Men and Women- Relationships

I have heard people call their husbands or wives stupid. I am just curious. Do you believe there is really a dialogue between the genders. Do you respect your mate and vice versa.

I was watching Mad Men and the whole relationship between men & women in the 1950ies was very different. Men treated women as if they were children. They were petted and coddled, but these woman had no power, no sense of responsibility.

My husband is my partner. We make decisions that effect us jointly, together. I have my own bank acct. and he does too. We try not to have secrets. Most importantly- I am an individual in this marriage and so is he. If I didn't feel that way, I'd walk.

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one couple is the _leader_ couple and the other is the _follower_ couple. It may just be that after a period of time, this couple is feeling that they want to spread their wings a bit and establish their own traditions...and just don't know how to communicate that to you without hurting your feelings (which hurts because of the noncommunication and you are left to wonder what is going on!).

You have extended your offer for your New Year's party. Maybe pick a time when you know that no one will be home at your neighbors and call to leave a casual message that even if they have something else planned, they are welcome to drop in for whatever time they could spend so you and yours can wish them a happy start to the new year. Otherwise, I would just let things play out. When the time is right to talk about what is going on, you and the other family will know it. Try to keep an open mind and a good relationship.

This is my marriage in a nutshell...it explains so much!! I found it while looking up some of the abuse cycle info suggested by other posters..thank you

It looks like this... Your partner treats you and perhaps your children different in private than in public. In public he may ignore you giving all of his attention to others, or pretend to be the perfect husband or father, while in private he may be sarcastic, haughty and insulting. He may put down his friends to you (behind their back). He may have a very inflated sense of entitlement and ego, thinking he deserves things that he hasn�t worked for or earned and he may lie and manipulate people for attention, acting a bit too good to be true. This can fool people and so few will believe how he talks to his family in private (I say �he�, because the majority of NPD sufferers are men). He may also show little or no regard for your well being or your feelings.

He may lie about you or paint a bad picture of you to gain sympathy from others and to justify his own bad behaviour. You may not know all of the lies he is telling you and telling others about you...

The recommendations I have to offer are relevant whether you know that your partner has NPD or not. They are steps for anyone living with marital abuse. They are aimed at protecting you while giving your marriage the best chance of healing. They are steps recommended by people who work in the front line with these issues everyday.

Not all people with NPD are physically abusive, but it is a significant indicator. The physical abuse is not always perpetrated by the person with NPD either. It is normal to become very angry with someone who manipulates you and puts you down. It is normal after years of this treatment to even want to kill them or wish them dead. This is one reason why knowing how to get help and support is so important.

I have been with my boyfriend for over 10 years now - 5 really serious, living together. Even though most of the time I am miserable, most of the time, I just keep on staying because "I love him" and he will "grow up" in time.

He does not want to get married right now, even though "one day" I am who he plans to marry... he stays out with the guys all the time (6 days out of 7), not coming home lots of nights because he had too much to drink or he just lost track of time and then fell asleep (and yes, I believe him as to the whys)....

But I am tired of being alone all the time... I am tired of being responsible for holding the relationship together. When I tell him it has to stop and he has to pay more attention to the relationship if he wants it to work, he always responds he is working on it but that it takes a while to change habits.

My problem is a couple of years ago I met a very nice man who could take care of me easily... and has offered to do so many times. He is now ready for a relationship and not just a friendship with me (which is all it has been). I know that I don't love him, don't know if I ever will love him, but I also know that right now, love is not doing too much for me except causing heartache and tears on a daily basis...

I agree with the OP concerning professionalism. I believe it comes from anything that jobs that (primarily) women perform having the perception of not being serious work. If she is working at home, that perception is doubled. I also agree with having a schedule and sticking to it; plus if you have help to do your primary work, do it and don't feel guilty. Generally doing many things at once means you cannot do anything well in my opinion. But I do have to admit what works for one person doesn't work for others.

We know we have historically multi-tasked. I remember my daddy telling about my grandmother helping my grandfather with plowing at times, guiding the mule's head and leaving her baby under a shade tree, with a brick holding down the child's gown and the family dog keeping watch. She wasn't thought of as neglectful--just doing what had to be done. Unfortunately, women have to work harder and be smarter than men to be competitive and we just have to know in our hearts we contribute significantly to society. What's that old joke--luckily that's not too hard!

If things were so good with the OP with her current marriage, do ya think she'd be online reconnecting with anybody?!?!?!?!

So many women appear desperate to me in their 50s...and I don't know why because I'm in my late 50s and am never desperate sounding, appearing, etc......I just don't get it. And no, I have chosen not to be married any longer for the past 16 years......

you know that old sayin? want a man in my life, not in my house full time?!?!??!!

It's a beautiful day today, and a co-worker was saying she'd love to go home and take her dog for a walk. But her husband is home sick and he won't let her go without him.

She does stuff like that all the time. I think the only place she's allowed to go by herself is work. She can't go to the grocery or get gas or to the drugstore without him. She has no friends other than their joint friends.

Drives me nuts. What kind of a life is that? I guess it's OK for her, but I would hate to always have to be chaperoned by my husband.

Women will never run Africa (who is Oprah kidding?!) as long as Arab terrorists known as Janjaweed are still controlling at least 80% of Africa.........

Women running Africa - Don't I wish!!! But it's more backwards there than here - and we know how most feel about having a woman run THIS country.............

and for Africa it certainly isn't going to happen in our time or Oprah's time either........unfortunately.

We started to "bud" in our blouses at 9 or 10 years old only to find that anything that came in contact with those tender, blooming buds hurt so bad it brought us to tears. So came the ridiculously uncomfortable training bra contraption that the boys in school would snap until we had calluses on our backs.
Next, we get our periods in our early to mid-teens (or sooner). Along with those budding boobs, we bloated, we cramped, we got the hormone crankies, had to wear little mattresses between our legs or insert tubular, packed cotton rods in places we didn't even know we had.
Our next little rite of passage was having sex for the first time which was about as much fun as having a ramrod push your uterus through your nostrils (IF he did it right and didn't end up with his little cart before his horse), leaving us to wonder what all the fuss was about.
Then it was off to Motherhood where we learned to live on dry crackers and water for a few months so we didn't spend the entire day leaning over Brother John . Of course, amazing creatures that we are (and we are), we learned to live with the growing little angels inside us steadily kicking our innards night and day making us wonder if we were preparing to have Rosemary's Baby.
Our once flat bellies looked like we swallowed a whole watermelon and we pee'd our pants every time we sneezed. When the big moment arrived, the dam in our blessed Nether Regions invariably burst right in the middle of the mall and we had to waddle, with our big cartoon feet, moaning in pain all the way to the ER.
Then it was huff and puff and beg to die while theOB says, "Please stop screaming, Mrs. Hearmeroar . Calm down and push. "Just one more good push" (more like 10), warranting a strong, well-deserved impulse to punch the %$#*@*#!* hubby and doctor square in the nose for making us cram a wiggling, mushroom-headed 10 pound bowling ball through a keyhole.
After that, it was time to raise those angels only to find that when all that "cute" wears off, the beautiful little darlings morphed into walking, jabbering, wet, gooey, snot-blowing, life-sucking little poop machines.
Then come their "Teen Years." Need I say more?
When the kids are almost grown, we women hit our voracious sexual prime in our early 40's - while hubby had his somewhere around his 18th birthday.
So we progress into the grand finale: "The Menopause," the Grandmother of all womanhood. It's either take HRT and chance cancer in those now seasoned "buds" or the aforementioned Nether Regions, or, sweat like a hog in July, wash your sheets and pillowcases daily and bite the head off anything that moves.
Now, you ask WHY women seem to be more spiteful than men, when men get off so easy, INCLUDING the icing on life's cake: Being able to pee in the woods without soaking their socks...

I think this pretty much covers the issue.
So, while I love being a woman, "Womanhood" would make the Great Gandhi a tad crabby. You think women are the "weaker sex?" Yeah right. Bite me.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scientists think they have figured out why pregnant women don't lose their balance and topple over despite ever-growing weight up front.

Slight differences in the spine allow women to carry the growing load of pregnancy without toppling over.

Evolution provided slight differences from men in women's lower backs and hip joints, allowing them to adjust their center of gravity, new research shows.

This elegant engineering is seen only in female humans and our immediate ancestors who walked on two feet, but not in chimps and apes, according to a study published in Thursday's journal Nature.

"That's a big load that's pulling you forward," said Liza Shapiro, an anthropology professor at the University of Texas and the only one of the study's three authors who has actually been pregnant. "You experience discomfort. Maybe it would be a lot worse if (the design changes) were not there."

Harvard anthropology researcher Katherine Whitcomb found two physical differences in male and female backs that until now had gone unnoticed: One lower lumbar vertebra is wedged-shaped in women and more square in men; and a key hip joint is 14 percent larger in women than men when body size is taken into account.

The researchers did engineering tests that show how those slight changes allow women to carry the additional and growing load without toppling over -- and typically without disabling back pain.

"When you think about it, women make it look so very easy," Whitcomb said. "They are experiencing a pretty impressive challenge. Evolution has tinkered ... to the point where they can deal with the challenge.
"It's absolutely beautiful," she said. "A little bit of tinkering can have a profound effect."

Walking on two feet separates humans from most other animals. And while anthropologists still debate the evolutionary benefit of walking on two feet, there are notable costs, such as pain for pregnant females. Animals on all fours can better handle the extra belly weight.

The back changes appear to have evolved to overcome the cost of walking on two feet, said Harvard anthropology professor Daniel Lieberman.

When the researchers looked back at fossil records of human ancestors, including the oldest spines that go back 2 million years to our predecessor, Australopithecus, they found a male without the lower-back changes and a female with them.

But what about men with stomachs the size of babies or bigger? What keeps them from toppling over?

Their back muscles are used to compensate, but that probably means more back pain, theorized Shapiro, who added: "It would be a fun study to do to look at men with beer bellies to see if they shift their loads."

Please quit dressing like a teenager if you aren't in shape. You now have muffin top and flabby arms.