To like being looked after by a man?

[Ribrabrob]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently and I feel very guilty about it but... I like being looked after by a man. Physically, emotionally, financially. It makes me feel safe and secure. I like being the ‘damsel in distress’ and I’m happy to be rescued by a man. For example if I broke down on the motorway and a man helps me change a tyre.

I’d be happy to be a housewife and have no say in finances, not work etc. i like it when a man is stronger than me, when he is an alpha male. Not controlling, but dominant. I like that that there are differences between the genders and being seen as the fairer and, dare I say it, weaker sex.

Now, I don’t have any strange ‘daddy issues’ because I have a perfectly nice relationship with my loving and caring father, plus my parents have a healthy equal relationship so I’m not sure why I feel this way. I do wonder if it is something I should look into dealing with though - perhaps counseling? Or is that just dramatic? I guess I can’t help how I feel.

So, aibu to enjoy being looked after, taken care of etc? Am I letting other women down by feeling this way and not fighting for equality? Like I say I do feel guilty, and I do tend to keep my thoughts to myself on this matter because I feel like I’m letting myself down (except when posting a thread on Mumsnet )

It would be like Downton Abbey - servants see to all the cleaning, bed changing, staff remember dates, arrange for dinners/dances, chauffeur keeps teh car running and you've inherited loads so no need to think about money, the housekeeper, estate manager does it all.

Actually, Downton Abbey is a good deal more progressive than that. The first 3 series are basically about how the (basically kindly and benevolent) patriarch mismanages the estate because he won't accept that his traditional masculine role doesn't magically equip him to be the best person in charge. The situation only stabilises when he lets other, more competent people in on the act: his middle class son-in-law, his working class son-in-law, and finally his daughter.

The servants fulfil traditional nurturing roles but don't make the big financial decisions (I could quite see Carson or Barrow taken in with a Ponci scheme, but never Mrs Hughes or Mrs Patmore).

Now that's a man talking for sure

I don't have to try handing over responsibility for my life, my decisions, my money to know it's not how I want to live.
Because Im an adult

And you don't have to. It's wonderful you have the choice to live how you see fit. Just as op does.

I do think a lot of women like the idea of being taken care of and not having to take responsibility, but it's still astonishing how well they do when it doesn't happen.

And you don't have to. It's wonderful you have the choice to live how you see fit. Just as op does.

Nobody has to. Men too can find women or other men who might choose to support them. Everybody has that choice - it's not exclusively female. The vast majority of people prefer personal autonomy.
If you're seeking to understand a female perspective I suggest you go back to basics and start with feminist theory. The 1950s housewife was never anything but a fantasy figure.

But what about when you’re older? I work in ASC and there are so many women I deal with that won’t answer the phone or a actively try to get into a care home despite being fit and healthy because they don’t know how to do basic things around the house or pay bills.
Then they are understandably unhappy when they do self fund.
Or men who say they are incapable of even making a cup of tea....I enquire what could possibly be physically or mentally wrong with them to this extent....oh they just “don’t know how to”.
I wish I could say they end up having to learn pretty fast, but they don’t. They get daughters in laws or neighbours to pick up where they wife left off.
That’s the thing. If the wife potters about all day and doesn’t know a thing about finances you hope she dies first or she’ll be working up to her last breath continuing to keep house long after the man has retired. And if she gets ill in her old age you know she’s utterly alone in that situation sadly

The idea of being looked after can be a very nice fantasy but in reality it leaves you very vulnerable. Even if you had the most loveliest faithful doting husband.. What if he drops dead? You need to build a life for yourself that can exist without the need of another person.

Being a housewife with no say in the finances is all well and good until he tells you the relationship's over and you have to leave, penniless.

Yay.

Also I've met a few men now who find the whole 'damsel' thing very unattractive - it's leeching, it's lazy. They want a woman who works and pulls her weight. And it really is just laziness in the end - you want someone else making all the decisions and keeping you in a state of perpetual childhood while you sit on a sofa or waft a cloth around every now and again.

Caveat, was a SAHM for years and am far happier working. No matter how hard you 'work' in the home it's never appreciated or respected.

I personally admire your (OP) candidness and respect that you came on here and reached out to us all, I recently changed my life and having tried everything in life I hit a brick wall everytime, I was shown another way forwards which has forever been against my principles coming from an atheist background and I took that alternative way in life (I was baptised) and I feel fantastic about it!.

But as the OP stated, This is about a person (Ribrabrob) who is looking for a certain criteria of a person and that is great cause at least they have direction!.

I wish you all the very best in your quest to find the right person! Keep us updated hun.

BTW you DO NOT need counseling? You just need luck, options and love...x

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@Bluntness100

And i’ve seen LOTS of those kinf of comments

Really?

Any one else see lots of comments saying “violent men are the best“?

Has never happened, God help us if people think this.

Tavannach I'm not a man😂

Sunshine, yes, no one posts violent men are the best. They aren’t. They are the worst and women are told to run a mile on here when one crops up.

*And you don’t have to. It’s wonderful that you have the choice to live as you see fit. Just as the OP does.”

Leaving aside what’s best for the OP, (and yes of course she is free to ruin her life by handing all her agency and freedom over to a bloke) the problem with that is that it perpetuates a narrative about women and their role in the home and society which women have been working really hard to overturn. In some cases with their lives.

For as long as total financial dependence on a man is seen as a valid choice for women, it will be held over the rest of us as an ideal to aspire to; poisoning our female children’s aspirations and setting back domestic dynamics by generations.

So. Yes it’s a free country and all that. But also profoundly depressing that this is all someone can aspire to. And worth challenging.

I suspect that the Op is a young woman or older man indulging in fantasy

Hmm, so the thread is now in the Daily Mail (🤮🤮🤮) I wonder if the ‘OP’ is pleased 🤔

@TeamLannister

You're either a very bored troll or Queen Victoria.

Queen Victoria as a little woman . Hardly!

@Phbq

I suspect that the Op is a young woman or older man indulging in fantasy

Hmm, so the thread is now in the Daily Mail (🤮🤮🤮) I wonder if the ‘OP’ is pleased 🤔

It all makes sense now!

Fair play, Greig, you trolled us like fish and got your copy. Well done.

Sadly, I think a lot of women would like to have every comfortable financial life and have a man pay for it.

Definitely not for me. It doesn't sound like the basis for a respectful, empowering, mutually supportive and stimulating relationship. And could leave you very vulnerable.

Good luck with men who prefer women to be distressed, dependent, submissive, guilty and impoverished.

I should probably name hanged for this but whatever... OP this is me, I'm in a relationship with an older financially stable man, never worked since I met him at 26, I hate making decisions, I like having things done for me, I like not having to work etc.
However, I know this partly stems from my upbringing - alcoholic, abusive and largely absent father, and a mother who was quite cold to me (we are LC these days), I think I've got pretty serious daddy issues and then some! But I like my life.

@funnyonion1 What happens in the event of his premature death, life-changing injury or running off with someone else?

I get the attraction. I've always been attracted to alpha male types (too much Disney growing up I reckon ) I never had housewife aspirations but I liked the idea of a strong, Knight in shining armour type who would "look after" things and sort out problems... then I married one.

The reality is often very different OP. It's all well and good being in a relationship with such a man when you have agency and freedom to walk away, it's very different when you have DC with them though, believe me!

When we were dating my STBXH actually mentioned liking the idea of me barefoot and pregnant I had never heard the term and thought nothing of it until I joined mumsnet years later looking for advice having ended up in exactly that scenario. Gosh did I feel a fool!

On the plus side - being with a man like this will turn you in to a rip roaring feminist. If he doesn't grind you down to a shell of a woman first...

funnyonion if something happened to him, could he rely on you stepping up or would you still expect him to be strong however difficult things were for him?

Be careful what you wish for.