Husbands - low value

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Weird my husband and I were JUST having this discussion - many of my wonderful, smart, fun, professionally successful, fun to talk with and engaging girlfriends husband’s are fine but honestly kind of duds in a lot of ways. At least much more than they are. Most of them have provided financially ok so not exactly what you’re referencing but they are DEFINITELY uninspiring comparatively to the wives. and this convo was mostly led by my husband who would prefer to be friends with these guys and was identifying that these girlfriends are particularly great/smart women who he enjoys but their husbands just don’t offer a lot - make their wives do most of the work, not that interesting to talk to, just a bummer.

We decided that though we hate to say it as the parents of boys, there is just a higher percentage of engaging, high performing women and less of those number of men probably because we often hold men to pretty low standards and let them get away with a lot. We also don’t encourage and support men in building community, learning how to share their feelings in healthy ways etc, all things that make for a more full happy life.

I'm skeptical of the "I'd like to be friends with these guys but they just are uninspiring." When people have reactions like that, it is almost always that the guy is a milquetoast who isn't good at making friends with other men. So the go-to reaction is, they aren't cool enough to be friends with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women are doing better than ever and yet still complaining about the "patriarchy". None of it makes sense.

You nailed it. None of it makes sense.
Women are doing better than men but are complaining about gender discrimination.

It does make sense. Most people, men or women, aren't in positions of power, but those in position of power are still largely men.

OP is saying that in her circle, she sees a lot of women who do better career wise than their men. That doesn't mean that they are at executive level, where again, it's mostly made up of men.

If that’s really the case, then the whole “equal pay for equal work” thing starts to feel like one of the biggest scams ever. It seems like most people aren’t even directly affected by it. It’s really just a battle for the top 1% elite. But it’s been packaged like it’s about the everyday working woman. Women have been brainwashed to believe they’re being underpaid across the board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many of the women I’ve seen who vault to the top do so in pursuit of a lifestyle and $ it becomes clear the man isn’t as ambitious to provide if it didn’t just come easily to him. (That is, the man will often be satisfied with good enough/enough money and family balance). Some of them married men hoping they would play this role and when they didn’t or chose not to the women took it on.

I’m a woman who has a really lucrative career and my husband’s fizzled out mid career. The explanation is much simpler - I am deeply anxious of a terrible financial tragedy and he is not.

Op here. I think there is something to this. The women are really the planners and the people looking ahead, anticipating how today’s choices will impact tomorrow.

Also kind of ridiculous how many commenters only saw bread winning inequality - they are just as behind in community building, giving back, creating magical moments and traditions for the family, being gracious hosts. Being interesting. Making the world better. Even among my husbands friends (those I didn’t know in school) - their wives are 10s, they are…7s at life (not just looks - everything). These men aren’t failures - nothing close - they just don’t shine a light to their partners.

I guess I’m just so damn impressed with my women, friends and all they’ve done / who they’ve always been / how they killing it - even with dopey partners.

That's your personal opinion. I would bet that these men would disagree with you. I would bet that even most independent observers would disagree with you.
One person's hero is another person's zero.

[Anonymous]

Many men have trouble bending/pivoting. They get stuck and it applies to many aspects of life.

Aging is hard on men. Not everyone wins and it's hard not to be on top. (The alpha/beta discussion doesn't help them negotiate this reality.)

I see some guys whose lives end up revolving around sports--the ones they play, their kids' teams and the teams they follow. Many were were brought up to value this above all else and that's the extent of their interests.

But I don't think this is anything new.

[Anonymous]

I see this too. I think the women are more agile / resilient. Maybe they never expected things to go their way because of the society we live in so they’re not surprised when life is hard.

[Anonymous]

This doesn't seem to be true of my friend group. We are in our 40s and I see three groups: 1. Couples where both seem to be pretty equal career and home wise and they have kids-two similar earners, both parents very involved in kid life with good quality of life in their jobs or 2. Couples where both couples went hard at the career thing and they have no kids or maybe one kid max and 3. couples where the wife stepped into a lower earning role and is the primary parent, usually multiple kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Weird my husband and I were JUST having this discussion - many of my wonderful, smart, fun, professionally successful, fun to talk with and engaging girlfriends husband’s are fine but honestly kind of duds in a lot of ways. At least much more than they are. Most of them have provided financially ok so not exactly what you’re referencing but they are DEFINITELY uninspiring comparatively to the wives. and this convo was mostly led by my husband who would prefer to be friends with these guys and was identifying that these girlfriends are particularly great/smart women who he enjoys but their husbands just don’t offer a lot - make their wives do most of the work, not that interesting to talk to, just a bummer.

We decided that though we hate to say it as the parents of boys, there is just a higher percentage of engaging, high performing women and less of those number of men probably because we often hold men to pretty low standards and let them get away with a lot. We also don’t encourage and support men in building community, learning how to share their feelings in healthy ways etc, all things that make for a more full happy life.

We see 40-50yo men with good careers and job titles but zero hobbies, interests, friends, life goals beyond work, or sports / fitness. They are incredibly boring to talk with and always change the subject to work. Even with their own children. I cannot imagine them on a first date, I guess they’d talk about their early 20s or something stupid!

Meanwhile their wives are thriving at their careers, in the community, with the kids and schools, doing pilates classes with friends, and planning fun multigenerational holidays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Weird my husband and I were JUST having this discussion - many of my wonderful, smart, fun, professionally successful, fun to talk with and engaging girlfriends husband’s are fine but honestly kind of duds in a lot of ways. At least much more than they are. Most of them have provided financially ok so not exactly what you’re referencing but they are DEFINITELY uninspiring comparatively to the wives. and this convo was mostly led by my husband who would prefer to be friends with these guys and was identifying that these girlfriends are particularly great/smart women who he enjoys but their husbands just don’t offer a lot - make their wives do most of the work, not that interesting to talk to, just a bummer.

We decided that though we hate to say it as the parents of boys, there is just a higher percentage of engaging, high performing women and less of those number of men probably because we often hold men to pretty low standards and let them get away with a lot. We also don’t encourage and support men in building community, learning how to share their feelings in healthy ways etc, all things that make for a more full happy life.

Yuck, what a lack of pride. Entitlement and dependency instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Birds of a feather flock together.

This isn’t true of my friend group. My friends are more of the ilk where both were very successful until kids came along, and then he ramped up at work. She could “do what she wanted” (work, not work, work part time) as long as she didn’t ask him to work less or do anything with the house or kids. Her career set back, his took off. Everyone seems more or less happy.

Is this a joke?

Do you even ask him WHY he (wanted to) had kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with you OP. But I’ve also been surprised by the downfalls of the men I thought would be the ones to escape this fate. The ones who are excelling at their careers and seem to not let that affect their ability to participate in family life all suddenly crashed in their mid to late 40s. They either blew up their career, fell into addiction, or blew up their families with affairs. These are husbands I was envious of, and they’ve turned out to be just as mediocre as the others except they did it on a delay and in a more sudden and spectacular fashion.

I have a DD but I look at my nephews and I worry because I don’t have good ideas about how to help raise them in a different way.

That’s weird. The ones we saw crash & burn where it the ones who were great at their careers AND their family life, but the ones who avoided family life and only made public appearances. But it was clear they didn’t know their kids’ schedule, or friend group, or even what their kid liked to eat. Those crash and burned, in many cases just checked out even more until their affair or mental decline started or their wives divorced them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with you OP. But I’ve also been surprised by the downfalls of the men I thought would be the ones to escape this fate. The ones who are excelling at their careers and seem to not let that affect their ability to participate in family life all suddenly crashed in their mid to late 40s. They either blew up their career, fell into addiction, or blew up their families with affairs. These are husbands I was envious of, and they’ve turned out to be just as mediocre as the others except they did it on a delay and in a more sudden and spectacular fashion.

I have a DD but I look at my nephews and I worry because I don’t have good ideas about how to help raise them in a different way.

That’s weird. The ones we saw crash & burn where it the ones who were great at their careers AND their family life, but the ones who avoided family life and only made public appearances. But it was clear they didn’t know their kids’ schedule, or friend group, or even what their kid liked to eat. Those crash and burned, in many cases just checked out even more until their affair or mental decline started or their wives divorced them.

I posted earlier that my career soared while my husband’s fizzled. He absolutely put tons of time into our kids and home, and even more now.

some men have more limited hobbies but this forum shows why - think about what posts look like when a wife comes on here complaining that her husband is not spending enough time at home because of his hobbies. Hobbies require time away. I know plenty of high earning women with kids who don’t do much outside of that.

As for conversation, at some point, if you think all the men around you are boring maybe you’re not that great at
conversation yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Weird my husband and I were JUST having this discussion - many of my wonderful, smart, fun, professionally successful, fun to talk with and engaging girlfriends husband’s are fine but honestly kind of duds in a lot of ways. At least much more than they are. Most of them have provided financially ok so not exactly what you’re referencing but they are DEFINITELY uninspiring comparatively to the wives. and this convo was mostly led by my husband who would prefer to be friends with these guys and was identifying that these girlfriends are particularly great/smart women who he enjoys but their husbands just don’t offer a lot - make their wives do most of the work, not that interesting to talk to, just a bummer.

We decided that though we hate to say it as the parents of boys, there is just a higher percentage of engaging, high performing women and less of those number of men probably because we often hold men to pretty low standards and let them get away with a lot. We also don’t encourage and support men in building community, learning how to share their feelings in healthy ways etc, all things that make for a more full happy life.

We see 40-50yo men with good careers and job titles but zero hobbies, interests, friends, life goals beyond work, or sports / fitness. They are incredibly boring to talk with and always change the subject to work. Even with their own children. I cannot imagine them on a first date, I guess they’d talk about their early 20s or something stupid!

Meanwhile their wives are thriving at their careers, in the community, with the kids and schools, doing pilates classes with friends, and planning fun multigenerational holidays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women are doing better than ever and yet still complaining about the "patriarchy". None of it makes sense.

You nailed it. None of it makes sense.
Women are doing better than men but are complaining about gender discrimination.

It does make sense. Most people, men or women, aren't in positions of power, but those in position of power are still largely men.

OP is saying that in her circle, she sees a lot of women who do better career wise than their men. That doesn't mean that they are at executive level, where again, it's mostly made up of men.

If that’s really the case, then the whole “equal pay for equal work” thing starts to feel like one of the biggest scams ever. It seems like most people aren’t even directly affected by it. It’s really just a battle for the top 1% elite. But it’s been packaged like it’s about the everyday working woman. Women have been brainwashed to believe they’re being underpaid across the board.

The anecdotal situations that we see aren't necessary reflected in all areas of the workplace.

There are some industries where pay gap is still an issue. But, I do think with more awareness, more women being educated and in the workforce a lot longer, the pay gap is starting to lessen, which brings us full circle to the topic of this thread.

Much of the gender pay gap has been explained by measurable factors such as educational attainment, occupational segregation and work experience. The narrowing of the gap over the long term is attributable in large part to gains women have made in each of these dimensions.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/04/gender-pay-gap-in-us-has-narrowed-slightly-over-2-decades/

It's great that women are upping their game, and starting to close that gender gap - yay - even as they still do most of the housechores and childcare. It's sad that men have become stagnant and bring less and less to the relationship.

I have a 20 year old DS, and a 17 yr old DD. Both DH and I have made sure that both of our children know how to cook, clean, and become financially independent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Weird my husband and I were JUST having this discussion - many of my wonderful, smart, fun, professionally successful, fun to talk with and engaging girlfriends husband’s are fine but honestly kind of duds in a lot of ways. At least much more than they are. Most of them have provided financially ok so not exactly what you’re referencing but they are DEFINITELY uninspiring comparatively to the wives. and this convo was mostly led by my husband who would prefer to be friends with these guys and was identifying that these girlfriends are particularly great/smart women who he enjoys but their husbands just don’t offer a lot - make their wives do most of the work, not that interesting to talk to, just a bummer.

We decided that though we hate to say it as the parents of boys, there is just a higher percentage of engaging, high performing women and less of those number of men probably because we often hold men to pretty low standards and let them get away with a lot. We also don’t encourage and support men in building community, learning how to share their feelings in healthy ways etc, all things that make for a more full happy life.

We see 40-50yo men with good careers and job titles but zero hobbies, interests, friends, life goals beyond work, or sports / fitness. They are incredibly boring to talk with and always change the subject to work. Even with their own children. I cannot imagine them on a first date, I guess they’d talk about their early 20s or something stupid!

Meanwhile their wives are thriving at their careers, in the community, with the kids and schools, doing pilates classes with friends, and planning fun multigenerational holidays.

We live in different worlds. In my world the 40-50yo men have a lot of hobbies and interests. They are golfing, hiking, hunting and more. They are having fun. The wives seem to be bored at home.

[Anonymous]

Another insincere thread with an agenda