Men whose lives are facilitated by women - how did this happen??!

[windygallows]

Now that I'm in my mid-40s I look around at my peers and am astounded that so many men my age have their lives facilitated by women: wives who don't work or who work part time who manage the household and make lunch for their DHs and do all the childcare and prop men up. It's just amazing how many men have a leg up by this support.

And they become blind to what it's like not having that support. My boss has a female PA, two female assistants, and a wife at home who looks after the household - leaving him totally supported and completely free to focus on his job. He thinks he's responsible for his success and doesn't understand why others can't mimic what he's achieved or even the time he dedicates to work.

How did we let this happen? How did we create a situation where so many middle aged men have such a leg up over women because they've been given so much support?

I've put this in Feminism because for me this is a feminist issue. If anything this situation it creates an absolute imbalance in life but also in the workplace, with men given much more freedom to dedicate to work and devoid of many domestic responsibilities that burden women.

I've also put this in Feminism because I'm trying to avoid the usual comments by women like 'We're a team' (referring to her and her DP) or comments like 'It works for us' or 'DH works hard and makes enough for both of us - should I go out to work just because you want me to.' blah blah blah I appreciate too that some women benefit from a set up where a DP/DH is 'looking after you' when you then facilitate/prop up his life in return, but I'm not quite sure it's really helping anyone in the grand scheme of things.

For context I'm in my mid40s, single with 2DCs and work FT and definitely frustrated when I see the advantages that 'facilitated men' have in the workplace and in life.

Yes there is something in the numbers!

But you know that's not even about feminism any more- that's verging on abusive

yeah.. and also entirely normal among the women of my acquaintance, and my self.

fizzy- well it's not a situation I would put up with.

It's not as simple as 'not putting up with it' though is it? Because when a woman has had enough and wants not to put up with it anymore she'll have a chorus of voices telling her to work at it, give it another chance, try counselling. She will then have to put in even more effort to try to make her husband listen to her and do his part. Fuck that. Walk away.

Interesting question .

For me , number three ( and oldest being 4 ) meant

1. Juggling nursery AND school / out of school care

1. School aged child didn’t go to bed so early and needed help with homework etc . Wanted to do things like brownies

1. Physical demands of a third pregnancy and BF . I was in my 40s though not sure it would have been easier at 30. And I would have had even less money if I’d stopped my work earlier.

1. No. 3 was a Non sleeping Velcro baby . Very high maintenance . Turned out to have SN (but I had abandoned my career before we knew this. so not a factor in the decsion).

I think for many women, it’s the cost of childcare for the third child. And nearly all mothers ( even married or cohabiting ) seem to have to pay this alone with no contribution from the children’s father. We’ve seen it on this thread - women saying “ it’s wasnt worth my while to work as childcare would have taken all my wages “.

It’s another factor that leaves women with fewer choices.

The sense of entitlement of these men is often so strong that after years of riding on their wife's back they come home and say they're dissatisfied, they don't love her any more, they've met someone else. Because, while their wife was managing every single aspect of his life, she failed to also look absolutely perfect and open her legs every time he wanted her to. What a bad woman!

Fuck it makes me angry.

My DH was a facilitated man until I refused to do it any more. He was remorseful and wanted to change but he still expected me to tell him what to do and to organise everything needed to make that change. He was so used to having other people deal with everything difficult that he automatically assumed that I, a massively resentful person who was close to hating him, would go ahead and do it. I soon let him know that was not going to happen.

He is like a different person now but it's like he had to relearn everything from scratch. His training to expect facilitation was so ingrained.

Walking away is not an easy option, though, especially when there are children in the mix. People’s lives get entwined in every sense after a few years of marriage. I would say, fuck it, and be selfish for a change and make it work for YOU. It took me three children and a near breakdown to arrive at this notion which men seem to just know. Look after yourself, mothers, as nobody will think to look after you. Sad, but true.

Whether you work or SAH, the key issue as to how far you facilitate your husband will probably depend on whether he takes it for granted or not. This will determine how far you are likely to accommodate him, just as much as your job options!

Someone may have mentioned this earlier.

If you read the dedications in numerous male-authored books you learn that the book has been typed, copied, edited, sorted etc by ‘my wife’ who is not only nameless but often has also dealt with all business dealings, raised children, dealt with other nonsense work created by the husband - who take 100% of the credit except for the f-ing dedication which does not even name the woman.

My DH could not have held down the jobs he’s had if I had ever had a ‘real’ job. I ran an online shop with stock in the front room and monthly (at least) at homes to show off wares. At one point he was offered a job interstate and it was just accepted that I’d close my stuff down, or somehow manage to move that and 4 small children across the country while he only took 2 days off to help with moving. We didn’t end up moving as a better job offer arrived locally.

But he has never consistently been able to be home at a particular time on even one day a week. He flies off interstate for the working week often with minimal notice. He attends workshops and events and meetings well into the night whenever he wants. That’s only just changed after I had a month in hospital and he suddenly had to parent on weekdays as well as weekends.

For years when I had 4 young children and a home business I was clearly the lesser partner because I didn’t have a job. If I had a job with normal hours even 2 days a week he would have had to change his work patterns.

Annabelle crabb’s the wife drought is worth a read.

“We” made choices. I was able to parent intensively in the early years as I wanted, and that meant I propped his success up. Looking back I’m not sure I would have done something different. But thing is, he can afford to leave the marriage and I can’t.

What rammed it home for me (SAHM then set up own business from home so entirely flexible) was working back in an office for a spell. The PRIVELEGE my DH has in not thinking about the kids or home but being able to concentrate purely on the work and stay until its finished.

I was at my desk, under time pressure, sitting next to my (single male senior) boss trying to get documents out before close of business not thinking about the document but "unless I leave now I won't make after school club, I will need to text friend 1 to pick up DD2, I will need to text the lift share to brownies saying I will pick up rather than take, does DD1 have her key, I won't have time to get bread for breakfast tomorrow etc etc". He will sit there thinking of the work in hand.

My friend does park and ride as her commute. At the end of a working day the women get off the buses and RUN to their cars. The men saunter. One man even asked my friend "why do all the women run?". She was

I think it's often hard to see the impact that being the facilitator has until you stop being the facilitator. I am, genuinely, no longer a facilitator. DH and I work together, on everything. He has applied for our son's school place for next year, for example, a job that would never have been on his radar before. It's a job I simply don't have to think about (though he did check the choices he was making with me before sending the application). TBH even though it's been this way for a couple of years now, I've found it hard to get used to. My ingrained training to look after everybody at my own expense is still there, prodding away at me, making me feel guilty for going away on my own for the weekend, or staying at home mucking around on the computer while DH takes the children clothes shopping.

I know it sounds an odd thing to say, but I feel like a real person again. I'm more like I was when I was teenager, in terms of personality, (in a good way!) because I'm not weighed down so much by having to be the ideal woman. I'm more fun, more quirky, I have more about me because I'm not always thinking of who I'll need to serve next. I look after myself, properly.

To add facts - I’ve been unwell since February. He knew, but because it suited him not to acknowledge it he did less rather than more around the house. I collapsed and went through emergency to a week on the ward and 3 weeks in public rehab and he had to parent alone for a week.

Every other time I have not been there I’ve had plenty of notice and have written a detailed timetable. And either his mother or mine has taken on a good percentage of the parenting, which allowed him to still be at work before 9 and be home by bedtime. And he resented that my mother would not facilitate him staying at work later and left him to manage bedtime alone.

And I say he only had to single parent for a week, because once I was in rehab I micro managed everything and my mother stopped being at the hospital with me and started helping with mornings and evenings again.

It’s so much more complex an issue than any single story can explain. It’s so built into our systems that many men don’t notice either because they aren’t smart enough or because they stay wilfully ignorant.

The notallmen brigade argues that there are enough exceptions that this isn’t a rule. I think they are kidding themselves because truth hurts.

I should add though, that the years of being a facilitator have taken their toll on me. I facilitated DH pre-children (which influenced by choices around training and career - choices I now regret) and when the children were tiny. I was so so so tired, exhausted, absolutely wrung out. It feels like I'll take years to recover.

Oh so glad you're not with that arsehole anymore Kr1stina
I think you should write a book about just this- you explain it so well (as do justwondering and Kerala)
As a lp I know all about the running and the mental gymnastics( from my old job) but it's eye opening to hear about women with husbands having to do all that.

@Kr1st1na thank you so much for your post about your day when you were doing it all. It makes it so clear. This is what we need to get our politicians talking about - why are woman (and men) choosing between such constrained options?

It sums up why I just turned down a job WOH because I know I couldn't do what you did for long without having a breakdown (I also have a velcro non sleeper ), despite the fact that DH would try and step up he works long hours too - there just arent enough hours. And it's not worth the exhaustion for about £300 a month extra in our family pot (nursery, afterschool care, transport costs eating the rest of the salary). But I do miss using my education and having conversations with adults that don't involve discussing babies. And i know my lifetime earnings /pension are hugely affected by my decision to SAH, though honestly I feel like the decision made itself because I'm pretty sure I'd get ill if I had to do all that.

LeCroissant - do you think you would have had the means to stop being a facilitator though if you didn't both work from home with a mutual business?
In my case, my DH will go on an overseas business trip with maybe 24 hours notice. I don't even bother telling him about things like parents evening any more because I can't keep track of his movements. If he is there, he's there. If not, I just go and fill him in on the salient points. The flip side is, they would not be going to the schools at all if it wasn't for his income (no way I could have paid for it myself) - so there is that.

At the time I was working very part time, not in the business we run now. TBH I didn't care if I had the means or not, no amount of money was worth the stress I was under. Plus I was really starting to hate my DH, like really hate him. I couldn't live like that any more, it just had to stop.

Ifnot - have you read Wifework?

I often think of Xenia's advice on threads like these : "Don't marry a sexist". Which is all well and good, and not many of us on here would knowingly do so.

But IME - and based on post after post on MN - it's all hunky dory when it's the two of you. Maybe after one baby you still manage a semblance of career / even split of domestic duties. But as the baby who goes to nursery 8am -6pm turns into a child at school from 9am -3pm (and therefore needs complex wrap around care) and who wants to do Brownies and swimming and the violin, it all becomes much harder. And then there is often a second child thrown into the mix, along with careers taking off with more work responsibilities.

And that's when it all bites. And for all the reasons already stated, 9/10 times it is the women in the relationship who shoulder the domestic burden, either on top of the work stuff or at the cost of their career. So my answer to the OP's "How did this happen?" is that it is a slow, creeping process which neither party necessarily consciously realises is happening until everyone is so far down the path that it can be too late to roll back in any meaningful way. I don't think that we are all marrying sexists: I think that we are marrying men and then the process we go through as we form and raise our families enables men to behave in sexist ways and women facilitate this.

I think it's a matter of looking at what you want for your life. I did not dream of getting married and then basically raising the children pretty much on my own, changing everybody's sheets every week, washing clothes, etc while everyone else had a life. I didn't sign up for that. I signed up for having children with someone and raising them with that person, together. One thing I really found hard about being a SAHM was how fucking lonely it was to be doing this very hard job on my own with no one backing me up. It was not what I wanted for myself.

kristina well done on getting rid.

As I said earlier, I know a lot of SAHMs. In contrast to some of the descriptions on here, very few of them seem resentful as to their "lot". Some are expat, so they accept this was the life they signed up to. Many have husbands similar to mine. I remember we used to complain when the kids were little about the relentlessness of it. Now though, most people with kids at school really value having their own time and see themselves as super-privileged. Time is freedom really. This is how they get the balance back and learn to prioritise themselves again.

I think we are all marrying sexists, actually, some of whom are nicer than others. I mean, we live in a society where a major supermarket, ASDA, thought that a lovely Christmas message would be to show a woman absolutely run ragged doing everything for everybody, who gets no chair to sit on at the dinner table and who is 'thanked' at the end of the day by her fuckhead husband asking 'what's for tea?' That's the environment men are brought up in. How can they possibly not be sexist??

I know plenty of SAHMs have a nice life Vashna, particularly when the children go to school. I think that setup can definitely work, if both partners really value each other and are able to stay connected despite being quite separate in what they do. But if one partner uses the other (usually the man using the woman) then the relationship can become toxic and the woman drained of all sense of self and worth. Plus it's never good if a woman is pushed into that situation against her will.

Just glancing through this thread. i am always nervous about posting on this area because you are quickly reprimanded if you don't agree with other posters and noticed the following from Windy gallows

*'orangealien didn't take too long for someone to come on and say that I must be 'jealous', the famous trope that always crops up on Mumsnet.

Why exactly are you on a feminism thread???*

This comment confirms my suspicions that this is not an open board but restricted and exclusive.
I wonder whether MN HQ is aware of the exclusivity of this area of MN?