Ladies: is there truth in this? Men: thoughts?

[BeenThereLovedIt]

These are some excerpts from an article I read about cheating in marriages. It's incredibly interesting in a way I didn't expect, and I really want to know what other people think of it?

Again?

The familiarity with the husband breeds boredom and a desire for something more “spontaneous.”

One 41-year-old Brooklynite began sleeping with a co-worker she thought more her professional equal after eight years of marriage and a child with her “low-earning husband.” “A healthy attraction to a person does demand you have a little bit of intrigue and imbalance, which in male-female-empowered relationships is not a priority,” the woman admitted to NY mag, essentially saying the progressive ideal of equal marriage is bland. “A lot of women I know stick with [the empowered relationship] and suffer through it even as they have that fantasy of being with someone who is their equal, or even their superior.”

But the suffering, according to Giacobbo, is now the “man’s job.”

the cuckold is desperate to try to make things work out after finding out about his partner’s infidelity.

One man knows his wife is sleeping with the neighborhood “douche bag” while he does the menial tasks of cleaning the cages of the family’s bunny. He’s staying with her because he hopes it’s just a phase.

Most women report that their friends are fine with their cheating and understand it’s just something that must be done in order to achieve full happiness. This contrasts to the social opprobrium that men would face if caught cheating.

[AmandaYVR]

"The familiarity with the husband breeds boredom and a desire for something more “spontaneous.”"
To some extent, yes, familiarity = predictability = lack of excitement. It also = stability. They are polarity. Over time, one turns into another. That's life. It's not a personality flaw with women. This goes both ways. It's offensive to suggest it only applies to women.
Men seek out new partners more often and faster than women do. They are more about volume and variety of partners. But women do tire of routine and predictable sex. It is often a reason for their lack of sex drive over time with the same partner.

The second paragraph seems poorly worded, does make sense, and contradicts itself, so I won't comment on it.

"But the suffering, according to Giacobbo, is now the “man’s job.”"
This is ridiculous. Who wrote this article.

"the cuckold is desperate to try to make things work out after finding out about his partner’s infidelity."
People who love their partners are motivated to try and make things work. Calling the man a cuckold is insulting, degrading, and unnecessary. No one should be shamed for trying to work things out. But this is the state of society today. It used to be a very private matter, and if anything, those who left marriages were shamed. Socially, the tend is the opposite now.

"One man knows his wife is sleeping with the neighborhood “douche bag” while he does the menial tasks of cleaning the cages of the family’s bunny. He’s staying with her because he hopes it’s just a phase."
Again, shaming the husband. Animals need taking care of. Wtf. Is SHE supposed to clean the rabbit cage, only?

"Most women report that their friends are fine with their cheating and understand it’s just something that must be done in order to achieve full happiness. This contrasts to the social opprobrium that men would face if caught cheating."
Bullshit. This paints a false picture of a huge double standard. It's lies.

Throw this article in the trash where it belongs.

[BeenThereLovedIt]

@amandayvr Thanks for the detailed response. You stated "This goes both ways. It's offensive to suggest it only applies to women." I agree, I will get back to that point as part of the last point I make. You quoted "But the suffering, according to Giacobbo, is now the “man’s job.” You said "This is ridiculous." On the surface yes, it seems like an uninformed statement, but take a moment to look at it from the perspective that "domestic chores" were once the sole responsibility of the majority of women in the past, and those women decried those responsibilities as unequal. Womens lib, and now the modern feminist movement sees domestic chores as equal share or a man's job. In the context of this article, that is the point. The societal expectations of men have changed rather dramatically, and in contradictory ways, thus resulting in male confusion and desire to just not have to think about it, more or less turning over 'control' to the female of the house. You said "Animals need taking care of. Wtf. Is SHE supposed to clean the rabbit cage, only?" I think I kind of answered this in the previous part, but back to the first part about it being offensive that men do it to women and aren't mentioned - The article was written from the sole point of what a female-led relationship can look like when the male is an unwitting cuckold. I hope I made my point clearly in the last paragraph. I tend to ramble. I wanted to keep the discussion focused on that aspect and not factors outside of it.

[BeenThereLovedIt]

The rabbit cage - what I meant is that now the man is doing the menial domestic housework. It starts with the cage. Then the laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, child-care, all while still having to perform his own manly domestic chores like garbage, lawncare, home maintenance, car maintenance - even if making service appointments, all the paperwork is his job. Modern women don't seem to connect the dots that men always had domestic chores too. They used to say it takes two to run a household, but nowadays it feels like it just takes a worn-down man and who cares if it puts him in an early grave?

[AmandaYVR]

We are at very different viewpoints on this. I don't think you get the female, non-antagonistic, non-misandrist view. When both people work, and especially if they also have kids, workload should be shared. Women are fed up with doing 80% of the household domestic chores. Yes, men historically did the outside work (I agree with the example tasks you mentioned), however the difference is that all those things are much more infrequent in timelines of needing to be done. The yard can get scraggly, and the car only needs maintenance once in a while. The inside of the home gets messy daily (depending on the occupants' habits - which are choices.) Some men act like grown children, dropping stuff everywhere. Your labels and word choices are giving you away here. "Menial" is not associated with women. I personally am a proponent of division of labour. I think it's inefficient to have/expect both people to split everything, all chores, so that no one person has primary responsibility for it. I also loathe rigidity. And I think personality differences and preferences and priorities play a role. I have no issue with picking up after my partner (husband, in my case now), however I notice he never touches anything I have touched. He seems to have this separation thing in his mind. If he's 'working on something' I should definitely leave it alone. Although I will say it does bug me when he takes out the vacuum, but only does one floor, or one room, and then leaves it out for a week "to do next time." That irks me. So I leave it, or finish vacuuming myself.

[AmandaYVR]

I could vent and rant about some disturbing sea changes I see happening today. I know what's going on out there, and there are many young women who refuse to do any more than exactly 50% of the household chores. That's getting really, really nitpicky and keeping score too much. But they clearly have a different mindset, and don't want to be with guys who expect/want them to be a housemother, and so they put their foot down right from the very beginning, that that will not be the dynamic.

[BeenThereLovedIt]

I don't really disagree with anything you say there. Also, my use of the word menial was in the context of a task that nobody really wants to do, I didn't intend to imply any gender role to it. On the point of view, I think where we disagree is that I believe no such thing as 50% distribution. The modern male can agree to taking on 50% of the household chores, but it's a lie - it's not 50%. It's 50% of the chores women were once entirely responsible for. The man accepts his 50% share, but he's still responsible for 100% of the "man's job" in the household, so it ends up really being a 75/25 split. Sure, car maintenance and lawn care are not everyday chores, but there's always a list of things to be done. There's currently work needed in every room of my house, and the bathroom needs to be re-tiled. The basement needs a shit-ton of work.. Half of these are long term projects that while yes we do sometimes procrastinate, it's because once (most of us) we start the job, we're in it, for sometimes weeks, until it's done. I have to fix my gutters, my heater needs cleaning, my lawn requires days worth of work to hedge, plant, etc.. I need to re-carpet several rooms. I need fix so many damn small things it's not funny. My point is that maintenance and upkeep are equal or nearly enough to the cleaning, laundry, dishes, etc. I do 100% of the male and female jobs in my house. I get to see the exact nature and comparison of them first hand. I don't mean to come off as an ass here, but it's the truth as I see it. I enjoy the conversations with you, as always, and don't mean offense. I just get passionate about things at times. I don't see all women in this light, and that's the part of the article and discussion I'm the most interested in.. Finding a woman who does this and pick her brain, as much as pick the brains of women who don't. The more perspectives, the more I have to reflect on :)

[Flower7]

If those men choose to accept the cheating, then it's their own fault if it continues. The same results would happen if a woman found out her husband was cheating and then decided to ignore it, hoping it was just a phase.

Those people could have walked away at any time, so deciding to stay in the relationship will have consequences that they brought on themselves. Cheating is awful and shouldn't have happened in the first place, but once it's found out about, it has to be handled very carefully to avoid it becoming a pattern.

[BeenThereLovedIt]

The article points out that this trend is increasing because of equal rights, women gaining status through career, and their increased power in the relationship - specifically the more equal ground part - I'm wondering mostly about if people agree or not, and why

[Anonymous]

Yeah, marriages get boring to women after they get everything they wanted.
While she's out sleeping around the husband is left to deal with everything.
It's hard to just get up and leave her when you have kids, bills, work and a million responsibilities.
Marriage is a trap eventually and it ends in disaster.
The spouse that works away from home, away from the kids is usually always more likely to cheat. Make that spouse an attractive woman with more attention and opportunity to cheat than her husband and this is what happens.

[RagnarRedbeard]

There's truth in it. Women will say that there isn't of course because to admit it would destroy feminism and the idea that men and women are the same. It's also probably a feels before reals thing.