@Edingril, this is a post by someone called Reconn on the thread I linked just now:
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It's a great read and humiliatingly precise. I've done much of this some years back and am thoroughly ashamed. Having spoken to some other men I was surprised that they had felt and behaved in a similar fashion. What surprised me most at the time was how common it was. How cliched, as some here have said.
While not being an apologist for this - how could any person in their right mind be? - I think a lot of it can be explained by the lack of communication that is trained into men when they are masculinised in youth. Never speak of your emotions, feelings etc. Bottle it up. PE teachers yelling at you not to be 'such a woman'. Even now, one of my sons tells me that his PE teacher tells them not to be 'whining bitches'.
The longer this goes on the longer men bottle the poison up and get used to the dishonesty of being an idealised masculine type. It's no excuse, but it's the kind of behaviour we are trained into and then self-regulate. I learned all this too late and I am trying hard to ensure that my sons don't follow in my footsteps.
I guess for the female side of this the best advice is simple. Don't put up with it, not a bit, right from the outset. Break away from the idealised feminine that so many women are indoctrinated into then self regulate which provides the flip side to the masculine narrative. This is a vicious cycle of co-dependency that we must all break down.
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He made a good point, I think. Men are habitually trained so hard in the doctrine of emotional muteness that their ability to know their own feelings, let alone reveal and discuss them with honesty, is hopelessly impaired. To be emotionally open is to be vulnerable. Few men - almost none over the age of about 30 - can tolerate a sense of vulnerability.
This means they literally don't understand that they're uncomfortable with certain aspects of their marriage, and have no clue at all about negotiating within the relationship. Vanishingly few leave just because it isn't working for them (unless they're actually being abused, perhaps). They don't realise it isn't working for them until a shiny new partner comes along.
Then, of course, they're a bit startled by what they're doing. They can, however, justify it - to themselves and anyone who'll listen - by recalling that earlier discomfort and recasting it as a long episode of heroic suffering at the hands of a dreadful wife.
This recasting takes such a predictable form that it's globally recognised by hundreds of betrayed spouses every day.