Are guys naturally bad about staying in touch?

[Anonymous]

Why is this often a woman's domain? Wiring? Society? What do you think?

[Anonymous]

My husband calls his parents every week, without any reminders from me. Men aren't "naturally" bad at this; they are socialized that maintaining family relationships is women's work, and they don't develop the habit of doing so. And there are often no consequences, because some woman picks up the slack.

[Anonymous]

No they are not. You must associate with only lazy men.

[Anonymous]

In my experience, yes. Both family members and friends who are guys are not great at staying in touch.

[Anonymous]

I do think society has a bias toward letting women take care of family relationships. For instance I know a lot of woken taking care of their older in-laws and women buying Christmas presents for in laws.

This isn’t the case in my personal life though. I’m the one who is bad at keeping in touch, mostly because I just don’t line me family (they’re kind of mean to me) and my husband is really good about keeping in touch with his.

[Anonymous]

They keep in touch with people they care about.

He prob talks to the dudes in his fantasy football league all the time.

[Anonymous]

Males are pushed out of the house and told to get jobs/become self sufficient early in life. If something goes wrong, it is yours to deal with not your parents or other relatives. If you do well that is what is expected. So either way no reason to call and keep in touch.

Lets face it a 20 something man living at home/depending on their parents is thought of as a loser. A 20 something woman living at home/depending on their parents is not seen the same way.

[Anonymous]

I have two brothers, aged 38 and 36. We live in different countries, and my brothers are TERRIBLE at keeping in touch. If I did not periodically contact them, we would have no contact. When contacted, they talk only about themselves and never asks about me or anyone else. They make no attempt to communicate with our 96 year old grandfather at all. To be fair, our mother died young and they were never actually taught to do these things.

One brother has a baby now, so when I do make contact with him, talks only about his child. He has never asked about my child once in any conversation, even after talking for long stretches about his baby, and no, I don't bring up my child or my own life when he doesn't ask. This brother has recently started reaching out, which entails sending multiple videos of his baby, with no text. I take it on his terms and stick to the topics he is willing to discuss, which are himself and his baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband calls his parents every week, without any reminders from me. Men aren't "naturally" bad at this; they are socialized that maintaining family relationships is women's work, and they don't develop the habit of doing so. And there are often no consequences, because some woman picks up the slack.

Yup, this. I vividly recall being newly married and my husband--who was a self-sufficient adult--looking at me and asking me what I was going to get his parents and sister for Christmas, two days before the holiday. "But my mom always handled those things for my dad!" Those first couple years were ROUGH because he just assumed that I, like every woman in his family, would take on 100% of maintaining relationships with both our families. But I didn't and refused to be guilted into it.

FWIW, my brothers are pretty terrible at this stuff, too. As much as I love my dad, we did not see him taking the lead on family relationships with his side. Complicated, I think, by the fact that our mother lost her father when she was young and my paternal grandfather filled that void for her and they genuinely loved and cared about each other, so she was the one shopping for him and calling him and doing the heavy left because she wanted to (that, and my dad was a workaholic). So my brothers saw "the woman will handle it" modeled for them and apparently never crossed their minds that they should put in some effort.

[Anonymous]

Why are we assuming that less contact = bad?

I think men often don't need as much contact as women do so it's fine for them to reach out less. Perhaps you should not be assuming your preferred amount of contact is the correct amount of contact.

I'm reminded of the recent post from the woman (maybe you, OP) who was trying to push her husband and MIL to work out a thanksgiving plan and was upset that they were not eager to do it, and when they finally did, she didn't like the plan. She titled her post something like 'odd dynamic.' It seemed to me that they were perfectly fine with their dynamic and the issue was that the wife thought they needed to be doing something other than what they were doing.

[Anonymous]

My husband calls his parents on his own.

I wouldn’t marry someone who couldn’t manage his own relationships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband calls his parents every week, without any reminders from me. Men aren't "naturally" bad at this; they are socialized that maintaining family relationships is women's work, and they don't develop the habit of doing so. And there are often no consequences, because some woman picks up the slack.

+100

Don't buy any of this "naturally bad at this" crap. It's just strategic incompetence.

[Anonymous]

From a very young age we are taught the facts that boys are providers and moved to action and heroics while girls are all about feelings and relationships. Hence Lego “Friends” for girls etc. This is instinct and natural from thousands of years of evolution. This is why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband calls his parents every week, without any reminders from me. Men aren't "naturally" bad at this; they are socialized that maintaining family relationships is women's work, and they don't develop the habit of doing so. And there are often no consequences, because some woman picks up the slack.

+100

Don't buy any of this "naturally bad at this" crap. It's just strategic incompetence.

Same here.

But sometimes it's also women setting the "norm" for frequency of contact, telling men to get with the schedule and then doing it themselves when men don't get on schedule. Weekly may work for someone people, but if DH thinks that every two weeks or more is fine, why nag your DH to do more? If his family wants more, they can take it up with him.

[Anonymous]

I'm going to say that I think it's natural. My DH is an awesome son and cares for his family a lot....but he doesn't like calling them. We visit and they get equal billing though. He doesn't care about making their traditional recipes- our holiday tables are basically all my family's favorites. I think men just grow up and follow their mom's lead. And then when they marry it's their wife's lead. We live very similarly to how I was raised, and not how he was (he was in a rural town and they don't like to vacation, etc). I'm not a domineering woman either, we have a very equal relationship.