I’ve never considered myself to be “good at” relationships. The only real boyfriend I’ve had is the guy I ended up marrying. Before him, a very fun variety of long- and short-term friends with benefits paraded through my life.
Once Brad and I decided we were dating, I still sucked at relationships. I did so many rude, passive-aggressive, and ill-advised things that some days I truly marvel at the fact that we’ve managed to make a life together.
Here is a list of things I did in my relationship that I would now advise against:
Needless to say, when we decided to read a bestselling book about communication in relationships, I was stoked.
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, by John Gray, is one of the bestselling relationship advice books ever written. It came out in the early 1990s, when I was around six years old. I saw this book on countless shelves and coffee tables, and in baskets of reading material in the bathrooms of everyone’s parents’ houses. To me, it was a symbol of true adulthood.
I figured that once I read it I would finally be a real adult in a true grown-up relationship. And as I noted earlier, I needed all the help I could get to find more mature and functional ways of communicating with my partner. Sadly this wasn’t the result.
Upon finishing the book, I was devastated. I ran to my (now) husband, Brad, fuming with rage, and the following exchange occurred:
Jolenta: This book is saying, “Just deal with it—men are from Mars, like, he’s a Martian”—while I’m saying I expect human things from both of us. And I don’t think I’m being . . .
Brad: Unreasonable?
Jolenta: Unreasonable or one-sided or too much of a Venusian to expect you to live up to human expectations about living adult human lives. The book is all, “Do these quiet tricks, and let him learn on his own. He’ll fly when he’s ready.” But it’s like, he’s my husband! He’s not my kid. He’s not my baby bird. He’s not Martian! It’s letting men off the hook. I feel like the book is just saying, “Yeah, pretend to listen to her so she feels validated.” But it doesn’t say to actually validate her, ever. It just says give her the impression you’re validating her and then do your own thing. Where I’m like, can’t (clap) a woman (clap) get some (clap) validation! Do you see what I’m saying?
Brad: Yeah.
Jolenta: Do you feel like I’m mad at you or, like, lecturing you?
Brad [nods]: I feel very shut-down.
Jolenta: Why? I’m just getting heated about this book, I’m not mad at you!
Brad: Because your takeaway from this book is, Brad is wrong and I am right.
Jolenta: No! My takeaway is that women are always wrong [voice starts to shake] and, like, no matter what you do [starts crying] you have to cater yourself to men and [fully crying now], like, the way they deal with things, and you’ll never be heard unless you change everything about yourself [still crying gently].
Brad: Change everything?
Jolenta [mildly wailing]: That’s what it’s saying! It’s like, “The way you communicate is wrong, and of course you don’t get what you want [tears are slowing down] because you’re an overbearing c*nt.” It’s a disappointing book, because I feel like it’s just saying, “Jolenta, you’re wrong.” When I feel my whole fight in our relationship is to feel heard and validated. And then this book comes in and stomps on that, implying I’m crazy for wanting my needs to be met.
Brad: I agree. It doesn’t give women enough credit.
Instead of groundbreaking advice on how to clearly communicate my wants, needs, fears, and so on to my partner or tips for controlling my anger, the book was full of supersexist pointers based on the idea that men and women are completely different species (and, in fact, aliens from two different planets). It has chapter after chapter excusing men. Saying they’re naturally shut-down and conversation-averse and shouldn’t be expected to process or express emotions.
I find that generalization of this kind is rarely helpful. To me, it reads as an acrobatic theory used to imaginatively gloss over the fact that all humans are unique, regardless of gender (which is a social construct anyway), or any other idea that’s popularly used to marginalize populations. It’s easier to say, “Nature made us like this!” than it is to say, “Oh, weird, why do we seem to be socializing half our population to see working through emotions as weakness? It seems like this low expectation of maturity hurts those around them.”
I want to investigate the problems I face in life and in my relationship. I do not want these problems reasoned away with sexist ideals. And surprise! Sexist advice doesn’t just pop up in books about relationships. In Pick Three, Randi Zuckerberg posits the idea that pretending to have it all, while actually strategically balancing too many tasks behind the scenes, is the answer for women to find fulfillment. When Kristen and I read this we were disappointed that the book never really addresses the root of where these unfair expectations to “have it all” even come from.
Why not acknowledge that society tends to expect more of women? Women should be perfect homemakers, ultrasupportive of their spouses, involved parents, and employees who work as though they have no obligations waiting for them at home. Advice about how to fake having all of these things under control just furthers the problem. And maybe I’m naïve, but I want my self-help to help a lot more than that.
Dear Kristen and Jolenta,
I’m a baby boomer woman, and maybe it’s just my generation, but men and women really are different. We were raised differently; we were taught to communicate differently; we were brought up with different social expectations and trained from day one to take on different roles. Considering all this, aren’t men and women—at least in my generation—inherently different?
—OP
Dear OP,
We are all products of our environments and times. And yes, the time you grew up in was rife with hard-and-fast rules about what constituted a real man versus a real woman. Some of these roles are hard to move past. Some are so ingrained it can feel hard to distinguish between what’s “inherent” and what’s socially constructed. On top of that, even if you want to move past the gender roles you were raised with, you may find that other people around you don’t. They may prefer that you stay the way you are, and they may want to stay the way they are, as well.
That being said, people change all the time, and society changes all the time, and even if we feel we’re in a static, unmoving version of the world, we’re not. Perhaps, OP, you attended a school in which girls always wore skirts and never trousers, but now you yourself are very comfortable wearing either. Perhaps you know a man your age who was raised to think cooking was for women, who now loves nothing more than making a good stir-fry. Change usually comes so slowly we don’t see it happening. But it does happen.
One last thing: While the world treats gender as a given, it’s not. Yes, we’re born with the sexual organs we’re born with, but those organs do not automatically mean that we’ll identify as a specific gender. There are people with testicles who identify as women. There are people with vaginas who identify as neither a woman nor a man. Gender and gender roles are complex. And even if they feel like it, they’re never inherent.
—Kristen