Man asks why relationship advice has a double-standard: when it's the woman at fault, the man's told to "Do more".

winkers · 2012-09-24T16:45:47+00:00

This dynamic was one of the main problems in my marriage. I didn't realize it was not uncommon actually until I started reading more and speaking to other couples. I was in the same situation as the guy in the example you gave. I made ~90% of the income (+$100k), did all of the cooking, all cleaning in the kitchen and bathrooms. I barely had time to go out and was very frugally living. She was spending more on the credit card than we were bringing in every month and it was my 'fault' that we couldn't pay the bills. I was shocked that I could be earning what I thought was an incredible income (coming from a poor family background) and still didn't have enough to cover our savings/bills each month.

In my case (emotionally), I would have to defend myself against my mother-in-law and my ex-wife's friends who'd have so very many suggestions for how I could do 'better'. Sadly, I ended up essentially breaking down and giving up. I didn't realize what a shell of my former self I'd become until I started separating and living alone.

I love the idea of having a relationship with a woman where we both give and take in times of surplus and need. However, I am unsure how to do that when it comes to the 'rubber meets the road' practices of housework, money, and communication. What I thought was a great situation ended up being a delusion after I'd worn out my optimism and romantic feelings.

Demonspawn · 2012-09-24T13:54:45+00:00

There is an trend you can watch for once you know of it, and the results get very interesting.

When something bad happens to a man, people will find the one thing he did wrong and use that as the reason why he deserves the bad result.

When something bad happens to a woman, people will find the one thing she did right and use that as the reason why she didn't deserve the bad result.

SenorSpicyBeans · 2012-09-24T15:08:59+00:00

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Aavagadrro · 2012-09-24T16:45:58+00:00

First off /r/relationships is inundated with bitter women and soppy men. The only consistently correct advice I ever see is don't forgive a cheater. Barring that, men are overly faulted by other white knights and the female readership. Note, however, the OP asked a question which enticed such results. Like a good therapist, a sensible community can lead the OP to discover the mindset that leads to defeating thoughts rather than forcibly changing it. Top comment says, "You're the one asking why you're selfish, so I'll address that."

The men who go to such subs for advice are very different than women. Women, I find, tend to seek some understanding there and write sensible albeit unfocused posts. Men who post their problems are self-depracating and emasculating fools who have dramatic innerpersonal issues, rather than intrapersonal. (i.e. they shouldn't be dating in the first place, they need to figure themselves the fuck out).

tl;dr- relationships sub is full of white knights, posters have most likely encountered this issues because they never stuck up for themselves in the first place, discussion digresses into circlejerk biased affirmation of emasculating mentalities.

nwz123 · 2012-09-24T17:41:11+00:00

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OuiCrudites · 2012-09-24T15:09:26+00:00

In the past, I've had male and female friends come to me seeking relationship advice and they always complimented my logical and unbiased approach. My internal reaction was always "Uh, aren't we supposed to be unbiased on these issues?"

TweeSpam · 2012-09-24T17:30:02+00:00

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oscarasimov · 2012-09-24T17:28:34+00:00

ive seen this before with my friends and noticed this in movies/television. Most times when a women cheats on a man, its because her bf/husband wasn't giving her enough attention or she felt neglected in some way and infidelity is just her natural response.

When a man cheats on a women, its because he wants to have sex with as many people as possible and doesn't care about his partners feelings.

rob2060 · 2012-09-24T13:24:34+00:00

I don't think it's just a trend in r/relationships.

AmuseDeath · 2012-09-24T18:46:31+00:00

It's just the way society is set up.

Women are taught to feel at an early age as girls. If they cry, we come over and listen. If they are happy, we smile at them. They are taught that their feelings are important and that they deserve it.

Men however are told to suck it up and deal with it. Going through a problem? You have to deal with it and you can't cry. Choosey? You need to stop being a girl and take what you are given.

This reinforces itself to the point where the norm for society is to cater to the needs of women and the emotions of men are put on hold or are ignored.

Sex is looked down upon, while romance not only is accepted, but is encouraged by mediums in society... Disney films, commercials, religion, etc. I'm not saying sex is better than being romantic, but I think both have their part to play in a relationship... not that one has more weight than the other.

Even with friends I'm with, a lot more attention is paid to the women than the men. If the girls want to go to a specific place to eat, that takes more precedence than a guy having a differing opinion.

The opinions and feelings of women are more important than men because we allow them to be. We do so at an early age when we encourage women to express and develop it more than men. On r/relationships as well as reddit, this is especially true. I see a lot of threads saying the man is this way and that way and then the comments say for her to leave him and that he's abusive. Rarely do I see posts that say, "Hey, maybe you need to figure out why he is like this?" Maybe it's the fact that men aren't taught to express their feelings and instead to unhealthily repress it? Maybe that leads to the statistic where men suicide at a 4 times the rate of women? Maybe we are just left behind in society with less and less of us going to higher education compared to women?

I think people are people and that these rules and roles we make up... a lot of them are bullshit. Everybody has the capacity of emotion and we need to fight that urge to just stick to tradition where only women are allowed to feel. Women can also put aside their feelings at times, something men are taught to do at an early age.

For every story, one needs to look at both sides of it than just one.

qronick · 2012-09-24T17:39:51+00:00

It's an extension of the "man as provider" meme. If feminism were what it claims to be, it would be fighting this double standard too. But it really comes down to the different natures of men and women. It is often asked, fairly pointlessly, "what do women want?". The easiest answer (and therefore least popular) is: more. Of everything. This means you must sacrifice in order to sate her desires.

Or you could just not play the game.

SenorSpicyBeans · 2012-09-24T17:35:59+00:00

It's the same with cheating, too.

When a man cheats, it's because he's a worthless scumbag.

When a woman cheats, it's because her man wasn't man enough for her.

Quazz · 2012-09-24T16:40:19+00:00

I noticed they're more inclined to tell women to break up rather than men.

ImSuperDuperCereal · 2012-09-24T18:46:03+00:00

New member here, glad I found this place.

I've experienced the same thing before, wherein I am on the receiving end of a manipulative person in a less than stellar relationship. I've always advocated to my friends to keep an exit strategy, so that if a relationship isn't working out, he can leave. Leaving is, in my opinion, a lot more effective than staying and trying to "change" a person.

In regards to the advice given, it's more than a little disturbing. I see it all the time, with my parents, friends, etc. They always seem to get the same advice, which is to bow their head and do as they are told, like little puppies. The sad thing is, it almost never works, because women (from my experience) grow to resent a man with no spine who caters to their every whim. As a man, I would hate a girlfriend who always did what I said, it'd be boring. There is a big difference between being "not in the mood" for sex, and deliberately withholding it to coerce the other person. I'd never say a woman HAS to have sex with someone, she has every right to deny access to sex, but by the same token, a man has the right to be unhappy about being manipulated. This is why incompatible couples are better off breaking up if an issue can't be resolved quickly.

I think the problem is that too many men are raised to believe "oh, it's just in their nature....it's a girl thing....just play along."

Fuck that. Mature, rational adults are quite capable of resolving problems in their relationships without resorting to emotional and physical manipulation, regardless of gender.

workmpioegzz · 2012-09-24T15:43:05+00:00

This was the top post. :

You're not necessarily the selfish one, but you are the one asking the question. We can only advise you on how you could change and improve the situation. We have no access to the SO in these situations, so it's fruitless to just say "Oh, yeah, your SO totally sucks, and you're totally right. You should make your SO do this, this, and this." Problems exist on both sides of the relationship, but since we're talking to you, we tell you what we think you should do.

I'm going to venture that the majority of individuals on reddit are men, so the information may be skewed this way. When women have the same questions, they are also encouraged to do special things for men to spice up the love life. Its probably just a pattern that we are not as likely to notice on a website dominated by men.

AdviceAlternate · 2012-09-24T16:37:27+00:00

Just a reminder - there are different relationship subreddits out there. I wasn't even familiar with /r/relationships - I thought /r/relationship_advice was the "default" subreddit on that subject. There may be a difference in the "default attitude" between the two, of course.

EpicJ · 2012-09-24T17:09:05+00:00

I think it is from the stereotypical role of the male as a provider if it fails it's because he has failed at providing the females needs

kinsey3 · 2012-09-24T17:24:38+00:00

This is definitely a trend in relationship advice. The most balanced advice I've found is from Dan Savage.

daulm · 2012-09-24T17:38:13+00:00

I get the feeling that r/relationships has a considerable share of late teen early twenty people giving advice. That is a typical age for people to be struggling with and figuring our relationships, so it makes sense that they seek and provide advice there. I stopped going there for insight because I felt like there was too much bad advice being upvoted.

There are a lot of white knights in r/relationships. I used to have a much more sexist view of relationships where I thought that men needed to "man up" and put up with bullshit (I was in some ways a white knight). I think that line of thinking is something more common in younger and more naive individuals, so I'm not surprised it is so common in r/relationships.

randomtherapy · 2012-09-24T21:14:43+00:00

This post that's still alive and well is a good example of both gender biased and forgiving advice as well as some good sound logical advice that /r/relationships can have at times.

There is quite a lot of people coming to the defense of the woman in this case although the OP already said his issue was more with the cheating and lying than the actual prostitution.

The cold hard facts that she cheated, lied, and put his health at risk for a year is both brought out as wrong and sugarcoated as no big deal in about the same number of comments at the time I wrote this.

PlayMeWhile · 2012-09-24T17:13:16+00:00

I will repost my old opinion:

I used to frequent /r/relationships

In my opinion that reddit is full of teen-girls with no real experience of dating or relationships. Also with people who lie about their gender and who lie about their personal life just to push the point.

People there rarely offer any advice, but rather pass their judgement. And if someone disagrees with their case - shitload of downvotes are loaded. So it may not be SRS there, but the climate of that subredit itself.

Also it is full of straight up lies: once there was a post about erotic scene in a movie. suddenly everyone in that thread turned out to be an actor and explain how it is "natural" to be nude and actually have sex in front of a camera and how it is "unfair" for the SO of an actress to be there. THEN a real movie director visited that thread, explained how in reality there is rarely any nudity in film even if it looks like it. And how in his experience everything is done in closed-set, with only 2 actors, lots of angle play and how families of both actors are always allowed to watch the filming. Suddenly the thread became quiet.

This one is the one I remember the most, but there were many cases like that.

Just don't go there. There is no advice for anyone with any problems (unless the case is mainstream, like cheating). And there is no space to give advice, because you get downvoted for having a different opinion.

gazork_chumble_spuzz · 2012-09-24T18:07:09+00:00

I have noticed that it is far more common for a man to be blamed for relationship problems than for women, and not just on this site. I don't think it's fair or right...it takes two people to make a relationship and both of them are flawed individuals, so blaming just one for everything because of his or her gender is illogical at best. Women are just as capable of screwing things up and being in the wrong.

rightsbot · 2012-09-24T13:22:17+00:00

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Flytape · 2012-09-24T16:39:11+00:00

I really don't like this side of MRA.

simple answer: you're a guy

Really? Is MRA going to become a male dominated version of SRS? If so, please let me know because I'll go ahead and use my membership card as kindling.

If not than i hope someone here, or lots of you, agree that men and women are different and relationships aren't always going to be perfectly balanced or semetric. And thats OKAY.

I find this "cause you're a guy" argument to be synonymous with feminist' "cause we're women" BS. And it makes us all look like jackasses.

AND THAT IS WHY THEY STARTED THEIR REPLY WITH "/r/mensrights".

For those who can't find it

http://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/10dh1j/please_tell_me_why_i_29m_am_selfish/c6cnrob

Anterai · 2012-09-24T17:29:05+00:00

The whole relationship discussion is gonna become a hellot better when we kill the sexes in it. And substitute them with roles.

PartialChub · 2012-09-24T18:14:45+00:00

Does anyone know which thread the guy linked in this post was referring to? The one that was x-posted to bestof and apparently inspired him to post about his own issues? I'm sure I will leave that thread enraged, but I'd like to see it.

nwz123 · 2012-09-24T19:32:00+00:00

Almost this exact scenario happened to me. Working full time. Wife was at home, no kids. She would just play video games all day. After a few years, I got fed up and said something. She divorced me.

Win.

doladolabillyall · 2012-09-25T00:47:42+00:00

The relationship/dating/women reddits are overwhelmingly frequented by men actually. Men who basically whiteknight the entire threads, especially since women are around. It's like a default, subservient thing guys do. Combined with the moral high they get from it.

nwz123 · 2012-09-25T15:03:08+00:00

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SUSAN_KOMENS_TITS · 2012-09-24T13:57:28+00:00

Yeah they are quick to cry abuse if the situation fits the right mold (man abusing woman), but outside of that they will say the man is lying or they will rationalize the behavior some other way.

TheDarkHorse83 · 2012-09-24T15:38:25+00:00

It certainly seems that the majority of popular posts are the way that you had described. However, there are a lot of posts that I have read on /r/relationships (sorry, but I didn't go through the whole of the linked post) that are rather balanced. Personally, I try to contribute a balanced perspective as often as I can. I also toss my up/down votes to the people who I think are giving the best advice possible.

nwz123 · 2012-09-24T22:05:56+00:00

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arcainic · 2012-09-24T18:15:34+00:00

I guess the obvious advice of hiring a maid duh and stashing an offshore account was nowhere to be seen for said guy?

Title	Man asks why relationship advice has a double-standard: when it's the woman at fault, the man's told to "Do more".
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	222
Comments	143
Date	September 24, 2012 1:21 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/10e2qt/man_asks_why_relationship_advice_has_a/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/man-asks-why-relationship-advice-has-a-double.1012868 https://theredarchive.com/post/1012868

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