To think men only love what women do for them, not who women are?

Men who have genuine female friends are the greenest flag of all in my experience (both as friends and partners). Always baffled when women are suspicious of them

It wasn't a man who sang "what have you done for me lately".... just saying.

Ticklyoctopus

Sorry I mean boys who have friends who are girls. I went to a single sex school and we could have done with having boys there!

I think some people are embarrassed to wax lyrical about their feelings when asked. If I was asked by a friend, newspaper columnist, family member, etc., I wouldn’t gush over how amazing and wonderful my husband is. I’d probably say something flippant about him cleaning the cat litter. Doesn’t mean I only love him for his cleaning abilities though!!

Single sex schools are brilliant, I went to one. I know very few men who have true female friends as adults; many don’t have ‘friends’ at all really as their wife or girlfriend tends to their emotional and conversational needs.

I agree wholeheartedly. It’s ‘not every man is like that’ but if you did a nationwide survey I suspect the slant would be that men value what women do for them, women value the person their man is. Men ultimately just want a housekeeper who arranges their social life and provides sex on a frequent enough basis. They don’t really care about you making them laugh, or inspiring them, or how amazing it is you can speak 4 languages.

That says a lot about him!! You can definitely tell the difference between men who don’t totally even really like women for who they are but I don’t know that they’re either a majority or minority- I’ve definitely met a few. I think a huge difference is men who have friends who are women, hence the reason I think single sex schools are such a bad idea

I work next to a very male-dominated department - we have a lot of banter with them and regularly strike up conversations. Today, I asked each man there (each time I needed to interact with one of them) what he loved about his SO.

Every single one (of the 11 men) answered in household appliance terms.

To give them the best possible chance, I followed up with 'no, not what they DO for you, what you love ABOUT them, as a person'

After looking a bit baffled, each said they are beautiful, pretty or sexy or some variation of 'looks hot'.

*In the spirit of being factually correct, we did have an outlier. One of the guys from another team overheard the question and waxed lyrical about how awesome his husband is (and not in appliance or eyecandy terms) and it was sooooo sweet.

@NotYourPeacekeeper yes my ex was definitely like this. The only compliment or opinion was only ever how lovely/beautiful I was/looked. I bought a lot to the relationship and found it a little depressing that this is the only thing he’d ever say. Yet I’m sure if I sad something to him like “you know what I really love about you is - you’re handsome”, and never anything else he wouldn’t have liked it.

Too many men and boys see women as not quite people.

Domestic appliances providing the services that keep their lives chugging on.

Valued for youth, looks, sexiness and breedability.

I see it and hear it over and over again.

Speaking as a man here I think you need to consider how men talk and what men talk about. A sizeable number of men simply never talk about emotions at all, whether that's because it makes them uncomfortable or because it's hard for them to naturally articulate.

If you asked me what I love about my wife, amongst the many things I could list I might say "she buys little treats to cheer me up when she can see I am unhappy".

You might interpret that as "he loves being bought treats, he doesn't love her". But that's not it. That's how a man articulates "I really appreciate my wife caring for my emotional wellbeing and supporting me when I am at an emotional low point".

But men (typically) do not use the same words as women, and do not talk about emotions directly.

A woman might help another woman who's going through a painful divorce by going round with a bottle of wine and encouraging her to talk about how she feels for 4 hours straight. A man might help another man who's going through a painful divorce by going and playing a round of golf with him, and never speaking about the divorce in the whole 4 hours. It's just being there for someone in a very different way.

The bottom line is - men and women express themselves in very different ways.

I agree in general OP. Of course NAMALT but I think too many men think of women as appliances rather than people. See also the number of men who leave their wives when they become seriously ill in comparison to women who leave their husbands.

Even in quite a few male-written love songs, it's about her support of him (or her looks) rather than who she is as a person.

Actually, I just thought about I would reply if you asked me what I love about my OH and the first thing I actually thought of was that he takes care of me (because he has done a lot of that recently).

I always thought this was a known fact, but don’t know where I got it from. Until i mentioned it to my boyfriend a couple of years ago and he told me not to be ridiculous.

Also, I just asked my boyfriend what he loves about me. After making a tongue in cheek joke about “I love that you distract me from working by asking these inane questions” he went on to say he loves my sense of humour, he loves watching me with our newborn baby, he loves my enthusiasm and zest for life, and he loves my bum. So no, not all men are like Christiano.

Christiano Ronaldo wouldn't be the bar I'd set to compare men to. You could easily say the same for 20 something year old women who go off with a 70 year old rich guy. Both are getting something.

I think men and women are equally capable of this. My dh isn't like the example you have given.

I don’t know I’ve seen men look genuinely adoringly at the women they are with (who I know aren’t cooking and cleaning for them). Even been on the receiving end myself a few times. I do think however men are better at being utterly selfish as well and some will basically start seeing their wife through utilitarian eyes once kids etc come along.

But tbh I don’t consider it love if you are just valued for what you are doing for your spouse, ditto loving your husband for being rich isn’t really love imo.
They do fall in love for different reasons, not just how handy a woman is with a hoover.

Exactly this.

i can’t vote either way as I’m sure you’re completely right that there are a lot of men who do think like this - probably heavily influenced by their home life and what they experienced. They’re good ones to avoid.

i mean there are over 4 billion men to choose from in the world - plenty are as you describe and plenty aren’t. Don’t settle for one of the first!

I do think it is a gender thing, I think it is an empathy thing which is very often a gender thing. If we look at which sex does the care roles and nurturing and community work it's women. Men don't think about other people and their needs as often, because they don't have to. Often they don't read at all which grows the empathy and social awareness skills, so it doesn't come as second nature as it does to so many women who have been conditioned into the role by society and it's expectations. I suspect it is all linked.

I don’t think it’s a gender thing. I just think some people are very transactional in what they consider to be “love”

Not for me, but each to their own.

Some women probably talk only of what their husband brings them materially - houses, good salary, nice holidays etc.

Such is the world

Yes, I think men often forget we are actual people with interests and independent thought, which is why so many of them don't want a woman who they see as "drama". If you don't accept their viewpoint and frequently disagree with them, any discussion is seen as drama or "hard work". Largely because they have to engage brain.

I think for every Christian Ronaldo type man there’s a woman who sees her man as a lifestyle provider. I know plenty. Fortunately there are lots of different types of people- in both sexes, many of who have more natural, loving relationships. You are very blinkered if you tar everyone with the same brush!

And many men traditionally remarry or enter into new 'caretaker' relationships very quickly when children are involved which suggests reasons other than love for a person.

Often true, yes. It's not uncommon to hear men talk about their deceased wives - and children about their mothers - in household appliance terms.

Not my experience. Sorry if it the the case for you, though.