Every generation has its own set of priorities when it comes to finding a partner, yet there are common themes that surpass any given age range. Most people want romantic relationships based on mutual trust and respect, with communication prioritized and love openly shared.
The social and cultural values that people hold directly impact how they show up in relationships. Millennials looked at their boomer parents’ marriages as a blueprint for what to do and not do in their own relationships. They seek a sense of balance and equity in their marriages, yet many women born in the 80s and 90s want things from their marriages that they’re not currently getting. However, these wives aren’t staying quiet. They’re voicing their concerns, which is the first step to changing the course of their marriages.
Women born in the 80s and 90s are desperately craving these missing things from the men in their lives:
1. Deeper emotional intimacy
Women born in the 80s and 90s want a deeper level of emotional intimacy from their marriages than what they’re currently getting. They want the emotional labor in their relationship to be more evenly divided.
The term “emotional labor” was first used by sociologist Arlie Hochschild in her 1983 book, “The Managed Heart.” Hochschild defined emotional labor as “the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display” that service workers had to do. Now, its use has expanded to include how people manage their feelings, as well as their partners’, within a relationship.
It takes a high level of emotional intelligence to define, process, and hold onto how we feel. Women have been socially conditioned to tamp down their emotions while tending to other people’s feelings, which inevitably leads to emotional burnout and dissatisfaction in relationships.
All too often, women hold their spouse’s emotions without being held, in turn. Wives are tired of being their husbands’ emotional caretakers. They crave a deeper connection, which can only be accessed by being vulnerable. They aren’t getting the emotional intimacy they deserve, but it’s not their job to push their partners to shoulder more of the emotional labor involved in a relationship. Their spouses have to choose to be active participants in their relationships to meet their wives’ emotional needs.
2. Relief from carrying the mental load
Carrying the mental load is work that never ends, since it’s directly connected to the lives and well-being of loved ones. It has no defined boundaries, existing as a running loop of tasks to tend to in women’s minds. Carrying the mental load means lying awake at night, wondering if your kids need new shoes. It means remembering to respond to emails from their teacher and deciding what gift to buy for the hundreds of birthday parties they’re invited to.
While husbands might offer to pick up groceries on the way home, it’s wives who are responsible for noticing what’s needed. They’re the ones writing out the grocery list and fielding questions about which brand of yogurt to buy. Most likely, they’re the ones performing the practical labor that accompanies the mental load, as well. They cook dinner, make sure the kids eat their vegetables, and clean the kitchen.
Most often, women who carry the mental load hit a breaking point because they’re so depleted. Yet they still have to ask for their husband’s help and outline what he needs to do to be helpful, which means they’re still carrying the mental load, even when they reach out for support.
Women born in the 80s and 90s want their husbands to help out without being asked, which is something they’re not currently getting in their marriages.
3. A more equal share of household responsibilities
Women born in the 80s and 90s want a more equitable division of labor around the house. Even though more women have jobs outside the home than in previous generations, they’re still responsible for doing the majority of household and parenting labor.
They were raised to believe in gender equality, yet the actual breakdown of household labor in America still falls along strictly gendered lines. According to a Gallup poll, 58% of women are responsible for doing laundry, 51% for cleaning and preparing meals, while 69% of men take care of the car and yard work.
Simply put, women born in the 80s and 90s are exhausted. They’re tired of being the primary parent and the person who picks dirty socks off the floor. They want their husbands to step in and step up, because healthy relationships are built on equity, even though wives aren’t actually getting what was promised to them.
4. Real support for their careers
Women born in the 80s and 90s want their partners to show more support for their professional careers. Because women are traditionally expected to raise the kids and take care of the house, their careers often get pushed aside in favor of their husbands’. The cost of childcare has risen to astronomical levels, leading many women to put their jobs on hold to stay home.
According to a 2018 Pew Research Center poll, 72% of millennial women were employed. More millennial women earned bachelor’s degrees than men, yet they still experienced the “mom tax,” in which they earn less money after having kids. Taking maternity leave costs moms an average of $9,500, and that’s just for moms who have access to parental leave.
Women born in the 80s and 90s were once girls who were told they could do anything. They could have it all if they just leaned in. Yet reality has revealed the harsh truth that women’s work is decentered compared to the men they’re married to.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: lo lindo On Unsplash
