The Golden Rule

Here is a not hugely long video I recently watched. It's one of those fictional narratives with random video stuff to watch while you listen.

It's title is "I stopped chasing my husband for 21 days and this happened." I noted it under the label "Stop Planning my Weekends."

It hits a nerve for me and it's got some worthwhile points, but it seems completely unrealistic to me.

It starts with hubby saying "Stop planning my weekends. I'm exhausted. I'll let you know when I have free time for us." And she decides to go on something like a work to rule strike.

She takes him at his word and stops imposing on his time entirely. This includes not cooking dinner for him because heaven forbid she should expect he dine with her.

On day 21, he explodes and she says she'll have her lawyer send divorce papers.

It indicates for four years, she's been handling all the "social" stuff and "keeping the relationship on life support." Maybe that implies the length of the marriage. Maybe it doesn't.

There's no mention of children. The voice of the narrator seems to be a young woman, probably in her twenties.

In a mere three weeks, she goes from feeling unappreciated to ready to divorce him and reclaim her life and be an independent woman! 

It's a piece that seems to be based on the idea that women just lack self esteem and need pats on the head to learn to stand up for themselves. This is a meme I LOATHE.

It paints a picture of a stereotypical heteronormative marriage where he probably works long hours and she maybe has a part-time job or pink collar job and thus has time and energy to cook, shop, have friends and go to pottery class.

The stereotypical heteronormative marriage it describes is one in which she's probably financially dependent on him and she's paying for those pottery classes and shopping trips with his money while not cooking for him and acting like he's a NUTCASE for getting upset.

I was probably married around fourteen years, not four, when my husband told me he was exhausted and wished I wouldn't impose on his weekends so much. I asked him when I would be allowed to expect his attention: after he retired?

For largely unrelated reasons, around the same time he did something I strongly disliked on a family outing and I began going to town without him and framing it as me being considerate of his time. It was not anywhere near as blatantly fuck you as the story in the video.

I got a local bank account on some excuse in my name and began attending college, not pottery class. I was setting career goals because I was keenly aware I was a financially dependent homemaker with kids and health issues and I needed money to be able to leave.

I will note that I don't think men are merely being inconsiderate jerks to say "I'm exhausted." If he's the primary breadwinner, he probably really is tired and isn't simply being a selfish, neglectful husband.

It was something like seven years later that my husband moved out, not three weeks.

I'm all for suggesting women frequently have no real identity of their own and sometimes are a large part of the problem and it would be healthier to not have your entire life and identity revolve around your man.

But the kind of attitude this video expresses is incredibly delusional. It implicitly wholly disregards the fact that if this woman typically cooks dinner and has time for friends and hobbies, she's almost certainly financially dependent on her husband and in no position to flippantly decide spur of the moment she's had it with his "neglect" or whatever and is getting divorced over it.

You decide to get divorced suddenly and unexpectedly with no thought about how to pay your bills if he dislocates your shoulder for not making dinner, not because he's getting upset that you are clearly not upholding your end of the bargain here while he pays your bills.

Heteronormative culture puts enormous pressure on both men and women to fall into certain patterns, like it or not.

She's probably been taught from age three or four to cook and clean. He probably hasn't been. 

Serious careers are designed on the assumption you are hiring a man and he's got a wife doing the cooking and cleaning and grocery shopping and he can give you all his mental and physical energy, go home and flop into his armchair and say "Woman, what's for dinner?"

If you are a young, childless couple and you don't want to live like your parents did, it's not unreasonable to think about the fact that he probably expects you to do the cooking and grocery shopping and this defacto skews towards him ending up with a serious career and you remaining in a pink collar ghetto job.

You want a serious career? His expectations that you cook, clean, do laundry etc. constitute a hidden cost or barrier to your success.

But you don't solve that issue by painting a picture of some pampered dilettante who just needs to recognize her husband is selfish and flippantly leave now that she has self esteem. Self esteem doesn't pay the rent.

Young women frequently imagine their mom is just some fool with poor self esteem and fail to recognize that dad paid the bills and they had three kids or whatever. Women with children who flippantly leave tend to end up as strippers or on welfare and good luck getting the kids opportunities like college.

If you are a young woman wanting to imagine you are entitled to the same rights as men and shouldn't tolerate a neglectful husband or something like that, remember the golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.

It's not that who cooks dinner is an irrelevant issue. But declining to cook his dinner so you can hang with friends and go to pottery class won't pay your rent.

If you aren't declining to cook dinner because you are furthering your career and improving your earning capacity, declining to cook dinner doesn't make you a liberated woman. It makes you someone who is probably going to be kicked out and lose your meal ticket.

My jerk of a husband suddenly and without me bringing it up at all magically developed the capacity to let me know he needed his PT uniform laundered when he got home from work instead of at midnight. He performed this magic trick because I began taking college classes.

Prior to that, he was actively interfering with my ability to establish a healthy sleep schedule by routinely expecting me to do his laundry until 2am like I was his slave and then ragging on me about what a lazy person I was for sleeping late.

I was furious that he did this sudden about face without me even asking because it told me he had absolutely no respect for me whatsoever for being a devoted wife and because I was in college essentially over his objections to try to leave his sorry ass, but suddenly he can respect my time and sleep schedule.

I don't have any advice because I feel strongly that intentionally accepting a promotion or something to be able to tell your husband you can't cook can actively cause problems.

If he makes a lot more money than you, maybe he insists you quit your job and you basically can't afford to defy him. Or you wind up stepping down from the promotion and now you have ruined your hopes of career advancement.

The one piece of advice I can give: Take a jaundiced eye to videos or whatever if this ilk and don't cut your throat by getting all uppity about "You cannot tell me you're EXHAUSTED and don't want to give me attention!" 

It very likely won't end with you feeling all empowered and liberated and like "I should have done this years ago!"