Why don’t you prioritise yourself?

[Ratisshortforratthew]

Inspired by the multitude of threads from women who’ve done all the cooking/gift buying and wrapping/arranging visits etc at Christmas while their useless lump of a husband does nothing but also in general the many women on here who have a useless lump of a husband who does nothing in everyday life.

I often see the same reasons given: that women are socialised to put themselves last; they care more about family/cleanliness/keeping up appearances than men; they feel that being selfish is bad, and many more along those lines.

I’m a woman but I can’t relate to this at all. I grew up in a house where my dad never lifted a finger and my mum enabled him and waited on him hand and foot and from a very young age I remember thinking to myself “sod that for a game of soldiers”. I’ve actually taken much more after my dad - I’m lazy, I wouldn’t do many things that a lot of people here think are non negotiable like clean the house for visitors or do anything for Christmas. Basically my number one priority in life is me and my own happiness and comfort. I don’t like Christmas so I simply don’t partake in it and I don’t feel an ounce of guilt. In fact I never really do anything I don’t want to, I just say no. I’ve buggered off to the other side of the world alone for 5 weeks and left my partner at home (no kids). On our first date I told him that myself and my independence would always come before our relationship and if he didn’t like the sound of that he wasn’t the person for me.

It’s never occurred to me to want to “look after” a partner or feel any obligation to my parents, in fact I think they’re both a bit crap so I don’t bother much beyond phoning them. I feel no obligation to look after them in old age. Couldn’t give a monkeys what people think of me or the way I live my life.

So where are the other women like me? Why do so many women find prioritising themselves a taboo notion or something they’d like to do but can’t bring themselves to? Kids, sure, I understand they have to be prioritised and the fact I don’t have them is a huge factor but that doesn’t mean you have to be running about appeasing partners and extended family too.

I’m intrigued as to how I missed this apparently common part of female socialisation.

I am very much like you op. Independent, in touch with my needs, resist the usual female stereotyping, cultivate a life that suits me and serves me.

We differ on the fact you said you ‘always’ put yourself first. I do sometimes but I always make space for my children first and foremost, and family and friends. It’s a balance. I carefully weigh up what’s next, my wants do not trump everything. I don’t think relationships can thrive in this environment.

It’s easy to come first if you do not have tiny humans depending on you. Most mothers are biologically programmed to respond as fast as possible to their infants and children .The human race would die out otherwise.

Like so many things in life it comes down to social conditioning. We as women, in general are expected to put everyone else’s needs ahead of our own and it takes some real self awareness to step away from that. As demonstrated on MN.

I see it in my kids friends (tween and teen-age) already. The girls are so accommodating and amenable. They are already acutely aware of not being ‘selfish’ whereas the boys in general, whilst still polite and kind have an unspoken ability to put themselves first. They are just not as aware of potentially upsetting others by their behaviour, they will clearly state their needs/wants whereas the girls are very much ‘oh I don’t mind, you decide’. They already are looking at things from others points of view and how their behaviour could potentially’look’ to the world. It’s sad.

But we are all a product of our families and communities and if nothing changes nothing changes. I personally have a wonderful husband who more than pulls his weight but there is no doubt that on a subtle level, he comes first in his mind (despite being a wonderful hands-on dad and husband) and for me I put everyone else’s needs before my own. I’m working on it though and being in peri has made me far more comfortable with being selfish!

I have teens and the girls are nothing like you describe. Mine definitely care and look after their own needs, do not conform and are not people pleasers at all. Very in touch with their own ambitions and goals. They go to a girls school that celebrates feminism- I wonder if that makes a difference?

I think having children or wanting them is the point when many women change their behaviour. Either they appease a partner because they ultimately feel they need to in order to have a family or they start paying less attention to their own needs so as to keep family life going in the way they feel it should be.

Petrasings I wonder whether your girls will like most women change when or if they decide to have children.

You can't fill from an empty cup. I make sure that my cup has something in it, and I normally have enough to share out.

For various practical reasons (SNs, working hours, incomes) I've ended up as a SAHM, but that also gives us more space to fill our cups as a family. I have more space to recharge and meet my needs. The DCs have more time to recharge at home. There's reduced domestic pressure on DH and he gets to relax more. The critical part is that we appreciate the situation and what we get from it and each other. DH ran a home solo before our relationship so he's no useless man-child (he's not perfect and there's certainly some use-your-initiative moments, but on balance he recognises the efforts I put into the family)

A lot of the gentle/ attachment parenting rhetoric is not helpful to new mums. You really won't be breaking your baby if they're in a safe place while you go to the loo, finish a shower or eat a sandwich. I'm not advocating DM's 70s parenting of stick 'em in a pram down the garden to cry it out, but there is an in-between of meeting your own basic needs and not neglecting yourself which will have an impact if you're hungry, uncomfortable or have low mood. Despite having bottle refusers, after about 4 months there was enough gap between feeds that I could do something for myself like a fitness class and baby stay at home with DH. This was healthy all round. DH parenting has never been an issue and by 12 months, I could carry on with social weekends away. That was good for my social connection and good for DH & the DCs' relationships.

Coming of age in the 90s, the Girl Power feminism did come with a side order of doing-it-all rather than necessarily being able to be everything- the real issue is that masculine culture hasn't had a major adjustment to men shifting to an increased domestic role. A lot of time and labour saving devices and design also tends to benefit the tradtional, more sporadic "blue/ male" jobs more strongly than the traditional "pink/female" jobs. Mowing a lawn can be designed out completely, but a dishwasher still needs manually loading and unloading most days. If you've got a partner who hasn't adjusted to the social change of sharing the domestic load while women pick up more paid employment, he gains more from those developments than she does. While my 80s childhood was strongly polarised into gender roles, my dad did a lot more chores such as the gardening that generally have less time spent on them today. While superficially DH and I have replicated our similar childhood dynamics, we are more flexible and interchangable on who does what.

The middle ground of healthy relationships and still being fulfilled as an individual is broad, but there's still a lot of traditional influence at play as well as new influences through social media that are not progressive.

The key thing is that both parties value the other's input to the relationship.
On a post where a Christmas dinner did not cook well, the issue was his lack of interest contributing to the outcome and mocking the outcome; if he'd appreciated the effort the OP had put in and been kind to her about it, it would have been very different.

Honestly I’m another one that thinks if you don’t have kids, you can’t understand.

And maybe take that a bit further - if you have easy/ neurotypical kids you can’t quite understand either.

both DH and I have had to almost completely subjugate ourselves to our children (well one child, the other one is a piece of cake). To be fair, DH is in the trenches with me, it’s not like I’m doing all the work. But we have very little lives left, they’ve been destroyed. Before anyone says “well you don’t have to be like that”, please tell me how. We barely get through the day just existing. Everything is a fucking awful battle. Before I had her, I didn’t understand why parents couldn’t just make their child fit in with their schedule. Some children just won’t.

This is my life too. Autism is hard.

I’m a mother of three and naturally quite selfish, my DH is the selfless one. But we meet in the middle when it comes to our DC, they come first, and I’d willingly do that all over again - they are our pride and joy.

If I didn’t have children, I’d be just like you op. And I do question, like you, why women sacrifice their own health and well-being over a lifetime for unworthy selfish boorish men. I guess those women don’t objectively see them as selfish and unworthy. They see other qualities. I also think some women were genuinely brought up thinking they were only born to serve others and they don’t know how to do anything else.

I do get that you can’t prioritise yourself all the time when you have kids and I said as much in my OP. I’m talking about putting yourself out for other adults who don’t reciprocate or appreciate it. But many parents here have said they do go off and indulge themselves because their child has a capable second parent (obviously this might not be possible if your child is ND or disabled).

Yes clearly you can go off any do things when you have DC but this tends to be less often than you spend putting yourself second to them. Personally I don’t mind this.

And I do question, like you, why women sacrifice their own health and well-being over a lifetime for unworthy selfish boorish men. I guess those women don’t objectively see them as selfish and unworthy. They see other qualities. I also think some women were genuinely brought up thinking they were only born to serve others and they don’t know how to do anything else.

Agreed but also in some cases I suspect they know exactly what the men are like but poor self esteem might have something to do with why they stay. Sometimes people end up with the partners they think they deserve.

I love that people have said there’s a middle ground- it’s so true! You hear of people speaking of boundaries and calling people people pleasers for going out of their way for people and I just think it’s sad they think it’s one or the other. I think women are too hard on themselves and want things ‘just so’ and men are too happy to leave them to do it and a middle ground needs to be found in relationships where the man doesn’t expect the woman to do everything but the woman needs to learn to let things slide (am only learning this after figuring out our house can’t be like the spotless houses with everything perfectly organised without us all spending all free time trying to achieve it!!)

Yeah it’s interesting how some people are purely fixating on how they need to put their kids first when it’s clear that this thread is mainly about women constantly playing second fiddle to their partners and/or other adult relatives.

Also I think a lot of women tell themselves they’re tolerating poor behaviour for the children and it’s really not. And that’s fine they can stay for whatever reason they choose - it’s up to them, but they should own their decision.

FWIW I’ve seen a lot of childfree women put up with poor behaviour too.

@Ratisshortforratthew

You mention choice, I don't think the choice is as free as you mention. I think even outside the family unit which in my case was incredibly abusive and misogynistic, girls and women are bombarded with messages about what a woman is. Ironically, we are in the situation where womanhood is being questioned! This would never happen to men, as women are expected to shut up and be accommodating to men's needs and if we don't, we are punished, even in the west.

Exactly. When l only had myself to think about, l was the same as the op.

This is the kind of generalisation I’m talking about though - SOME women might be like that but I’m definitely not. I’m a slob and will always choose having a nap over doing cleaning or chores. I don’t care if things are messy or if people see my flat in disarray or visit when I’m in the same pyjamas I’ve worn for 2 days straight. Where does this idea come from that all women are preoccupied by having their house spotless and everything in order? I don’t think it’s helpful to perpetuate this idea because women (and men) aren’t a homogenous lump that all think the same.

But it’s a choice as to whether you take any notice of that nonsense.

The kids thing is a good point. Biologically, women will more likely be impacted by the arrival of a baby in the family unit, which is dictated by being a woman.

@Ratisshortforratthew I think you underestimate the power of socialisation, especially through the lens of trauma in childhood.

Have you read my previous posts about what my childhood was like?

I also think in striving for equality we have impacted the value of womanhood, which tends to be the fact that women do tend to be the nurturers. So instead of enabling this natural tendency, we live in a world which antagonises this instinct, such as the need for 2 household incomes in most cases so the expectation that a woman will go back to work or poor postnatal support for women. We live in a society which prioritises money, the economically active versus the economically inactive. There is also the impact on men's natural tendency to provide and protect. I was talking to my son the other day who was talking to me about Taoism and gender socialisation and he spoke about balance in Taoism where each sex has its unique qualities which then compliment each other - the yin and the yang. He's 15 and through conversation I have seen him explore what being a man is in a world which has your tates versus Ted talks about Taoism. I'm very happy he's exploring the issue.

My teen DD is not obliging and accomodating and she goes to a mixed comprehensive. She is very deadpan and hilarious without realising as she does things to suit her, if I moan about housework and people not pulling their weight she will ask why I am doing it. In reality I feel things would fall apart if I didn't but I'm very tempted to not bother.

@Ratisshortforratthew yes I did. Who someone is, is impacted by so many variables. Nature and nurture. We are socialised and form our blueprint by so many different variables. Maybe you do have a tendency to be more practical, just like some people are more likely to be sensitive. We know that some people can be more susceptible to PTSD for example after a stressful event. I would be curious how authentic your independent nature is, how much is based on an unwillingness to trust for example. I would also be curious about your wider circle and how that impacted you. I don't think it's as simple as saying some people are tougher than others because there are so many things that contributes to who someone is.

In reality these days and this is not said in a confrontational way but do men really have a desire to 'provide and protect'?