Its the deep-seated, inbred misogyny, even with the "good guys" that gets me down

I'm a lesbian but I can relate to the despair of men who cant/won't acknowledge their privilege. It is wearing. And depressing. And makes me rage at times.

I don't know the answer but keeping away from the media helps a bit. And I suppose accepting that the people we know have enough good qualities to outweigh the shite.

So I suppose I'm just sympathising, sorry I can't be more helpful

I am married to one of the ' good ones' too OP and like your husband, he also carries around some deep seated ideas of the roles of men and women...he always tries to improve, but having grown up in patriarchy, like we did, it is inevitable that there will be SOME shit absorbed. If he didn't acknowledge it and work on changing it, then I doubt I would love him or see him as one of the good ones.

I asked him once if he ever thought about our children or worried about how they were getting on at school when he was at work. He said no. When I am at work, they are always on my mind, somewhere. We have all grown up under patriarchy and we have all absorbed the shit it bombards us with...but recognising this and changing it is what makes both men and women the good ones I think.

I agree. Yes, it's the thinner end of the wedge but it's still part of the wedge.

I'm another with "one of the good ones" but who just doesn't get it at times. There's also the occasional assumption that I'm default childcare and the odd NAMALT. He was harassed by an older hen party once when much younger and I've heard about it several times but I haven't even scratched the surface in telling him about all the harassment I've experienced.

The point about worrying about children at school is also interesting. I work in a company that provides an educational resource for children and can be purchased for the home or school. 99.99% of our home purchasers are women.

Yes the default childcare and yes the default keeper of the house. Ive never known a man yet who will sit in a room that hasn't been decorated for 15 years and say- it's looking a bit tired in here. Shall we go get some paint and new curtains? Bit more frivolous, I know, but it's still one that passes them by.

Illnesses. That one really gets me too. Why don't we get to be ill and take care of ourselves equally?

It’s the emotional labour that most pisses me off. I’d never expect him to contact my family independently (except for logistical reasons or something) or expect him to chat with my mum every time she calls. But he seems to think I ought to do exactly that: asks if I’ve texted pics of the kids to MiL (no, I sent them to him and if he wants to he can send them on) and hands me the phone whenever he chats to MiL. If we stay with my family he spends a lot of time working. If we stay with his I’m expected to socialise with them the whole time. It’s so annoying.

@Triffid1 similar stories here.

I hear ya OP. I have been irked by my DH of late and even though this is an anonymous forum blah blah I hold back because I don't want to throw him under the bus, and to all intents and purposes, he is "one of the good ones". Writing it down makes it more upsetting and real, at least if I internalise it I can pretend it's not real. Goddammit!

Recently I have had my head buried in the sex/gender crisis and I feel like I can't talk to him about it, because I am not very good at articulating it, despite all my reading. I am desparate to talk to someone about it IRL (although maybe I don't need to talk about it as much as I think about it...!Halfway through the Nolan podcast so it's really on my mind). He gently chided me yesterday for bringing it up again, and I said "well, don't you care?" and he replied "I'm not a woman, so it doesn't affect me as much". I was disappointed and saddened by this response, more than angry. My own DH! I felt like saying "well what about our two daughters? They are women, they are affected, what about me, your sisters, your nan and any other woman you care for? If you care about us you should care about this."

So I hear ya.

And yy to the emotional labour and the bulk of the housework too.

Yep. Totally agree with everything said so far.

Where to begin? I too am married to one of the good ones and yet all the logistical minutiae of our complicated day-to-day lives (fitting overnight commutes around weekly boarding school pickups and a dog) fall to me; all the meal planning and cooking, if I don’t want to eat pies all the time; the home improvements, the tedious errands (getting keys cut this afternoon, after months of him saying - with increasing exasperation at my ‘constant nagging’ - he would do it …
There is a deep-seated atavistic patriarchal voice telling them that their contribution to the enterprise is financial and anything else they do is an act of remarkable and enlightened benevolence.

The more I read through this, the more I kept thinking, "if these are the good ones then... we really dont actually have good ones, do we".

I've been single for 8 years. My ex left and we disnt see him for 5 years so I was just too busy with keeping my business going and the kids. And now it's been so long since I've dated that I just dont really know how to start again but it means that I've not been around men in a close or intimate way for a very very long time. I think I'd forgotten about all this stuff. All these smaller things, which always made me feel like they just dont quite get it, even if they think they do. Even if they think that they're the enlightened few.

It is depressing to be reminded of that. And I think I'd just find it all so exhausting now.

@ImUninsultable I don't blame you for feeling exhausted at the thought of it. It's not the best advert for "our good ones" is it? I guess many of us have experienced the other extreme end of the spectrum, which is so so bad that our bar is set lower than we admit to ourselves. That sounds awful doesn't it? But the patriarchy is that engrained.

@Florabritannica There is a deep-seated atavistic patriarchal voice telling them that their contribution to the enterprise is financial and anything else they do is an act of remarkable and enlightened benevolence

I get you op. Everything child related is my job unless I specifically ask him to do something. He has total freedom to wander off at will whereas I have to mark stuff on the calendar and remind him that he has DS (luckily a teenager now but he still needs lifts and can't be left overnight).

And he has never got DS up and out and left me in bed - not when I've been ill, not when really tired. Only if I've been away and as soon as I walk through the door it's my responsibility again.

My partner booked us a lovely weekend away. He was telling me afterwards how one of my friends had say to him how lucky I am blah blah. I laughed and said I wonder why the bar is so low for men yet I don’t get thanked having just organised a weekend for a group of friends, sorted hotels out and booked tables. No one says to my partner how lucky he is because it’s just expected of us. He did have the decency to laugh and agree with me.

My feminist theory supporting DH calmly told me that men and women see dirt differently and that is why I needed to be the one to clean all the bathrooms.
I feel for you OP

@JingleCatJingle that old chestnut!

Yes yes yes. My DH is more than halfway there to being one of the good ones. But I learned pretty early on that many of those deeply held assumptions are just not going to shift. I'm gradually working on finding ways to make it obvious to him, bit by bit. Tonight I stayed sitting down at the table instead of leaping up to clear, as I normally would, and eventually he did it. Small victories ✌

hmm, I sort of agree with some of what is said, but actually my 'good one' dh doesn't do quite a lot of what you are saying, and I don't think my brothers do either.

As an example, when I was ill with Covid last week. He just seemlessly did all the things I do without me having to say anything. It would never occur to me to organise him to do it either. I work part time and he works full time, so usually I do more household jobs, but at certain points in the year I work full time and then he picks up a load more so it is 50/50. I don't organise it, I just tell him I'm working full time and he steps up.

But interestingly, when I was ill, lots of people texted him and asked if he needed help, was coping etc.
He thought that was really funny. I didn't. If he goes on a work trip for 3 weeks (very occasionally this happened pre-Covid) not one single perosn would ask me if I needed a meal or help with kids. I am ill for 6 days and he has several texts asking just this.
That is from women. I think they perpetuate it as much as the men.