“The Better Half”: the effect of men’s dependence on their partners

Two terms have been added closely to the colloquial vocabulary. Manaeping It refers to the work of many women to meet the emotional needs of their male partner. The term was formulated by a researcher for male friendships who noticed that women are often the main source of sympathy and understanding, and Intimacy In a man’s life. Since many women have suffered from this burden themselves, they welcomed the term as a way to determine a group of daily personal tasks that are not previously recognized.

Emotional gold diggerThe term made a few years ago from Mankening, determines the behavior of a male partner constantly dependent on the emotional life of the female partner. It calms anxiety, strikes the ego, sympathizes with ascending and landing from tensions at the workplace. It may appear Dental And appreciation (“I do not know what I will do without you, or,” You are half better “) but do not appear similarly with similar emotional gifts. Emotional gold pits arise, and the burden resulting from female partners in mankeeping, in a context that many men did not have any other. Day after day, the case by the case, their problems do not seem to call to treat; They are simply the things of life. Moreover, treatment is expensive and risky (“Do they understand/are really on both sides/argument for confusion more than rest?”) Some men may link weakness.

The absence of friendships feeds dependence

Friendships provide emotional support for many women, but 20 % of men say they are communicating with friends when they want to think about a personal case. (1) Many commentators argue that men have never learned about the blessings of intimate relationship FriendshipBut a more impressive and complicated story appears from the research of the psychologist Nubaie, who follows the friendships of children from the middle of-childhood During adolescence. (2) I noticed very close and intimate friendships among children in childhood and early TeenagerThe friendships in which needs were recognized and very personal problems were exploited. However, this fell on the side of the road in late adolescence, where masculine standards were strictly applied. The need for others became linked to weakness, and the warm attachments of male friends raised questions about their males.

This social pressure to limit trustWhile the friendship and intimacy circle with friends shrinked, their skill for intimate discussion is necessary. However, a female partner can provide her problems in a nice house, which causes them to open up to the “best half” that he then enjoys the ability to form any personal map that suits her. Women may test their responses to a friend’s perspective (“Are I right to anger?”, “Do I have to say anything?” And, “What can I do this to improve?), But men are less likely to test and light their views outside their partner.

The dark side of the emotional strength

The term “half better” appeared in Latin poetry to refer to a very close friend, conveying the idea of ​​”a friend of the soul” or anyone who rushes to understand your thoughts, feelings and values. This was also its use, as it made his way to the English language, but the phrase was gradually restricted to the “husband” and today she always indicates the female wife. “The best half of my country” is what the emotional gold digger needs in a female partner, and when it succeeds in making it half the best, the keys to his personal world deliver it.

While most of the commentators on the emotional dependence of males focus on how these women are drained, my recent notes of dynamics across generations raised a completely different issue: how a few bad actors benefit from their role in stimulating them to form the rule of their partner to other people, including other family members.

In searching for my last book Grandfather (3) I noticed a disturbing pattern in which some women used their role as the “best half” to address relationships across generations. This style – common in the sense that you are known, though, though not in the sense that she is widespread – revolves around a woman from the sponge between her family and the husband’s parents, thus depriving one group of grandparents of engagement with their grandchildren. Women, as Kinkeeper – A person who supervises family gatherings and tracks wider family contacts – He is often assigned to preserve nearby bonds; But this role can be used, along with her role as a “half” partner, responsible for his internal emotional map, to control her story about who is “good”, who is outside, and who can communicate with the children of the spouses, and whether the ancestors have been excluded in the cold.

This force is behind the confusion and the deficit that some grandparents feel because their previously relaxed and comfortable relationship with their child is deteriorating “incomprehensible” (in their view) after he married their child. Gradually, their child’s voice is replaced in a cold and critical voice for their child. It was exhausted by emotional gold digging, the strong men’s bonds by broken by mankeeper.