange?

I can’t speak for every man but, personally, I can’t love a woman that much.

I don’t have that kind of love in me, in fact—whatever kind that is.

It’s a new age.  Men are living in a fresh relational paradigm, one that has them carrying the bags.  Yet, men are stuck in the past, stuck in traditions that have been largely abandoned, and that are no longer applicable.

Hence, men must be told they don’t have to tolerate the feminine crap—the acrimony—that comes with modern women and relationships.  Men must be told because there seems to be a switch that’s flipped or a button pressed that makes men feel they have no alternatives relationally, and that they are obliged to endure whatever feminine crap is thrown at them.

Men come home from work to their suburban homes like zombies:

“Hi, Jim.”

“Hi, Bill,” they say to one another deadpan, and listless.

Then men go inside their respective dwellings to be griped at by women and disrespected in so many ways.

And how do men respond to the acrimony?

Subordinately.  Compliantly.

Men tell themselves:  It’s part of the deal.  It’s my job as a husband.  I need to be patient and understanding.  I need to be more attentive and involved.  I need to be more sensitive, more sensitive to her needs.

Men justify their women, too:  She’s exhausted.  She works all day, too.  She has a difficult job.  The kids are rambunctious.  She needs a break.

Once in relationships, men turn into mindless zombies.  Brainwashed worshipers at the altars of:  I have No Choice and This Is Life for Me Now and I Must Endure This Feminine Crap.

Once in a relationship men are like never-before-caged Bengal Tigers.  They anxiously pace the fencing of their confinement—back-and-forth, back-and-forth.  They hiss defiantly when their captors bring them food—Hissss!  Only to pace some more.

Pretty soon they just accept the bars and their fate and, well, they lay-up.

No more pacing.

No more defiance.

No more vigor.

Resolved and listless, it’s:  “Hi Jim.”  “Hi Bill.”

And when their food is delivered they purr with contented satisfaction and lick the hand that feeds them.  And once fed, they’re responding to the captor’s whip and are poised like ballerinas on their hind quarters.  After which, they return to their comfy straw bed to lay-up, until the food bucket arrives again, and until being commanded to perform.

Woo-pishhh!

Women won’t recognize their role in any relationship problems, or that they need to improve in any particular area.

And why would they?

Women have willing, traditional-minded, zombie-like men taking all the blame, doing all the relational work, making all the relational adjustments, and who then head back to the straw to … lay-up.

Men don’t have to lay-up.  They don’t have to take any feminine crap, either.

What is a relationship, anyway?  That’s the idea men need to rethink.

Let me help:  a modern relationship is a business venture—that’s what it is.  And if men think it isn’t, they should visit the courthouse and learn how the legal system views relationships, particularly those acrimonious and that haven’t fared so well.

It’s untraditional thinking, to be sure.  Yet, unfortunately, it’s the conventional type required to manage feminine crap, and for modern relationships.

©JMW 2018 All Rights Reserved