Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / "Men Want A Cookie For Doing The Dishes"

Transcript

"Men Want A Cookie For Doing The Dishes" · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the doctor psych mom show.
• 0:08
  Today, we're going to be talking about this thing that women say
• 0:11
  men want a cookie for doing whatever men want a pat on the
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  head men want. Applause for doing x y z.
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  It's super sexist. If you don't want your husband
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  to be sexist or you're like against the patriarchy, then
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  stop saying sexist shit, right? Because this doesn't make any
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  sense and I'll get to why as soon as I tell you to subscribe
• 0:31
  because I have a lot of awesome subscriber episodes.
• 0:33
  Most recently about Whether you and your partner have the same
• 0:36
  expectations for your empty, nester years, and what to do, if
• 0:39
  you don't Etc. Okay, so a lot of times,
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  nowadays, of course, used to be different women in my
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  experience, a, a lot of more sexist shit than men on average,
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  at least on among the people that among the men that are
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  open-minded enough to come to couples counseling, the women
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  say more bad shit about men than the men say about women.
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  So you don't want to act like this.
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  Hurley because your training up the Next Generation.
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  If you have a son, you certainly don't want nasty.
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  Things said about men in the world and if you don't have a
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  son your it's possible. Your daughter will marry a boy,
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  and man. And in that case, you want the
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  marriage to go, well, without her having expectations and
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  assumptions that men are stupid and useless, right?
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  It's commonsensical. So it's also wrong, you know, so
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  if you're someone, you pride yourself on things being like
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  right and based on reality, Is this isn't right, you know, I
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  talked about in the shit test podcast, I talked about how men
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  frequently think that women are like setting them up through
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  these like shit tests like to prove their masculinity and I'm
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  like no women with maybe borderline personality disorder
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  women do that but the average woman doesn't think Hmm.
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  How can I make a test for my husband today?
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  This just like not real and it's extremely sexist and
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  misogynistic but I gave an example.
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  It's like the E of the man cold. I don't know.
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  I work with so many high-achieving men didn't take
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  days off. Work like that ever, you know?
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  I mean like if anything, they should be and they're not, they
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  do all the same shit even the same workout, you know, when
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  they're sick. So the idea of the man called
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  has like nothing to do with reality.
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  I mean, we're talking about like I work with men who've been in
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  the military you don't ever take off.
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  You know, the point is that the idea of men being weak and
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  useless or women being manipulative and slide This
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  should be the situated in a prior generation of antiquated.
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  Stereotypes that people realize no longer have relevance, I
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  never really did. So the other one is this idea
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  that when my husband does chores around the house, he wants a pat
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  on the head or he wants a cookie and meanwhile I do everything in
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  the whole world without asking for any recognition.
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  If this is really true then you got to work on some martyr
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  Tendencies yourself because you Are not supposed to be doing
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  everything and asking for no recognition.
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  In fact, there was this article making the rounds about like how
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  terrible this man was like, you probably saw it on Facebook or
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  something. How terrible this man was
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  because his wife wanted appreciation for being a
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  stay-at-home mom. And he said, why I don't ask for
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  appreciation for my job. Why would she want appreciation
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  for that? And everybody was on the side of
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  the woman. How would that be accurate,
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  right. If you're also supposed to be,
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  if it's supposed to be this fake thing, that women do everything
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  without ever asking for appreciation.
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  Then why did she ask for appreciation?
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  Why was everybody on her side that he should be appreciating
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  her? It doesn't make any sense.
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  So, how about the idea that both genders want appreciation?
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  It may be four very different things.
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  So, when I work with, so there's multiple parts of a marriage,
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  right? Some involve chores, some
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  involve physical intimacy. Some involve Myriad other
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  things. But I get the same response from
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  women. When I'm like, can you try to be
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  more intimate with your husband and then they'll come to
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  session? Be like, oh, look, I hugged him
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  one more time this week and I'm like, oh good, you know, like
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  great we're making some progress, but isn't that wanting
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  a cookie too? Like, I mean, isn't that wanting
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  appreciation and recognition for going outside?
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  Your comfort zone in a way that's perceived as very small
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  to. The other party is not like the
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  man thinks that's so awesome that she's hugging him one more
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  time. We just like if he does one more
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  load of laundry a week, she's not going to take it so awesome.
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  But if people do not give one another appreciation for
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  incremental change, then why would the person continue to try
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  to get outside their comfort zone?
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  And the absence of any recognition or appreciation?
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  This is both genders and you could see it in your children of
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  both genders, there's no gender that wants Mommy to say good
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  job. After they Master something more
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  than another gender, that's just how it is like kids.
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  And then adult want to be Recognized and appreciated for
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  going outside, their comfort zone for learning a new skill
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  for doing something that was hard.
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  You know, and this is not is not helpful to see things like, oh,
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  every time my husband does a chore, he mentions it.
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  Every time I do a tour, I don't mention it, but what do you
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  mention that you do? You may mention that you mowed
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  the lawn, if you think that that is not inside your, you know,
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  per view. And it's some other thing that
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  you did, there's very few men that are announcing every chore
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  that they Unless the woman tells them that they don't do anything
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  right now. There are some people who ask
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  for appreciation for every single little thing that they
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  do, and that's in both genders, those are people who tend
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  toward, you know, insecurity and they're very kind of annoying,
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  you know. And I talked about being whiny
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  and like, I talked in a podcast about men who express emotions
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  too much and by being whiny, you know, and getting to, that end
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  of the spectrum. But like, that is something in
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  both. Both genders also where people
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  can be, you know, kind of whiny and ask for a lot of praise.
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  And that's called preoccupied. Attachment people that need
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  infinite reassurance that the person is recognizing them and
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  and they always want to quote cookie or a quote, pat on the
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  head. And that's an attachment style,
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  that attachment style is not unique to one gender, you know?
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  And so anything and I talked about gender differences a lot.
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  There are biological gender differences, particularly with
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  Drive with anxiety and depression with parenting, even,
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  you know, there's been studies that show them in parent
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  different than women but not worse, don't jump on that.
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  Yeah, it just different. So the the point is here that
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  if, if you have told yourself, oh my husband wants a cookie
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  every time he does something and he's so useless laying around
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  all the time with a man called and then periodically he's
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  getting up to ask for a cookie or of appreciation for doing the
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  smallest little thing just like just leave, you know, like if
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  you really feel that bad about your husband and he is so
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  completely useless and you, you don't see it as a problem.
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  That that's your perspective. I mean, of course, I wouldn't
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  treat you to go to couples counseling.
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  Individual therapy, work through some of the issues that are
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  going on, but if that's your end point, let's say you have done
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  tuples counsel, you have done individual therapy and you still
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  look down and your husband. That much.
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  It is not helping anybody for you to stay with him because
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  your kids are learning that Mom is the only adult and that Mom
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  is the only smart one and the dad is a useless, sack of shit.
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  That is a very, very toxic world view.
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  It will make the boys have terribly low self-esteem
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  themselves. And as much as they identify
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  with their fathers subconsciously, that's their
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  male role model and the girls will learn that, you know, women
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  are supposed to be contemptuous Martyrs and that's not going to
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  do well in their later. Bishop's.
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  So, of course, I do. Not think that's where most
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  people have to end up. I think that the majority of
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  women who feel like this struggle with trust issues, they
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  likely saw very difficult relationship growing up in which
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  a mother was a martyr and was treated poorly by a father with
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  self-absorbed. Tendencies or childlike
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  Tendencies. And this was Amplified by the
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  mother being an over function Ur.
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  So she trained a little girl up who then becomes the woman and
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  the woman that is in the marriage that I'm describing,
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  who An over function around martyr and to treats the man
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  kind of like a useless child. And also it was originally
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  drawn, primarily two men who were like that the boyfriend
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  with the very messy apartment or who could never keep a job or
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  whatever and because that's kind of where your sense of
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  self-esteem is located is in doing everything and being
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  everything. But then of course over time
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  that leads to resentment, you know?
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  And because of course you're doing everything.
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  So that's the dynamic that you're in.
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  In. And I've described it
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  frequently, like even like the CEO wife and the resentful
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  employee husband, and one of my podcasts.
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  Then you need to go to couples counseling and probably
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  individual counseling, to interrogate your, you know,
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  biases that men are stupid and useless.
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  And women are the ones who run the world or whatever.
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  Because in the inverse you would despise this.
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  If men, there's so many men right with stay-at-home wives
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  that do very little because They are the over function or
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  workhorses and they were always drawn to women that needed to be
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  rescued. That have various issues and
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  that are not, you know, very, very competent in the world and
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  they put those women in a childlike role, the same.
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  As you put your husband into a childlike roll.
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  This is so equivalent across genders.
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  It has nothing to do with gender.
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  What it has to do with is one partner of either gender, who is
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  an over function or martyr coupled with another partner.
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  Who has low self-esteem and who generally struggles with their
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  mm, you know, with, with basic life skills, quite honestly.
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  And so, in the beginning, one rescued, the other.
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  And then as things go forth, and especially once kids come into
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  the picture, The Rescuer over function or Workhorse person,
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  starts to become increasingly angry with and contemptuous of
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  the more childlike person, particularly as they start to
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  kind of resent their own choice. Of this person.
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  When they see that this person is really unable to contribute
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  to a household. The person is unable to
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  contribute to a household, not only because of their own
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  issues, which were there in some ways in the in the beginning as
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  well. But also, because of their
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  continued involvement in a dynamic in which their look down
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  on and can't really do anything to the other person
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  specifications and standards. So this is a very, very common
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  Dynamic. Like, my mr.
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  Perfect. And it's Crazy wife.
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  And then the wife, who does everything the martyred wife and
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  the Manchild husband, those are the gender those are gender
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  equivalent, you know, like those are across gender.
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  Each of those is the same thing. You know, they are equivalent
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  and they don't really have to do with gender, they manifest
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  slightly differently, which is why I wrote different articles
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  for them, but overall, it's one person who's a martyr over
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  function. ER, and the other person who has
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  terribly low self-esteem and can Never do anything, right?
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  So if you are locked in a dynamic where you feel that your
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  husband is just useless and doesn't do anything at this is
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  how men are. It would also be useful to
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  examine the ways that you were trained to think about men
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  because this is what you're going to pass on to your
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  daughters and your son's. You know, and I say daughter's
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  first because people usually think that they don't think
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  about it, a Salient lie. If they don't have a son as soon
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  as women have a son that they loved and they're like kind of
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  they go one of two ways, either they deeply interrogate their
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  own. Yes, he's about men.
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  That's a best-case scenario or they just decide that there's
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  some is uniquely different. And he's like, a prince among
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  boys, but all other boys suck. Or, unfortunately, some women
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  just treat them the the sun worse than the daughters because
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  they hate men, and they've never interrogated it.
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  So, you don't want to be in any of these situations, you want to
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  be in the first one, rather. You want to be in the one where
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  you, if you do have anti-male biases that you learn at home,
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  you learn to work through that. See their origin.
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  Usually in the relationship between your parents and usually
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  such women are raised by mothers who have a very similar belief
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  system of looking down on men, could be completely valid to the
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  mom. She could have been abused.
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  There's so many women, by the way, who have mothers had had
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  sexual trauma, and were then raised by a woman who very
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  understandably hates and fears man.
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  But then pass this down to the woman who then becomes like, you
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  know, trapped in the same belief system despite herself not Not
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  having those experiences, she was just parented by somebody
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  who did, this is intergenerational transmission
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  of trauma. So the point is there are very
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  few instances that I see of a quote man cold and these people
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  that have the man called there's equivalent and number of women
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  who have a woman called, you know, who have a chronic pain
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  and chronic this and chronic that and can never get up.
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  I'm not saying shit about it. I have migraine.
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  I've struggled with depression myself.
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  I understand that. It's real, but then, if there's
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  men who are filled by a cold that's real to those people
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  struggle to, they probably struggle with depression, quite
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  honestly, and the cold is just the last thing that tips them
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  over the edge into non-functional.
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  You know, there are stronger, physically stronger and
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  physically weaker people. There are mentally, stronger and
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  mentally, weaker people. And by weaker, it's not like
• 13:54
  stupider, like that might sound, but it's people who struggle
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  more, who had more difficult. Upbringings more exposure to
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  trauma. You know, there are different
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  ways that both men and women can act in response to a stressor
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  that have nothing to do with gender at all.
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  So hopefully this was interesting.
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  He gave you a little bit of a different perspective if you
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  have just kind of tossed off these things like oh you know
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  man cold. You can't find his way out of a
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  paper bag. He needs me to do this.
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  He needs me to do that. He doesn't even know where this
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  is where that is this all like really like anti-male stuff.
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  If you We are with a person that is extremely low functioning
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  like this. That was there from the
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  beginning and it would be most useful to go to couples
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  counseling. And interrogate the Inception of
• 14:41
  this Dynamic, your contribution to it, your partner's
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  contribution to it, the families of origin in both cases, which
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  set you up to get into this sort of dynamic and ways to get out
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  of the dynamic that are going to be outside of both people's
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  Comfort zones, such as the over function or martyr.
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  Of either gender allowing the other person space to try and
• 15:03
  potentially fail as they learn which is usually difficult for
• 15:06
  perfectionistic murder over function.
• 15:10
  Are, you know, to see the laundry done poorly a couple
• 15:13
  times before it's done? Well, it's so there's poorly and
• 15:16
  well, I mean, if the shit is clean, it's clean.
• 15:18
  But you know, that's just my perspective.
• 15:20
  Anyway, hope you guys got something out of this.
• 15:22
  Please do subscribe. The next one, will be a
• 15:24
  subscriber. Only episode, I don't know what
• 15:26
  it'll be about yet, but I'm sure it will be quite fascinating.
• 15:29
  Eating as per usual and I'll talk to you soon.