NO BULLSHIT ADVICE: MOMMYS LITTLE MACHO MAN
"Dani, she broke up with me."
I've heard this sad sentence so many times in my life I can't count them on both hands. And every time it was the same: She ended it.
At some point as a guy you have to ask yourself why it's always the girls who end relationships. Maybe it's just my subjective impression but the dried tears on my floor speak volumes. And honestly, I've only broken up twice in my life. In all the other relationships I got shot down. Why is that?
One explanation oculd be:
Whether male or female we all have the same problem. We adopt our parents' relationship mechanisms, compare them with our standards and apply them. Wow. We're so different! Unfortunately guys aren't raised to go through relationships with open eyes. Girls get used to an outdated female image very early and carry way more responsibility at a young age. So guys become machos and girls become mommies. Problem is, the guys are mostly soft, overcautious beings with fake confidence. Hard shell, soft core. Butter soft. And before I piss anyone off: No, this isn't a justification, not an attempt to relativize anything. You could say it's like dogs. The ones that bark the loudest don't bite. And so girls and women deal with characters who are super sensitive kids who obviously don't want to show it. What emerges are grown men who stand completely lost, jealous and crying in front of their ex, begging her to take them back. That's when everything comes together.
If we take the claim that girls become mommies and guys become machos as a parameter and compare it with the majority of relationships that fall apart, different points become clear:
It was always the other person's fault
Non-verbal communication leads to conflict
After the relationship ends, sport happens
I'll write this from the man's perspective: You meet a girl, you're in love, you think about her all day and you'd love to text her constantly. You try to hold back because you don't want to overshoot. You fail. You repeat.
Everything's going great, you get along wonderfully, you move in together and sooner or later your mechanisms inherited from your parents collide. This usually starts with you peeing standing up, leaving the toilet seat up and assuming that's totally fine. That's how you learned it. But for your girlfriend it's a signal every time that shows her value to you. You think: "At mom's place this wasn't a problem." Your girlfriend, because that's how it was modeled for her, definitely thinks it's a problem but accepts it for now. It's not that bad. And so the points accumulate.
You play videogames while she does the laundry. You wonder why there's nothing in the fridge, go partying or hang on the couch, become unfit, lose not only posture but also sex appeal. All this is of course very summarized and exaggerated. While you get lazier and more careless, your girlfriend takes on more and more responsibility. Responsibility for the relationship, responsibility for you and your romantic life together. Sooner or later this feels to you like she's restricting you. But because you gave up responsibility long ago, you now have no basis to proceed. What follows are fights. But before that comes something even better.
Blue Balls
Have you ever been in a situation where you felt you had carte blanche? You can basically do anything because your partner or the person you're dating really does everything for you? Yes? It's boring as hell, right? When you give up responsibility in a relationship, it means conversely that you're fine with all your partner's decisions. That in turn takes out any sexual tension. When nothing's exciting anymore, I'd rather do what triggers some strong emotion in me and/or my partner. Meanwhile you're not having as much sex as at the beginning. You blame it on your "prude old lady" of course. In truth the dog's buried somewhere else entirely. As we germans would say.
Without noticing and naturally because you felt so well cared for, you're no longer just her boyfriend. You're her little, conflict-avoiding son who for peace's sake (actually from laziness to take responsibility and standing ground for your own boundaries) keeps his opinion to himself, says yes and amen to everything and gives her the feeling she alone carries responsibility for the relationship. And if you (female reader) now think: "Yeah perfect! I can do what I want" – just flip it around and imagine what it would be like if someone else, as if you were a child, determined your emotional life and your everyday life. Then you shouldn't wonder when nothing happens in bed anymore. Who wants to get in bed with a grown "child"?
That's why the optimal idea would be constructive cooperation where you understand, accept and respect your partner's opinion and concerns without judgment.
But reality looks like this: you, stubborn like a little brat, demonize your girlfriend's mothering and vent about it to your buddies. They of course don't understand at all why you let yourself be treated like that and are suddenly super tough because it doesn't affect them, with hard-hitting advice ready for you. Actually these tips are mostly trash though. Because: this is really just about an emotional dick-measuring contest. At home your friends have the same problems and only advise you their most daring fantasies. (Girls are exactly the same - just without penis-length comparisons)
Whenever one of my "patients" (they're not friends. Friends would call even without relationship crisis or emotional world war) has settled crying or desperate on my couch and poured their heart out, I've just waited to talk to his ex-girlfriend. Because as we know it doesn't always hang on one side. It takes two.
What comes then is roughly this summarized: "You know Dani, no matter what I do, I'm supposed to always be there. I can do what I want, he says yes to everything and then at some point accuses me everything goes my way! Then he looks at other women and behaves like a toddler at home. But I'm supposed to want to fuck. Either he acts like a doormat or like a macho. But what I find worst is that he has no opinion of his own. I can do whatever I want. Until his collar bursts again." And honestly: Do you really expect to be a child during the day and turn into a sex bomb at night? But also the other way around: Do you really expect your guy wants to have sex with his new mom? I feel sick.
Both Are to Blame
Let's be honest. Do you really expect your partner to get what you want when you don't say what you want because you're actually too scared to? Do you really think a "No, it's nothing" causes your boyfriend or girlfriend to recognize the gravity of your relationship problem? I'll lean out the window and answer this question with "NO". And because everything in life is work, it's the same with a relationship.
So what to do? Take the fucking time and write down what you expect from your life. What should your relationship look like? What do you value? What's absolutely not okay? But above all, figure out who the fucking hell you are. Because if your ego always stands above your emotional life and you're not able to stand up for it, you can't expect your partner to take that over for you, let alone understand you. You don't do it yourself. Only when you can formulate that for yourself can you also tell your partner (preferably with love). They'll have to digest it first and maybe not find it so great but then, if they're reflective, appreciate it because now they know what to do.
Caution: People, views and feelings develop. What was important a month ago might have changed. Therefore question yourself from time to time and express yourself honestly, without intent to hurt or manipulate the other. They'll thank you for it!
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST - FOR CURRENT REASONS
If you're a guy: Don't come crawling to me because you think I've got all the wisdom. I don't feel like "therapizing" you when you haven't contacted me for the last 6 months to ten years. Don't ask me if we can go "party" hoping you'll meet some "hot chicks" as you call them through me. Don't text me asking if I can hook you up with any "chicks" and above all don't ask me about my female friends.
Reach into your pants and check if there's hair. If yes, you've survived adolescence and you're an adult. Congratulations. Act like it. Start fucking reflecting and saying what you feel. What do you really feel? It's not hard and it's not pretty.
You'll rub people the wrong way. You'll trigger insecurities and fears in both yourself and your partner. You won't have a good time at first. But eventually it settles in. Eventually you and your relationship become authentic. Eventually you don't have to read between the lines anymore. Eventually you understand what your partner means. Why? Because they say what's emotionally going on.
So much for theory.
