I'm not sure how talking to a professional should be dependent on how close you are to grabbing a pickaxe and going to Burger King. I totally get venting to your buddies about an annoying thing your partner does, or bitching about a stupid coworker. Sometimes, that's all you need to do. It seems that a therapist would give you a better shot at solving the problem of what you're bothered by. I think the article was trying to make the point that men shouldn't feel afraid for wanting to talk to someone about how they feel with someone that wasn't their partner, while pointing out that historically, women have been disproportionately doing more of the emotional lifting. While it was ham-handed in doing so, I don't disagree with this. While I agree that people should be open with their partners, I don't think we should rely on them to solve our problems. Especially when our partners are, more or less, as fucked up as we are. I wouldn't get advice from a vegan on how to grill a steak, just like how I didn't ask my 8 time married father how to stay in a relationship. I also think it speaks to how wholly unprepared this country is equipped to handle mental health issues. It's idiotic that men have to resort to creating support groups because there are no professionals available, or that the stigma from their local community is too great to deal with.
I agree, and thats the point Im making, or i guess failing to make. The previous statement was that there was middle ground, my point was that the article fumbles that aspect completely by drawing from extreme examples to work in the toxic masculinity point and contradicts itself over the emotional dependency and availability of men. Maybe Im taking it the wrong way, but I found that perspective by the author very condescending and undermining of the larger premise of the social stereotypes facing men in general. Theres nothing particularly controversial about the topic itself.
I think there's something related to the point this article is failing to make well (men's over-reliance on their partner for emotional well-being) and the decline in social capital. Back in the day, your bowling league, poker game, etc. provided you a more diverse group of options for engaging with peers in ways that provided you with those emotional outlets, and those have largely disappeared. Also, the outlets we have now (social media) can be more anxiety-inducing or stressful than valuable. I can also get behind the notion that One Relationship To Rule Them All is a recipe for disaster, I've made that mistake myself. However, the antidote for that isn't easy: friends in your 30s require investments of time, money and energy. Couple that with distance and different lifestyles, and it makes sense that this isn't as clear as it used to be. That said, I think "emotional labor" isn't a clearly defined term and is often used to describe "female entitlement bullshit." In a variety of kink communities, I've heard the term used as a way of demanding compensation for attention ("I should be compensated for my emotional labor" ie, validating a particular male's kinks, soliciting them, and general communication). In that context, I think of it as similar to paying for an escort and not having sex with you: it's a way of recognizing and accounting for an element that's naturally present in a relationship, to artificially create it (and sell it) outside of a relationship. I also think most of my female partners have a group of "The Girls" that are semi-closely maintained friendships based on common experiences. In my case, those friendships are based around work or hobbies that shift every few years. So, it's harder to maintain a friendship based on hunting, for example, when one of you stops doing it.
I don't know about you folks, but I'm too fucking tired to have friends. I'm gone from 5 AM to 5 PM on weekdays. When I get home, I'm a father to an infant and special needs toddler, husband and master of the hounds until bedtime at 8:30-9 PM. Between that, and spending the weekends doing shit around the house or in the yard, I'm grateful to get an hour or two to play a video game every so often. Having friends at this point in my life is another job I'm not the least bit interested in taking.
I honestly have no idea where you're going with this. The article posits that men tend to use their partner as their sole source of emotional support, which is incredibly draining. The author then says that some people should seek therapy (though most don't), but many might be just as satisfied with a social circle who is more open to taking emotional issues seriously. She's supposed to... what, support her argument by citing men who just occasionally annoy their partner with an infrequent emotional burden? Therapy isn't just for psychotics, there's no big leap between someone seeking therapy and someone seeking a men's group. I just don't see what the problem is here. This seems like a fairly reasonable stance. For dudes who are happy with casual friendships, or whose partnerships fulfill their emotional quotient without stressing the relationship, great. For dudes who might want a little more support than that, the culture at large isn't super encouraging of men sharing their feelings, and maybe it's worth carving out a space where that's a little more explicitly done. It's fucking frustrating when your partner can't unburden themselves anywhere but at home. We all want some balance. The article is one-sided, from a woman's point of view. The same article exists from a man's point of view, with women who use their partners as a single point of support, but that doesn't mean the author's point is invalid.
I get the premise of it. And it was a sloppily written article that makes its case peppered with vindictiveness. Where else does it need to go? I’m not questioning the validity of the underlying assertion, I’m questioning the tone and presentation of it. Therefore, a stupid article.