On Training Men To Be Boyfriends

The Problem

In talking to my friends who are women that date men, a topic that would come up in almost all of those conversations would be expressing a kind of quiet tiredness about always having to teach their boyfriend to be a good partner. At some points it even sounded like they were teaching them just how to be a person. This is a very common occurence, such as this Reddit post, of which there are plenty more just like it.

I think a lot of this stems from the idea of “men have mothers then girlfriends”, which is to say that they spend most of their young lives having their mother do a lot of the emotional (Hermeneutic Labor) and/or housework for them. Then when they are adults on their own, they have none of the skills while also not having the drive to learn them either, so they outsource it to their girlfriends.

I think that feeling frustrated at men’s lack of emotional intelligence is a completely valid response, especially if you are running into the issue where you are trying to get your boyfriend to do something that you want, but he is consistently falling short of it. However I think something that can be dangerous is that it can be very easy to transfer contempt at the patriarchy onto your partner. While yes these things are in part due to their own actions/constitution, it is also because of how they have been socialized (and that is because of the patriarchy). Unfortunately this is just something that comes with the territory of dating men.

All relationships are affected by patriarchy

I do think that it’s important to note that all relationships are affected by patriarchy, just in different ways. While it makes sense to feel like you want to date women/non-binary people who are more likely to have unlearned the more harmful parts of the patriarchy, there are some holes in that idea.

For example, with non-men usually comes better communication and deeper intimacy, but that doesn’t mean that there will be no issues. Non-heterosexual couples face heterosexism, a smaller dating pool, and other issues that result from patriarchy. The article, Dating Women Isn’t Any Easier Than Dating Men does a good job of exploring this. The author puts it very well that relationships are always hard when feelings are involved. Obviously experiences will vary from person to person (Is dating women easier than dating men? Or is it the other way around?) and it is just something where you will have to take the good with the bad.

I think that a lot of problems associated with patriarchy in dating men are blocks to intimacy, which means that you might not have even got deep enough to hit other problems related to deeper character incompatibility. This may mean that you don’t have as much experience solving relationship issues and compromising as you may have thought. Not to say that you won’t be able to cross that bridge when you get there, but it may be a future growing pain.

If you are someone who is additionally attracted to people other than men, you don’t have to date men! However, I do want to caution about “Grass Is Always Greener Syndrome” (GIAGS). Dating non-men is not automatically better/easier, but it is definitely different. Sometimes GIAGS can just be an expression of a deeply held desire to explore that has been suppressed/denied, but other times it is a certain naivety. This is something that you should 100% explore for yourself.

How to move past it

If you still want to date men or have no other options, there are plenty of ways to move forward either while being single or actively in a relationship.

Remember that you are a team!

• You do not have to teach him everything, but it may help you to point out things.
  • It is important to have boundaries!
• You cannot do the work for the other person.
  • You can tell them to find a book and/or therapy, but they should want to do it for themselves too. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make them drink.
• Keeping score of who needs more teaching/coaching helps no one.

Externalize your expectations

• You have to surface things that you want or expect. If the other person does not know what it is expected of them, they cannot do it and you cannot hold it against them if they fail to do so. No one is a mind-reader!
• If you do not externalize your expectations, you are only left with internalized roles–which are outdated and will not serve you.
• It may feel unfair to have to do this, but at the same time, you should know roughly what kind of person you want your partner to be and be able to communicate that to them.

Feel and express your feelings

• If you have to bottle up your emotions because you feel like your partner can’t handle them or will hold them against you in the future, you are probably not in a healthy relationship.
• Try to express your feelings maybe not in the rawest form because sometimes those are outside of your cognitive control and you cannot take things back once you say them.
  • If you think it will help, try scheduling a more regular relationship check-in or couples therapy sessions so that it doesn’t feel like you are “always nagging”. Having a specific time can help compartmentalization.

When to end things

When you’re communicating your needs, what is their response?

• Mockery or making an excuse: yikes
• Defensiveness: you can maybe work through this but likely in for a lot
• Confusion or asking “Why does this matter to you?”: could be defensiveness or a misalignment or not understanding where you’re coming from
• Apologizes then goes right back into doing it: not good
• Apologizes and keeps it up and then forgets: usually just shows that it hasn’t become habit yet
  • It is alright to stumble occasionally, but if you are constantly reminding them, then you are still kind of doing the work for them and that is not good.
• Apologizes and changes it immediately: That’s great!
• Tries but misses the mark: At least they’re trying (depends)
  • Change doesn’t happen over night and it can be hard to find good resources out there to learn. If it seems clear that they aren’t listening/understanding then an approach adjustment may be in order, but otherwise sometimes you may just need to iterate over time.

The most salient question you have to ask yourself is: What am I getting out of this? If the answer is not much, then you have to ask yourself: Why am I staying?

• Why do people stay in bad relationships?

Do you feel exploited? Alone? Like you’re doing the work of two people? You most likely have good memories and times with the person too, but what do you feel like the default mode of the relationship is?

It can be hard to end a relationship when you care about them, but staying for future potential is never a good idea. The future is never promised!

• Change takes a lot of time, effort, and patience. If you do not have it then that’s totally alright, but it means that the relationship likely no longer serves you.

Sometimes the best thing you can get from someone is them saying, “I understand where you are coming from, but I don’t want to or don’t think I can provide that for you.” It takes a lot of honesty and courage to do that.