Where can I find writing on this male/female dynamic?

June 5, 2022 6:10 PM

Where is the smart writing on the subject of "my male partner uses me (female) for all of his companionship needs" and/or "my recently retired husband is driving me crazy because of all his demands on my time" and/or adjacent subjects? In the category of "men are not tending to their emotional needs outside of their romantic partner, and it's driving the romantic partner crazy."
posted by BlahLaLa to Human Relations (5 answers total)

I'm assuming you've probably seen the huge Metafilter Emotional Labour thread but I'll post here just in case others haven't.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 6:27 PM on June 5, 2022 [7 favorites]

There are a growing number of non-fiction books specifically on older women, but I'm not sure if they go into this dynamic. I swear I read something about this (essay? chapter in a book?) recently, will try to recollect where.
posted by spamandkimchi at 6:43 PM on June 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: It might be worth - if you're interested - reading up on the epidemic of male loneliness in middle age and beyond, that often ends up with a man having a social group of one: their partner (or sometimes none, when they don't have a partner).

Some easy pieces to start with here, here, here, or here.

The onus needs to be on men to learn how to express their feelings and to break out of the patriarchy's attempts to tell them that being emotionally self-aware is somehow unmanly. But if that's all you've ever known it's very hard to break out of it. A "can't see the wood for the trees" sort of thing. And a significant and often under looked consequence is the constant, gnawing misery of being alone.

That doesn't excuse certain behaviours (at all), but reading up on how that loneliness happens might help clarify how so many men end up "not tending to their emotional needs outside of their romantic partner".
posted by underclocked at 1:30 AM on June 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

Best answer: THIS. My goodness. I am in great search of this as well. There was a Hidden Brain episode about male friendships (or lack therof), which was quite good, along the lines of what underclocked is linking. But it is also telling to me that there is so much writing about the men, and not about what their (often female) partners are experiencing as a result.
posted by reksb at 9:25 AM on June 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

I am extremely late to this party but when you posted this I KNEW there was a book coming out about this topic and I could not remember the name. It was kind of driving me nuts. Today I found it! It's called Equal Partners: Improving Gender Equality at Home - comes out next week.
posted by lyssabee at 10:47 AM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]