Q4 Blue Pill

flamingoinghome · 2020-05-20T00:17:48+00:00

You have to understand that people are inclined to side with the person who's telling the story.

(also, the stories you mentioned aren't opposites--the first woman didn't expect support from her boyfriend as a matter of course, and did in fact think she was being unreasonable. Meanwhile, the guy from the second story doesn't sound mentally ill at all, just like a guy who sulks during a fight, if I'm reading right?)

ANYWAY, I've got my mental health issues; I try to keep them in check, but it's always a struggle. I expect the same from a partner (and my dating history bears this out): it's okay to have your issues, and to struggle with them, so long as you're aware they're there and fight to keep them in check as best you can.

Edited for a typo

LittyKitsune · 2020-05-19T23:49:30+00:00

But I'm asking the question anyway: do women have different standards when it comes to emotional support and mental illnesses when it comes to men vs. women?

The notion than the average man can tolerate a partner with mental illness is an RP fantasy. The average person can't.

People have a tendency to conflate genuine mental illness with just being "sad" or emotional, and and vice versa. Mental illness doesn't just look like cute crying or getting emotional or panicking every now and then. It can look like missed calls, last-minute canceled plans, irritability, not getting out of bed, not looking after basic hygiene, zero appetite for sex, getting set off by the slightest thing, being on a happy date one moment and seeing an emotional mess who wants to go home the next. Just being friends with a person with mental illness can be emotionally draining. And it takes the patience of a literal saint to be in a relationship with someone like this, man or woman.

And no, the average man is not a saint.

SherbertBacon · 2020-05-19T22:23:25+00:00

do women have different standards when it comes to emotional support and mental illnesses when it comes to men vs. women?

Women are people. People don't all homogeneously agree to one thing or belief. Some women—like some men—have trouble with emotional vulnerability from their partner. Some women—like some men—appreciate it and will be supportive.

do women expect men to have all their shit together before getting into a relationship; while also expecting men to be there for women, regardless of what emotional baggage or mental or emotional problems they bring to the relationship?

The expectation of anyone is that the person you're dating at least be functionally stable and capable of giving love. If your—man or woman—emotional turmoil is so far out of whack that you can't tend to a partner's needs, you need to hit "pause" on dating and relationships. In my experience, women regularly recognize this while men tend to "plough on" until it hits a breaking point. More than once a woman I've dated realized she wasn't in a healthy place and needed to tend to her own issues first. More than once my lady friends have dated a man who blatantly ignored his own emotional baggage until it came out in unsustainable issues (addiction, abuse, temper-tantrums). I'm sure the inverse is true for both cases too, so I won't say one gender is more or less susceptible to one side of things. But suffice it to say I also don't see much in the way of hypocrisy w.r.t. women expecting flawless men while being incapable of relationships themselves.

octocombo · 2020-05-20T02:16:39+00:00

I personally see two very relevant dimensions to this: severity of mental health issues and honesty about mental health issues. For my part, I am fine to support a partner who is having mental health issues up to a fairly high severity (including having dated someone who was suicidal), though I have some limits (for example, I would not date someone who I thought was a risk for a murder-suicide). However, the level of severity I am comfortable with decreases rapidly as the level of emotional honesty decreases, both because I don't know enough to understand how to support them (which frustrates me) and because I don't feel the sense of closeness/trust that emotional honesty and vulnerability bring. So holding a man through a panic attack and talking with him about it for an hour after, and then working with him to try to reduce his overall anxiety? Sure, I am happy to do that, and it makes me feel closer to him. But put me in a relationship with a man who has a fairly minor anxiety that basically just makes him irritable when I eat ice cream in front of him because it makes him want to break his diet but never says anything about it to me, just calls me hurtful names (this sounds like a specific situation but it's hypothetical)? I'm ditching him for his unresolved issues quickly because he refuses to tell me about them.

Men are unfortunately socialized to either hide (being withdrawn or irritable but pretending nothing is wrong) emotional disarray or project it all as anger. (This is a part of what feminists refer to as toxic masculinity - it's not saying men are toxic, it's saying that this expectation for "real men" to only show emotion through anger is toxic.) Both of these types of responses are a dishonest representation of their emotional state and make it very hard to understand what's wrong or be supportive, and in extreme cases they can be dangerous if anger turns to violence. So the issue on my end is not that I need men to be perfectly stable all the time, it's that I need them to talk to me about the ways in which they are unstable and express their feelings honestly.

mangolover97 · 2020-05-19T23:12:57+00:00

I can’t speak for all women because views on it may vary but I don’t really expect guys to have it all together emotionally all the time. Most people go through different types of adversity in life and it takes a toll on them. When I care about someone I help them through it as best as I can. The only emotional double standard I have is with anger/mania men getting angry or manic scares me much more than when it’s coming from women. So I have a tendency to be more patient and willing to help when that behavior is coming from a woman vs a man. I’m trying to work on that though.

Appomattoxx · 2020-05-19T23:04:27+00:00

[deleted]

Fishyinthemiddle · 2020-05-20T04:14:28+00:00

I'm a feminist. At first, women were oppressed, now women are fighting back at their oppression. Some push back so hard they have unrealistic standards for their male partners while not holding themselves to that standard. I believe the next step is internalizing your equality and treating your partner how you want to be treated. I also get frustrated with feminists who don't see how men are hurt by the patriarchy. It is NOT blue pilled to expect your partner to have zero emotional baggage. It is NOT feminist to act like your partner should man up and be able to control his emotions perfectly. Men have hormones and get moody when they are tired, stressed, hungry, ect, just like women. Hypocracy like that should not be tolerated in feminist spaces. Men and women are equals and should be treated as such.

jumblesandtumbles · 2020-05-20T04:52:09+00:00

I don't know if I'm any kind of pill but I'll give the question a go. I personally think that it's unreasonable to expect that any person, male or female, not show any vulnerability. However, I recognize that it can be harder for guys to show theirs and also, in some cases, for some women to react well when guys do, because I think society as a whole has done a disservice to men in regards to expectations on how they should handle emotions and how to respond to those emotions.

Nobody has their shit together 100% of the time. Both men and women feel overwhelmed, lonely, sad, afraid, etc. at times. So no, I don't expect any guy I date to be a robot. I've comforted partners and male friends while they grieved, or opened up about fears or past trauma or a myriad of other things. And no, if it was a partner, it did not change how I felt towards him, sexually or otherwise.

But there's a difference in being comforting and supportive through trying times and playing therapist. If there are genuine mental health issues, I will be supportive while someone seeks treatment - and I have. But if someone won't seek outside help and wants me to constantly play therapist or just won't seek treatment while the situation steadily get worse, then that's a situation I can't be part of. It becomes draining and unhealthy.

dio_genes_ · 2020-05-20T10:25:49+00:00

Yea I'm a bp feminist. This is a tricky question and my most honest answer is I want both. When a guy does open up about mental health issues or a traumatic past or something like that I get excited because it signals to me that we are alike. And that he has experience with pain, so might give better advice & understand me better. And best of all it kicks my nurturing skills into high gear. So that whole nurturing/nursing thing is pretty important. It helps form a bond.

However at certain times I still pressure him to be a man in more conventional sense and comfort me.

So if it's a guy whos emotional it's the best of both worlds. I get to comfort him and help him but I still get to manipulate him with gender stereotypes when it serves my purposes.

NarniaFox · 2020-05-20T13:47:36+00:00

do women have different standards when it comes to emotional support and mental illnesses when it comes to men vs. women?

As always it depends on an individual and if we're talking about average stats, it depends how you measure your "average" and your interpretation.

For example, in Russia gender roles are still alive and common. Men are expected to be a "rock", not to cry etc. From the other hand, women have to be mindful about men's emotion, treat them accordingly and often deal and cope with men's inability to manage their own emotions in a healthy way. Women's emotions though are often invalidated as "ah, they're over emotional".

On average, I'd say women usually expect men to hold their shit, but a lot of women themselves prefer not to rely on men emotionally. Most adult women I know deal with their problems on their own and don't bother sharing them with their partners until they become close enough.

In my social circle couples usually treat each other well and both men and women can rely on each other. Personally, I wasn't open with my now-husband until he became open with me. Mostly because I in general was really closed person and I had hard times sharing my problems with others.

GreenSatyr · 2020-05-20T20:29:18+00:00

Yes, men are often expected to be stronger in some ways. This is bad. If you want to live a happy life, you should date someone who does not mind if you are vulnerable, and also does not expect you to be always taking care of them.

So far as I know, BP/feminists do not. If I'm wrong, let me know.

Much has been written about harmful expectations regarding masculinity among men, as well as the ways in which both men and women reinforce these expectations. There is also an entire segment on emotional labor within relationships, though it usually emphasizes the labor that women are doing.

TRP would say I think that it's not just a matter of socialization; women are instinctively repulsed by it.

They are projecting their own attitude onto women. Everyone is to some degree repulsed by weakness and drawn to strength, we do not live in a nice world. However, conservatives and TRPers and similar ideologies are more strongly drawn to strength and contemptuous of weakness than others.

You can see a hatred of weakness (internal and external) in every facet of their ideology. Opposition to welfare (helping the poor, who are weaker in terms of economic power), contempt of women (who are physically weaker), contempt of marginalized races (who are weaker in terms of political power), and contempt of those who would help the weaker.

They're caught in a "mutual defect" strategy - they think no one will care for them, and so they won't care for anyone.

poppy_blu · 2020-05-20T00:50:25+00:00

Specifically, women expect to be able to lean on their man if they're feeling vulnerable, upset or otherwise need emotional support

Yeah, no. Women get the majority of their emotional support from their female friends or family. We learn early on that men are generally not equipped to provide us emotional support we need. How often do you hear women complain that they just want to vent and their man tries to solve the problem instead. Or that he’s not listening.

But men do tend to expect the kind of one-way emotional support they get from their mothers from women, and since they don’t get it from anyone else, they make women their sole emotional outlet. That’s the double standard women resent.

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Title	Q4 Blue Pill
Author	Appomattoxx
Upvotes	14
Comments	63
Date	May 19, 2020 10:09 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/gmyhcm/q4_blue_pill/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/q4-blue-pill.665484 https://theredarchive.com/post/665484

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