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.

I completely agree with you. Fundamentally so. I do think that a lot of men are aware of it though. Certainly where I work it is difficult for women to get promoted without a supportive partner at home. I have heard the men make comments along those lines.

I think largely those men underestimate the additional support they are given though.

Spot on pleasewelcome

It really does help men climb the career ladder.

Also need to add that when I work full time my DH does do drop offs and help out with childcare emergencies - thankfully.

These threads make me sad, and leave me feeling insulted and belittled.

I am a SAHM currently on a career break from a job with an above average wage. My DH earns 3 times my wage so of course it made sense for him to continue working FT.
When we spoke about having children we both agreed we'd like a parent (me, I actually wanted to do it and I don't feel forced into it at all) to stay at home and bring up our child.
DH works from home twice a week and arranged to go in early every day exactly so he could be home for bedtime every day, despite usually being out of the house for 13 hrs a day.
We alternate who does bedtime. He does cooking and housework. He doesn't rely on me to do all the mental load stuff, because he was a grown fucking adult when I got with him and not only did I not infantilize him by taking up the job but he didn't think I should have to.
He gave up a major hobby, which totally dominated his free time before we got together, when we got married, totally curtailed his social life to prioritise his family, still sees friends around other commitments and, importantly, supports my hobbies and social life.

Not all women are enablers. Not all men are selfish man-children who purposely avoid childcare and housecare responsibilities.

Talk of women having to stop what they're happily doing to prevent men being manipulative selfish twats isn't fair.
I don't think it's my problem that some women married these useless freeloaders.

It is great it works out for you and your DH is in a position to earn well and work two days a week from home - that must be a massive benefit.

However most people are just trying to get by and women typically are still the main childcarers and by association can fall into doing the housework, bills, house management and maintenance.

Not all these “facilitated men” are selfish, of course but they are nonetheless facilitated at work and home.

They get to be parents and can still work long hours, travel, network, have headspace to think about work. Like colleagues without DC or other caring responsibilities. This gives them clear work advantages over parents who share more of the domestics and parenting.

“of course it made sense for him to continue working FT” is so often said on MN. It is so rarely the man AH.

The model works well for many, except in the event of illness or relationship breakdown, but the SAHM takes great personal financial and labour market risks.

dozer that last part about the sahm taking labour market and financial risk.

You nailed it.

However most people are just trying to get by and women typically are still the main childcarers and by association can fall into doing the housework, bills, house management and maintenance.

But that's entirely down to the couple who have let their situation unravel like that.
Someone said up thread women need to stop enabling it.
No. Men need to step up and women need to stop letting the selfish ones get away with it.

This was/is my life. ExH berated me long and hard about not having a 'proper job' i.e. High paying. He didn't get it at all. I couldn't take a job with longer than a half hour commute because of timings of breakfast club and after school club. My days of 'a few drinks with the boss' after work ended when I went on maternity leave. I can't remember him ever taking a day off when the kids were sick. Never took any interest in school holiday childcare. I couldn't do a residential training course because his mum was on holiday and he had important meetings. Etc etc etc.

Even now, he'll cancel contact if he has to work late or do overtime at weekends.

Now my D.C.'s are a little less dependent I'm finding myself the wrong side of 40 in a junior position I was doing 20 years ago, scratching my head about how to progress. Funny enough, he's flying

Windygallows - I don't generally like slogans but would like to use this from hence on. It captures the position of many women. Happy to credit his thread and you!

I am having a though time right now and are certainly reaping the fruits of my facilitation.

I love this phrase. I'm a facilitator.
DH has just got back from a visit overseas.
We have a child with SEN (just in the last few minutes school have been on the phone again). If he hadn't been a facilitated man he would have struggled to keep the job he had with all the disruption we have had since ds's problems worsened, let alone get promoted.
He's helpful, competent, good around the house and highly organised, but nonetheless, so much of what I do would be impossible to contract out.
I have a very privileged life in a lot of ways but bloody hell, I hate that my prime role is facilitation.

Everything @Kr1st1na said. A quick scan of the relationships board also suggests that the successful man will often thank his facilitator by shagging someone else. After all he’s entitled to and has ample opportunity what with all those late nights and conferences, and those admiring younger colleagues are so much more stimulating than boring wifey.

I plan to drill into my daughters (and my son) NEVER to give up their careers or expect someone to do so for you - it makes you so vulnerable.

Love this thread and the expression 'facilitated men' is definitely going to be popping up in my vocabulary from now on!

I'm currently 17 months into taking a 2 or 3 year career break and my DS is 16 months. I often have people saying 'aren't you lucky that your DH earns enough for you to stay at home' or similar and the classic once 'how does DH feel about you spending his money'

The fact of the matter is that I was earning 4 times what my DH does so I had a large amount of savings and have paid half my bills/share of the mortgage for the entire time I've been off so far.

I'm afraid I am that woman. I sometimes wonder why i got myself in this position, but it was my choice. I couldn't have worked the hours my husband did or wanted that career focused, driven life. I have ended up managing everything at home although he does help with housework and cooking. I find it wearing and exhausting but it's my own fault. If I had wanted the high powered job , the stress and al the rest of it, he would have stayed at home, but we couldn't both have that life and remained sane or had children. Something had to give. It is unreaslitic to think otherwise. I see many children who never see either parent and they have no time or energy for their family life. You really can't have it all.

DH and I are both successful but have not sought to get right to the top of our careers because it would impinge too much on family life. DH’s parents did the same, and their relationship, which set his expectations for what a marriage looks like, was one of the reasons I married him.

Funnily enough, the rate of attrition for people at the top in our profession means we’re both quite likely to have longer and more enjoyable careers than people who were more ambitious.

What I don’t understand though is this. Alll those women on here who are saying they facilitate their husbands. By packing his lunch, getting his clothes ready, doing all the childcare, doing all the housework.

Why do you do it?

@DoubleRamsay

Just wanted to say - raising kids isn't lesser than having a job but it's not just about staying home/having a career is it? Facilitating men is also about men having head space, free time to pursue hobbies, go to the gym etc which in many/most cases the woman just don't get.
It's also not this lovely utopia of teaching your kids lovely things for many women - unless the man is a high earner, women usually work too - but in part time, lower status, lower pay work that still has to fit round all the facilitating she does for the husband.

Yes, agree. I am currently a 'facilitator'. DH and I both professionals but my job earns less than a 3rd of his full time (possibly because its a female heavy workforce?).

When I worked part time I told school, nursery, childminder that any problems please call DH as I am not office based, often couldn't answer phone immediately and difficult to leave work should the need arise. (easier for DH who could work from home). They never, ever did. Always called me. Once they called and said DS needed picking up, I told colleagues I would get DH to do it and was told by female colleague 'but how can you not go, its your child' in slightly hysterical voice.

It's sometimes everyone hanging onto the out dated roles that make it so difficult.

Great thread.

I think it’s a system that’s really entrenched, even if you’re actively trying to be equal. My experience of pregnancy and motherhood really has shown me that it’s easy to end up like this and the system really does encourage it.

Dh and I work in the same industry, and started at similar levels with similar levels of education (PhD.) we are committed to equal parenting and thankfully live in a country where this is supposed to be possible. We had high hopes.
But...

As soon as I let work know I was pregnant it began. He got congratulations. I got my reporting chain taken away. He got a promotion, I got marginalised - no more invites to interesting meetings. No more support. I was replaced at work (by 3.5 full time equivalents I noticed.) I knew they’d try to get rid of me.
I went on maternity leave. Dh got promoted
When I got back, my job was gone, and I was shunted sideways to a lesser role (same grade, same money, so legal.) I was furious and my confidence took a kicking. As soon as I’d taken the new job, my old job was refilled. Dh got promoted.

So now I’m in a lesser role and dh is getting opportunities he cannot pass up. And he can take them only if I step up for those extra evening hours, or will look after ds while he’s away, etc.
Dh parents equally. We split drop offs and pickups. There’s no pressure from within the relationship that’s driving this - it’s external assumptions that I will take the mummy track and he will surge ahead.

I genuinely do not know what to do. Insisting on working on my career would be at the expense of Dhs. We have no family support and nannies arent really a thing where we live. It’s just us. And I can see it getting worse and worse and him having a glittering career while mine stagnates, but still working insane hours because that’s the industry, and doing more and more of the emotional load as well.

I feel really crushed by it. Something has to give - you either get in external help, have family help, or one or both of you step back from the career.

I am angry, quite bitter, and my confidence is shot.

And I look around at these men telling me i just have to make time at 8pm to talk to them because they can’t possible fucking understand that I’m seven time zones ahead of them and they have a fucking PA and a wife at home and a nanny

I want a wife. If I had a PA and a nanny I would be fucking invincible. Instead I’m doing three peoples jobs and shouldering he emotions load and I’m really, really quite cross about it

Babyjungle - should probably make clear I don't pack his lunch or sort his clothes out. He does that and will do housework too but I do all the childcare (for 3 kids), most housework, running about to kids hobbies, sort out dog etc. He doesn't get away with doing nothing. We are both on the go most of the evening sorting things out so maybe I'm not a total 'facilitator'

This is a great thread. Love the descriptor "facilitator".

I did maintain a pretty high-paying and high-powered career while having children but even so having children definitely affected me more than DH - even maternity leaves alone affected me. (and yes I recognise that this was a choice we made - we made it because although our job status/quals were even, his earning capacity was far greater because of his industry). I would regularly sit at meetings with very senior people a mixture of men and women and I would mentally go around the table - all of the men would have 2+ children and none of the women but me would have any children.

My mother explicitly told my sister and me that we should not give up our jobs and we should choose careers that would be for the long-haul. She was happily married and expected us to get married but was adamant about steering us into choices that would be as high-paying and easy to continue with as possible.

In one way I think women have it worse now in that society still subconsciously expects men to be facilitated while utterly denying the value of that facilitation. My mother had to give up her job when she married - it was the law. But no one thought she was a leech or lazy or anything but someone making a significant contribution to the life of her family. Like potplant above - her exH expected her to have a fab job but also expected full facilitation

Anatidae - yes, that's what I was trying to say but you illustrated it better. Its not always the husbands snatching away your career the world seems to still transpire to make this happen.

Oh and MIL looking shocked that I didn’t iron his work shirts.

He’s nearly fucking forty. He can work an iron! DH was gently pointing out that he irons his own shirts by the way, he wasn’t driving this

It’s massively societally entrenched. Women aren’t having it all, they’re DOING it all. All the housewifing, and working long hours in demanding jobs as well.

YABU because not all men who have a wife who doesn't work are like this.
My dh knows very well that without me being at home he couldn't have pursued half the things he has within his work.
I knew when I met him he was in effect married to his music making and that would never change. It's not something you'd retire from though and has given all the family so much pleasure, not like a job really, so maybe a bit different.

YABU also because the boss's PA and assistant could equally be male, it isn't a prerequisite to have a vagina to take on those roles.

Yeah this isn’t DH doing it. He’s always asking ‘what can I do to make this better?’

And the answer is I don’t know. He’s an equal parent. He does the housework. It’s not his fault that he’s been promoted and is doing great at work and I’m not.

It would be so so easy to just give up, accept I’m on the mummy track, cruise along and let things go. Just let the gap get bigger and bigger. But then whatvif?

What if DH gets ill? Or dies, god forbid, or we split up? What then? What about MY career, my self esteem, all that work, four degrees, a PhD, YEARS of moving around in short term contracts and long hours and grafting? All that wasted.

It’s so bloody depressing and it’s NEVER men facing this. Never. No male has ever been asked if he’s a working dad.

Another one: ds was sick the other week and we had to take two days holiday each to look after him (no family here.)
Dh got ‘oh you’re such an involved dad, so sweet, how is the little poppet?’
I got ‘can’t someone else look after him?’ And a tone of irritation

It’s endemic. It’s crushing. I have no idea how to fix it,

Anitidae - sorry about the marginalizing at work. That's awful.

I'm the OP and so pleased that this has created a really interesting discussion - especially as it's been irritating me for a while. I've also marvelled at the fact that so many on here want to take up the phrase 'facilitated men'. I'm called Oxford English Dictionary now!

One thing I've noticed - some of the women on this post are younger so perhaps don't see the impact that 'long-term facilitation' has. But I see and work with men in their later years of their lives (mid to late 50s) who are, quite frankly, SMUG but also IGNORANT of how incredibly supported they've been throughout their lives. Equally I know many older women who are supporting and facilitating men of this age and they are SICK of it but resigned and some are trapped, economically and otherwise.

It may be okay to play this role when you have 3 small DC and you accept it for a short time, but beware of what it does to you and a man over the long term.

I think increasingly I've started to feel like my radical feminist sisters of years gone by who feel/felt that marriage is a contract that benefits men over women, allowing them to continue their life but giving men access to domestic support and sex. Cynical, I know.