DH’s crisis of masculinity

[Ujustcan031289]

Trying to get a better understanding of my DH’s outlook. I really don’t want any brash LTB comments because our relationship is generally good.

We’ve been together 10 years and I’ve always been the higher earner. Sometimes much higher sometimes only slightly. My job has more career progression and I have worked hard to climb up. DH is more limited, it’s construction sector and depends on seasons, he dips in and out of sole trader and contracted worker so it varies.

It is something he has only brought up over the past couple of years that he can feel emasculated that I earn more. That he is the man and he should be the main provider for the family. In a conversation over dinner tonight he’s stated that men aren’t happy unless they are providing for a family. I said he does provide for his family and works very hard and the fact my job happens to pay more is no reflection on him. Would he be happier to have a housewife and us have less money coming in and less of a comfortable life? No he said.

so I don’t know what the issue is or where this comes from. I used to think he was proud of me, he used to like telling people what I do and that I’m good at my job. Similarly I am proud of him and tell people so. He used to be my biggest cheerleader but now he seems to see my career has some insult to his ‘masculinity’.

He also sees himself as the ‘protector’ of the household. And has bared grudges against my DD17 having a boyfriend in the house like it’s some sort of threat. And when our car was vandalised in the street a little while back (and we knew who it was) he felt his role as ‘protector’ was undermined as I insisted we dealt with it through the right channels rather than the ways he wanted to which were illegal.

I have one DD who lives with us and he has 50/50 care of his 2 DDs. There are a lot of women around, is that it? Is there not enough testosterone in our house? He’s great with the girls he does all manner activities from letting them paint his nails and make perfumes to teaching them to fish and play football. He’s really strong on education for them and doing well at school and have careers so I just don’t know where it comes from.

to be honest I find it hard not to find it all a bit pathetic but I love this man very much and so I try where I can to respect how he feels. But I can’t see a solution to it or how things could be different.

I have considered whether he is having some sort of mental health crisis. Another factor is that he does now work with very, what I would call, ‘blokey blokes’ and the whether that’s an influence.

it makes me sad that he seems to take issue with something I am proud of. I was a very young Mum and a single mum for a long time and I worked hard to be independent and provide for me and my DD. It was at times very tough and its a big part of who I am, he knows that. I used to think it was one of the things he loved about me 😞

Sorry that’s long, but I don’t have many people I could let that out to in IRL and would be interested in thoughts or others experiences

I am absolutely sure that it is to do with the people he is hanging around with. When DH and I were first living together/engaged/early married, he was in a band with a group of men who were frankly dinosaurs. Awful. He didn't buy into their crap as such, but he found it hard to push back in the moment. We had quite a big argument on one occasion as I didn't take his name, which he was totally fine with, then this guy said something about it and teased DH or something and DH made a joke like, "chick with a dick" (it wasn't that, but something like that). I hit the roof as I overheard that.

DH's point was that he didn't mean it like that and he didn't want to get into arguments with these guys etc etc. But actually, he did realise how unacceptable it was and how they were sort of influencing him in a way that he didn't like. He distanced himself from them a lot after that.

The difference though is that this is in the past. DH was still working through understanding his own misogynist upbringing and identifying where he was instinctively falling into these traps. I was able to move past those comments because I knew he was on a journey. If he started up with them now, 15 years later... well, I think it would probably be very very hard because I'd start to question everything that has happened in our relationship over that time period.

This.

Sounds like he's been watching too much Andrew Tate - if he wants to earn more great but why should it be at your expense? Not your burden he works in a sector that's paid less

Underlying all of these types of views, ultimately, is a belief by the men who hold them that they are more capable and intelligemt than women. Otherwise why would it be an issue that women are successful or earn more?

And what does that say about how he views you, and your daughters? Incapable of "protecting" yourselves, should need a man to providr for you, should not be able to achieve and earn what he does or more? It is toxic and he needs to take a long, hard look at his prejudices. Rather than expecting you to pander to them he should be challenging them and changing his mindset, not looking at idiotic stuff from braindead MRAs on the internet. 🙄🤣 He's projecting his insecurities onto you, and expressing damaging stereotypes, particularly given you have daughters.

And worst of all, you are slipping into mother role worrying that his poor little man ego might have been hurt because reality no longer reflects his unjustifiable prejudices about how things "should be", even those by definition those would be damaging to the lives of you and his daughters who he is meant to love. The cognitive dissonance is huge.

Ironically what it shows is incredible weakness: an inability to take responsibility for the outcomes of his past choices and an inability to take responsibility for changing anything in his life he is not happy with. It's not even about his status as a man, it's about him being capable of behaving like an adult.

I earn literally twice as much as dp. He is incredibly proud of me as he works in a very masculine field.
My moms always earned nearly twice as much as my dad and I think it's an odd view for your dp to have.
Mid life criss?

Thanks all for opinions, I have been taking them on board, even across the spectrum, its been good to get outside perspective.

Unfortunately, I do fear it is internet/MRA based.

I sent him a breezy text this morning from work, to say 'Hey, from what we talked about last night, let me know if you want to have a proper chat this evening about how you feel x'

He's backtracked on it and said it was not so much a comment on how he feels and our situation but how he thinks 'men' feel as a whole in the current society. He is reiterated that our situation works for us and that he is very happy with 'our situation' and loves me very much.

It's also the 'blokey blokes' because he said that 'most men he has spoken to feel that way' that they are not fulfilling their roles unless they are providing.

I said providing what? To which I've had no response.

Sigh.

OP, there was another thread about this sort of nonsense the other day www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4749964-aibu-to-think-my-dh-sounds-like-an-dick?page=1 I don’t know whether any of that is helpful for you.

So depressing the number of men being sucked into this stuff. It’s like we’re going backwards. We’ve had emails from school on “how to talk to your son about Andrew Tait”- feels like they should have included husbands as well as sons!

My ex was like this! Everything was great while I was a student but the second I qualified and started out earning him quickly (within 2 years) there were problems. He was toxic in lots of other ways though! If you’re DH is otherwise lovey then you just need to talk it out. The fact he is usually proud of you is promising in my opinion - my DH shouts to rooftops about how proud he is of me and I out earn him by £20k plus! Have you asked him how he is feeling mentally, will he discuss mental health?

your lovely FFS! Edit button needed 🤣

I think you need to have a direct talk with him. Something along the lines of:

"I am the higher earner, I am not offering to change that. You didn't used to feel emasculated by my earnings and I don't feel comfortable around you now that you are. You need to get your head back in the place where our relationship was equal and balanced. Have you been listening to stuff which has fundamentally changed your opinion?"

You don't have to understand. His opinion is unacceptable.

This forum abounds with evidence that many women want equality when it suits them, but not when it doesn't.

In a monogamous relationship between two inviduals, only what they both want and the compatability or ability to happily compromise about it matters.

I'm a man, and he sounds pretty pathetic to me OP.

My ex earned more than me for most our marriage, it simply drove me on to do better myself and by the end we were at parity ish but it wasn't about masculinity, that's just a bit sad

If you'd written the 3 things about someone else

• Feels sad and emasculated his wife earns more
• Trys to be the big man over his 17 year olds boyfriend
• Gets upset his wife dealt with damage to property without beating someone up

You'd say on paper he's a bit of a sad little man, wouldn't you? The middle one is particularly pathetic and nothing to do with masculinity. I'd argue his issue is he isn't masculine enough based on him not being able to handle these simple things.

I thought we'd left those days behind. My ex DH was a SAHP, decades ago. When we both worked, I earned more. I never got the impression it bothered him at all. I couple I know in their late sixties - he was the SAHP as she earned more. To think there are men still now who still think they need to earn more than their partner in order to feel good about themselves is depressing.

And, ironically, the opposite of 'masculine' is a childish, whiny man who needs to feel superior to feel good about himself.

I think it’s cultural tbh. My DH is from a working class background. When we were first married he was working on the line in a factory. He had started a degree while in the military, but when he got out his step dad scoffed and said he should get a ‘real job’ at the factory and not waste his time on ‘book learning’. The culture he was raised in was very much the man is the protector and breadwinner. We ended up going NC and moving cross country because it was so toxic. Every time he mentioned he was doing a degree in the evenings (despite sometimes 14hr days at the factory), he was mocked and belittled.

I’ve always been the high earner in the marriage and my DH struggled with it massively, despite his logical mind feeling proud of me, he still had a lifetime of brainwashing telling him he’s not good enough of a husband, father, man. He said the guys at the factory called me a “sugar mama” and so on.

He did get past it. Got his degree (took him almost twenty years to complete it), was the first in his family to ever get a degree and they promptly started saying he thought he was “too good” for them and blaming me for taking him away. So, NC stayed in place.

All I’m saying is your DH being in construction likely comes from a similar class culture and so his internal struggle is real and he’s trying to overcome a lifetime of conditioning. But there is hope, don’t look at it personally, as an attack on you, but more he’s expressing his own internal conflicts.

I think it's probably his new friends. I wonder if you can encourage him to find healthier male role models to hang out with who are a bit more progressive.

My husband likes that I earn as much as him. He jokes that he'd love to be a sahd. 'Emasculated' because of your salary. That's bullshit. If you gave up work and were skint he wouldn't like it.

He sounds like a caveman.

I too think it is the male online rhetoric of the moment.

I have come across and signed up to follow one or two. Last night, I watched the one about how successful women need to watch their tones of voice and make them more feminine, so that men feel masculine around them. (He did use a high voice to explain how men speaking like women would turn US off, so we must not speak like men.)

All harked back to the helpless days of old, needing the strong man to help or explain. And how we must pander to the male ego rather than be our full selves.

If this is what men are being exposed to, it's no wonder.

But conversely, I HAVE read on mumsnet that a man 'is a good provider' and so it's not just them is it?

These are difficult days.

I agree - it’s relatively early days of transition. I am alarmed even by the intelligent, thoughtful men around mr really buying into the lost boy narrative, seemingly unaware that just because we are making room for women now doesn’t mean their contribution to society is null and void.
Some are really struggling with the idea that women are now mostly independent and more free, they want their domestic slaves back and be head of the household once again.
i convinced this is the reason we are seeing such an increase in violence against women. That and porn.

I am always amazed at just how much time women are prepared to spend on analysing (and in many cases, excusing) the behaviour of inadequate men. So it's the internet making him like this is it? Or his mates? Or the boys down the pub? Well boo-hoo.

The fact of the matter is that this man has been merrily enjoying the higher standard of living your wage has enabled him to have for a decade, and all of a sudden he's whining about it? That's his problem. If he wants the 'status' of being the higher earner he'll have to get off his arse and do something about that, because moaning isn't going to pay the bills.