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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask what you think are the things men just don't get about women

97 replies

Homewardbound75 · 22/12/2014 07:48

Hello one and all

I am a male Mumsnetter with a rather lovely DW and two amazing DDs. In such a household I am increasingly starting to wonder that there are things men just don't get about women. Am I right? And if so what are those things men just don't get?

Thanks!

OP posts:
PoinsettiaGordino · 22/12/2014 10:07

Please don't assume that all women are the same and want the same things. Or that there are such things as "female brains" and "male brains"

That's your biggest mistake

Reekypear · 22/12/2014 10:11

What I don't get....is women who marry the person they had an affair with and expect the man to be faithful....what makes this woman more special than the last. I'm a woman btw

stardusty5 · 22/12/2014 10:11

I'm another female solution finder! I find it really hard to deviate from 'accept what you cannot change, change what you can'.

I agree with the annoying assumption that men don't see mess. A get out of jail free card if ever i saw one. And also the handy nagging loophole. "You didnt tell me to do it/ alright alright stop nagging me".

Both parties in a relationship deserve their own space and alone time, and i think that both men and women can be guilty of not helping eachother to do this.

PiperIsTerrysChoclateOrange · 22/12/2014 10:15

It could be my relationship, but I wish DH would just do things and not wait to for instructions.

To understand period pain, that I am not faking and some months are worse than others.

FunkyBoldRibena · 22/12/2014 10:16

This sounds like a brief for a magazine.

Top 10 things men don't get about women

One bugbear is expecting the women to do all the work. As evidenced by this thread.

Oh, the irony.

TooMuchRain · 22/12/2014 10:17

YABU to assume all men and all women are the same

RedToothBrush · 22/12/2014 10:17

This isn't about 'getting women' is it?

Its about getting your wife.

I suggest talking to her and asking her, rather than asking a bunch of people on the internet who have never met her.

PoinsettiaGordino · 22/12/2014 10:22

YY funky you're right

CatCushion · 22/12/2014 10:40

RedToothBrush you have a good point. It isn't a male/female thing.

Our whole family dynamic is unusual in a number of ways, which affects how DH and I relate to one another. One thing that, after 20 years of marriage, I am only just getting about him, is that hearing about our DDs' milestones from me is like hearing me reading out yesterday's newspaper! He wants to have his own relationships with them and let tgem tell him/show him what they can do themselves.

For me, there are times when I need to give him a very long ranty update of what gas been going on. He learned warly on to not interrupt, he has learned more recwntly to not make helpful suggestions of what I could have done better (unless it is something like the knack in getting a household gadget to work or where he hid put something). Now he still needs to learn to actually listen, not just be better at pretending to, and to remember, especially if the reason he's getting the whole story again is because he clearly didn't get it, as he asked something that proves he wasn't actually listening last time!

allypally999 · 22/12/2014 10:46

lol poor OP

Yes listening is key ... after many years OH now knows if I say I just want to talk then talk is all I want to do and all he has to do is listen and no he can't fix it (unless he can haha).

Also - just occasionally make a decision and surprise me - I get tired of doing it all, all the time.

Then you will be the perfect guy - but then probably pretty nice anyway as you bothered to ask?

TheIncredibleBookEatingManchot · 22/12/2014 10:49

We are all individuals. There will be some people (male or female) you don't get and others you do.

I think people who see the opposite sex as a kind of code you have to crack will probably struggle to maintain relationships and friendships with them.

CatCushion · 22/12/2014 10:53

Another thing that DH is getting more now. Saying thank you. It's not like thanking a waitress! It's a shorthand of appreciation which doesn't have to involve touch and so in marriage it carries a special weight.

frankbough · 22/12/2014 11:10

"""Please don't assume that all women are the same and want the same things. Or that there are such things as "female brains" and "male brains"

That's your biggest mistake""""

LOL.......... Science disagrees......

PoinsettiaGordino · 22/12/2014 11:37

Lol....... No it doesn't

CatCushion · 22/12/2014 12:15

Lol...of course... 'Science' ! Is Science male, frankbough?

ConferencePear · 22/12/2014 12:19

I think you have to treat everyone as an individual. It's taken me years to get my OH to stop buying me flowers and fancy underwear.
He still buys the occasional box of chocolates when I've begged him not to. It's not that I don't like chocolates, its just that I eat too manythem all then feel sick.

ShumbTucker · 22/12/2014 12:26

There are no specific brain structures that are unique to either sex (that modern science has been able to prove of course) Some parts of the brain may have different sizes and shapes but are not specific to one gender.

delaselva · 22/12/2014 12:28

It's not complicated at all. I would lose patience with any body male or female who implied that it was complicated to 'get' women.

If you don't want to be thoughtless then don't be thoughtless. If you don't want to be a selfish man then don't be a selfish man. If you don't want to be the one making all the decisions and the one with all the 'power' in the relationship then make sure it's an equal relationship. Make sure there's no resentment by being fair because that is what you WANT.

My most recent X, we got on very well for a while but then he started to TELL me what I thought. I did contradict him and set him straight but when I ended it, he walked away fully convinced he knew what I was thinking. It was so irritating. My recent x seemed like a really decent guy but I know he would never have presumed to tell a man what he was thinking. Terrible behaviour really.

Suzannewithaplan · 22/12/2014 12:31

?
Obviously we all need to recognize that women are from Venus and men are from mars?
?I think that's in line with the theme of the OP?

loveareadingthanks · 22/12/2014 12:36

I don't think we are all that different overall, well, I'd like to think that, but sometimes I see 'male' or 'female' patterns of behaviour.

I've never met a woman who thinks it's hilarious to move into a crowded area, fart a stinky fart, and run off laughing. I do know a couple of men who do this and really find it the funniest thing ever. And the men in the crowd sort of ooh and pull faces then laugh and call him a smelly bastard, and all the women look disgusted and roll eyes at each other as to us it's 8 year old behaviour.

There was an interesting thread on here about misunderstandings men had about female bodies. A surprising number of men have peculiar ideas about periods, where women urinate from, how our plumbing works in general.

I do think the problem solving thing is partly male/female but mainly a personality thing. I think men are more inclined to be like this. But then these same problem solving people also tend to like to have a vent themselves, so it's not that they don't understand the difference, it's more an arrogant must-fix-everything attitude. I've had to stop venting about work to DP as he can't resist telling me what to do and the suggestions he makes he can't accept are not good solutions (twat) or possible as he doesn't understand the nuances of my workplace, of course. But I have to listen to him droning on decompressing about the minute irritations of his working day and make the right sympathy noises.

Boomtownsurprise · 22/12/2014 12:38

That I'm equal to you. At home. At work. At play.

delaselva · 22/12/2014 12:41

The kind of men who (allegedly) 'don't get' their wives, they say that because they don't want to acknowledge that they do understand that they enjoy more privileges within the relationship. eg more of the disposable income, more of the free time, less of the childcare, less of the housework, so, for that kind of man who wants the rewards of selfishnesss more than he wants an equal relationship, it is easier to simply go around bleating "wimmen, what do they want... ?"

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that decent evolved mature men don't have trouble understanding women.

IsabeauMichelle · 22/12/2014 12:46

OP, it seems like you came here for a discussion and then promptly disappeared Confused

Tacanya · 22/12/2014 12:48

yes! poof! gone.

Probably writes for nuts or zoo. do they still publicise those dreadful rags?

Suzannewithaplan · 22/12/2014 12:50

?
Never mind polarizing us by gender,does anyone really understand anyone else, I mean really ??

How can you understand women, women are not an homogeneous group we are all different, as are men.
I may have a good understanding of a particular man or woman that doesn't mean I therefore understand all men or all women.
It's just a dumb question ?