25 Points for Women and Men to Consider
Dusty
You Are Not a Princess! 25 Points for Women and Men to Consider
By Dr. Tara J. Palmatier
I've been writing my own blog, A Shrink for Men, for almost a year now. In
that time, I've noticed many double standards and gender inequities that
seem to be culturally acceptable in relationships. Here are some of my
observations for women to consider in terms of their own behavior and for
men to consider in terms of their own enlightenment when it comes to women
and relationships.
*Please note: The following points do not apply to all women.*
Hey ladies, and you know who you are:
1. You are not a princess. You do not deserve to be treated like royalty
just by virtue of your sex. You deserve to be treated no better or worse
than you treat others.
2. You are not any more "special" nor any more "entitled" than anyone else.
You don't deserve special privileges and nobody "owes" you anything by
virtue of who you are or because of your gender.
3. You are just as "lucky" to have found your husband/boyfriend as he was to
find you. Have you ever considered that there are times when you are lucky
that he puts up with and tolerates you?
4. Men have feelings, too. They hurt just as much as you do when you
criticize, reject, dismiss, ignore, make fun of, disrespect, invalidate
and/or mock them. In fact, they may hurt more because they don't have as
many emotional outlets as you-especially if you tell him his feelings "don't
count" or to "be a man" when he expresses his feelings that you mistakenly
claim he doesn't have and/or is "wrong" for having. He has feelings and he
has a right to them even when they're not the same as yours and/or are
expressed differently than you express yours.
5. If it's okay for you to have male friends and maintain friendships with
your exes, it's also okay for your husband/boyfriend to have female friends
and maintain friendships with his exes. It is not different for you because
"you're a woman." It's faulty logic to suppose women are inherently more
trustworthy than men. This is called a double standard and it's not okay.
Otherwise, the culturally acceptable pronouncement, "Men are all dogs"
should be met with "Women are all bitches" (i.e., female dogs) and should be
equally culturally acceptable. For the record. I think both statements are
unacceptable.
6. A father is just as important in a child's life as a mother. Period. Just
because you have a uterus doesn't make you the better parent by default.
7. Children are not "hers" and "his" objects. The correct possessive pronoun
is "ours."
8. Your husband/boyfriend does not "owe" you. He shouldn't be expected to
financially support you and shower you with gifts unless you're willing to
reciprocate and equally support him without question or complaint. You're
neither his child nor his dependent. You're supposed to be his equal
partner.
9. Your husband's/boyfriend's desires, needs, wishes, feelings, likes and
dislikes are just as important as yours. It's not all about you all the
time. You're supposedly in a mutual and reciprocal relationship; not a
service industry/client-vendor relationship.
10. If you're not willing to make changes in yourself and your behavior,
you've no right to demand that your husband/boyfriend do so. Nor is it
reasonable to demand or expect your husband/boyfriend to make all the
changes you want first before you're willing to do your own work.
11. You are not a better human being by virtue of being a woman. You're not
a goddess. You're not a sacred cow. You don't "rule." You're a person, just
like your husband/boyfriend is a person. You both deserve to be treated with
equal dignity and respect when you act and treat each other with dignity and
respect.
12. It's a lie and a manipulation to say you "sacrificed" your career when
you never really wanted to work in the first place. If you see your
husband/boyfriend as your ticket to freedom from being a wage slave, be
honest with yourself and your husband/boyfriend and most important of all,
BE GRATEFUL. Having another person pay your way through life is not an
inalienable right; it's an enormous gift for which you should express
gratitude on a regular basis. You might also want to consider the burden by
placing on your husband/boyfriend by not carrying your own weight.
13. It is wrong to use your child(ren) to hurt, control or extort money from
your husband/boyfriend/ex. In fact, it borders on child abuse. Children are
not pawns or human shields to be used for your own selfish reasons. They're
people who will later grow to resent you for using them in this fashion and
will likely develop psychological problems of their own as a result.
14. It is wrong to expect or demand that your ex continue to financially
support you after the relationship ends. The children are entitled to
support until they become adults at the age of 18. You're already an adult
and, as such, you're capable of and should legally be expected to take care
of yourself- unless you're willing to continue to support your ex by doing
his grocery shopping, cooking cleaning, errands, etc. If your obligations to
your husband are finished after a divorce, so should be his obligations to
you.
15. Your husband/boyfriend is not responsible for your happiness. It isn't
his job to make you happy; that's your job. Just as he is responsible for
his own happiness. He's supposed to be your equal partner, not your
emotional wet nurse.
16. The desire for sex in a committed, loving relationship is healthy and
natural. Using sex to control, shame or hurt your husband/boyfriend by
withholding affection or making sex transactional is unhealthy and wrong.
17. Your husband/boyfriend should be more important to you than your
child(ren) just as you should be more important to your husband than the
child(ren). In other words, you should be each others' first priorities;
children second. You don't need a husband if your sole desire is to have
children-unless you see the man as a source of income for yourself and the
children. If you can't support yourself, you probably shouldn't be having
children. Marriage is a bond between two grown adults; not a bond between
parent and child (Marc Rudov, 2008). You vow to honor your spouse and put
him or her before all others, this includes your children. Children
eventually fly the coop. If you make them the focus and raison d'�tre of
your marriage, don't be surprised when you no longer have much of a marriage
as the years pass.
18. You are only entitled to what you earn or produce. Men are neither
beasts of burden nor "working boys" to be pimped out in the service of their
partners or ex-partners. No one owes you a living. As an adult, you're not
entitled to be taken care of by another party unless you have documented
cognitive or physical disabilities that prohibit you from working. Last time
I checked, being a wife, ex-wife, girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, mistress,
ex-mistress, mother and/or simply a woman wasn't considered a disability.
19. It is just as ABUSIVE when a woman slaps, kicks, hits, spits, at,
scratches, shoves, pushes, punches, pulls hair, uses a weapon, swings a golf
club at or throws objects at a man. It isn't funny, cute, justifiable or
deserved. It is indefensible, inexcusable, criminal and just as prosecutable
as when a man acts violently toward a woman. Period.
20. The same goes for emotional abuse. It is unacceptable.
21. It is neither "normal" nor "acceptable" adult female behavior to throw
temper tantrums, withhold sex, cry, rage, pout, have disproportionate
reactions to events or be unable to control emotions and behaviors. At the
very least, these are signs of emotional lability and poor impulse control;
at worst, these are indicators of serious pathology and quite possibly some
kind of personality disorder.
22. It is not okay to divert money from your joint checking/savings
account(s) or open credit cards in your husband's/boyfriend's name without
his knowledge and explicit permission. The first instance is stealing and
the second is considered identity theft and fraud. Signing your husband's/boyfriend's
signature to financial and legal documents is forgery. All of these actions
are illegal.
23. It is irresponsible to live beyond your means and abusive to expect your
husband/boyfriend to foot the bill or go into debt to cover your expenses.
If you can't responsibly use a credit/debit card then, much like a child,
you shouldn't have one.
24. It is never acceptable or permissible to threaten to deny your
husband/boyfriend/ex access to the children you share. It is not okay to
make up abuse allegations because you're feeling angry, hurt or out of
control. This is an act of slander (spoken) or libel (written) and if you
swear to it in court, it's also an act of perjury.
25. It is not fair to commit to or marry a man and then try to change him.
If you don't accept him as he is, just like you expect him to accept you and
your faults, then you have no business being with him. Everyone has a right
to feel accepted for who he or she is in a relationship. If he's "not good
enough" for you from the get go; keep looking and cut him loose so he can be
with a woman who appreciates him.
All of these observations seem self-evident to me, which leads me to ponder,
how did we get here?
by Dr Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD
Originally posted on shrink4men on December 15, 2009.