Hi everyone!

[Roxanne (SO)]

I need to ask everyone a question. I am in the midst of questioning myself and I feel as though Iam misunderstood by my other half. There are many issues that could be afiliated with this particular argument but I must ask the following question:

Is it possible that evethough CD's fill the physical role of a "guy" when having couple disputes, that they somehow subconsciously react in a "traditional" female role? I find myself on several occasions now, dealing with my boyfriend who is acting like the typical definition of a real girl in his reactions...needing to be reassured, physically touched and just simply allowing him to withdraw while I find myself wanting to discuss the issue and actually "fight" about it and in a sense get it out in the open and work it out while the disagreement is in full action.

I get the impression that the withdrawal into sleep or the automatic willingness of my partner to give into the night and sudden desire for the next day to be a new beginning as a timid and "housewifwe" way to be, particularly at this moment in time when women's issues are at the core of my studies and work. Am I too involved in my study and work life or do you all see an association too? This is all very frustrating and I would love to get some insight from anyone who is interested.

Roxanne (So)

[DonnaT]

Hi Roxanne,

Has he always been this way?

Not all men are confrontational or argumentative etc.

Some are timid, submissive, frightened. It's not necessarily a feminine trait. Just a trait.

Maybe something learned from childhood, maybe something he was born with.

Kind of hard to analyze someone you don't know. Especially without their input.

I'm not sure exactly what you are currently studying, but I wouldn't call any woman's actions "typical". Women are quite diverse.

It's a common mistake to generalize what is a woman's characteristics as compared to a man's.

I know quite a few women, my mother being one, who would take offense at suggesting actions exhibited by your BF are typical for a woman or a housewife. Even you yourself do not seem to have the same "typical" reactions, so can you really say they are typical?

[Absaroka]

Hi Roxanne,

I'd pretty much echo what Donna says. Lots of men are actually fairly emotional. We need reassurance, like to be touched, may want to retreat from a fight. Like women, some of us have experienced emotionally disastrous confrontations which lead us to try to avoid them at all costs. Labeling these attributes as feminine will not help anything. And I'm not quite sure what the standard guy role is in an argument anyway. I would think that in couple dynamics one member is by definition more oriented towards confronting of issues and thus the other must be less oriented.

My wife would tell you that I want to talk an issue to death long after she thinks it is resolved and wants to move on. And for her it will perhaps be resolved but for me it is not. Plus since she has a more stressful job and gets up earlier she naturally likes to go to sleep earlier. Which means that in issues like dealing with the kids coming home after curfew I get stuck dealing with it and I feel like she dumps it on me while retreating into sleep while she feels that since I slept till 7 a.m., a full 2 hours longer than her, I should be the one dealing with stuff at midnight. As you can see the variables in such things can be endless.........

I have to admit that your question has really touched a nerve here with me, and I hope that you will forgive my bluntness. But ever since late adolescence, which was 35 years ago, I have been hearing about how men should be more in touch with their feelings and express them more. Yet I find that often when we do this with the women that we are closest with we discover that what they meant was that they wanted us to be in touch with the feelings that they thought we would have, not the feelings that we do have. As a result I find it is sometimes easier to express things to other men who at least are not surprised by what I am feeling. In particular I often find that women seem very threatened by mens vulnerablitity.

My wife has a very funny perspective on all of this. We've been married over 20 years now by the way. Sometimes she will say, only half in jest, that all those women who are married to men who aren't in touch with their feelings and don't express them have no idea how lucky they are. Which is a story I truly enjoy repeating.

So anyway, he is who he is. Leave it at that.

I don't really buy into the whole idea of how unfair it is that women can wear mens clothes but men can't wear womens clothes and so on. But when it comes to men aren't supposed to feel a certain way because it's considered feminine then I really have no time for people who feel that way, especially women. I can accept such feelings from other men more easily because after all I got all the same indoctrination that they did and they aren't throwing up their hands saying men are so difficult to understand.

Again I apologize if the tone of this post is strident and hope what I am trying to say comes through.

Absaroka

[Ann Stef]

A man showing female traits by not argueing as a male, may be showing consideration to the opposite sex , or had experiences in his family of bad arguments. I witnessed loud yelling by my father to my mother and never did the same to my wife. She in turn at the time wanted my to argue more. This was my ex, left for other reasons.