The Student Room Group

Why are men always downtrodden and 'henpecked'?

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Original post by JC.
My other half and I share everything.
It's a little technique we called "communicating". Give it a go... it's great!

I always said I wanted to be a relationship where cars and toys weren't a sticking point and that's what we've got. :smile:


And who earns more or has the more stressful job, you or your partner?
Reply 41
Original post by kka25
This is what I was looking for actually; there must be a reason why the dad is behaving in such ways.

It's called 'taking the piss'. Women are generally still expected (explicitly or not, consciously or not) to do the majority of the work in the house, even where both partners have equal jobs outside the home, in spite all the talk of equality etc. You must be very young (or maybe foreign) if you do not know this.
Reply 42
Original post by Doctor_Einstein
And who earns more or has the more stressful job, you or your partner?

Earning more or having a more stressful job does not get you out of your fair share of the tasks around the house. If you work more hours, sure. Pay and stress do not come into it, I'm not sure why you think they would - unless of course we're talking about a truly extreme situation, where one partner would be unable to keep up the job if the housework were shared equally, and both partners feel the same way about this.
Original post by Ronove
Earning more or having a more stressful job does not get you out of your fair share of the tasks around the house. If you work more hours, sure. Pay and stress do not come into it, I'm not sure why you think they would - unless of course we're talking about a truly extreme situation, where one partner would be unable to keep up the job if the housework were shared equally, and both partners feel the same way about this.


I am earning 150k and my partner earns 15k. I have to deal with stresses from clients and management all day, while my partner works by herself in retail in a very quiet store playing games all day and listening to music.

When I get home, I'm drained, when she gets home she's energized.

In addition, if we separate, do I get to keep most of the assets? No, we have to split it 50-50. This is particularly unfair if in addition to being the bread winner of the family and have the most stressful job, I also have to do exactly 50% of all household/family chores, but only attain 50% of my earnings if we split up.
Reply 44
Original post by Doctor_Einstein
I am earning 150k and my partner earns 15k. I have to deal with stresses from clients and management all day, while my partner works by herself in retail in a very quiet store playing games all day and listening to music.

When I get home, I'm drained, when she gets home she's energized.

In addition, if we separate, do I get to keep most of the assets? No, we have to split it 50-50. This is particularly unfair if in addition to being the bread winner of the family and have the most stressful job, I also have to do exactly 50% of all household/family chores, but only attain 50% of my earnings if we split up.


True. This is correlating back to why some partners resent their other half.

I 'like' the idea that someone needs to be "foreign" or "too young" to see this :rolleyes:
Reply 45
Original post by Odd socks
I don't think it's unfair that I feel bad for my mum, who may I reiterate, has depression, is the only one in the house who has to do everything without any help.

Are you? Then why are you trying to make me feel bad?


Posted from TSR Mobile


No. I understand that you feel bad about your mum; but to the reader of your post, things are not clear so they asked the questions. They don't mean to be harmful or rude.

I'm not; I just wanted to clarify certain things, that's all.
It's alright. We don't have to continue this :wink:
Reply 46
Stressed men with low self esteem begin to have a sharp decline in testosterone which compromises their energy levels and self control, thus their integrity as protector/provider. Some women resent this and lose attraction to their submissive SO, often leading to the bias of 'divorce-rape'. Others take advantage of the situation and seek to dominate him-what is in layman's terms known as 'being whipped'...

This is why communication and the ability to assert oneself is a foundation of a healthy mature relationship.
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 47
Original post by Doctor_Einstein
And who earns more or has the more stressful job, you or your partner?


We started our own business back in 2009.
Stress doesn't really come in to it. We work on the principal of "work smart not hard".
As for who earns what? Well... we don't do "yours and mine" we take from the same pot. There are no separate finances.
Original post by Miss Posh
Why are shy and intelligent men always manipulated and told what to do by their wife? I know a lot of older couples whose relationship is really poor because the man is downtrodden and henpecked. It's like he has a family, a large house, but can't do what he wants to do in case he upsets his controlling and demanding wife.

Maybe a lot of your parents are like it. Does your dad do all the cooking and driving, while your mum sits back and does half as less work than he does?

This thought really scares me. Is this what most relationships turn into? One in which the man is oppressed and the woman treated like a queen...


Nah my mum is pretty traditional and does the majority of the cooking n cleaning. Also has a job. My dad does really simple cooking like putting ready made food in the microwave for my mum when she's working late lmao.

My Dad still gets shouted at though.


Can't imagine myself being shouted at by a girl and just taking it though lol.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by JC.
We started our own business back in 2009.
Stress doesn't really come in to it. We work on the principal of "work smart not hard".
As for who earns what? Well... we don't do "yours and mine" we take from the same pot. There are no separate finances.


Hear, hear!

Good to see a break in TSR's recent tradition of: 'DON'T EVER TRUST WOMEN WITH MONEY, YOU'LL LOSE IT ALL; DIVORCE RATES; UNFAIRNESS; FEMALE PRIVILEGE' etc., etc. rage. :teehee:
Original post by Doctor_Einstein
I am earning 150k and my partner earns 15k. I have to deal with stresses from clients and management all day, while my partner works by herself in retail in a very quiet store playing games all day and listening to music.

When I get home, I'm drained, when she gets home she's energized.

In addition, if we separate, do I get to keep most of the assets? No, we have to split it 50-50. This is particularly unfair if in addition to being the bread winner of the family and have the most stressful job, I also have to do exactly 50% of all household/family chores, but only attain 50% of my earnings if we split up.



Why put yourself in a position where you could lose 50% of everything you own? When you own so much.
Reply 51
Original post by Freudian Slip
Hear, hear!

Good to see a break in TSR's recent tradition of: 'DON'T EVER TRUST WOMEN WITH MONEY, YOU'LL LOSE IT ALL; DIVORCE RATES; UNFAIRNESS; FEMALE PRIVILEGE' etc., etc. rage. :teehee:


It's all *******s.

The majority of people work for other people so they play politics all day. To come home and have to do it with the person you're supposed to trust the most in life just wouldn't wash with me.

The best part is the ones who are always trying to working their agenda on the sly behind their partners back will tell me I'm the one who's got it wrong.
That's ok with me... I can live with the lable of "being wrong". I know who's happier. :wink:
Original post by Ronove
It's called 'taking the piss'. Women are generally still expected (explicitly or not, consciously or not) to do the majority of the work in the house, even where both partners have equal jobs outside the home, in spite all the talk of equality etc. You must be very young (or maybe foreign) if you do not know this.


I know it still exists but it would never occur to me to not put my fair share of effort in. If one person has more spare time they do more chores, regardless of gender. Or if they both work equal hours then it is split roughly 50/50.
Reply 53
Original post by Doctor_Einstein
I am earning 150k and my partner earns 15k. I have to deal with stresses from clients and management all day, while my partner works by herself in retail in a very quiet store playing games all day and listening to music.

When I get home, I'm drained, when she gets home she's energized.

In addition, if we separate, do I get to keep most of the assets? No, we have to split it 50-50. This is particularly unfair if in addition to being the bread winner of the family and have the most stressful job, I also have to do exactly 50% of all household/family chores, but only attain 50% of my earnings if we split up.

You know that part where I mentioned that if one person wouldn't be able to do their much better-paid job if they did an equal share of the stuff at home and where the other partner has a relatively relaxing job and is therefore happy to do more as per an agreement between the two? Yeah. Not sure how your post was a retort to that.

Why on earth would your partner get 50% of your stuff? Did unmarried couples suddenly get a load of rights I'm not aware of in the UK? Not to forget - is your partner doing her low-pay, low-stress job specifically because things would fall apart if you both had stressful jobs? Since plenty of couples agree for one partner to take a back seat for the good of the family, and of course there should be adequate financial protection/compensation for them if the couple break up and leave that partner in a difficult situation. As there is, to a degree, for married stay-at-home mothers/fathers, but I'm not sure there is for anyone else.

Original post by kka25
True. This is correlating back to why some partners resent their other half.

I 'like' the idea that someone needs to be "foreign" or "too young" to see this :rolleyes:

Totally what I said you needed to be particularly young or perhaps foreign to see. Did you misread or are you deliberately misrepresenting my point?
Original post by Ronove
You know that part where I mentioned that if one person wouldn't be able to do their much better-paid job if they did an equal share of the stuff at home and where the other partner has a relatively relaxing job and is therefore happy to do more as per an agreement between the two? Yeah. Not sure how your post was a retort to that.

Why on earth would your partner get 50% of your stuff? Did unmarried couples suddenly get a load of rights I'm not aware of in the UK? Not to forget - is your partner doing her low-pay, low-stress job specifically because things would fall apart if you both had stressful jobs? Since plenty of couples agree for one partner to take a back seat for the good of the family, and of course there should be adequate financial protection/compensation for them if the couple break up and leave that partner in a difficult situation. As there is, to a degree, for married stay-at-home mothers/fathers, but I'm not sure there is for anyone else.


Totally what I said you needed to be particularly young or perhaps foreign to see. Did you misread or are you deliberately misrepresenting my point?


My story is to show job stress and income are relevant to the issue of how housework should be fairly distributed among married couples as some posters believed that stress and income were irrelevant. Of course it goes without saying both couples need to come to an agreement, it is a free country after all, but if in my situation my partner didn't agree to doing the majority of the housework, then she is clearly being unreasonable and the relationship wouldn't last.

Similarly, in the case of odd socks, the income difference of her father and mother will be relevant in determining if the father's actions are unjustified or not.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
I know it still exists but it would never occur to me to not put my fair share of effort in. If one person has more spare time they do more chores, regardless of gender. Or if they both work equal hours then it is split roughly 50/50.


But it also shouldn't just be based on hours of work done. For example, if I spend 8 hours a day lifting heavy objects around at work non stop on a construction site and come home shattered should I be expected to do the house chores that night when my partner has spent all day sitting down watching television with no customers coming in to her work?
Anyway, back to the thread title.

There are a lot of controlling men in this world, who decide when their partner can and can't go out and who they can and can't see. This is seen by many as domestic abuse and manipulative.

I see just as many people, I work with a lot of them who have female partners who do the EXACT same thing, one person at work has a friend who is going out with someone he works with, and he has to ask HER if she can see HIM!

When I bring up the double standard you get the whole "oh, you don't understand, he needs that routine, they need guidance, she is so good for him" etc.

Men get guided and "made better", women get abused and manipulated.
Original post by ChickenMadness
Why put yourself in a position where you could lose 50% of everything you own? When you own so much.


Thankfully I have a great relationship with my partner and she does all the house chores anyway. I enjoy spending money on her but the least she can do is do the chores in the house when my job is so much more stressful than hers and she acknowledges this and is perfectly happy to do so.
Reply 58
Original post by Doctor_Einstein
My story is to show job stress and income are relevant to the issue of how housework should be fairly distributed among married couples as some posters believed that stress and income were irrelevant. Of course it goes without saying both couples need to come to an agreement, it is a free country after all, but if in my situation my partner didn't agree to doing the majority of the housework, then she is clearly being unreasonable and the relationship wouldn't last.

Similarly, in the case of odd socks, the income difference of her father and mother will be relevant in determining if the father's actions are unjustified or not.

I think you're erroneously mixing income difference with stress levels here.

What would you say if your partner wanted to work part time instead, so that she didn't spend more time doing 'work' than you? It shouldn't matter, because her income is negligible, right? But then she'd potentially be damaging her social life and future career prospects more by only working part time. It's a difficult situation and I don't blame anyone for being less than 100% happy with whatever compromise may be reached, even if said compromise seems to be the best and/or fairest option.
Reply 59
Original post by ChickenMadness
Nah my mum is pretty traditional and does the majority of the cooking n cleaning. Also has a job. My dad does really simple cooking like putting ready made food in the microwave for my mum when she's working late lmao.

My Dad still gets shouted at though.


I feel bad for him : (

Original post by ChaoticButterfly
I know it still exists but it would never occur to me to not put my fair share of effort in. If one person has more spare time they do more chores, regardless of gender. Or if they both work equal hours then it is split roughly 50/50.


Well, I think some amount of sexism or primitive thinking still exist in 2014 really.

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