No, relationships is very much about emotional labor, on both sides, preferably therapy and professional help if needed. But also like c'mon, needing reassurance from your girlfriend is obviously normal and good. Depends on how you want the relationship to be, co-dependent and all in or more relaxed and laid back or proper and traditional. All up to the two in it
I don't think anyone in this threat is advocating for not ever emotionally depending on anyone. We're more talking about larger and broader scopes of societal expectations of women. We're not advocating that men have no emotional needs or being emotionally perfect.
I guess it depends on the man too, I am very internalizing and if I would follow this advice I wouldn't tell anyone anything. But also depends on what the woman wants, if she wants to be the therapist, why can't she be? it doesn't really match with what is seen as a normal healthy relationship, but that is different for each person because of values and personality. Are you aware of how much personality/temperament is genetic? It's sort of a tough pill to swallow sometimes, but that's still us
Listen I'm not saying it's complete binary of either you follow this advice or you're a terrible partner. But I think that viewing any relationship as a pathway towards your emotional healing is going to set you up to view relationships as purely transactional and centered around your emotional needs. I am not saying I am the arbor of who is a healthy adult. I am just simply sad that I have made any mistakes in both romantic and platonic relationships and I've learned a lot about how my views of women's roles in my life or destructive. As you can see, that has resonated true with many people that have viewed this thread. It might be something worth reflecting on.
This is kind of different to what you said earlier though. But I do agree with you more here, but I also think you are underestimating how different people function which is understandable as you can't be anything but yourself, I might very much overestimate how different people do relationships. I think this advice could as well ruin a relationship as well as help it, someone might see their partner as too cold because they never open up just as someone else might see their partner as too much because they always vent, but those people could also open up just as much. It's subjective after all. I already do a lot of introspection, don't have much else going on anyways. But I know I am very much internalizing so I highly doubt this would be as helpful for me
How is that different than what I've repeatedly said throughout this entire thread. I have continually clarified to state that my original statement was not to communicate that you can't have emotional intimacy or should expect emotional intimacy. I think you like the other person who was making civil arguments or creating a straw man argument because you were uncomfortable with how much people agreed with my original comment.
Don't get belligerent now, I apologize if my previous reply came off as mean that was not my intention.
It is different, you softened it and expanded it and made it way more individualized compared to before. I don't really know which other person you mean either? and I am not truly arguing with a strawman, I was just saying my own opinion. That advice you gave earlier to a sensitive/self critical person can very well come off as don't burden your partner. Which I think is false, because you aren't a burden you're partners, ideally you should get professional help yes, but most people who are self critical won't think that, they'll think I am bad how to stop being bad, not how to stop seeing myself as bad. I think this is very much the thing where telling people to stop doing something will only stop the people who wouldn't really do it anyways from doing the main thing. Where as the people who were doing it wouldn't care as much as they are already self centered, so most of them wouldn't care. Though this isn't most people and awareness is I think the main issue. Fixing yourself before a relationship is also sort of shallow to me as you are never 'fixed' and being accountable is important and many people shouldn't tie their value to their partner as that can easily turn into manipulation and power imbalances which for many people is problematic.
I am once again sorry if I am coming off as belligerent, if my words don't make sense and is jumbled and such, I am not a native English speaker. I am also sorry if my comment made you feel bad about giving advice that was not really my intention, but to be more careful about blanket statements I think
I don't view myself as belligerent and I don't view you as belligerent. I just think that you are struggling with the message plain and simple and you are creating a narrative that I have switched my rhetorical goals. Emphatically I believe that you should not view a relationship as a pathway to healing emotional wounds. I understand the temptation to say that it needs to be individualized. But never once did I say that you should have it all figured out or that you need to be emotionally perfect before entering a relationship. But if you view getting a relationship as how you will start feeling better about yourself it is categorically a terrible idea. I have not stepped away from that in any of my interactions throughout this thread. I have not softened my message I've only given clarification that I am not advocating that men be stoic or that if a woman is in a relationship that she has no expectation to be emotionally available.
I want you to consider a couple other things. Look at how many upvotes my first comment got. I don't want you to focus on the number and how much people liked it just focus on the reality of the likelihood of how many women liked that. Think about the fact that broadly hundreds of women resonated with that.. I have never once advocated for men to shut down and shut up. I've only ever advocated in this conversation that men don't view women as a pathway to their emotional healing. I won't back away from that. If I had daughters I would repeatedly have conversations with them about avoiding men who don't agree with that.
Another commenter said "Exactly. They are not captive therapists. You gotta have that work done before a woman is in the picture. They are also not captive nurses or caretakers either. Hire professionals instead. "
"Agreed, women's emotional and physical labor is often constructed as something men are entitled to. "
And you agreed with that, that comment is way narrower, having the work done before I think is a very shallow way of looking at it, growing together with a partner is what makes it so beautiful. I also do think women's emotional and physical labor is something that their partner is entitled too just as it is in reverse, that's what a relationship is. If you are with someone you are there when they're struggling too. But even if they aren't entitled to it, so what? That's on the woman in the relationship to then say her boundaries, sometimes people just aren't compatible or need to compromise for it to work
I don't really think the upvotes matter either, because the initial message is different from the one I had an issue with, it's the other person's comment and you agreeing with them that I had an issue with. I also don't think saying 100s of women resonating with that is what matters, I think what matters is how that message is supposed to improve the men who do that thing. I think more men will hear that and see their emotional needs as a burden which I see as more of a problem but they don't show up in relationships as much as some level of emotional openness is needed for a relationship, they self sort themselves out. Many people probably relate to it yes but I think the person should tell the other person to not use them for that or to find someone that isn't. It is a values mismatch but for many people also just an issue with awareness
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u/hemanstarfox 5h ago
Agreed, women's emotional and physical labor is often constructed as something men are entitled to.