Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Do You Think Your Husband Asking, "What Can I Do To Help?" Is A Burden?

Transcript

Do You Think Your Husband Asking, "What Can I Do To Help?" Is A Burden? · 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, I'm going to be talking about what I think
• 0:11
  is an interesting topic. As of course, I am the only
• 0:14
  Arbiter of that sense. It's just me talking, so they're
• 0:18
  all things. I think of as interesting topics
• 0:20
  that part is not unique but it's kind of an extension of all of
• 0:25
  the stuff I've done on emotional labor, which as you know, from
• 0:29
  reading my blog and probably things I've said here to,
• 0:32
  although I don't recall, I don't think emotional labor is Is
• 0:35
  really a thing in the way that it has been made a thing in our
• 0:40
  culture. And it really, just means I want
• 0:42
  you to take care of me. But it said, in this kind of
• 0:45
  anti-male way that I really don't like I think I got into
• 0:48
  this in the fair play podcast. Before, of course, I did dive
• 0:52
  right into it, but before that, or now I'd like to tell you to
• 0:55
  subscribe. My most recent subscriber
• 0:58
  episode was, is it all about the orgasm?
• 1:01
  Yes, and no. And I get into why.
• 1:04
  And for whom And basically everything about sex with orgasm
• 1:10
  as the goal. So you probably want to listen
• 1:12
  to that one. If you are one of my many
• 1:14
  listeners that wants to hear me talk about sex and explain it to
• 1:17
  you from a different perspective, the male, and the
• 1:19
  female, and the healthy versus the unhealthy and so forth.
• 1:23
  Okay, so back to this topic. So there's a lot of women and
• 1:27
  this was actually had this in the queue to record this topic
• 1:31
  anyway because in my Facebook group, which is separate from
• 1:34
  the A podcast episodes, but you should also join it.
• 1:37
  It's four ninety-nine a month and it's a source of many of my
• 1:41
  ideas. Women were talking about, like,
• 1:44
  having decision fatigue, or like being indecisive and wanting the
• 1:48
  man to, to make the decisions. But then of course wanting him
• 1:54
  to know which decisions to make and not, which not to make
• 1:57
  etcetera. So the idea of oh and then
• 2:03
  basically so that was in my queue and then I saw this
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  Tick-Tock and it is just you know representative wasn't
• 2:08
  anything about this specific Tick Tock but it's a genre of
• 2:13
  kind of skits about women being frustrated that their husband
• 2:17
  asks them what he should do to help rather than just helping
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  with the idea being that it is somehow.
• 2:25
  And the links to emotional labor, it is somehow emotionally
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  laborious for the woman to have to tell him how to help her.
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  And in my Facebook group, I said can you even imagine?
• 2:35
  Imagine inverting the genders here and how much of an asshole,
• 2:40
  the man would look like, if he recorded a tick tock saying,
• 2:44
  I'm, just so overwhelmed. And my wife, here, had the
• 2:47
  temerity to ask what she could do to help me.
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  My God instead of just figuring it out.
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  Will you know, my trials and tribulations never end?
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  That guy would look like a complete douche bag and we all
• 3:00
  know that. And so why does a woman gets to
• 3:04
  say the same thing? Now, and so, you can zoom out
• 3:07
  and be like, okay, maybe there's women married to these guys who
• 3:10
  literally just lay around playing video games or drinking
• 3:14
  or something. And the whole house is piling up
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  with dirty dishes and dirt. And like, you know, the dog is
• 3:22
  pooping on the floor and the kids are screaming their heads
• 3:24
  off. And he just like does nothing
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  because he is a zombie. And in that case, if she were to
• 3:30
  say I'm overwhelmed, which I don't think she would even need
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  to say in that case, because he is as Zombie.
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  She wouldn't feel that he could communicate, but if she were to
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  then and he said, oh, how can I help?
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  Which I still think. Like there's no world in which
• 3:44
  that's a bad thing to say, but I guess you would be an idiot,
• 3:47
  right? Okay, fine.
• 3:48
  He there's a lot of things he could do, but as I've said,
• 3:51
  numerous times, most guys are not idiots, not nor are most
• 3:55
  women. And in the guys that I see, and
• 3:57
  I have said this so much. And I have a pot of post titled,
• 4:01
  men are doing more housework and childcare than in my earlier
• 4:04
  than in Prior. Generations and their wives are
• 4:06
  no happier. Comparing, even the men that I
• 4:08
  used to see when I was first in private practice, in 2009 to the
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  men that I see now and they do like them, at least half the
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  housework frequently more because the people who come into
• 4:18
  therapy and this will be relevant in a second are
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  frequently women. Who struggle with depression or
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  anxiety? And thus those men.
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  And again, I see self-pay clients.
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  So, this is not, these are not lower-income people where they
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  have two jobs and and, you know, they can't afford any help.
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  They can't afford help, you know, and they do.
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  So, the guy does a lot of the stuff half, if not more and
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  outsources a lot too. So there's bi-weekly cleaners
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  and there's yard care and there's babysitters and there's
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  like a lot of stuff going on generally but the woman is not
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  doing everything that's just not what I see.
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  So within the demographic and frequently, the people who
• 4:57
  listen to me are people who either our clients or later
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  become clients or are in this demographic, too.
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  So, it's Likely that many people listening are in a similar boat.
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  You know, where they do not have this previous generation
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  situation, where the woman is doing everything.
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  And and in fact, the man is doing at least half sometimes
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  more because if she's depressed or anxious, as I just said,
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  sometimes he ends up doing more and I discussed this in the
• 5:25
  podcast. When you have things you can't
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  talk about and couples counseling.
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  And that one of those Secrets is frequently that the woman does
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  much less than half of the housework and childcare.
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  And basically sits on her phone saying that she's doing higher
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  level management AKA buying stuff on Amazon for the kids
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  which yeah you got to do but it's not really as labor
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  intensive as like bath time, you know?
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  And so and he does that stuff right?
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  Bathtime frequently dinner. I mean, like so many of the guys
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  I see are the ones who cook and anyway, the point is that, if
• 5:58
  you are in that situation, then which so many people are, where
• 6:02
  the guys doing at least half, then why is it bad if she says,
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  I'm overwhelmed to say, how can I help you?
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  You can't mind read frequently. She says I'm overwhelmed and
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  then the guy tries to do something or other that he feels
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  will be effective and she says, No, it should have been
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  something else. So, you know, why would the
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  woman do this? Then why would she find this to
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  be so aversive to have to make a decision?
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  You know, I mean? Why is that considered such
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  emotional labor? I'll tell you why.
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  Because she's depressed and it's not been diagnosed.
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  Sometimes it has been diagnosed but It doesn't realize that this
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  decision fatigue and insecurity about making the wrong decision.
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  And basically a feeling of complete overwhelm, no matter
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  what is endemic to depression and anxiety to.
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  So really any mental health issue or PTSD, or OCD or really
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  anything that ties up, your your bandwidth means that you have
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  basically nothing left over for normative interactions.
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  Ins and Communications and decisions.
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  So this isn't the guy's fault. I'm not saying he's a perfect
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  person, every situation is different.
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  However, if you cannot verbalize help that you need.
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  Again, in a, in a context where it's not that the house is
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  literally on fire and he says, what should I do to help?
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  You know, which is something I don't really see again, if you
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  cannot verbalize something that you would need for help then,
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  isn't that kind of a you thing? I mean, I think so, you know,
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  and that indicates that you are feeling incredibly burned out
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  and tapped out, and there's likely nothing that the man can
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  do without completely enabling you.
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  Hey, Aah, Just go to sleep and I will do everything which sure
• 7:51
  you can say that sometimes. But if that's every night, if
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  every night, you're Tapped Out by like 6:00 and you cannot be
• 7:59
  spoken to or make any decisions that that's pretty bad
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  depression, you know? And you should definitely try to
• 8:06
  get that assessed by a provider because that is the that's or
• 8:12
  anxiety. But that is the situation that
• 8:14
  many people describe Is basically like the woman saying,
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  like I do everything all day, so then when I get home, I don't
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  want to have to tell anybody what to do.
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  He should just know. But like what about the inverse
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  situation? Like what if he said you should
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  just mind read and know how to be a perfect partner, you know,
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  like it's just not a it's not a thing, it wouldn't be considered
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  nice or kind or realistic, or anything.
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  And when men do say for example, and I've talked about this so
• 8:41
  much and my sex podcast, some guys think, well she should just
• 8:44
  know that like I would want Want a blowjob or like because every
• 8:48
  guy does or I would want to have sex you know every other day or
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  you know, at least once a week. I mean, my God she should know
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  that and yeah like of course like if if you're a man that
• 9:00
  seems extremely obvious but if you're a very low libido woman
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  then frequently you say oh we're just in stressful time alive so
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  we don't have sex for six months, that's normal, we have
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  kids you know and then that is literally what the woman thinks
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  that I do a lot of work trying to help the man understand that.
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  Like and and he does usually or frequently at least has a light
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  bulb moment like my God the way that I think about sex all the
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  time is so not how she thinks about it.
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  That of course I would have to verbalize what I need.
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  So, in these situations, yes, of course the man should know that
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  the children eat every night but I'll just do this one for an
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  example, right? Because here's a really good
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  example. So sometimes women are like oh
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  my God, he should know that the kids eat every night.
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  So then why, why does he have to ask me?
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  You know, like why does he have to ask me if now's a good time
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  to make dinner? So then we talked about it and
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  what usually happens is he's tried to make dinner at his time
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  which would let say be 6:30. She says that's completely
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  impossible. It has to be by 6:15 no later
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  because they have to get into bed.
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  By this time, she also decides that she doesn't like certain
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  foods and the kids don't like certain foods.
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  So the meal that he makes has to appeal to everybody and be
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  multiple meals. In fact, and also whatever he
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  wants to do in terms of the setup for dinner, if he has it
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  in front of the Your if he has it outside or whatever that
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  doesn't work either and basically she doesn't want to be
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  asked anything. She wants him to remember all of
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  this even though sometimes it changes why would a person act
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  like that is she just being a bitch, is it just that she
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  cannot then I'll make her happy? No, she's depressed.
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  She's depressed, and or anxious. And that leads to being
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  extremely rigid difficult and - the same sort of person who
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  would find a problem with somebody saying, what can I do
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  to help you somebody saying, what can I do to help you is Not
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  a bad thing. That is that is not.
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  That is a privilege. That's a lucky person.
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  You know, so, unless you're standing there in front of a
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  fucking grease fire on the stove, and your husband is like,
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  what could I do to help you, you know, but that isn't real.
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  That's like an everyone loves Raymond.
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  Everybody Loves Raymond kinds of bumbling, dad caricature that
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  I've not seen in reality except in certain situations where the
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  woman is a textbook over function.
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  ER and and I talked about that a lot over functioning and the man
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  has never been able to deal with anything.
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  All not from dating now, through early marriage, and certainly
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  not. Now, he has either debilitating,
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  ADHD, debilitating, depression himself.
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  But in those situations, those guys don't, even really asked
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  what they could do to help because they don't help.
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  So, they just are kind of like a baby and the woman knew it when
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  she married him. Although she was too young and
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  too low self-esteem to make any different choices.
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  So that is the situation. But in this situation that I'm
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  talking about frequently, the man is doing at least half of
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  the stuff and then she also has a problem with him asking her
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  what else he can do. Do to help or asking her about
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  like what she wants him to do with the kids, because every
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  time he does something, she doesn't want with the kid.
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  She gets very upset and says it should be something else.
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  Why would a person constantly get very upset about things
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  being done the quote wrong way, because they struggle with
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  depression and anxiety. So for example, if let's say you
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  were sitting on the couch and you were saying I'm so stressed,
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  you know, and your husband came over and said, okay what can I
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  do to help and you turned around and said, well, don't you
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  understand that? It has to be vacuumed in here,
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  right? I mean it could just as easily
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  be any other thing that you fixate on and why should he know
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  that in particular and then of course people do cognitive
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  dissonance reduction and they say well because you know the
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  last time it was vacuumed was this and this and this and blah
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  blah blah but God's honest truth is that if He would have caught
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  you in one different, second, you would have said, well, don't
• 12:45
  you understand that? The kids have to go up for bath
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  time or well, don't you understand that?
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  I'm worried about, you know, paying our taxes or whatever the
• 12:52
  case may be, because you're just worried a lot.
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  You're just worried and depressed a lot and it comes out
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  and being extremely negative toward your intimate partner.
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  Because that is who's the punching bag for any miserable
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  person? And I say this to guys to, of
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  course, when a man is depressed, his wife can do nothing right,
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  when a woman is Depressed. The man can do nothing right
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  through therapy and kind of understanding yourself better,
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  you can become a depressed person.
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  That doesn't have a bad marriage that's possible.
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  And I mean I just did a video on this but I could do a podcast
• 13:27
  probably will now that I thought about it cuz I just did a video
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  on it. About somebody said, like if I
• 13:32
  change my marriage, like if I wasn't with my partner anymore,
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  would I stop being depressed? I think so.
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  And I was like, no girl, you wouldn't, you know, that doesn't
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  happen. You biologically depression is
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  something in your brain and its genetic and environment and
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  you're not you can end up in the honeymoon stage with the next
• 13:52
  partner and think that that cured your depression to leave
• 13:55
  your prior partner and be with this one.
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  But after the honeymoon, stage recedes, you're just going to be
• 13:59
  a depressed person in hopefully a different marriage.
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  So with the goal would be, is to recognize that if you got a lot
• 14:05
  of problems with, you know, your husband trying to ask you what
• 14:10
  he could do to help. Pew, that that may be a, you
• 14:13
  thing, you know, and if he's doing a lot of shit and he's
• 14:19
  acting as like your hands because you are too tired and to
• 14:23
  quote, stressed and overwhelmed again, symptoms of depression
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  anxiety to do anything that he or she is doing a lot.
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  And if the genders were inverted, then everybody would
• 14:35
  think that he was a huge dick for jumping down your throat.
• 14:38
  If you asked how he could help it, how you could help I am so
• 14:42
  keep that in mind. The next time that you find this
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  to be like another form of emotional labor, to have a
• 14:48
  partner who loves you enough to ask, how he can help you because
• 14:51
  in the inverted situation, if he said something like, oh my God,
• 14:55
  I'm so overwhelmed at work and you said, how can I help?
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  And he's like, my God, why do I have to tell you everything?
• 15:02
  Obviously, what you should do is you should take the kids out for
• 15:05
  a couple of hours so that I could work.
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  Why didn't you know, that every single person that you told that
• 15:10
  interaction to would be, Like what an asshole man.
• 15:13
  What is wrong with him? Here you are trying to be nice
• 15:16
  and he just jumps down your through.
• 15:19
  Now, another reason by the way that you could feel like
• 15:21
  somebody should mind read as you grew up in a very dysfunctional,
• 15:24
  family where everything was in direct, everything was passive
• 15:28
  aggressive and nobody ever was able to say what they need it
• 15:31
  out loud and you were supposed to guess.
• 15:33
  And in this case, you are expecting your husband to do the
• 15:36
  same thing, and he can't because that's not healthy, and it's not
• 15:39
  how he was raised. So that And likely any sort of
• 15:43
  depression anxiety is making this worse.
• 15:45
  This idea that he showed mind re.
• 15:47
  So if you have an idea that he should mind re-and, he's already
• 15:51
  doing half the stuff, then you got to think about both your
• 15:55
  upbringing and the fact that you may be depressed, / anxious, and
• 15:58
  you got to talk to your own therapist about it.
• 16:00
  Because always in your life, what I would want you to learn
• 16:04
  from this podcast is always switched the genders, you know
• 16:07
  and see if if it would still make sense or if the other
• 16:10
  person would be like a Tremendous asshole in that
• 16:12
  situation, right? So like I always do this with
• 16:15
  like kissing, like any man that would like if you were like, you
• 16:20
  know, on the Metro and you saw like a woman tried to get up
• 16:24
  like and kiss her husband on the lips because she was leaving,
• 16:26
  because there's that was before his stop and he kind of like
• 16:29
  gave her the cheek. You be like, what an asshole?
• 16:32
  Right like, why isn't he loving to his wife but if the woman did
• 16:35
  it, you'd be like, oh, I guess she just not in the mood.
• 16:37
  I guess you. Maybe she just touched out and
• 16:39
  stressed. Listen, I'm the first person to
• 16:41
  say on a frequent vocal proponent of gender differences.
• 16:45
  Hormonal differences, empathy toward both genders.
• 16:48
  But sometimes you just got to get in a different, you know, a
• 16:52
  different view by switching it around, you know.
• 16:55
  And and this is one of those cases where we're definitely
• 17:00
  somebody who is an otherwise competent person and thought of
• 17:04
  that way in the universe. At large saying, how can I help
• 17:08
  you or asking? What you need or what you want
• 17:12
  or particularly in the light of you kind of always saying they
• 17:16
  get it wrong when they guess. You know, that that's not a
• 17:19
  person that is the enemy. That's not a person who's
• 17:22
  putting more on your plate. That's a person who's trying to
• 17:25
  be a good partner. And of course if they can't wipe
• 17:27
  their own ass without asking you that's a different situation but
• 17:30
  what I'm talking about is competent people who are doing
• 17:34
  half of the childcare and at least the hours that they are
• 17:37
  home to do that because frequently this is a A situation
• 17:40
  to where the woman is stay at home.
• 17:42
  The man is work outside the home but then when he's home, he's
• 17:45
  doing half if not more. Because now more and more, I see
• 17:49
  a dynamic where if the woman is stay-at-home basically, she's
• 17:52
  off. As soon as the man comes home,
• 17:55
  so that he's got second shift and second shift was something
• 17:58
  that Arlie hochschild a sociologist wrote about that.
• 18:01
  Women had in dual income families, where the man was off.
• 18:05
  He came home and he was off, but now she was on She did her job
• 18:10
  and then plus she did a hundred percent of the childcare and the
• 18:14
  housework and these studies were done in the 70s and 80s.
• 18:18
  But now I see, it kind of different.
• 18:20
  I see in the Dual income families, their dual income,
• 18:24
  they both work. They both come home, they both
• 18:25
  split everything, but sometimes with the stay-at-home moms, they
• 18:29
  come home and they clock out pretty much and they will
• 18:32
  frequently like leave, you know, or leave basically IE go to
• 18:37
  their bedroom or whatever and listen everybody should have a
• 18:39
  break. 100% but you know the in situations where women are
• 18:44
  struggling with untreated or unacknowledged depression or
• 18:46
  anxiety, guys get the second shift and that's an Open Secret
• 18:51
  that they don't talk about because it's kind of
• 18:52
  embarrassing to both of them. You know the reality that he
• 18:56
  works all day then he comes home and then he does 100% of the
• 18:59
  children stuff. And you know then W you know
• 19:03
  like then where is she? What she's doing is dealing with
• 19:07
  overwhelm and dysregulation due to untreated or Or sometimes,
• 19:10
  unacknowledged depression or anxiety?
• 19:13
  So that is the key. Takeaway here.
• 19:15
  Are you dealing with untreated depression or anxiety?
• 19:17
  Talk to your provider. If so I have lots of posts on
• 19:21
  depression and anxiety, and what they look like and lots of
• 19:23
  podcasts on that too. Alright, guys, hope you found
• 19:26
  this useful and I'll talk to you soon.
• 19:27
  Bye, bye.