Help me understand my parent's odd relationship

[Waferbiscuit]

My dad and stepmother have been married for almost 40 years but I really can't understand the dynamics of their relationship. Because it's puzzled me for so long I thought I'd ask others for their POV.

Dad is an economist, hard working and very career-focused, very sharp and well read with lots of hobbies. Interested in the world - reads newspapers every day, lots of books on the go and very keen on politics.

Stepmother is the opposite. Does not read, no hobbies and has very little in the way of opinions. She has no friends - genuinely. She has never worked throughout their marriage but because they are well off she has had a housekeeper so she doesn't have to fill her days with domestic tasks. She spends the day shopping or getting her hair done or watching TV and now that they are older she doesn't go out at all. Dad looks after all elements of managing the house (e.g. paying the bills, sorting gardeners etc) so SM doesn't have to.

They have very little in common and I wonder why they are together. Why does he want to be with someone who doesn't challenge him intellectually in any way? Or share his work ethic? And why does she want to be with someone with whom she has little in common? What do they talk about? Their relationship seems so surface and I have never heard them have a 'meaningful' conversation about anything deep or considered (I know I'm not privy to all their conversations but I have been around them a lot.)

For years I've judged my stepmother for being a bit vapid but increasingly I judge my dad for keeping her in her cage, for choosing a life partner - perhaps a 'trophy wife' - who just provides some kind of easy comfort.

Is this a generational thing? Are my parent's generation happy to choose a life partner based on simple companionship and they have limited expectations beyond that?

I know it's 'not my business if they are happy' etc etc so please don't post that. I'm just genuinely perplexed as to why they are together and how long they have stayed together. Would love to know thoughts from others/if parents are similar.

Perhaps they’re equals in the bedroom.

My dsil is not very clever but she’s very sharp.
They have no books visible in their house.
When the dc were little I said I would read to my dc and dn. I was told I could find a children’s book in the playroom. The dc had no toys or books at all in her bedroom.
Dsil also saw her dh as the most important person in her life and hated their own dc tagging along when they got to their teens.

They don’t approve of me because I am not genteel enough, I take this as a compliment.

OP I totally get it. It’s an interesting and age old question - why are some very intelligent men apparently perfectly content with not very bright wives.

The reason you’re getting attacked is some posters here are insecure about their own intelligence and take your perspective as a personal attack.

My question would be - was your mum his intellectual equal and he then went for her opposite, or was she similar (even if more “practical” and “grounded” as you say)?

@XelaM

If your uncle was there as a guest lecturer at a medical school, and his DW was one of the students at the time, I highly doubt she could of been as uneducated as you claim as she would of been a med student at the time by your own description?? Plus she's bilingual.

I think you're struggling to understand this relationship because of your own limitations.

Your SM sounds "nice". That's evidently enough for your dad, and who is anyone to question that if they're happy or content together. You are looking at their relationship exclusively from your own understanding of marital relationships. That's not a particularly mature or clever.

Also - you might find this article amusing:

https://ninevoices.wordpress.com/2017/12/01/jane-austens-husbands-why-do-clever-men-marry-silly-women/

"He also doesn’t understand my obsession with reality TV"

A difficult mystery... I hope he was sensible enough to never try and understand. 😉

Mirabae

What absolute rubbish……oh and the irony - INSECURE?

who do you think is insecure? Us the wife or the OP?

OF COURSE it’s the OP as otherwise no one would spill such vitriol.

The op has had a variety of opinions and has not answered the most basic of questions especially ones about her parent’s relationship or her mother!!

I see this dynamic in a lot of Jewish households tbh. The man is the bread winner and the woman looks after the house and children. They have cleaners, sometimes 2, gardener, weekly appointments with the hairdresser, manicurist, etc. If the children have their own children now their lives revolve around holidays and entertaining. It seems to be working and making everyone happy, I guess.

Opento offers

Exactly - there’s some short sighted dumb ass people on this thread

i wonder what life was like for your Dad when he was growing up? Was his Mum at home at the end of every day waiting to offer companionship to his Dad? Is he looking to re-create that?

Or was life challenging with his Mum having to work and raise children? Not much money? Is he looking to avoid that?

She's not bilingual. We all speak Russian. Yes, she was a med student but this was Soviet Russia and practically everyone got a university education. I don't think she ever finished med school and she certainly never worked

I think the secret to a great marriage / relationship is exactly that secret and private and noone elses business . OP there are parts of their relationship that you will never know and your assumptions of them are probably not as accurate as you think . It works for them and that's all that matters.

I think many clever men simply like being the clever one in the family and are content with an attractive woman who isn't that demanding intellectually

tbf you are right.

i'm being unfair to posters on here its just so infuriating, all these infantilising characterisations of mens idea of a perfect wife. Who just makes sure the house is clean and quiet with no inner life of her own

As so often, the first post has it.

OP, can I guess that you're a clever person and that you're clever in a similar way to your father? The impression I get from your posts is that you see intelligence - and a particular sort of intelligence - as being the key metric for judging how interesting and valuable somebody is. It's easy to fall into this way of thinking if this is the quality you grew up feeling you were valued for and that you have learned to value in yourself. It's interesting that in your posts you appear just to take for granted that being clever in this way is objectively the most desirable quality a person can have (rather than kindness, say, or courage or patience etc).

To be clear, I'm not saying that you're wrong to value intelligence more highly than other qualities, only that it's not a universal view or an objective fact. There will be people reading this thinking, "Christ, her dad sounds boring - an economist who likes to talk about politics. I'd much prefer the bubbly step-mum". It might make their relationship easier to understand if you accept that intelligence is only one quality a person has, and that considering it to trump other qualities is a subjective judgement you're making, not a truth about the world.

I found the stuff you wrote about her having a "light" personality a bit dehumanising - a few steps from calling her a NPC - and I wonder whether she keeps things light with you for a reason. Even if you can't really appreciate her qualities, it might make your relationship better if you can open your mind a bit.

I can give an example of a couple I have know for 30 years - husband was an economics don and worked in finance, very bright, very well read. His wife is fun, a nice person, very attractive, but didn’t got to uni, reads the DM, and doesn’t really read books.

So I can see why he was attracted to her initially, and why it’s fun to be around her. But he spends a lot of his time rolling his eyes at the dappy things she says. And he spends a lot of time these days drinking.

Having known them for so long I couldn’t tell you what’s the glue that keeps them together - doesn’t seem to be sex as they don’t have any. Familiarity, comfort, fondness? Maybe she puts up with his drinking and he puts up with her ditziness.

OP I don't think it's weird or obsessive for you to wonder about this. I have a similar (not the same, but related) dynamic in my father /SM's relationship. I think my Dad just wanted, essentially, companionship and attention from someone who would prioritise that over everything else.

In his earlier relationship with my mum, she worked / studied / looked after several kids and facilitated his career, while also trying to spend time with him (but not, obviously, as much time as if she did none of those other things). He left for someone who would cook and clean AND be company for him anytime he wanted it because she didn't work and didn't live near her adult kids. He is her primary focus.

It has been very difficult for me to come to terms with, that he would leave someone who wanted their own equal life alongside his (and with him and their joint children) for someone who just prioritises his. But tbh that seems to be mostly what it was.

I think some men do genuinely think like that though. Fewer these days.

But - they have an image of the type of woman they’d like to have as a wife. Marry that and then discover they don’t have a huge amount in common.

Yes and that’s the point that Jane Austen makes in Northanger Abbey.

I don’t see any vitriol or insecurity from the OP, simply objective analysis of a situation that puzzles her.

Why some posters on these forums are so self-centred as to take threads about other people personally and respond as if they were an attack on them - I find bemusing and rather tedious tbh.

You come over as quite snobbish and superior.

They obviously are happy with the status quo.

And the phrase Is this a generational thing? Should be banned. A switch isn't flicked every decade. We are all individuals irrespective of age

I too ponder what attracts people to each other, how and why other people's relationships 'work'.

I suspect there isn't a relationship out there that isn't some sort of compromise in one way or another.

I wonder what his relationship with your mother was like and what his parent's relationship was like. .

Not saying this is true for your dad and step mother, but when family life is dysfunctional as a child, they often seek familiar patterns later on in life in a partner.
That's why women with an absent/insufficent father figure might crave a father figure in a relationship later on... they might crave similarity even if it would be destructive or negative, or they might crave what they lacked.
They might look for a controlling, arrogant partner when someone in their family was or, in fact the complete opposite because they realise that is not what they want in life.

One of DH's friends has a marriage similar to what you describe.

Personally I think the husband is very arrogant. He likes to be a bit of a King- at work and at home. he does not want a wife who challenges him because he does not like to be challenged. He does not really respect women at all (or anyone else really) and likes to be thought of as being rich enough to have a trophy wife who just shops and has lunches. DCs all at boarding school and a live in housekeeper. He values that this gives him some status I think. (I dont like him- can you tell?!).

So the marriage works. he has someone who does not challenge him. She has a protector because she is actually not capable of holding down a job of any sort I would think. She went from a father like that to a husband like that. So their marriage each brings them something they crave at that sort of level.

It’s an interesting discussion and I see why you’re curious, op