Whether you’re waiting in line at the grocery store, chatting with the person next to you in yoga class, having a conversation with your hair dresser, or watching television, all around you, other women are criticizing their man or men in general. The message is clear; men are dumb, incompetent, simple minded, stupid, or worse.
While waiting in line at the grocery store last fall I heard a lady say to her friend “ just wait until you see our pumpkin this year, I let Mark carve it” and then the other lady responded “well you should see how Joey is dressed this morning, my husband dressed him.”
A part of me wanted to turn around and console these poor women that wound up with a man that couldn’t dress his son appropriately or one that couldn’t carve a pumpkin correctly. But of course I knew they were simply engaging in their favorite past time: Male Bashing.
Male bashing has become socially acceptable chit chat among women, it's a part of our culture, it's a woman's right and if men don’t like it they should just grow up and act like a “man”. Women engage in male bashing so frequently now they may not even consciously be aware of it.
GIRL TALK
Prior to finding the man of our dreams, my friends and I were all supportive of each other. We would talk for hours about the qualities and characteristics our “dream” man would have. He would be confident, strong, gentle, kind, and masculine.
He certainly wouldn't be the stereotype created in all the man bashing stories. The man we wanted and most women say they want is a man that will give them a special love; a man that will honor and cherish you and put you above every other person.
Women say they want to feel as if they are the most important person in the world to someone else. And as each of us married we were convinced we had found the perfect soul mate.
WHAT HAPPENED
Over time, as we pursued our careers and raised our families, we became careless. We forgot to cherish, protect and take care of what we had. We often behaved in ways, though perhaps unintentional, that caused us to lose and devalue what we said was so important to us.
GIRLS NIGHT OUT
Now, when girlfriends meet for a girl’s night out, within a few moments we catch up on all the things going on in our lives. (Or give each other some details that we didn't post on Facebook) And almost immediately one friend says… you wouldn't believe the stupid thing my husband did.
Within a couple of minutes everyone shares all the annoying things their husbands have done since they last met. Everyone suspects their friends are exaggerating, so your stories grow as well. The game is on and you find yourself in a competition as if there was a grand prize or award for putting up with the worst husband.
GIRL FRIENDS
Women have a need to connect with each other on an emotional level, to love, nurture, and share and help their women friends. Often in this group, one of the women does have a legitimate relationship problem and needs help.
So in an attempt to help, we exaggerate our own husband’s negative traits to make the other person feel better about their situation. This game often starts as a genuine caring for the other person. After all no one likes a bragger.
But over time it became a pattern, a way of interacting with each other. It is the socially acceptable and popular thing to do now. Everyone does it, so it must be okay.
HOW DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL?
When you see him after one of these sessions, how do you feel about him? Do you believe what you said about him is partly true so Is it ok? Do you tell yourself he probably does the same things when he is with his male friends so that makes it alright? Or do you feel guilty? or do you feel like a traitor?
DOES IT HURT ANYONE?
Do you ever wonder if this man/husband bashing thing you do is just an innocent game you engage in with your girlfriends…. or do you wonder if it harms your relationship?
And what about our sons and daughters, what do they hear? How do they act on their interpretation of what they hear? Does it influence their behavior? Does it cause your son to have positive feelings of self-worth? Does it influence the way your daughter feels about her father? What about her future relationships with men?
Statistics show more and more people are remaining single these days, does male bashing contribute to this phenomena?
DOES IT HURT YOU? DOES IT HURT HIM?
I believe after a while, whether consciously or unconsciously, we begin to look for and find all of the negative traits we attributed to him. And we begin to treat our man/husbands as if he did possess all of these negative characteristics and more that we just haven’t found yet.
After all we said it, and we tend to believe what we say is true. We heard all of our friend’s husbands are just as bad. We give a lot of emotional energy to the things we talk about and we act on what we say whether we are aware of it or not.
The things we talk about, we feel and think about, these thoughts and feelings are always a part of us, on our minds, hanging out in the background while we go about doing our daily jobs and tasks. If we give something a lot of emotional energy, when it is strong enough we find a way to cause it to come into being.
CHANGING THE GAME
Are you willing to change the game? Are you willing to lead and influence your friends to do the same? Take the challenge and start a new game, “Who has the best husband” and play it as earnestly as you did the old game, exaggerate about his good qualities as much as you did his
negative ones. Try to win that competition as if there was a grand prize or award for having the best husband in the world.
Notice how you feel about him after one of these sessions. See if you begin noticing more and more of the good and positive things he does. See if he doesn't notice the difference. See if this doesn't effect how he responds to you as well.
It doesn't take much to ruin a relationship. But here is a secret, It doesn't take much to turn a relationship around either if you really want to.
And when you have won, you really do get a prize worth having, you get: "THE BEST MAN/HUSBAND IN THE WORLD.
COMMIT TO HELPING EACH OTHER
Long ago my girlfriends and I committed to never playing the man/husband bashing game again. We discovered it was hurting our relationship, our family, our children and our future together.
Now when one of our friends has a legitimate relationship challenge, we help her find a real solution. We don't make it worse, by bashing her partner. Men bashing hurts everybody and solves nothing. Solutions to problems come from a totally different emotion than bashing.
I personally believe we need to feed the emotions we want to feel.
Whether I am solving a problem, relating to my children or spending time with my friends, I want to do things that will make my life better not worse.
Patsy Cohn
Need or want any help with this or some other challenge;