You’ve heard all of the jokes about marriage. Heather Gray wants you to join her in changing the conversation.
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Did you hear the one that says “Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right and the other is the husband”? Memes like this fill our newsfeeds daily. Making digs about marriage, or our spouses, can be good for a quick laugh and can reduce our tension but we have to be careful. Marriage is hard enough and joking about it, or our spouses, is an incredibly slippery slope.
The stereotypes of the uninvolved, beer drinking, sports watching, kid-neglecting husbands are still allowed to float around our newsfeeds.
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Misery loves company. That quick one-liner can get us a few “likes” or “retweets” and suddenly, we’re getting attention. That attention starts to feel like validation and encouragement and so we continue. Faster than we realize, the lens through which we are looking at our marriages shifts. Something that started out as a sarcastic one-liner suddenly has us cataloguing what’s missing in our relationships. We start to see what we don’t have. We started listing off unmet needs and petty grievances. Little resentments build and become the filter through which we see our relationships.
Once that filter is on our lens, it’s hard to take off. We confuse the filter for protection. We’re now on guard, aware, and suspicious. There’s vulnerability in taking off that lens and who wants that? Instead, we look at our lives and our marriages with intent to “prove” our new view. We go looking for “evidence”. Trust in our partner and in our relationships may start to deteriorate. We’re no longer team players. We’ve become adversaries and it’s to each his/her own. We use that anger and resentment as permission to stop thinking of the other person and the fire gets fueled and there-in lies the problem. With little provocation, small concerns become larger causes of marital tension.
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Lately, I’ve been observing that it is easier for women to get away with the public one-liners than it is for men. I am not at all saying that men don’t make the digs either. I know their sarcastic quips can eat away at relationships, too. They just have a harder time getting away with it. Can you imagine the bashing a husband would get if he complained about coming home to a messy house or a kid whose diaper needed to be changed? Think of the outcry he’d get if he complained about his wife shopping away his hard-earned money. Culturally, it’s still ok for women to say such things for a cheap laugh but men get blasted.
This is one of the major reasons why I think husbands get a bad rap. The stereotypes of the uninvolved, beer drinking, sports watching, kid-neglecting husbands are still allowed to float around our newsfeeds. The stereotypes aren’t challenged and silence is perceived as agreement.
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I’ve also observed how hard it is for others to respect when a husband has been praised or when marriage is talked about in a positive light. Those comments get quickly shut down, dismissed, or belittled. I mentioned in passing to someone just last week that I was looking forward to my husband’s vacation so that we could have time together without the stress of clock-watching. The response I got was one that I often get: “Just give it time. You’ve only been married for four years. You’ll get sick of each other soon enough. Then, you’ll be counting down until he goes back to work.”
The old stereotypes of Mars and Venus have certainly shifted and we want your story here. Email me your ideas at [email protected]
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I don’t know why this person felt the need to rain on my parade but I do know it can be hard to hear when other people are happy in their marriages. Hearing someone praised, loved, or respected forces us to look at ourselves and sometimes we see what’s lacking. It’s easier to mock the positivity we see in others than face the changes we may need to make, ourselves.
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The Good Men Project is changing how we talk about marriage. It’s not easy having the tough talks. Busting stereotypes doesn’t happen overnight. Those one-liners are much easier.
However, change will be happening here. Want to join the conversation by submitting a piece? Pitch us your idea and join the GMP writing team. Are you in a marriage with a same sex partner? We’d love to add your voice and your experiences to the conversation about marriage. The old stereotypes of Mars and Venus have certainly shifted and we want your story here.
Check out the GMP Style and Writing Guidelines and email me your ideas at [email protected]
I look forward to the conversations to come.
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—Photo: dno1967b/Flickr
The adage that folks do enterprise with buddies has been around for a long
time for a purpose.
@ Steve Horsman, ” in an attempt to prove something…not sure what.” Could it be the TRUTH they are after? Or perhaps it is the result of political correctness run a muck? The only way this debate and issue are going to move forward is when ALL voices are allowed to speak. Not just the ones that are deemed ‘appropriate.” Remember, there was no framework for peace in the Middle East until the PLO was brought to the table with the urging of the Clinton Administration (Oslo Accords). There will be no end to the acrimony until each side can… Read more »
Great article, Heather. I see much of what you write about. It seems that negativity, sarcasm, and snarkiness is so in style these days. It bleeds into our relationships, our own thoughts and behaviors. I see women and men wanting to “fit in” by showing their “evolved” attitudes with unhealthy language and treatment toward others in an attempt to prove something…not sure what. A client who insists on calling her “the wife” constantly has programmed himself to believe she has some kind of unalterable personality and power over him. A wife who calls him a “pervert” constantly has programmed herself… Read more »
Heather,
“This is one of the major reasons why I think husbands get a bad rap.”
Not only do husbands get a bad rap from outsiders, most I would argue get treated poorly by their wives. This is especially true when it comes to marriage and sex.
If marriage is such a wonderful thing, then why do we observe today a record number of single individuals? I have a guess. Perhaps the single people know marriage makes a LOT of people unhappy.
“Marriage is hard enough and joking about it, or our spouses, is an incredibly slippery slope.”
If you have selected the right person, then a marriage should NOT be ‘hard work.’ This is cliche and the conventional wisdom. I totally reject this view.
If your marriage is hard work, then you married the wrong person.
I’ve been married three times–four times, if you count that the last two were to the same guy in a row–and I married very young the first time (I’m not that old now–I used to joke that I was shooting for the “most divorces under 40 by a non-celebrity” record, and I really hope that IS a joke and there actually isn’t one!). So, I have a lot of opinions about marriage in general and in particular. I’m never sure if my opinions are helpful or not helpful, though–I’m still working out what the value of a legal institution called… Read more »
In her book Men On Strike, Helen Smith adresses why more and more men are opting out of marriage and relationships. The bottom line is that many have concluded there is simply no benefit in it, especially when you can lose half your income, home and even children because of it. Why be an appliance or ATM if you don’t have to?
Alright, but if you have children and are not married, you can lose them even more easily. You’d have to opt out of marriage and procreation.
Tom Anderson, as a married man for 39 years now, I respectfully disagree with you on a few levels. In all the years, I can honestly say that the economic aspect of our marriage has never entered my mind. Not sure why homophobia was brought into the conversation but on the issue of homosexuality, I presume that you feel the same with respect to same sex marriages? That it’s no more then “marriage principally serves for economic reasons alone,…?” You said, “My conclusion is that so-called “marriage” does not work. It is a contract without any ability to enforce its… Read more »
Men are pressured into getting married, at least middle-class men are–typically by their mothers and, to a lesser extent, by other women in their family network. Men also understand, as they mature, it is a good idea to like women, to think of women as necessary both for sex and for enhancement of their lives, particularly as fathers of children. But a lot of young men receive pressure to repress any awakenings to the beauty and sexual pleasure that may be given them by other men, and this happens many times before they’ve actually sorted out (or truly discovered) their… Read more »