Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / New Self-Indulgence Low: Apparently, Wanting Your Partner To Dress A Certain Way Is "Abusive"!

Transcript

New Self-Indulgence Low: Apparently, Wanting Your Partner To Dress A Certain Way Is "Abusive"! · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:07
  Psych mom. Show today.
• 0:09
  You're in luck. If you like hearing me rant,
• 0:11
  angrily about shit. Hopefully in at least somewhat
• 0:15
  of a funny way, like, with the fair play episode because of
• 0:21
  vest guy meme. And I will tell you about vest
• 0:23
  guy meme in a little bit. Please do subscribe, though.
• 0:27
  Before we get into the meat of this episode, I must tell you to
• 0:30
  subscribe. I have loads of great subscriber
• 0:33
  episodes. Most Recently on how your kids
• 0:37
  deserve a happy parent, but then you're kind of fucked if you
• 0:39
  never saw a happy parent. So how do you go about doing
• 0:41
  that? And of course, join my Facebook
• 0:44
  group. I have lots and lots more people
• 0:46
  joining recently, perhaps because of the holidays at home
• 0:51
  with the family. That's always you know something
• 0:54
  that really helps people, you know, move forward into
• 0:58
  self-reflection about how they want to change it after spending
• 1:02
  whole bunch of time at home over the winter break.
• 1:04
  Anyway, Um, so vest guy beams or on my Facebook page?
• 1:08
  Which of course you should follow at least that because it
• 1:11
  is free unlike the Facebook group.
• 1:13
  But either way, the Facebook page.
• 1:17
  So I shared this meme which I thought was pretty funny.
• 1:19
  I was this guy who is somewhat of an amateur comedian.
• 1:22
  I followed his page and he shared something with my wife
• 1:27
  wanted me to wear a vest and I didn't and I'm not a vest guy.
• 1:30
  So we compromised and I wore the vest and it was, you know, him
• 1:33
  wearing a vest and then like a Close-up of his face which was
• 1:36
  obviously, like, you know, designed to be funny that he's
• 1:39
  not so into the vest, right? So then I post this thing.
• 1:42
  And of course, most people have a good sense of humor, but then
• 1:44
  there's always the anti-fun police who don't, you know,
• 1:48
  think things are funny ever. And one of these people and
• 1:52
  others of these people, and whatever we're saying that this
• 1:55
  is emotionally abusive and No Boundaries assist.
• 1:58
  The guy does not have good boundaries and the woman is
• 2:00
  being emotionally, abusive, right in wanting him to wear
• 2:03
  something that could. Give me a break on that one.
• 2:06
  That is insane. So this is exactly what I'm
• 2:10
  talking about in The Cult of boundaries and Cult of
• 2:12
  preferences podcast and my constant perseveration on the
• 2:16
  idea that the individual is put so far above the unit.
• 2:23
  In today's marriages, that it's like almost impossible for a
• 2:26
  marriage to succeed. I mean, it used to be a given
• 2:29
  that like, if your wife wants you to wear some shit for the
• 2:32
  holiday photo, you're gonna wear.
• 2:34
  RIT like of course she cares so much more than you do, you know,
• 2:41
  hopefully about like one minute of your life during which, you
• 2:45
  have to wear a vest in a photo, you know?
• 2:48
  And it was designed to be like a funny thing.
• 2:51
  Like. Okay?
• 2:51
  Like it's like kids, you know, like the mom says, oh we're all
• 2:54
  going to wear, you know, red shirts in the holiday photo
• 2:57
  because mom's like, whole fucking December is riding on
• 3:00
  this. You know, from what I
• 3:01
  understand, I don't do holiday cards but it appears to be a big
• 3:04
  deal. And so everybody puts on a red
• 3:07
  shirt to be nice too Mom. Like what the hell like this
• 3:10
  putting the unit above the individual.
• 3:12
  Who cares? You don't want to wear a red
• 3:14
  shirt for that day. Big shit, you know.
• 3:16
  It would be the same as if you're going to a wedding, you
• 3:19
  got to dress up in formal clothes.
• 3:21
  You don't wear gym clothes to a wedding because that's not
• 3:23
  respectful to the bride and the groom, whatever, whatever the
• 3:26
  case may be. So this now all of a sudden is
• 3:30
  considered emotionally, abusive. Let me tell you, then the men
• 3:34
  that think that Could be emotionally abusive, guess who's
• 3:36
  not going to wear what you want her to wear?
• 3:39
  Then if it's emotionally abusive for you to wear what she wants
• 3:42
  you to wear? Oh, I don't know.
• 3:44
  Maybe it's the woman that you want to wear some lingerie.
• 3:47
  Well, she doesn't want to. So if you if anything doing what
• 3:51
  you don't want to do turns into something that's emotionally
• 3:54
  abusive, well then shit people cannot make any request of each
• 3:58
  other and they certainly can't have any preferences, and they
• 4:01
  don't want to wear, what makes each other, you know, turned on
• 4:04
  or Happy or whatever the case may be in this situation, she
• 4:07
  wasn't turned on by the vest. But the majority of women that I
• 4:10
  speak to definitely would be more turned on if their husbands
• 4:13
  dressed better. But if it's considered now,
• 4:17
  abusive in today's Paradigm, for one person to want another
• 4:23
  person to wear something. And, you know, there was no gun
• 4:27
  to this man's head. He decides happy wife, happy
• 4:29
  life and of course, I understand this was a joke, right?
• 4:33
  This thing didn't happen. Open, this was posed in certain
• 4:36
  way where he had at certain expression on his face for, you
• 4:38
  know, to, you know, Market his own like little business of
• 4:42
  being a comedy person on Facebook or wherever, and it was
• 4:45
  funny, right? But let's say that it was real,
• 4:47
  which is the way that these people were, it were reacting is
• 4:50
  as though this was real, right? So if it was real then big shit,
• 4:55
  you know? I mean if it was real in fact he
• 4:57
  is the bad one for having the expression on his face and not
• 5:01
  just going with the flow. So all of the And people have
• 5:05
  preferences as to what their spouse would do.
• 5:08
  And if these are thought to be emotionally abusive to express,
• 5:12
  well then it becomes a parallel play situation, instead of a
• 5:16
  marriage in which both people do exactly what they want at all
• 5:20
  times. Except of course they sacrifice
• 5:22
  themselves, orderly and dramatically for the children,
• 5:26
  but for each other, nobody can ask anybody do anything.
• 5:30
  So this is why people end up in my office because they're
• 5:32
  basically in a parallel play. Remember, Parallel play you
• 5:35
  learned it. Your BabyCenter emails about
• 5:37
  toddlers. Toddlers.
• 5:38
  Don't play with each other. Usually they play next to each
• 5:41
  other and this is the sort of play that I see in or life
• 5:47
  really that I see for many couples they because nobody is
• 5:51
  allowed to say that they want the other person to do anything.
• 5:54
  Then they just are kind of next to each other doing whatever
• 5:56
  they want to do and then they both feel completely lonely and
• 6:00
  not connected and really quite unhappy.
• 6:04
  So, what would a situation look like on the other side?
• 6:07
  Because, of course, I don't only think that, you know, women
• 6:11
  should be able to tell men to what, to where I do.
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  Think what would you be able to tell their husbands what to
• 6:15
  wear? If it's like, oh, I want you to
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  wear X because it's attractive or because I like it 100%.
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  But what else do I think men should be able to do the same
• 6:24
  thing and what's so ironic is men want this frequently more
• 6:28
  than women do. Because men are very Visual and
• 6:30
  turned on by the idea of the woman wearing lingerie or
• 6:33
  wearing a Cut shirt or wearing a tight dress or wearing dress at
• 6:38
  all or wearing jeans, or wearing boots or whatever the hell
• 6:42
  heels, whatever they want, right?
• 6:45
  And so then if this turns into a, you shouldn't have anything
• 6:49
  that you want me to do. Because it's my body, my choice,
• 6:52
  like something that is like, like, like that.
• 6:55
  People used about like, sexual assault rhetoric.
• 6:59
  That is correct, that? That is like a person should not
• 7:03
  be. Forced into unwanted sexual
• 7:06
  Congress, you're a hundred percent, right?
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  Like definitely, how does that have to do with in a loving
• 7:12
  marriage? Not putting on a piece of
• 7:14
  clothing that turns on your partner.
• 7:17
  I mean, this is like, it's become insane.
• 7:19
  It would be the same as like, saying to your toddler, my body,
• 7:22
  my choice. If they want a hug, this is not
• 7:25
  a relevant response, heated up. Like they're sure you don't
• 7:29
  always have to give them a hug, but you do kind of have to give
• 7:32
  them a hug. And if the time you know,
• 7:35
  possibly like no I mean you've if you're sleeping, you could
• 7:39
  have boundaries if you're in the bathroom, if you're in the
• 7:41
  shower. But within normal day, you're
• 7:45
  not going to be able to get through today.
• 7:47
  If your kid asks, you for a hug, you cannot not do that and still
• 7:52
  be considered a loving person. I don't care what the hell.
• 7:56
  People respond on my Facebook about what if you have sensory
• 8:00
  issues, okay? What kind of sensory issues you
• 8:02
  have if your Child asks, you for a hug and you never give it to
• 8:07
  them. That is not being a loving
• 8:09
  parent. It's just not, it's just not.
• 8:12
  There's some things that just are not and that's one of them.
• 8:16
  So, similarly, if your spouse asks, you for a hug, you cannot
• 8:21
  give it to them. If you want to remain married,
• 8:24
  and you want to be in a close loving relationship, you cannot
• 8:27
  consistently just not do anything.
• 8:29
  You don't want to do because that's not marriage, you know,
• 8:32
  that's not a family. That's not Also not work.
• 8:35
  You can't save your boss, you know, I just don't want to do
• 8:37
  that. There's another thing.
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  I don't want to do too and then there's a third thing and you
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  know what? I don't really want to do any of
• 8:41
  this job. Pretty much.
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  Except for this 10% that I like to do, you can't do that and
• 8:45
  remain employed. So similarly, you cannot
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  consistently not do anything. You don't want to do and remain
• 8:53
  married, you can legally, but it's not ethical, you know, it's
• 8:57
  really just not ethical to remain.
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  Married ostensibly say that you're part of a unit, but then
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  not, Not do anything that makes you part of it unit.
• 9:06
  Now to anything on involves of the remotest, little bit of
• 9:10
  self-sacrifice such as wearing something that your partner
• 9:14
  likes, putting a piece of material on your body that your
• 9:18
  partner likes. Like like in that moment you are
• 9:22
  you're you're not engaging in self expression with your
• 9:25
  clothes and that's okay. Everything does not have to be
• 9:29
  the cult of the self and infinity self-expression at all
• 9:33
  times. I'll tell you that.
• 9:35
  If that guy puts on a vest, his wife is much likelier to put on
• 9:41
  some slutty lingerie for him later on because their marriage,
• 9:45
  at least in terms of what I see and yet again, I know this was a
• 9:49
  joke but but in response to people who took this to be not a
• 9:53
  joke and representative of a larger problem of people forcing
• 9:58
  one another to do things, they don't want to do this.
• 10:00
  If you have that much trouble putting on a vest or Or that
• 10:04
  much trouble with putting on a piece of lingerie.
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  Perhaps, you're a person that does not want really deeply to
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  be in a relationship because weird relationship involves
• 10:14
  relating. It involves a connection and
• 10:16
  involves frequently doing things.
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  You do not want to do in the larger service of being loving.
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  Just like no parent has ever wanted to play Candy Land or
• 10:27
  shoots of ladders in the history of time, but yet you do it, not
• 10:31
  constantly, but you do do it. As you want to be a loving
• 10:35
  parent and this is the game that your child was a different kind
• 10:38
  of brain than you do really likes.
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  So it is very boring to you but it is not boring to them much,
• 10:46
  like lingerie or like the vest. So it's the same sort of thing.
• 10:51
  And this speaks interesting lie to my face book group, I'll
• 10:55
  probably be doing a podcast about this specifically, but in
• 10:58
  my Facebook groups of people are talking about like, what's
• 11:00
  average sex versus good sex versus kinky sex and I Was like
• 11:04
  man. I'm at the level where like I'm
• 11:06
  telling people that like men like their penis touched, you
• 11:09
  know, so we're like kind of a Baseline and it's like that one
• 11:12
  was was was you know, dispelled into the atmosphere and people
• 11:17
  like understood that level of stuff than we can try to get up
• 11:20
  to like kinky stuff and education about that.
• 11:23
  But since it's relevant a large part of like having a really
• 11:28
  adventurous and kinky sex life is that you do do stuff for the
• 11:34
  A person like certainly it's consensual just like wearing the
• 11:37
  vest is consensual because he put it on his own body, but
• 11:42
  wearing something that your partner finds to be sexy is a
• 11:46
  big part of many adventurous and exploratory and fulfilling sex
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  lives, you know. So a woman wearing something
• 11:54
  sexier out in public than she herself would choose would be a
• 11:59
  very popular thing to happen with any sort of sex that has
• 12:04
  Even remotely any sort of power play in it, you know, so that
• 12:08
  the man tells you what to wear, which it's so interesting.
• 12:12
  Many women tell me they want the man to be more dominant in bed.
• 12:15
  This is like a big thing that women say but then they're like
• 12:18
  not on like that lingerie. He chose.
• 12:20
  It's too slutty. Well girl, how are you going to
• 12:22
  work that in your mind? You won't put on the laundry.
• 12:25
  He wants but you what? You want him to be dominant
• 12:27
  house? He died.
• 12:28
  He just said something he wants. You said no.
• 12:30
  So and and this isn't the fun kind of know, by the way.
• 12:34
  This isn't the safeword kind of know where they're saying, no,
• 12:36
  but they want to be forced to say yes, this is not that this
• 12:39
  is no no. Fucking way you're disgusting.
• 12:43
  And get that thing away from me in terms of the slutty lingerie.
• 12:47
  And then though, they want the man to be spontaneous more
• 12:52
  assertive more dominant, more strong, more of a leader.
• 12:56
  It please, how you not even doing the little thing that he
• 13:00
  asks for, you know? So if people do want, Want to
• 13:04
  have a more connected sex life. They need to start at the very
• 13:07
  basic level of entertaining. The idea that they frequently
• 13:11
  have to do things, they don't want to do, that are small
• 13:14
  things in the larger surface of the relationship and making the
• 13:18
  person feel heard understood and loved.
• 13:22
  So, yet again with the vest, this guy, would it be if this
• 13:26
  was real thing? This and assuming that he didn't
• 13:29
  have the fuck you expression on his face and he was like a
• 13:32
  myriad. Intelligent real men in the
• 13:35
  world who say, okay, you want us to wear white shirts for the
• 13:38
  photoshoot of the family on the beach.
• 13:40
  Cool. I'll get a white shirt.
• 13:43
  So if he was one of those dudes, then those guys end up in a
• 13:47
  best-case scenario and there are happy couples.
• 13:50
  Remember I talked about unhappy ones, but there's plenty of
• 13:52
  happy ones. And those guys, end up with
• 13:55
  women who are like, oh, he wants me to wear heels and a sexy
• 13:58
  dress on date night. That makes sense.
• 14:01
  He's a dude, dudes, like that sort of shit.
• 14:03
  I Guess I'll get one and then the guys happy, he she's happy
• 14:07
  with the photo thing. He's empathize that something
• 14:10
  that is of zero importance to him is of importance to her.
• 14:13
  So thus he wants to do it. And she says, man, I'm not
• 14:17
  really comfortable in heels and a dress, but I'm real
• 14:19
  comfortable with how he looks at me.
• 14:21
  In fact, I really like it, knowing that I am being his
• 14:24
  fantasy for a night, is not only a turn-on, maybe it is, maybe it
• 14:28
  isn't depends where she is in her menstrual cycle, but it is a
• 14:31
  loving gesture. And one that No, will be good
• 14:35
  for our relationship and makes him feel lucky.
• 14:38
  So the same way that all the women, who look at my holiday
• 14:41
  card, know that my husband listens to me that he listens.
• 14:46
  What I tell him to wear a white shirt on the fucking beach for
• 14:50
  the sunset pictures. Everybody knows it's a shortcut
• 14:53
  to tell other women guess what? He respects, me.
• 14:57
  He empathizes with me. He's a good man.
• 15:00
  He does this family shit. He don't want to wear this
• 15:03
  fucking shirt. Shirt is one take these
• 15:05
  pictures, but he pays for it and he likes it and he's smiling
• 15:08
  because he loves me. That's the same way as men.
• 15:11
  Feel if you're going out, wearing whatever he thinks of a
• 15:14
  sexy on your date night because he feels like whether it's right
• 15:19
  or wrong and men always say, oh, I don't care what other guys
• 15:22
  think of me. While they, they notice every
• 15:24
  guy that looks at you, by the way, and they're very proud.
• 15:27
  But anyway, they think. Oh, in the, in the hierarchy of
• 15:31
  the world. I am a man whose Cares about
• 15:35
  him, cares about his preferences and wants to turn him on, wants
• 15:39
  to do the things that he likes and considers it less of a bad
• 15:44
  thing to be in a tight dress. All right?
• 15:48
  It's not the most comfortable thing in the world, okay?
• 15:50
  But she can be uncomfortable in a very small way, you know for
• 15:56
  the larger good just like I was uncomfortable in a very small
• 16:00
  way, you know, Josh and around during a photo shoot Oh, shoot
• 16:04
  with my kids, while that's not my personality, but she loves it
• 16:08
  and those pictures go up on our wall and it's awesome for her.
• 16:12
  Yeah, I could give a shit but I want her to be happy and thus,
• 16:15
  she too is the same way. With the sexy dress she wouldn't
• 16:19
  wear it on a night out with her friends but she's not on a night
• 16:21
  out with her friends. She's on a night out with her
• 16:23
  husband that loves this and therefore she loves that, I love
• 16:27
  him. Now if you're in a situation
• 16:30
  where something like wearing the white shirt for a photoshoot or
• 16:33
  wearing the Dress for a night out becomes a source of Rage.
• 16:37
  Then one of two things, usually both actually.
• 16:40
  So you need individual therapy to work on why this happens.
• 16:44
  Likely your rights were violated in a very real sense during your
• 16:48
  childhood. And now your computer your very
• 16:52
  hyper tuned to any potential boundary violation within your
• 16:56
  relationship, which is limiting your ability to be deeply
• 16:59
  generous. And give another thing is, you
• 17:02
  may have many unresolved An empathic ruptures and a lot of
• 17:06
  resentment towards your spouse because of their perceived
• 17:09
  boundary violations in the past such that you find it extremely
• 17:12
  uncomfortable to to do anything. You don't want to do now because
• 17:17
  you feel that there were certain ways in which your boundaries
• 17:20
  were violated within the relationship, which there's
• 17:23
  which kind of definitely means that they were violated before
• 17:26
  the relationship because it is most likely that people find
• 17:30
  familiar a boundary Crossing relationship.
• 17:32
  When they had a boundary Crossing, Violating childhood.
• 17:35
  So if you need an example for this, a girl that had been
• 17:39
  sexually abused by her father. Unfortunately this is not as
• 17:43
  uncommon as you would think is then drawn to a man perhaps who
• 17:50
  is similarly? A boundary violator right and
• 17:55
  can be emotionally abusive and within that context certainly
• 17:58
  she's not going to want to wear a sexy dress.
• 18:00
  Nor should she wear a sexy dress?
• 18:02
  And honestly, she probably shouldn't be in the mouth.
• 18:03
  Marriage and that's what therapy could help her figure out or a
• 18:06
  man whose mother with inextricably.
• 18:10
  Involved in every aspect micromanaging, what he wore, how
• 18:13
  he talked, how he acted, what he did for school with career he
• 18:18
  picked very over. Intrusive will frequently be
• 18:22
  drawn to and Mary and over intrusive wife and then will
• 18:25
  perceive any preference. She has about how he acts or
• 18:28
  dresses. To be another example of this
• 18:30
  intrusiveness and he deeply hates the relationship and he
• 18:33
  hates himself. For even rigidly getting into
• 18:36
  another boundary violating relationship.
• 18:38
  So in the context of either unresolved childhood, trauma or
• 18:45
  and again, frequently both a relationship that has a history
• 18:48
  of true boundary violations. Then this is not going to be
• 18:53
  relevant, right? But within the context of a
• 18:56
  loving marriage, where most things are good and the person
• 19:01
  is not out to get you. The majority of Ins need to work
• 19:04
  on being less selfish not more. There's frequently.
• 19:07
  I talk about people who need to work on being more selfish,
• 19:09
  right? So people Pleasers and Workhorse
• 19:12
  type of people, codependent type of people, all of my posts
• 19:16
  about, you know, when you need to kind of set your boundaries
• 19:18
  and say, I'm not going to live in X situation anymore.
• 19:22
  Whether this is emotionally abusive, whether it's a sexless,
• 19:25
  marriage, whatever it is, but the majority of human beings
• 19:28
  again, remember, 50% of people are securely attached.
• 19:31
  The the, the the Society that we live, in puts the individual so
• 19:36
  far above the couple that it's hurting couples.
• 19:40
  So that is the target audience for this.
• 19:42
  Not people who are actually in an abusive situation in which
• 19:45
  case. Yeah you don't want to put on
• 19:47
  the shirt and you don't want to have sex and you do want to put
• 19:49
  on the dress and you shouldn't probably be married, especially
• 19:52
  not without tremendous amount of work in couples counseling.
• 19:56
  So if you've been listening to this and you're like no fucking
• 19:59
  way, then therapy would be the next step, right?
• 20:02
  Because you have to understand. And why doing something for your
• 20:05
  spouse is thought of to be so aversive to you.
• 20:08
  And there's going to be a multi-layered reason, for sure,
• 20:11
  because people are complex and things aren't just like one
• 20:14
  thing, but I'll promise you that.
• 20:16
  There's an origin in the way that you grew up promise.
• 20:20
  All right? Anyway, I'll talk to you soon.
• 20:23
  I hope that this was useful and I hope it gets some dudes to
• 20:25
  wear vests. I mean, that's like the goal
• 20:28
  just getting I'll talk to you later.
• 20:29
  Bye.