Ask men why they do things the way they do and maybe you'll get an honest answer

[Otterly]

To her, it may feel like every week, there is something a thousand times more urgent and important than spending time with her husband. Not even talking sex here, just plain having time as a couple.

Then the answer is that he needs to do some of those things so they get time together? Share the load? Schedule time? Not romantic at all but whatever works. It really is hard to spend time together when you’ve got work that works you to death and children and ageing parents. I do t even do ‘non essential’ stuff like church or neighbourhood. No time. Everything I do is A1 needed. And it’s so much. I’m so tired.

The kids NEEDED to be taken somewhere. The church group NEEEDED her. Her brother NEEDED her. Her job NEEDED her. Her friend NEEDED her. The neighborhood association NEEDED her. The dining room floor NEEDED her.

Yeah, please have a think about what you just wrote here. About how many directions women (and working parents generally, all this applies to men working and parenting as well.) are pulled in. About the constant, exhausting demands on their time. I have days that basically start at 5am, when children and animals get up and begin demands for food. I run them all to school, or I begin work at 7 something. School run again. Shit the cat just got sick, I have to take him to the vet, that is urgent it can’t wait. The car needs repairs, that can’t wait. One of our elderly parents needs driving to the hospital, that can’t wait. I need to do a million things. None of those are things that can be ignored or postponed and nobody else will do them. She falls I to bed at 10pm and is EXHAUSTED. How are we going to afford that vet bill and the car repair in a month. Is your mother ok, the doctors seemed concerned. I need to get up early to make sure the kids have gym kits and packed lunches for the school trip tomorrow… and more and more and more.
And back to doing the dishes, if she comes home and all the dishes are there and husband hasn’t done them and has played video games, her response is not ‘hey baby let’s fuck’ it’s ’fucks sake another fucking thing to do.’ That is how doing the dishes gets you laid. ‘I did the dishes darling, you’ve had a bad day, come here, let’s have a cuddle’ NOT going after her like a Randy jack russel, when she’s on her last bit of tether with exhaustion. just the minimum amount of wooing. Wry few women are instantly in the mood when they’re tired and stressed, they need a bit of decompression time.

why the fuck would a vacuum cleaner have a wifi feature

goodness knows but a man who will listen to me rant about how fucking retarded it is is a good ‘un. Last time the dryer broke it was almost impossible to find one without WiFi. I don’t see why any household appliance needs WiFi . Especially not a dryer which has DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED written all over it.

 

[The Ugly One]

Then the answer is that he needs to do some of those things so they get time together?

Do you believe women have any responsibilities toward the relationship at all? Like even one. Because I so far have been unable to construct a single example where you looked at it and said something other than, "Then the man should..."

If you do, lay one on me. Give an example of some reason the couple is spending little to no time together where the solution is, "Then the woman should..."

Yeah, please have a think about what you just wrote here. About how many directions women (and working parents generally, all this applies to men working and parenting as well.) are pulled in.

Yep. We're all pulled in a lot of directions. Now, name one person pulling you in a direction who is less important than your husband. Because when there is a conflict, we always resolve it in favor of the thing that is most important to us. For many women:

Brother needs you, husband needs you -> Brother wins
Church needs you, husband needs you -> Church wins
Mother needs you, husband needs you -> Mother wins
Work needs you, husband needs you -> Work wins
Friend needs you, husband needs you -> Friend wins
Kids need you, husband needs you -> Kids win
Kitchen floor needs you, husband needs you -> Floor wins

Husband never wins.

Husband figures out he is the wife's absolute, lowest, bottom-tier priority. Over the years he tallies all the times he's taken off work, rescheduled meetings, told his mom "I'll call you tomorrow," canceled game nights, or even sacrificed career opportunities to spend more time with his wife.

He can't even beat out the fucking floor. Can't put off the deep clean until next week, or find a way to do it during the week, see, there's all this other super important shit that needs to be done, and none of that can be rescheduled, either. None of it seems, to the man, to be as important as that meeting with a Fortune 500 client over a multi-million dollar contract that he rescheduled because they were trying to get pregnant. When she needed him, he put her before a $50m contract.

Over the past five years, he's batting .000. He doesn't expect to bat .999 or even .600. .000 seems pretty low, though. The trip to the plant nursery with the older lady from church couldn't be rescheduled? We couldn't have just let the dishes be dirty until tomorrow? Ah, no, of course not. He's asked before. The answer's always the same. "You don't understand. I can't. It's too important. I can't just cancel that really important thing to go to the theater. Going to the theater with you isn't important." He actually quit asking years ago.

Then one day, a younger woman at work decides, "This guy is important to me." Well, gee, he likes feeling important.

And back to doing the dishes, if she comes home and all the dishes are there and husband hasn’t done them and has played video games, her response is not ‘hey baby let’s fuck’ it’s ’fucks sake another fucking thing to do.’ That is how doing the dishes gets you laid. ‘I did the dishes darling, you’ve had a bad day, come here, let’s have a cuddle’

Yes, the wife assured him that's how it works. So for a month, he did more for the chores than usual. Did the dishes, laundry, whatever. He observed he had sex exactly zero more times than last month. Taking a load of chores off his wife's plate just meant she had time to attend to one of the thousands of things that are more important than him.

He starts staying late after work.

 

[thyme]

So if a man says he's too tired to fuck, he's lying?
Why would a man keep a woman around if he doesnt want to have sex with her? (excl. sugar mamas or people with children, I suppose)

 

[Not 6 Foot]

Yep. We're all pulled in a lot of directions. Now, name one person pulling you in a direction who is less important than your husband. Because when there is a conflict, we always resolve it in favor of the thing that is most important to us. For many women:

Brother needs you, husband needs you -> Brother wins
Church needs you, husband needs you -> Church wins
Mother needs you, husband needs you -> Mother wins
Work needs you, husband needs you -> Work wins
Friend needs you, husband needs you -> Friend wins
Kids need you, husband needs you -> Kids win
Kitchen floor needs you, husband needs you -> Floor wins

Husband never wins.

Then leave the relationship. You're intent on proving a specific type of situation but you're failing to realize that everything that leads up to that situation matters, too. You think all of those months where both partners were exhausted and simply got used to just falling asleep on the couch watching whatever show didn't create the expectation that sex isn't as important as it used to be, or something?

 

[Smashed & Slamed]

Over the past five years, he's batting .000. He doesn't expect to bat .999 or even .600. .000 seems pretty low, though. The trip to the plant nursery with the older lady from church couldn't be rescheduled? We couldn't have just let the dishes be dirty until tomorrow? Ah, no, of course not. He's asked before. The answer's always the same. "You don't understand. I can't. It's too important. I can't just cancel that really important thing to go to the theater. Going to the theater with you isn't important." He actually quit asking years ago.

Now this may come out of left field. But has this man ever told his wife instead of asking her? What he can't make demands in his own marriage? He has to petition for everything? Never once uttered the phrase "We're doing this" or "Do this for me". Honestly the kind of guy you're describing sounds pathetic. Like a self made whelp not even a whipped one. If you can't just do things inside of your own marriage you have bigger problems than lack of pussy, it's called lack of spine. Maybe stop treating your wife like a benevolent being from an ethereal plane that you petition and like a woman that you can just do stuff with or to.

Brother needs you, husband needs you -> Brother wins
Church needs you, husband needs you -> Church wins
Mother needs you, husband needs you -> Mother wins
Work needs you, husband needs you -> Work wins
Friend needs you, husband needs you -> Friend wins
Kids need you, husband needs you -> Kids win
Kitchen floor needs you, husband needs you -> Floor wins

Husband never wins.

How does a man that pathetic not get cheated on first way before he cheats on her?

 

[DeeDee Megadoodoo]

Being the receiving part in all things is absurdly empowering. A movie critic, unable to make a movie of his own, can ruin yours. A bad professor can flunk you if they so desire. A bad boss can tell you to do a thing and then fault you regardless of how you do it. Women can lay there, starfishing in bed; if you nut too quickly, she's "just that good". If you don't nut, you're broken. If you pull out and go "you're no better than a corpse", you're also on the losing end. Didn't hit on the woman? Your loss. Didn't try hard enough after messaging her 5 times over 3 weeks? You aren't man enough. Absolutely dogshit one-sided conversation where she offers nothing? Yeah well she's being that way cause YOU suck at conversing!

This reminds me of a joke I heard at 16.

Q: How do you make a woman climax, every time?
A: WHO CARES

Caring about how long it takes to get off, or whether or not I met her needs...? I guess I'm just an asshole but I truly do not care. If she doesn't orgasm, I feel like that's kind of her responsibility. She can move her pelvis, too. And if she's a starfish, seriously, literally, go fuck yourself.

I've had women fake an orgasm of course. The majority have probably been fake, now that I think about it... but I just found it kind of sweet. "Aw, she thinks I care", I would think. They got waffles.

 

[Otterly]

Do you believe women have any responsibilities toward the relationship at all?

The responsibility is to meet in the middle. Your examples listed stuff like church and neighbourhood stuff. I’d say they are not essential at all and that if things are pressured those things get put on the back burner. Essential stuff is jobs, family safety and health, kids, anything that’s genuinely essential.
When you’ve got pressured jobs and kids and responsibilities it can be like you’re working shifts and passing like ships in the night. Sometimes that’s just how it is - a critically ill parent for example, that’s a limited time, you just gotta pull together and survive stuff.
Other stuff, the day to day, you’d sit down and work out who can take what so maybe you get an evening together, or arrange something where the kids are at friends for the day. Life’s busy, and it’s stressful for a lot of people. Being whined at for sex when your mother is dying in hospital is not something you’d forget quickly (this actually happened to someone I know) , so in that scenario no, sex isn’t important. If it’s mundane non important stuff, she’s avoiding, not just too busy. Then back to my original point - she doesn’t want to.

Taking a load of chores off his wife's plate just meant she had time to attend to one of the thousands of things that are more important than him.

Communication, always. ‘I did the dishes now put out’ is not how to do it.
‘The kids are away, sod the dishes, let’s have some fun’ might work though.
If things that ARENT important are being used as an excuse then the issue isn’t being busy, it’s not wanting to have sex with him, and as I said before, barring medical issues that’s because;
- she doesn’t enjoy it
- she doesn’t love him.
They are two different situations. Even the most frisky couples will go through periods of time where a succession of grim things happen, and they end up barely seeing each other while they fight the ship. That’s not the same as not wanting to. of your wife doesn’t want to have sex with you (the generic you, I do not mean you you) then something is very wrong, and the biggest of those is she doesn’t like doing it with you.
I don’t understand why it’s such a difficult idea to grasp that if the woman you’re married to doesn’t want to have sex with you, it’s because she doesn’t enjoy the sex. If you didn’t enjoy sex at all you wouldn’t want to do it either.

 

[Hotmilk]

So if a man says he's too tired to fuck, he's lying?
Why would a man keep a woman around if he doesnt want to have sex with her? (excl. sugar mamas or people with children, I suppose)

I think us men put too much pressure on ourselves because we think we need to be performing during sex and have an expectation it has to be x amount of time and be penetrative.

You can have 6 hour long fuck sessions where you rearange her guts and intertwine your souls but just kissing, cuddling, touching each other tenderly for like 30 minutes (because you have to attend x/y or because of her/you are tired/ill) that can be really soothing and lovely.

Sex can be enjoyable even if you're not in the perfect condition if the format can be adaptive.

 

[Hyper Vigilant Dumbass]

What magic words can I use on him to let me be the master of the thermostat?

Pretty please followed by a cute face usually works

 

[grimacefetishist]

This reminds me of a joke I heard at 16.

Q: How do you make a woman climax, every time?
A: WHO CARES

Caring about how long it takes to get off, or whether or not I met her needs...? I guess I'm just an asshole but I truly do not care. If she doesn't orgasm, I feel like that's kind of her responsibility. She can move her pelvis, too. And if she's a starfish, seriously, literally, go fuck yourself.

I've had women fake an orgasm of course. The majority have probably been fake, now that I think about it... but I just found it kind of sweet. "Aw, she thinks I care", I would think. They got waffles.

I feel like that's the worry of people woth the juvenile belief of "its not rape if she enjoyed it" which leads to "it is automatically rape if she did not enjoy it" which is not really the most effective belief to have.

It's not a crime to have off days sometimes. It's not ideal or romantic to envision having to roll away from eachother and rub one out, but sometimes one just has to accept that it's statistically more likely to be wrong than right, and being a couple means collaborating until you're both improving.

If you aren't collaborating, one or both of you are users who are abusing the concept of marriage.

If collaborating feels like you are losing, then get a divorce/declaration of nullity and a spine. And also maybe consider getting screened for autism.

 

[Agarathium1066]

If collaborating feels like you are losing, then get a divorce/declaration of nullity and a spine. And also maybe consider getting screened for autism.

You can also do your best to collaborate, to talk, and to try to carry more to help your spouse be happier. Then it doesn't work out and it just repeats after a short stint of 'changing' from them.

There's a lot of paths on this road and you can end up losing out even if you are doing the right thing.

 

[Paper Machete]

The issue some users seem to be stuck on is the concept of "checked out" partners. A lot of people get "checked out" and lie to their BF/husband (and perhaps themselves) that there is something that can be done to change things.

IME and opinion if you like a guy and are attracted to him there should be no issues with a sexless relationship. You don't stop that just because you're busy or stressed. You just aren't attracted to him anymore period. Us women are used to thinking of our sex lives as "more emotional" because we don't have the same drive as men but at the end of the day it's attraction that matters with sex. You can say, "I'm no longer attracted to him anymore because he [XYZ]," but being honest how many times have you been attracted to a guy that annoyed you or didn't make a good significant other? LMAO

Just like with a wife that gets fat, guys let themselves go sometimes too and getting validation from them is no longer novel and they stop being attractive to their wives.

 

[Squanto Airi]

You just aren't attracted to him anymore period.

Would there be ways to bring that attraction back, or is that just something that cannot get rekindled?

 

[DavidS877]

Husband figures out he is the wife's absolute, lowest, bottom-tier priority.

Because he'll always be there so he doesn't need to be a priority.

If you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go talk to my squirrels. At least they don't even pretend to care.

 

[Paper Machete]

Would there be ways to bring that attraction back, or is that just something that cannot get rekindled?

It depends on what the actual problem in the relationship is. There is a difference between dry spells and a genuinely sexless relationship too. Like for example when you're stressed and busy with a new baby. When it gets to the point that one or both don't want to pay attention to each other sexually and are generally just coasting on obligation very few people ever turn that around I think. Dry spells can be gotten over but genuine dead bedrooms tend to signal the relationship is over and it's just no one has called it yet.

Edit: sometimes it's also stuff that doesn't have to do with the relationship at all, like a depressive episode or a period of grief. Sometimes depressive episodes don't look very dramatic from the outside looking in and can be easy to not think are a big enough deal to do something about from the individual in question if they have a history of dealing with that.

 

[The Ugly One]

Would there be ways to bring that attraction back, or is that just something that cannot get rekindled?

Yeah, if a waitress flirts with you in front of her, if she sees you talking to younger, hotter women, if you serve her divorce papers, etc. From both firsthand experience and observation, when a woman fears you are going to leave her, you suddenly become 1000x more attractive.

So if a man says he's too tired to fuck, he's lying?

If man says he is too tired too fuck, he's hit a physical exhaustion limit, or she's being around her induces stress and/or disgust, or he's been jacking off a lot.

Your examples listed stuff like church and neighbourhood stuff. I’d say they are not essential at all

Because I have seen a woman get agitated to the point of tears at the thought of the [wholly imaginary] social opprobrium she would experience if she missed choir practice or some shit like that. Yeah, I get that you can't just leave the kids at school overnight. You can't just not go to work. You can't just miss your mother's funeral. On the other hand, men often end up packing up their lives and changing careers to move closer to the woman's parents. So we expect better than, "I would be mildly embarrassed if I missed my volunteer hours at the soup kitchen this weekend."

Communication, always. ‘I did the dishes now put out’ is not how to do it.

The man screwed up again! Darn it, can't he do anything right?
Man is getting nagged? He deserves it.
Man is getting screamed at? He deserves it.
Man is sexually frustrated? He deserves it.
Man is lonely? He deserves it.
Man is unloved? He deserves it.

Now, what's the woman supposed to do? Right, her role is to wait patiently until the man stops doing everything wrong. I have heard all the things you're saying my whole life, which boil down to "all relationship problems are the man's fault, and only the man's fault, because women are angels who have the weight of the world on them, and men need to do better." Too many counterexamples piled up over the years. Too man examples where the woman, not the man, was the change agent.he biggest one was a family friend, a well-off lawyer, who left his wife and two kids for bottle blonde. But the wife? She'd shorn off her not long after their first kid, wore it short like a boy. Ditched the skirts and heels for frumpy pants outfits. She'd gotten fat. She was and is a cold, sexless person.

The bottle blonde showed up and put out. I think she was a paralegal. Everyone was sure he'd eventually leave her. "Wait until she's the older woman." Nope. 30 years later, they're still married. The difference? She still wears skirts and heels. Still does her makeup. Still acts flirty and coy around him. Now you hear women sneering about how "she doesn't act her age," and "isn't she shameless." The women saying that stuff are mostly divorced. She, however, still has a rich husband who still smiles at her like few men smile at their wives.

I'm not saying he's a good man. Far from it. He cheated on his wife and abandoned his kids. One ended up a stripper. Nothing good about it. What I'm saying is, women have choices. Being fat is a choice. Cutting your hair short is a choice. Nagging is a choice. Scolding is a choice. Dressing ugly all the time is a choice. The woman who won out didn't make those choices. The problem with ascribing all agency to the man is he wasn't the variable here. He didn't go to the home-wrecker's house and wow her with his cleaning skills. He didn't change his personality for her. He didn't really do anything differently, as far as I can tell. The agent of change was the other woman, and she's kept him because she chose to keep doing things that his ex-wife, and many other women, choose not to do.

 

[Smashed & Slamed]

Too man examples where the woman, not the man, was the change agent.he biggest one was a family friend, a well-off lawyer, who left his wife and two kids for bottle blonde. But the wife? She'd shorn off her not long after their first kid, wore it short like a boy. Ditched the skirts and heels for frumpy pants outfits. She'd gotten fat. She was and is a cold, sexless person.

Accepting something is also utilizing your agency and doing it poorly. The woman changed her appearance without her husband's approval and he just let her. He never put his foot down, never left, never did anything to get even. How could his wife respect a man that let's himself get walked all over?

The bottle blonde showed up and put out. I think she was a paralegal. Everyone was sure he'd eventually leave her. "Wait until she's the older woman." Nope. 30 years later, they're still married. The difference? She still wears skirts and heels. Still does her makeup. Still acts flirty and coy around him. Now you hear women sneering about how "she doesn't act her age," and "isn't she shameless." The women saying that stuff are mostly divorced. She, however, still has a rich husband who still smiles at her like few men smile at their wives.

Do you have any idea the level of unicorn you're describing?
Only about 15% of affairs end up with it turning into a marriage and only 25% of those don't end up in divorce. That's a quarter of a sixth. And that quarter turning good and not just functional is probably another rarity. Plus how good was it of a marriage, did she give him kids? Is she carting him around now that he's at that old age where everything fails?

He didn't go to the home-wrecker's house and wow her with his cleaning skills. He didn't change his personality for her. He didn't really do anything differently, as far as I can tell.

>This one man didn't do anything
>He just stumbled into bed death
>He just stumbled into an affair
>That affair just so happened to turn into a marriage
>That marriage just so happened to be the 1 in 4 one that doesn't turn into a divorce
What is the moral of this story exactly? That you can just do nothing and everything will be okay? That men are powerless and their only hope is to find the one woman dumb enough to want them?
You're trying to make it about what women can or can't do to keep a man. But what I've read is that this man ain't worth keeping and that he literally dindu nuffing. And I can't empathize with an object, I don't even want to. Putting myself in his shoes is making me cringe.

 

[axm]

Do you have any idea the level of unicorn you're describing?
Only about 15% of affairs end up with it turning into a marriage and only 25% of those don't end up in divorce. That's a quarter of a sixth. And that quarter turning good and not just functional is probably another rarity. Plus how good was it of a marriage, did she give him kids? Is she carting him around now that he's at that old age where everything fails?

This leads me to believe there bottle wife story isn't exactly right. The lawyer is presented to be a helpless rock who just happened to stumble out of a shitty situation into an unbelievable one. He is, in fact, so helpless he cheated on his wife helplessly and helplessly found a hot chick who was alright with old age, his affair and 2 kids from a previous very helpless marriage.

I seriously don't understand because I have the exact same thoughts as you as in women need to continuously keep up their appearance to show their husbands they care to look good for them. The husband should feel just as appreciated as he was since day one. But this is said in such an unusual way it reads like a dream fantasy of my divorced uncle.

 

[Frag Tag Mini 3]

Accepting something is also utilizing your agency and doing it poorly. The woman changed her appearance without her husband's approval and he just let her. He never put his foot down, never left, never did anything to get even. How could his wife respect a man that let's himself get walked all over?

This is just utter insanity. It's just describing a dominance fight and not a relationship. Either the woman has agency and he needs to respect that or the man is in charge and the woman needs to learn to put time aside in her schedule for his needs. One or the other because doing both can not work. This is of course assuming there's been an attempt to communicate between the two the issues that they are having, which I assume happened.

 

[Paper Machete]

This is just utter insanity. It's just describing a dominance fight and not a relationship. Either the woman has agency and he needs to respect that or the man is in charge and the woman needs to learn to put time aside in her schedule for his needs. One or the other because doing both can not work. This is of course assuming there's been an attempt to communicate between the two the issues that they are having, which I assume happened.

One is presenting it as the man deciding everything and the other where the man decides nothing. Neither is completely true, relationships are about push and pull, compromise. Some relationships are more one than the other but there are none where it's either extreme. Those either don't last or are so miserable not even people outside the relationship can stand being around them anymore.