This is the theme of my new year as well, mostly relating to my STBX. He asks me for “help” ... I perform the mental and emotional labor to educate him, only to have him clearly not have listened or read my response at all, and double down on demanding I do the work for him! No more!!
Yes! Same with my ex. I send him requested info and then it's just....forgotten and a few weeks later he's asking for it again like he can't just scroll back or search his messages. Or he double books on a weekend I've clearly already booked in the calendar and informed him about and then it's my job to "swap weekends" with him BC he apparently can't check a calendar before committing to plans and I cop a missive about how unfair I'm being and he "just wants to see his kids" 🙄. Infuriating. Is it a powerplay?
It's not necessarily a Power Play. But he absolutely does think that he is more important than literally everything and everyone, including your kids.
My advice, which I also give my clients: you can't make him care or be a Good Dad. You CAN and absolutely should just stick to the absolute terms of your Custody Orders. If he wants to plan on being out of town on every weekend he was supposed to see his kids, that's on him and you are NOT obligated to keep bending over backwards and rearranging your plans for him. Just make your plans and assume he'll find some bullshit excuse to not do what he (most likely) agreed to. Try not to show the kids you're frustrated, but you can say "I know Dad was supposed to get you this weekend, but he (has a business trip, went on a golf weekend, etc. OR "just can't this weekend ")." It's not disparaging AND it's true.
You are so right about the thinking he's more important than everyone. Especially his job; omg you'd think he was performing brain surgery 24/7 the way he bangs on about his job and the hours he MUST put in. I've concluded at this point that maybe he's just not very good at his job if it requires so many hours to complete 😂. But yes, he definitely values himself and his time way above me and my time 🙄.
So just tell him. "The terms of the custody order are that you have the kids on the first and third weekend of each month. The Order does not require me to change my plans or the kids' schedule because of events and plans you have made during the time you are supposed to spend with them. If spending time with the kids is a priority for you, then you will stop making plans during your weekends so that you are available to spend the time with them that was established by the Court. If you choose not to be available during your weekends, then that is your decision and the consequence of that decision is that you miss that time with "your" kids. I will not be adjusting the schedule in any way that deviates from the Custody Order, starting now."
I highly recommend implementing the BIFF method. It's not a perfect solution, but it did help me cut down on the amount of time and energy I was spending on emails. BIFF for CoParent Communication by Annette Burns and Bill Eddy.
shit i can't even get mine to have a conversation about anything other than irrelevant things, let alone feminism. he won't read anything, i stopped trying to send him anything. he mocks politics, mocks philosophy, mocks everyone, has no interest in other people at all. then he tried to tell me i'm autistic lolololololol
I am purposely in a Facebook group called "A Group for Men to Get Advice from Women."
And something like 60% of the guys actually seem to be there in Good Faith. Asking benign relationship questions and actually questioning the teachings of the Manosphere by going to the Source instead of believing Some Guy about What Women Think. They're guys asking things like "how do I make my Hinge profile look less like a loser Chad and more like I'm trying to meet good people?" and "I think I fucked up.... Is there a way to fix this?" Some of them are just KIDS in toxic family situations and some of them want tips on fiction writing so they're not writing "she boobed boobily down the stairs" female characters. These guys are all fine and generally take and are grateful for advice, even when it is hard and includes "buddy you are being the problem here."
The other 40% are Vaguebooking Questions with way too many details omitted, clearly looking for Validation and not any advice that includes Accountability and ready to pounce on other posts to try and invalidate the consensus of HUNDREDS of women who have volunteered their time for the cause. Like the guy whose wife "just decided she was unhappy last week and left to Figure Things Out and now I'm alone with the kids. And We Were HAPPY until last Tuesday." (I don't think I need to tell anyone here exactly how appreciated "my dude, YOU might have been happy, but she was not and it took her a LONG time to get to the point where blowing up her family was a better option than just trying to manage with you" was as advice. And it was the advice of like 17 Women before he closed comments.) Those guys aren't trying to learn or Get Advice from Women. They're trying to get a bunch of strange babes on the internet to tell them they're little special perfect angels.
I'll stay in the group and keep giving advice, but I'm gonna leave the second the other women start petting Perfect Angel Baby Men instead of telling them to go to therapy and leave their exes alone and grow up.
This! When my ex smashed a door in that I was holding shut (while pregnant mind you), he would not take any accountability for his actions and had the audacity to try to tell me he turned to some female friends for advice. Well, after going through his messages, he told one of them ‘have you ever been scared by your partner? I think I scared my partner and that’s why she’s left’. But no details on what his actions actually entailed - because of course there’s no way he would fess up to it, and didn’t want this friend to know what he had actually done.
I love this for you Zawn! I am also no longer doing the emotional labour of educating men or participating in “traditionally female” tasks such as note take or retreat planning at work.
I will not argue with anyone that women are humans and deserve the rights of a human being and I so much happier since I have decentered men from my life! It feels radical at first but it is so freeing.
That is awesome. I once had a job as part of a small team of all women. We took turns making coffee for meetings, taking notes, and buying birthday cards. Our director decided to step down and go part time. A man was hired to fill the director position. After he was hired, he assigned only me to make coffee, take notes, and buy cards. No one objected.
I too have seen those “recovering man baby” coaches in all the feeds, claiming to have seen the light and they can teach you to see the light, too. I don’t trust them. Knowing they expect to be paid for their (your) labour shows they’re not getting it and don’t have anything of value to offer anyone themselves. They’ll only do more damage.
I hate those the worst. They're always still at it, still excusing themselves and claiming they didn't know better and couldn't have done better. Meanwhile you have men even living in straight up patriarchies, like the 19th Century, sometimes behaving selflessly and fairly, so it's always possible to be good no matter what your society says.
“Men already demand so much of our time. We waste time fending off rapists and catcallers, doing more than our fair share of household labor, cleaning up men’s physical and emotional messes, repairing the damage men do to our kids, our families, our lives.
How much more time would all of us have if men stopped stealing so much of it?”
And “Spend that time decentering men instead”.
Thank you Zawn 👏🏻 because I just realised that I have pretty much spent my entire life cleaning up emotionally and physically after men- in family, personal and professional settings…
Yes!! Tangentially related, I recently heard a "feminist" man on a feminist podcast and though he seemed to be in good faith and wasn't overtly trying to sell his work, he did say that women could get his "feminist" book for a man in their lives, and "not INSIST he read it because he will feel judged and therefore NOT read it, but she can say she thought it would resonate with him."
And that just pissed me the hell off. So, we can buy the book, and we can give it to a man, but we must ALSO do the emotional labor of making sure it doesn't hurt his fragile ego while we do it??!! And we mustn't expect he'll actually read it or heed its advice??!! So what we're saying is that they Don't. Actually. Care.
I know this is ridiculous and sad but I laughed bad when reading about the 'logical gender' behavior. Entitlement for your time and then throwing mantrum when you showed them the ridiculousness of their behavior? Like, they had read you before contacting, right? What the hell did they expect? Maybe it's some kind of calling from their deep uncosciousness? They think you're stupid but they had asked you for help? Clever...
That makes me think about a "tactic" my partner uses... When he gets emotionally challenged after I point out mistreatment, he phantasizes about "how I would react if he said that to me". That's the reaction. So, if I acted as noble as him, I would also react by saying "if I said that to you, you would blow up". And we'd just be saying to each other that, forever.
He got what he wanted, me not pointing out mistreatment, but deciding to dump him instead. You're 100% right - it's wasting time. Already 10 years wasted, to read for hours, to write countless pages of self-analysis, to beg, trying to inspire, saying clearly that he needs to educate on managing emotions, opening up just to be hurt and ignored, closing down just to be picked on that I CAN'T BE TRUSTED because I'm not telling him what I think. Oh man, that's exactly the point. Let them just do the work on their own... So tired of it.
I am not clear why you would not charge for any of these services up front. Relationship coaching I don't think you can get for under $100 an hour, including a simple assessment you would make based on the person's story. This is basically what a first appointment looks like for coaching anyway, taking in the person's history and telling them the general approach needed to solve it. As for male relationship coaches asking to pick your brain, I can't imagine anything under $100/hour either. Do any of them let you or others pick their brains for free..... Set your rates and watch the a-holes vanish into thin air.
Why do they always need a co-signer to throw into an argument? Well, so and so thinks you’re a bitch. Ok, well I don’t care what this random person thinks. If their argument stood on its own, they wouldn’t need you or anyone else to validate them.
It’s like with the Fair Play. They know what they are doing and still want women to spell it out for them. Even after you spell it out, they still don’t do it.
I agree. Teaching them validates their gaslighty claim that they had no clue what they were doing and also encourages younger or less informed women to think their partner is just trying his best. If you want to play (stupid), you gotta pay!
Also, I find it really funny how if an adult man can't intuit/sense/figure out what's acceptable or not, even when the subject matter is blatant and obvious, that's perfectly okay and normal, he just needs it spelled out to him. But if a five year old child doesn't intuit/guess whatever arbitrary, specific, random, incorrect, etc... thing his bully classmates want him to, he'll be diagnosed with something, and of course no one will ever spell it out for him even if he asks them to. Even if the thing is objectively hard to guess or figure out.
When are we going to start diagnosing adult men? :D
A👏🏼Fucking👏🏼Men!! (Amen)
This is the theme of my new year as well, mostly relating to my STBX. He asks me for “help” ... I perform the mental and emotional labor to educate him, only to have him clearly not have listened or read my response at all, and double down on demanding I do the work for him! No more!!
Yes! Same with my ex. I send him requested info and then it's just....forgotten and a few weeks later he's asking for it again like he can't just scroll back or search his messages. Or he double books on a weekend I've clearly already booked in the calendar and informed him about and then it's my job to "swap weekends" with him BC he apparently can't check a calendar before committing to plans and I cop a missive about how unfair I'm being and he "just wants to see his kids" 🙄. Infuriating. Is it a powerplay?
It's not necessarily a Power Play. But he absolutely does think that he is more important than literally everything and everyone, including your kids.
My advice, which I also give my clients: you can't make him care or be a Good Dad. You CAN and absolutely should just stick to the absolute terms of your Custody Orders. If he wants to plan on being out of town on every weekend he was supposed to see his kids, that's on him and you are NOT obligated to keep bending over backwards and rearranging your plans for him. Just make your plans and assume he'll find some bullshit excuse to not do what he (most likely) agreed to. Try not to show the kids you're frustrated, but you can say "I know Dad was supposed to get you this weekend, but he (has a business trip, went on a golf weekend, etc. OR "just can't this weekend ")." It's not disparaging AND it's true.
You are so right about the thinking he's more important than everyone. Especially his job; omg you'd think he was performing brain surgery 24/7 the way he bangs on about his job and the hours he MUST put in. I've concluded at this point that maybe he's just not very good at his job if it requires so many hours to complete 😂. But yes, he definitely values himself and his time way above me and my time 🙄.
So just tell him. "The terms of the custody order are that you have the kids on the first and third weekend of each month. The Order does not require me to change my plans or the kids' schedule because of events and plans you have made during the time you are supposed to spend with them. If spending time with the kids is a priority for you, then you will stop making plans during your weekends so that you are available to spend the time with them that was established by the Court. If you choose not to be available during your weekends, then that is your decision and the consequence of that decision is that you miss that time with "your" kids. I will not be adjusting the schedule in any way that deviates from the Custody Order, starting now."
I highly recommend implementing the BIFF method. It's not a perfect solution, but it did help me cut down on the amount of time and energy I was spending on emails. BIFF for CoParent Communication by Annette Burns and Bill Eddy.
shit i can't even get mine to have a conversation about anything other than irrelevant things, let alone feminism. he won't read anything, i stopped trying to send him anything. he mocks politics, mocks philosophy, mocks everyone, has no interest in other people at all. then he tried to tell me i'm autistic lolololololol
HELL YES!!!
Yep.
I am purposely in a Facebook group called "A Group for Men to Get Advice from Women."
And something like 60% of the guys actually seem to be there in Good Faith. Asking benign relationship questions and actually questioning the teachings of the Manosphere by going to the Source instead of believing Some Guy about What Women Think. They're guys asking things like "how do I make my Hinge profile look less like a loser Chad and more like I'm trying to meet good people?" and "I think I fucked up.... Is there a way to fix this?" Some of them are just KIDS in toxic family situations and some of them want tips on fiction writing so they're not writing "she boobed boobily down the stairs" female characters. These guys are all fine and generally take and are grateful for advice, even when it is hard and includes "buddy you are being the problem here."
The other 40% are Vaguebooking Questions with way too many details omitted, clearly looking for Validation and not any advice that includes Accountability and ready to pounce on other posts to try and invalidate the consensus of HUNDREDS of women who have volunteered their time for the cause. Like the guy whose wife "just decided she was unhappy last week and left to Figure Things Out and now I'm alone with the kids. And We Were HAPPY until last Tuesday." (I don't think I need to tell anyone here exactly how appreciated "my dude, YOU might have been happy, but she was not and it took her a LONG time to get to the point where blowing up her family was a better option than just trying to manage with you" was as advice. And it was the advice of like 17 Women before he closed comments.) Those guys aren't trying to learn or Get Advice from Women. They're trying to get a bunch of strange babes on the internet to tell them they're little special perfect angels.
I'll stay in the group and keep giving advice, but I'm gonna leave the second the other women start petting Perfect Angel Baby Men instead of telling them to go to therapy and leave their exes alone and grow up.
This! When my ex smashed a door in that I was holding shut (while pregnant mind you), he would not take any accountability for his actions and had the audacity to try to tell me he turned to some female friends for advice. Well, after going through his messages, he told one of them ‘have you ever been scared by your partner? I think I scared my partner and that’s why she’s left’. But no details on what his actions actually entailed - because of course there’s no way he would fess up to it, and didn’t want this friend to know what he had actually done.
I love this for you Zawn! I am also no longer doing the emotional labour of educating men or participating in “traditionally female” tasks such as note take or retreat planning at work.
I will not argue with anyone that women are humans and deserve the rights of a human being and I so much happier since I have decentered men from my life! It feels radical at first but it is so freeing.
That is awesome. I once had a job as part of a small team of all women. We took turns making coffee for meetings, taking notes, and buying birthday cards. Our director decided to step down and go part time. A man was hired to fill the director position. After he was hired, he assigned only me to make coffee, take notes, and buy cards. No one objected.
Well written! You totally deserve to paid for your time. Men have brains, they can figure this stuff out themselves - if they actually wanted to.
Fuck yeah Zawn! Word salad belongs in the trash.
I too have seen those “recovering man baby” coaches in all the feeds, claiming to have seen the light and they can teach you to see the light, too. I don’t trust them. Knowing they expect to be paid for their (your) labour shows they’re not getting it and don’t have anything of value to offer anyone themselves. They’ll only do more damage.
I hate those the worst. They're always still at it, still excusing themselves and claiming they didn't know better and couldn't have done better. Meanwhile you have men even living in straight up patriarchies, like the 19th Century, sometimes behaving selflessly and fairly, so it's always possible to be good no matter what your society says.
These really hit hard for me:
“Men already demand so much of our time. We waste time fending off rapists and catcallers, doing more than our fair share of household labor, cleaning up men’s physical and emotional messes, repairing the damage men do to our kids, our families, our lives.
How much more time would all of us have if men stopped stealing so much of it?”
And “Spend that time decentering men instead”.
Thank you Zawn 👏🏻 because I just realised that I have pretty much spent my entire life cleaning up emotionally and physically after men- in family, personal and professional settings…
Yes!! Tangentially related, I recently heard a "feminist" man on a feminist podcast and though he seemed to be in good faith and wasn't overtly trying to sell his work, he did say that women could get his "feminist" book for a man in their lives, and "not INSIST he read it because he will feel judged and therefore NOT read it, but she can say she thought it would resonate with him."
And that just pissed me the hell off. So, we can buy the book, and we can give it to a man, but we must ALSO do the emotional labor of making sure it doesn't hurt his fragile ego while we do it??!! And we mustn't expect he'll actually read it or heed its advice??!! So what we're saying is that they Don't. Actually. Care.
Jeez. If he's not reading it just because she asked him to then the problem remains...
So next step is to tuck him in with his favorite teddy and read it to him as a bedtime story I guess?! LOL
I know this is ridiculous and sad but I laughed bad when reading about the 'logical gender' behavior. Entitlement for your time and then throwing mantrum when you showed them the ridiculousness of their behavior? Like, they had read you before contacting, right? What the hell did they expect? Maybe it's some kind of calling from their deep uncosciousness? They think you're stupid but they had asked you for help? Clever...
That makes me think about a "tactic" my partner uses... When he gets emotionally challenged after I point out mistreatment, he phantasizes about "how I would react if he said that to me". That's the reaction. So, if I acted as noble as him, I would also react by saying "if I said that to you, you would blow up". And we'd just be saying to each other that, forever.
He got what he wanted, me not pointing out mistreatment, but deciding to dump him instead. You're 100% right - it's wasting time. Already 10 years wasted, to read for hours, to write countless pages of self-analysis, to beg, trying to inspire, saying clearly that he needs to educate on managing emotions, opening up just to be hurt and ignored, closing down just to be picked on that I CAN'T BE TRUSTED because I'm not telling him what I think. Oh man, that's exactly the point. Let them just do the work on their own... So tired of it.
I am not clear why you would not charge for any of these services up front. Relationship coaching I don't think you can get for under $100 an hour, including a simple assessment you would make based on the person's story. This is basically what a first appointment looks like for coaching anyway, taking in the person's history and telling them the general approach needed to solve it. As for male relationship coaches asking to pick your brain, I can't imagine anything under $100/hour either. Do any of them let you or others pick their brains for free..... Set your rates and watch the a-holes vanish into thin air.
Hmmmm. Sounds like I need a new job. ;)
This is fire.
Why do they always need a co-signer to throw into an argument? Well, so and so thinks you’re a bitch. Ok, well I don’t care what this random person thinks. If their argument stood on its own, they wouldn’t need you or anyone else to validate them.
It’s like with the Fair Play. They know what they are doing and still want women to spell it out for them. Even after you spell it out, they still don’t do it.
I agree. Teaching them validates their gaslighty claim that they had no clue what they were doing and also encourages younger or less informed women to think their partner is just trying his best. If you want to play (stupid), you gotta pay!
Also, I find it really funny how if an adult man can't intuit/sense/figure out what's acceptable or not, even when the subject matter is blatant and obvious, that's perfectly okay and normal, he just needs it spelled out to him. But if a five year old child doesn't intuit/guess whatever arbitrary, specific, random, incorrect, etc... thing his bully classmates want him to, he'll be diagnosed with something, and of course no one will ever spell it out for him even if he asks them to. Even if the thing is objectively hard to guess or figure out.
When are we going to start diagnosing adult men? :D