Reply to Emotional Labor - a good read for men AND women

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][url]http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor[/url]

I"m going to bet that 100% of woman can relate to this.

And that a mans reactions will be split three ways:

[list]1) That's bullshit, just a bunch of women whining (defensive)
2) I don't understand (no interest in spending any time or energy in hearing from women about women)
3) Wow. Huh. I never realized... I never thought of it that way before...  (OMG, HE'S A KEEPER!)[/list]

If you'd like a "greatest hits" from that very long discussion thread someone picked out the top responses and "condensed" the 2,000+ comments into a 70 page annotated Google doc pdf.

[url]https://drive.google.com/a/paeaonline.org/file/d/0B0UUYL6kaNeBTDBRbkJkeUtabEk/view?pref=2&pli=1[/url]

Men - I dare you to read the entire thing. To take the time and effort to read it - and not sneer or dismiss, but read it. Pretend that somewhere in those comments your wife made a posting - try to guess which one is hers.

I sent it to my husband asking him to please read it (out of desperation, as 9 months of bringing these things up in therapy have gotten me nowhere) - that I knew it was long but that I thought it had a lot of good points ... and he didn't. Said it was too long. That he didn't understand it. And it just appeared to be woman complaining about things that women just do better anyway.

It felt like a little part of me died when he said that.

(side not - unrelated - wow, the commenters at MetaFilter are sure a lot more supportive that DCUM - either they moderate all the trolls and hateful comments out or people who are responding are doing so because they want to say something constructive and adds to the conversation, not wasting their own time and the readers by making comments that shoot down the previous poster for daring not support their marriage vows. Quite refreshing.)

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Thanks so much for posting this OP!

I had made an assertion in another thread about the emotional labor that SAHMs do, and the idea that this emotional labor is "work" was greeted with scorn.  But, your link explains in much more detail what I was trying to say.

So many things rang true about emotional labor for me personally and also in what I see of my parent's relationship and my mom's anger about certain things.  I have been trying very hard to introduce this idea to my kids (who are adolescents) -- that women do a huge amount of unpaid labor and that is not right.  I want my daughter to recognize when she's doing it and make conscious decisions about why she's doing it and whether and in what way she is getting compensation.  I want my son to grow up both being able to contribute emotional labor to a relationship and to not expect his mate to give it without some kind of compensation or mutuality.   I'm curious how you would teach these ideas to your kids?

The link also really makes me understand my reluctance to be involved in another relationship after kicking out my wayward spouse.  The amount of unpaid labor I did during and after that relationship was draining to me and completely unreturned.  I still work hard to maintain a good relationship with him for the sake of our children, but it is absolutely a one way effort.  In the last two years, I have been cordial, but invested far less emotional labor.  I no longer ask him why he seems upset.  I no longer ask him how work is going.  I no longer ask him anything about his friends or family.  I no longer provide coaching for his relationship with the kids, although sadly this means that the relationship between him and the kids has deteriorated.  He clearly is disconcerted that I no longer respond to him, but since we are divorced, he can't really demand it any longer.  It's been liberating for me in terms of not being as exhausted.  Ironically, just as I stopped supporting him, he found another woman to marry.  I guess that is his way of solving his problem -- find some other woman to provide these services.  I was hoping he would mature and learn to do these things himself, but oh well.   It's a little sad for the kids in terms of their relationship with him, but I am now investing that emotional labor directly in my relationship with the kids and supporting them to have good relationships with other friends and family, so I think that is a better choice in the long run.

When I look back at previous relationships, I realize that uncompensated emotional labor was the huge problem in those relationships as well.  My personal experience is that I just haven't found any men that get this on any level.  And yet, I have been shocked by one or two male friends that have made simple gestures of friendship that show me that not all men are incapable of this.  I have been single and uninterested in dating men for a long time since my divorce and have wondered if that was unhealthy, but this link shows me that it is a very normal, rational calculation based on an evaluation of investment versus return.

As I read this I also wondered -- how can we make this required reading for all marital therapists?   Ha!  That'll probably never happen.

Very insightful, OP, thanks for posting. 
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