Sons and Moms

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are so, so many stories about the strife between mothers and what I assume are daughters here.
As a man, I have always been perplexed by the push and pull that seems to exist between daughters and moms. It's like they both thrive on making each other happy, and yet also thrive on making each other miserable.
I have two brothers, a sister, and a brother in law, and we have something in common: while we don't ignore our mothers and we love them, we give them attention on our terms not theirs.
You know what the result is? For the men, our moms want to please us. They want more attention then we are willing to give, but they have come to accept that we aren't going to call every day. We aren't going to return texts with lightning speed. We aren't going to cave when our mothers try to guilt trip us.
My wife and sister, on the other hand, go out of their way to please our their respective mothers. They shower them with affection, they cater to their whims, they indulge them even when they are nasty, and they wind up wondering why our moms seem to crave the male's affection more than theirs.
I wonder if anyone else sees this dynamic and, even moreso, if moms with both sons and daughters feel the same way about their boys

This is not the win you think it is. None of you sound healthy. Healthy relationships don't involve guilt trips, caving, withholding attention, knowingly looking for someone to please you, catering to whims, indulgence, nastiness, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Women are, traditionally and culturally, raised to be "pleasers". They are socialized that they are responsible for relationship building/maintenance, so they work hard at it.

Men are raised with fewer of those expectations (culturally they get other burdens to carry about breadwinning, stoicism, etc...). So they don't step in to quite the same roles as naturally.

All people can make personal changes in any of these dynamics once aware of them.

I agree. It gets worse if there's ADHD/autism or anything else that impact social skills. These men need to have other people's feelings spelled out to them in words of one syllable. I have such men in my family, and it forces everyone around them to work that much harder in the relationship, because they cannot improve beyond their limits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are so, so many stories about the strife between mothers and what I assume are daughters here.
As a man, I have always been perplexed by the push and pull that seems to exist between daughters and moms. It's like they both thrive on making each other happy, and yet also thrive on making each other miserable.
I have two brothers, a sister, and a brother in law, and we have something in common: while we don't ignore our mothers and we love them, we give them attention on our terms not theirs.
You know what the result is? For the men, our moms want to please us. They want more attention then we are willing to give, but they have come to accept that we aren't going to call every day. We aren't going to return texts with lightning speed. We aren't going to cave when our mothers try to guilt trip us.
My wife and sister, on the other hand, go out of their way to please our their respective mothers. They shower them with affection, they cater to their whims, they indulge them even when they are nasty, and they wind up wondering why our moms seem to crave the male's affection more than theirs.
I wonder if anyone else sees this dynamic and, even moreso, if moms with both sons and daughters feel the same way about their boys

This is not the win you think it is. None of you sound healthy. Healthy relationships don't involve guilt trips, caving, withholding attention, knowingly looking for someone to please you, catering to whims, indulgence, nastiness, etc.

I love all the pseudo scientists lol! WHo are you to say who is healthy or unhealthy? That's the type of mumbo jumbo that keeps people who think there is some sort of magic answer to interpersonal relationships running to therapists and second guessing themselves. People are people and all of us have our own quirks, are own positives , and our own negatives. Every once in a great while, you may encounter a person who everyone univerally feels sucks- take a Ted Bundy for example- but even he sat right next to one of the greatest true crime writers in America at a suicide prevention center and counseled people not to kill themselves. The irong was not lost on the writer, Ann Rule, who later wrote about it in The Stranger Beside Me, for all of the evil he did, he just may have talked someone off the ledge. The trick is to deal with others in a positive manner despite your own quirks and hangups and despite theirs. I know several people who call themselves "Life COaches"- a name you can call yourself with minimal or no training at all. All of the "Life COaches" I know who want to tell others how to live are an absolute mess. There is no protocol for healthy

[Anonymous]

You make men sound pretty lousy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are so, so many stories about the strife between mothers and what I assume are daughters here.
As a man, I have always been perplexed by the push and pull that seems to exist between daughters and moms. It's like they both thrive on making each other happy, and yet also thrive on making each other miserable.
I have two brothers, a sister, and a brother in law, and we have something in common: while we don't ignore our mothers and we love them, we give them attention on our terms not theirs.
You know what the result is? For the men, our moms want to please us. They want more attention then we are willing to give, but they have come to accept that we aren't going to call every day. We aren't going to return texts with lightning speed. We aren't going to cave when our mothers try to guilt trip us.
My wife and sister, on the other hand, go out of their way to please our their respective mothers. They shower them with affection, they cater to their whims, they indulge them even when they are nasty, and they wind up wondering why our moms seem to crave the male's affection more than theirs.
I wonder if anyone else sees this dynamic and, even moreso, if moms with both sons and daughters feel the same way about their boys

This is not the win you think it is. None of you sound healthy. Healthy relationships don't involve guilt trips, caving, withholding attention, knowingly looking for someone to please you, catering to whims, indulgence, nastiness, etc.

I love all the pseudo scientists lol! WHo are you to say who is healthy or unhealthy? That's the type of mumbo jumbo that keeps people who think there is some sort of magic answer to interpersonal relationships running to therapists and second guessing themselves. People are people and all of us have our own quirks, are own positives , and our own negatives. Every once in a great while, you may encounter a person who everyone univerally feels sucks- take a Ted Bundy for example- but even he sat right next to one of the greatest true crime writers in America at a suicide prevention center and counseled people not to kill themselves. The irong was not lost on the writer, Ann Rule, who later wrote about it in The Stranger Beside Me, for all of the evil he did, he just may have talked someone off the ledge. The trick is to deal with others in a positive manner despite your own quirks and hangups and despite theirs. I know several people who call themselves "Life COaches"- a name you can call yourself with minimal or no training at all. All of the "Life COaches" I know who want to tell others how to live are an absolute mess. There is no protocol for healthy

A psychopath who was able to demonstrate pro-social behaviors when he chose to is an interesting choice to make your point. And fwiw, if you’re OP, you’re the one who started the thread by teeing up your own relationship dynamics with you mother as if you have it all figured out, but are now complaining about pseudo scientists because someone disagrees with your hot take.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My experience with my two brothers and my adult son is that they do pretty much what you said, but I think the reason is they can't actually handle close relationships with two women at once, meaning mom and wife. So they rightly choose wife. Mom has to just deal with it.

I have also seen that when these guys are not attached they are much closer to their moms, calling more often, visiting more often, chatting more often. That reinforces my theory.

Very interesting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sexism plays a huge role in this. I adore my mother, we have a great relationship and in general she's pretty easy to get along with. But occasionally she's so casually sexist it drives me nut. She just really believes women are the social glue that hold everything together, and that men just need to show up.

I agree. I'm in my 30s and often find myself feeling that way too. Like I feel like if I go to all this work to plan a holiday or extended family vacation (something most men don't initiate), men better show up and shut up. Within my marriage dh is an equal partner and I know he likes the activities I plan.

It works against me though with my inlaws. They just expect dh and by extension his whole family and me to just show up. MIL and his sisters plan it all. Sometimes the dates/activities don't work for us, but there's not much we can do about it.

+1 to this and the PP who pointed out how much sexism is involved. The exception, for me, is that my ILs expected me to fulfill the same role as all the other women in their family when it came to events/activities/gift giving.

[Anonymous]

#BoyMoms are batshyt crazy. There, I said it. They coddle the boys, expect perfection of girls, excuse the boys, hate the wives.

[Anonymous]

Hmm- my brothers treat my mom with equal respect. DH does the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many women keep closer ties with their families of origin than women do. Some mothers try to resist their sons pulling away but the same dynamic doesn’t exist with the daughters because the daughters are always there. The old saying rings true: a daughter is a daughter for life; a son is a son until he takes a wife.

Except it's completely different in Asian or eastern cultures. Women were raised to leave their families and join a new family under the direction of their MIL. Men were sons for life.

This was true of many European Americans too but WWII propaganda changed that. There was a concerted effort to break the bonds between mothers and sons to get men to go to war. If you watch old movies and read old books, you’ll notice that the American flags of fallen soldiers went to the mothers not the wive, and the grieving mother was the one people fawned over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are so, so many stories about the strife between mothers and what I assume are daughters here.
As a man, I have always been perplexed by the push and pull that seems to exist between daughters and moms. It's like they both thrive on making each other happy, and yet also thrive on making each other miserable.
I have two brothers, a sister, and a brother in law, and we have something in common: while we don't ignore our mothers and we love them, we give them attention on our terms not theirs.
You know what the result is? For the men, our moms want to please us. They want more attention then we are willing to give, but they have come to accept that we aren't going to call every day. We aren't going to return texts with lightning speed. We aren't going to cave when our mothers try to guilt trip us.
My wife and sister, on the other hand, go out of their way to please our their respective mothers. They shower them with affection, they cater to their whims, they indulge them even when they are nasty, and they wind up wondering why our moms seem to crave the male's affection more than theirs.
I wonder if anyone else sees this dynamic and, even moreso, if moms with both sons and daughters feel the same way about their boys

Troll posing as a male now.
Still lame op troll, still lame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are so, so many stories about the strife between mothers and what I assume are daughters here.
As a man, I have always been perplexed by the push and pull that seems to exist between daughters and moms. It's like they both thrive on making each other happy, and yet also thrive on making each other miserable.
I have two brothers, a sister, and a brother in law, and we have something in common: while we don't ignore our mothers and we love them, we give them attention on our terms not theirs.
You know what the result is? For the men, our moms want to please us. They want more attention then we are willing to give, but they have come to accept that we aren't going to call every day. We aren't going to return texts with lightning speed. We aren't going to cave when our mothers try to guilt trip us.
My wife and sister, on the other hand, go out of their way to please our their respective mothers. They shower them with affection, they cater to their whims, they indulge them even when they are nasty, and they wind up wondering why our moms seem to crave the male's affection more than theirs.
I wonder if anyone else sees this dynamic and, even moreso, if moms with both sons and daughters feel the same way about their boys

You're completely off base. There are so many studies, articles etc about this that it is disappointing to see this kind of garbage posted regularly in this decade.

Because you have a penis, you get a pass from men and women on the work of relationship maintenance. There are a lot of things that people won't expect of you because you have a penis and none of those things are a natural result of having a penis although people will try to say that it is. You didn't just decide to play the game this way. You were allowed to play this way and it was assumed from the outset that you would be this way. It's called sexism and it is alive and well today.

Women who try this "don't try to please" approach are called horrible names and told there are serious things wrong with them. Women who do this are treated very differently from men who do this. Again, sexism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My experience with my two brothers and my adult son is that they do pretty much what you said, but I think the reason is they can't actually handle close relationships with two women at once, meaning mom and wife. So they rightly choose wife. Mom has to just deal with it.

I have also seen that when these guys are not attached they are much closer to their moms, calling more often, visiting more often, chatting more often. That reinforces my theory.

Can't handle two women at once? WTF did I just read?

The quality of discourse on this site has really declined in the last decade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Women are, traditionally and culturally, raised to be "pleasers". They are socialized that they are responsible for relationship building/maintenance, so they work hard at it.

Men are raised with fewer of those expectations (culturally they get other burdens to carry about breadwinning, stoicism, etc...). So they don't step in to quite the same roles as naturally.

All people can make personal changes in any of these dynamics once aware of them.

Exactly. People are being raised with sexist assumptions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are so, so many stories about the strife between mothers and what I assume are daughters here.
As a man, I have always been perplexed by the push and pull that seems to exist between daughters and moms. It's like they both thrive on making each other happy, and yet also thrive on making each other miserable.
I have two brothers, a sister, and a brother in law, and we have something in common: while we don't ignore our mothers and we love them, we give them attention on our terms not theirs.
You know what the result is? For the men, our moms want to please us. They want more attention then we are willing to give, but they have come to accept that we aren't going to call every day. We aren't going to return texts with lightning speed. We aren't going to cave when our mothers try to guilt trip us.
My wife and sister, on the other hand, go out of their way to please our their respective mothers. They shower them with affection, they cater to their whims, they indulge them even when they are nasty, and they wind up wondering why our moms seem to crave the male's affection more than theirs.
I wonder if anyone else sees this dynamic and, even moreso, if moms with both sons and daughters feel the same way about their boys

This is not the win you think it is. None of you sound healthy. Healthy relationships don't involve guilt trips, caving, withholding attention, knowingly looking for someone to please you, catering to whims, indulgence, nastiness, etc.

I love all the pseudo scientists lol! WHo are you to say who is healthy or unhealthy? That's the type of mumbo jumbo that keeps people who think there is some sort of magic answer to interpersonal relationships running to therapists and second guessing themselves. People are people and all of us have our own quirks, are own positives , and our own negatives. Every once in a great while, you may encounter a person who everyone univerally feels sucks- take a Ted Bundy for example- but even he sat right next to one of the greatest true crime writers in America at a suicide prevention center and counseled people not to kill themselves. The irong was not lost on the writer, Ann Rule, who later wrote about it in The Stranger Beside Me, for all of the evil he did, he just may have talked someone off the ledge. The trick is to deal with others in a positive manner despite your own quirks and hangups and despite theirs. I know several people who call themselves "Life COaches"- a name you can call yourself with minimal or no training at all. All of the "Life COaches" I know who want to tell others how to live are an absolute mess. There is no protocol for healthy

People who suggest being aloof in a relationship are not healthy. That's manipulative power play and pathetic. These are tools of the insecure.