When do I get to be happy?

Hello Readers, this is Josh Swanson.

I’d like to share my experience as a man working with women in relationships. I’ve found that many women follow a similar trajectory of self-discovery and fulfillment, but often feel they’re facing that journey in isolation. What follows is my understanding of this journey, which is educated and informed, but clearly limited and biased. My hope is that sharing this narrative helps women all around Iowa feel less isolated and crazy, instead feeling empowered to pursue their own happiness.

Early Life

Girls are taught to sacrifice. The world is better when people engage in pro-social behavior, so girls are taught to pursue this pro-social behavior at their own expense. Ignore weird comments from men. Go to the party for someone you only kind of like. Be nice to your grandparents - you never know when a single visit will be your last. This teaches girls that the world needs them to be small and attentive.

Boys, meanwhile, are taught the value of independence. Don’t be weak. Pursue success and dominance, accepting that some people will get hurt in the process. Be yourself and love that person, lashing out with anger when someone else doesn’t like that person. This teaches boys that the world needs them to be brazen and bold.

Early Adulthood

Girls find jobs and relationships that expect them to sacrifice. Find a job that lets you make the world a better place, even if it doesn’t pay well. Find a partner who offers some semblance of stability, then make them happy. Keep his stomach full and his balls empty, then he’ll take care of you. Sure, he’s not perfect, but be careful not to be a bitch and upset him. After all, your value depends on how successful your relationships are, so make sure he stays happy. This teaches women they don’t have value and can only find their worth in taking care of others.

Men, meanwhile, continue their pursuit of power. The world exists to be shaped by them, so they should feel bad and ashamed if life isn’t going well, but proud and loud if life is going well. Your partner exists to empower this lifestyle. The house should be clean and sex should be easy. Your partner should respect you in public and lust for you in private. If she disappoints you in either domain, you should be upset with her. This teaches men to fight for their desires, not needing to consider the damage done to others’ confidence or self-worth in process.

Children

Women have been taught up to this point that the happiness of those around them determines their self-worth. Adding some dependents to the mix makes that valuation process incredibly clear, but also incredibly stressful. Make sure the kids are well behaved, but also expressive. Make sure the house is clean, but also welcoming. Make sure your husband feels loved and supported, but also desired and lusted for. Make sure you tell him what you want, but also don’t want anything. This teaches women they have a conditional value, but that condition can never be met. This is where the anxiety starts to spiral out of control, with a constant sense of failure looming. Disappointments from others mount, as do overwhelming responsibilities. A conditional sense of self-worth is moderately functional as long as responsibilities are manageable. Once those responsibilities become unmanageably overwhelming, however, the system collapses into a spiral of anxiety and shame.

Men, meanwhile, get to tunnel vision. Having a wife and kids means they’ve made it, so the little effort that was going into pro-social behavior gets to relax, with men encouraged to pick up activities and hobbies that bring them personal joy and satisfaction. As the provider of stability and success, a husband has now completed his job and gets to enjoy the dividends. While his wife is crashing out, however, he has to deal with frequent nagging and unhappiness. Never to fear, however, his hobbies give him space to escape from his unhappy and nagging wife, instead finding refuge in his hobbies and friendships, which don’t require talking about womanly things like feelings and dreams.

Middle Adulthood

This is where the pieces start to fall apart. Facing a constantly judgmental society and a failing sense of self-worth, women start to look for comfort and reassurance from a partner who never learned to offer it. Instead, they’re met with a judgmental husband who insists everything would be fine if she’d just go back to her old silence and sacrifice, as well as the exciting sex life they used to have. What men don’t realize, however, is the fragility and pain of those old patterns. Her happiness didn’t matter within that pattern, she just didn’t know fighting for her own happiness was an option.

At this point, women have to start fighting for a sense of self-worth and acceptance in a life they’ve unwittingly constructed to deny their self-worth and judge them instead.

She feels like she’s not meeting her partner’s needs and he’s confirming that on a regular basis. It’s not about feelings and happiness, he’ll say, it’s just about sex and how often she nags.

It’s in the face of this disappointment and dismissiveness that women need to make a major decision. Will they face the stress and pain of learning to fight a ridiculously difficult fight against the people who are supposed to be their allies? Or will they shrug and agree they don’t have any value or worth, instead pushing their own pursuit of happiness to the side and returning to a life of sacrifice?

So…Now What?

I can’t blame women who choose the latter, but I certainly hope an increasingly high amount of women are able to choose the former. For those looking for practical resources to assist them on their journey, I recommend the following:

Sweepy, a chore tracking app. Many women will report having more emotional bandwidth for sex, particularly the mindful and enjoyable kind of sex, if they don’t have to worry about all the housework that needs to be taken care of. Bonus points if they see their husband as a respectable, equal partner in managing those responsibilities.

To Have and to Hold, a powerful book written by Molly Millwood, a doctor and mother who works with mothers. She does a fantastic job at detailing the journey I’ve touched on here, helping women find ways to talk about their experience and ask others to care.

The Values Card Sort, a commonly used therapy device that helps clients sort through a series of cards to find their own values and sense of self. It’s a lot easier to fight for your own self-worth if you know who that person is.

That Sex Quiz, a tool for two partners to explore and share ideas they find sexually exciting. It’s format allows for a safe exploration of those fantasies, only sharing matches with each partner to maximize clarity on useful directions for the excited energy that already exists in the relationship.

Come as You Are, another powerful book, this one written by Emily Nagoski. She talks about sex drives as being akin to a car - you have to know ways to hit the gas, but it’s more important to find ways to stop hitting the brakes. Knowing how to ask for one or the other can clear a lot of the messiness out of sex conversations, highlighting how many other factors come into play to create a fun and fulfilling sex life.

Therapy, either individual or couples, can also be an invaluable resource to help women find what they want and advocate for it. A skilled therapist can help a husband realize that it’s not just about sex - it’s about everything that leads to a successful session of sex. If you want help on this journey, feel free to reach out today.