Expectations and sacrifices in relationships

[WelshGirl2]

I've been lurking around the boards for a while and every so often see a post where the OP is advised the guy they are seeing who doesn't seem to want to commit is wanting all the benefits of a girlfriend /relationship but without the commitment /sacrifices/expectations.

As someone who (despite being over 40) has very little experience of relationships I am not sure I fully understand what it is that these men don't want. I understand what the benefits are that they are getting, and I understand (i think) that commitment would mean committing to a long term future, to working on the relationship if problems arise rather than walking away, to perhaps eventually living with someone and marriage.

What I don't understand is what the expectations and sacrifices would be? The way they are spoken about suggests they are fairly onerous things, that some man may be very unwilling to do. I may be being stupid, but I can't really think what sort of expectations a woman might have of a man which the man would think unreasonable and which he would be unwilling to do. The sort of things I think I would expect in a relationship seem reasonable to me, and not onerous. Thus
i am wondering if someone could please enlighten me about what it is that these men think women expect of them? When someone says a man wants the benefits of a relationship without the expectations and sacrifices, what expectations and sacrifices are they meaning? Are they talking about major expectations or just little things?

What is S.A. offred? Sorry if I should know!

Sexual abuse

offred just saw your post about your son. That is shockingly bad. I hope it has stopped. What a terrible opinion from the school.

It has stopped now he is in y8 yes and we laugh about how stupid a thing it was for her to say! He relates to girls as though they are people and so gets relentlessly teased about fancying them too!

He’s always been very aware re sexism.

The welfare officer keeps emailing me to tell me he hasn’t been to see his ‘allocates male role model’ and we have a bit of a laugh about how stupid it is.

I already had words with her re my feelings on it and she has been sucking up to me about it since (but not dropped it!).

All these things are part of the training re boys to not respect women and attributes that are associated with women though. Boys need to be tough, they don’t show emotions, they deal with things and bond through physical aggression and if they talk to girls it can only be because they are trying to get into their pants and it is something to be mocked. 🙄

It is so ridiculous how little things have moved on since the 50s TBH.

So many men have been taught to fear women when they were boys and that a man’s role in relationships is to avoid like the plague any kind of vulnerability in relationships.

There can be a lot of compromise needed long term, so it’s not necessarily sacrifices it’s more that some things you would like to do or places you would like to go might not happen unless you are with someone who doesn’t mind you’doing your Thing’ without them. A lot of it depends on age and status too, there are a lot of mums on here sacrificing careers to keep home fires burning and not always by choice etc, or moving to places they don’t really want for partners careers etc

You basically want to be reading from the same book. Love, respect, kindness etc is obvious but if it's you want the same thing.

You want/ need time alone, you like to be financially independent. That is exactly me to a T and I have found what I need.

It's the weeekend, DH and I have scheduled a two hour slot where we will spend some time together today. We will be in the same house all day apart from him nipping out to do food shopping and me nipping out to drop off DS.

We just all need to work out what we want and sometimes compromises need to be made but sometime sthey and just too big