Happy Wife, Happy Life - The Unbalanced Dynamic No One's Talking About

This meme got posted in a group I'm a member of, and you know, there is some truth to this, looking back on most of the relationships I have witnessed crash and burn over the years (or my own). I think one thing that needs to be addressed regularly and somehow dealt with in society is that we still live in a world of double standards and mixed messages. I know superficially the message in the meme sounds like some sort of sexist generalization, but I really want anybody who has a "strong opinion" about this picture to really think long and hard and tally up in their heads of all the relationships they have seen "threatened" or had any kind of knowledge of, who was the "unhappy" one (and drill it down even to "why"). Of all the times a friend or family member was dealing with a "potential break-up", who was usually the "unhappy one" initiating the possible split?

Just in my Facebook friends list alone, most of the relationships I have watched disintegrate did so because the girlfriend or wife was for whatever reason unhappy; some legit, but also a good bit of "someone wasn't getting it their way". Most of the times you wouldn't hear the guys complain, and sometimes they were totally blindsided because they honestly didn't know. And one unfortunate common denominator I heard a lot and could relate to myself is that sometimes someone would complain differently to their friends and co-workers (sometimes filled with completely false information) than they would to their spouse. And in most cases the "supportive friends" would offer negative encouragement and toxic responses to just make things worse. Really, people, you're not helping if you don't know the whole story. Seriously. I don't care how much you "trust" that friend (a friend who might actually be hiding a really dark secret, by the way---example: Google their real name if they use a nickname on all their social media, enjoy the mugshot!), if you take sides in a situation you don't actually know all the details about, you're kind of a piece of crap.

On one hand, young men and boys are being told that they need to express their feelings and not only recognize and appreciate boundaries, but be willing to make ones of their own. And that is great when those things are respected mutually. Key phrase: WHEN THOSE THINGS ARE RESPECTED MUTUALLY.

But on the same hand, there is still a LOT of denigration and dismissal if they (men, boys) say anything, and they are either made fun of or ignored ( because God forbid someone else's thunder is stolen, after all), which causes them to regress back to the mindset of previous generations, where they either end up unhealthily bottling their emotions to the boiling point, or they submit to the "happy wife, happy life" mentality and passively just "exist" (sometimes being cheated on and even abused by Miss Ain't No Man Control Me), until the relationship crumbles or they die.

Until we get to the point where the happiness of both members of a relationship is equally important, and the burden does not always fall on one party to be the one always taking it on the chin enabling the other's toxic behavior and doing all the compromising (if you can call one-sided sacrifice "compromise"), I don't see any kind of future advancement for relationships at all. You would think by now we would have it figured out. But no.

And I know there are plenty of relationships out there where you have some aggressive douchebag guy slapping around his woman and basically telling her to shut up, suck his d*ck and make him sandwiches, and for many years it was statistically true to say men are *usually* the ones dishing out the abuse. But let's make sure we don't forget is that there are exceptions to all those rules, and the playing field has vastly leveled in the last decade or two. So please spare me any hypocritical double standards reminding me how historically men have been abusive bastards. I know this. But we are in a different time now, with all this liberation and so-called "empowerment" (often times misdirected and abused), and now we have to accept the fact that human beings, regardless of gender or sex, are all kinds of crappy sometimes, and if you play the sex/gender card frivolously you're gonna' get laughed off stage.

HARD TRUTH: You might even actually know a guy who has been at the hand of some sort of physical or emotional abuse who doesn't go around telling everybody, partially because he knows there is a likelihood he will be mocked or dismissed, and he just doesn't want to be at the hand of more mistreatment. Maybe that person you think is strong of character and body, and who can take a little bit of beating, both physically and emotionally, is just not willing to step up and say what he has been through because he has been conditioned to think that he overreacts, or that he is a pussy when he expresses his feelings. Maybe he has seen others who have had varying degrees of strife and abuse in their life who have abused the privilege to speak about it by manipulating it, twisting it and using it for attention or favors, and he'd sooner be dead than be lumped in with sorry excuses for people like that.

So you all try to figure out how to treat each other right. And I know there are some decent fellas out there who need be aware that it's okay to admit when you've been hurt. It's also okay for you to be the one calling the shots if you're not happy in a relationship, just like your partner should also feel like they can have "that talk" with you when they're dissatisfied. I'm telling you from experience, don't sit back and get walked all over. You know what you bring to the table. Hell, it's probably YOUR fucking table to begin with. The point is, if you're doing your part in a relationship (or thanklessly MORE than your share, as I have been guilty of), you have every right to speak up when the other person doesn't. I will not make the mistake of letting my needs, be they emotional or physical, go unsatisfied ever again. Neither should anyone out there.

Nobody deserves to have to go through that that and just keep their mouth shut and suck it up. Sometimes your partner thinks they're doing you a favor "just by being with you", but trust me when I say that they aren't. Put a hard limit on the dates when you meet someone new, even; 90 day probation period to get out ALL the hard/deep questions, conditions, stipulations, obligations, social/religious/sexual compatibility stuff, etc. And leave at the first red flag when you see you're getting the short end of the stick, because the red flags only get bigger. Don't settle. And no matter which side of the argument you're on, you have just as much right to pull the plug on a relationship as the other person. Make sure THEY know this as well.