This morning’s fodder begins with the increased pressures we put on our partners and the increasing isolation we feel in modern society. I opened up a new browser tab and after a brief search on the neuroscience of how grief affects the brain, I scanned my pocket recommendations. I’m came across an article in The Atlantic: We Expect Too Much from Our Romantic Partners. This was something I’ve been “accused” of in the past; something I’ll admit I’ve been “guilty” of in the past.
Of course, these things are seldom black and white. I absolutely rely on my partner for my happiness, but not as the sole source. The article is a brief interview with social psychologist Eli Finkle who tries to get at the crux of how we now expect our partners to complete us, help us reach the highest levels of emotional fulfillment. Finkle is focused on:
the challenges of having a partner who’s simultaneously responsible for making us feel loved, and sexy, and competent, but also ambitious, and hungry, and aspirational. How do you make somebody feel safe, and loved, and beautiful without making him or her feel complacent? How do you make somebody feel energetic, and hungry, and eager to work hard without making them feel like you disapprove of the person they currently are?
Finkle suggests,
[What’s more], there’s no reason why it has to be the same person who plays both of those roles. I would just urge everybody, think about what you’re looking for from this one relationship and decide, are these expectations realistic in light of who I am, who my partner is, what the dynamics that we have together are? If so, how are we going to achieve all of these things together? Or alternatively, how can we relinquish some of these roles that we play in each others’ lives, and outsource them to, say, another member of your social network?
I’m still trying to figure out if I put all of my emotional needs on my ex-fiancee. I probably put more of them on her than needed to be, but I also know that I’ve tried to build a more simple life, one where I don’t have as many emotional needs. As best as I can describe it, I can be happy without my partner, but most of the things I enjoy in life are enhanced by their presence. Somewhere else on this blog I wrote about not needing alone time. I spent the better part of my marriage feeling alone. I probably should have spent some of that time cultivating better friendship, deeper interests, rediscovering the writer in me. But, if attachment theory is to be believed, the anxious type (which I identify with more than being a dismissive type) wouldn’t strike out to meet their needs on their own in that way – they would wait it out. To some degree, I became a stoic when I was in my marriage. For close to seven years, there was little to no affection between us. I didn’t seek it out, and once the initial phase of resentment and pouting had passed, I simply shut down and didn’t care. To be fair to myself, I found ways to occupy my time. I had, to some degree, learned to be alone. I played video games, watched lots of music videos, listened to a lot of music, did a lot of yard work, puttered around the house…. I had also taken on the majority of the household chores. I filled my time with responsibilities and work and things that took up time. It wasn’t the most fulfilling life – I was just sort of waiting it out.
When the divorce was finalized and with my daughter out of the house, I had even more time on my hands, but now I had a bit more agency over things. I filled it with dating, but also started the process of doing more things for myself. I started going to see live music, I found a good local watering hole, I started hanging out with friends more, I started spending more time with my family, I started hiking more, and, of course, I still had all of the responsibilities of owning a house. I was in the slow process of rebuilding my network. My wife and I were a fiercely independent and isolated couple – almost to the point of being anti-social. I began the long slow process of breaking down those walls between friends and family. When I left for Memphis a few of my friends, all of whom were my wife’s friends, said they were really going to miss me – they felt like they were just getting to know me these last few years.
To further complicate things, I’m a 40 something year old man… most of my peers are either man-children obsessed with sports, or overly career driven bro-culture psychopaths. Of course I exaggerate, but the reality is, none of us are taught to develop emotional ties to other men – we don’t call each other on the phone to talk about our feelings. This, too, I was working on. I had a few friends who were going through divorces – we would get together maybe once a month and just hang out – talk about life. I also had a friend, Jen. We became each other’s day to day friends. We texted every morning and almost every night. We shared dating stories. We talked about psychology. We debated our different approaches to relationships. We would hike and talk about our past, our jobs, what we wanted out of life. I encouraged her to befriend my ex-fiancee, B. Our friendship petered out a bit, I didn’t need her for my day to day… I had B for that – it was nicer to share it with someone I loved. Jen eventually betrayed me, told B that I was clingy in all of my relationships, suggested to her that maybe the relationship was just too much work. Maybe dialing back from Jen was a mistake. This is always the balancing act of a new relationship. It’s common to go all in and neglect or let go of other relationships, or slow down some of the individual growth as two people learn to dance with each other and grow together. The article suggested ensuring having a diversified social portfolio – something I hadn’t fully built out. When I met B, I thought the world had opened up in ways I hadn’t seen before. Hikes, music, drinks, even time doing nothing at all became so much more enjoyable. Given the choice of doing those things alone – or doing something else with B, I would always choose the quality time together. I never saw this as relying on her for my happiness.
It turns out that people who have more diversified social portfolios, that is, a larger number of people that they go to for different sorts of emotions, those people tend to have overall higher-quality life. This is one of the arguments in favor of thinking seriously about looking to other people to help us, or asking less of this one partner.
Being a transplant to the Philly area, B had a network of friends around the country, but very few friends in her new home town. She was working on it. She thanked me for introducing her to Jen – said she needed a girlfriend. As I’m learning, making friends in a new city is hard, I suspect making guy friends is even harder. What I discovered after things ended was that B didn’t rely on that network of friends for emotional support. I was over her place one night. She had just come back from her exploratory trip down south. We talked about how we were each dealing with the loss… she said she doesn’t talk to her friends about these things. I suspect that while they were dear friends, these were also the people she felt weren’t there for her when her husband passed (or were probably there, but not for as long as she needed). Now having experienced my own form of grief, I recognize just how hard it is to turn to other people, especially people you know. I remember feeling like a failure when I got divorced – we never want the people closest to us to see our failures. That night B talked about how she isn’t “scheduled” to talk to her one friend for at least two weeks. That night I reached out to the friend and asked her to reach out to B sooner. This wasn’t an entirely selfless act – I was also hoping the friends would talk some sense in to her. Those friends saw how happy we were together. I was trying to help B build that sounding board – diversify the voices she was hearing. It wasn’t my place… kindness, caring and self-interest all rolled in to one.
My challenge now, is how do I avoid repeating this “mistake” in the future. I’ve written about trying to cultivate more individual interests and needs (so that I don’t rely so heavily on my partner). But now that I’ve uprooted, I’m afraid I’m exactly in the position B was in. Making friends is hard as an adult. I’ve always been one to keep work life separate from personal life. Knowing that I might have this “need” to diversify, I chose a city and a profession that blurs those lines a bit. I’m not sure how comfortable I am with that choice. Years of conditioning have taught me to be mostly self-reliant, to not ask for or need emotional support. When I finally found someone who seemed to meet needs I didn’t know I had, I probably got a little greedy. What it always seems to boil down to is balance and time.
Back in May, an article in Harper’s Bazaar lamented the fact that toxic masculinity has created a culture in which men have no friends and women pay the price. It skewers men and at times reads like a rant….
And as modern relationships continue to put pressure on “the one” to be The Only One (where men cast their wives and girlfriends to play best friend, lover, career advisor, stylist, social secretary, emotional cheerleader, mom—to him, their future kids, or both—and eventually, on-call therapist minus the $200/hour fee), this form of emotional gold digging is not only detrimental to men, it’s exhausting an entire generation of women.
most of the women I spoke to for this piece believe that their ego and self-worth are often wrapped up in being a man’s crutch. But the older women get, the less willing they seem to be a man’s everything—not only because we become more confident, wise, and, well, tired with age, but because our responsibilities pile up with each passing year.
As a fairly emotionally astute man, I wonder what is to be done about this. The author, Melanie Hamlett, cites women who joke about just waiting for their husbands to kick the bucket so that they can start living their lives. I appreciate a strong, independent woman… but there’s a sickness to statements like that…. Why can’t those women learn to live their lives with their partners? It doesn’t seem fair to blame men for their unhappiness. If men are too needy, can the inverse be also be true? Modern women aren’t needy enough? Can we have the conversation without ascribing value to one side or the other? She writes, “but unlike women in our mothers’ generation, Gen X’ers and millennials are starting to hold their partners accountable—or they’re simply leaving.” Being on the receiving end of that leaving, I’m left wondering what has happened to compromise? What has happened to partnership? Holding accountable sounds a lot like blame. Is the backlash against needy men creating a toxic and impatient feminism? One in which if expectations aren’t met in a timely fashion it’s over? Once you set that clock running in your head, you’ve probably already made the decision that it’s over. Once you set the wheels in motion that say “if I don’t see x change…” you’re probably driving the outcome. Change is gradual. Change is hard. Change requires open and honest and helpful communication – calling men emotional gold diggers seems to be the opposite of that. Taking what seems to be an uncompromising stance in the modern wake-up call ignores all types of nuance. In an odd way, it it’s a re-framing of the stance women have complained about. Men behave as if they are the center of the universe and don’t need their partners. The new bold statement (which isn’t all that bold) is that women don’t need men to be happy… and both sides dig in, not needing each other. When did needing someone become such a weak and taboo thing? And yes, we could argue semantics over need vs. want, but at the heart of that debate is on whose terms? For a true partnership to exist, it has to be both.
Hamlett suggests male bonding as a solution – and she’s probably right…. but until society catches up with that, what are the solutions that bridge the gap? How do we all overcome the isolation that is plaguing this country. You’re never going to hear me cry for the poor white, disenfranchised male, but the statistics are there. “In 2017, men died by suicide 3.54 times more often than women. Middle-aged white men, in particular, are susceptible.” Some have been calling this an epidemic. While none of them are on the verge of suicide, I know at least three other guys my age whose wives have left them because they’re simply not happy…. not because of cheating, or gambling, or the plethora of other reasons to leave… And I don’t mean to suggest that being unhappy isn’t a reason to leave, but there’s an irony in the situation. Women accusing men of being too reliant on them for their happiness, and then leaving because men have made them unhappy. Hamlett closes by talking about men needing to learn to be more vulnerable. My personal experience is that as much as men have been trained to be one way, women have been trained to be reactive and accepting of that. I’ve dated lots of women who didn’t know what to do with a vulnerable guy. I read lots of profiles that say they are looking for a partner, someone who is willing to be open and honest. Hamlett might have done well to also talk to some of these women… The married women want more freedom, the single women want companionship. A well-balanced and loving relationship finds room for both.
To whoever comes next in my life…. Be patient. I will have issues, I probably won’t have the diversified portfolio of social connections that I need. I’ll probably rely on you too heavily, let me know and let me know how to do better. I will disappoint – repeatedly. I will also always be willing to show up and put in the effort. Let’s build something together – something that includes space if needed, something that isn’t flip, or petty, or full of resentment. I want you to want to live your life with me, not wait for me to kick so that you’re finally free.