A misstep in how men and women care for each other
Imagine if you were an employer and your hires are ready to get paid for the first month of work. The problem is that each is expecting a different form of pay. They have both worked the same number of hours but one is expecting to receive money and the other expects to be paid in room and board. However, they each receive the opposite. How would they feel?
A colleague of mine once held me responsible for men’s approach to solving women’s problems: “Why is it that every time I share a problem with my boyfriend, he always has to try and solve it?” she admonished. “Why can’t he just shut up and listen to me?”
It’s true. Men are generally wired to solve problems. It has been part of the survival toolbox for the office and the garage. When we don’t solve it, it’s still a problem. At least in our minds.
“What would you like us to do?” I asked her. It was then I started to appreciate that women often just want to know that someone has their back. In other words, they are often prepared to live with a misfortune if they know that their relationships are intact.
Traditionally, men don’t see it that way. A greater portion of men whom I counsel in my practice have been able to relate to the following experience: I recall years ago that when I had a bad day at work, my evening was completely ruined thereafter. Only years later did I realize that it is because as a man, my identity (or the main component of it) was provider first. My wife could have a bad day and come home and shrug it off. Why? Because there was so much more to her identity than just bringing in income and having a career. For me, as for many other men, failure at work meant failure as a human being. “I need to solve this problem” becomes our inner preoccupation. “Just have my back” is hers.
Even when our work experience and home life is outwardly the same, we have underlying differences that are less apparent and therefore poorly communicated. So when each takes stock of their contributions to the relationship, it often looks like the poorly understood payment plan from the first paragraph. We become incensed at our partner sometimes because we feel we pay what we owe to the relationship but it is not what the other wanted. This is why listening is so important. We may listen with our ears and not really hear anything.
The first thing I tell couples in relationship counselling is that they have to avoid becoming accountants. Compiling lists of our deeds that we can use against the other’s list of contributions is a recipe for failure as there exists no proper exchange rate. Each generally sees his or her inputs as being more valuable but to give and expect in return is to give insincerely. Each should agree to perform household chores and duties to the other as a gift. Expect nothing in return. This, paradoxically, produces the most profound rewards.
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