'He only pays attention to the kids...I left so I could have a life...He can still see the kids once a month'
October 1st, 2008 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & FamiliesMichael, an Orange County, California reader, has been a hairdresser for 20 years and he says he's heard some incredible things from women in the hair salon where he works. He explains:
I have heard these same things said over and over for years from women of all walks of life yet I’ve never really heard these attitudes depicted in television, movies or any other venue. Most men would never be privy to such remarks.
It’s true what is said that people tell their hairdressers things they would never tell anyone else. I’ve heard the most incredible and bizarre tales but still have to keep a straight face. Many clients interpret the smiling nods as support and come out with the big secrets.
In this series--"Things a Hairdresser Hears"--Michael details some of the things he has heard and seen. This is of course a one-sided view, but it's an interesting one.
I suppose the other side--the "bad things men do" side--might be captured by a bartender or a barber. If one is reading this and would like to contribute, please email me at glenn@glennsacks.com.
Michael's first post was Hairdresser: 'The sheer volume of women who cheat was staggering...they're so good at getting away with it'
Michael's Things a Hairdresser Hears (Part II)
Having been a hairdresser for 20 years, I have heard some incredible things. I would be told things like:
"He doesn’t pay enough attention to me, so why shouldn’t I see someone else?”
“He doesn’t pay any attention to me, only to the kids. I had to leave him so I could have a life. He can still see the kids once a month. The kids don’t miss him that much.”
“She is only cheating because her husband obviously isn’t giving her what she needs.”
“They seem happy with my new boyfriend. I wouldn’t go out with him if the kids didn’t like him.”
“I always have my daughter check out my dates.”
“We can’t have any friends because he is such an embarrassment.”
Many times I would see husbands caught in the following double bind:
"I need someone more ambitious and makes more money" or, alternatively, "He is too serious and always at work, he is no fun."
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October 1st, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Classic double-bind equation. We've heard them before, we've brought them up before and been told it's not true, but they persist among what was once referred to as "the fairer sex".
Either inattentive(works too much) or lazy(spends too much time not at work), etc. No need to recount them all.
I learned over my life that you should never take a woman's words at a value greater than her actions, until her actions have reliably proven her words' value; not pursuing men romantically, I've typically been able to reliably and appropriately grant more men a benefit of the doubt.
Romance (be it sexual, chivalrous, or another form) dulls the senses and makes fools of us all, so if you wish to weigh properly, rely on empirical evidence without exception.
October 1st, 2008 at 12:28 pm
"'I need someone more ambitious and makes more money' or, alternatively, 'He is too serious and always at work, he is no fun.'"
This is why I say that any man who supports a stay at home wife in this day and age is making an incredibly foolish mistake. You will probably only support a parasite who never appreciates you or your efforts.
October 1st, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Dave:
"'I need someone more ambitious and makes more money' or, alternatively, 'He is too serious and always at work, he is no fun.'"
This is why I say that any man who supports a stay at home wife in this day and age is making an incredibly foolish mistake. You will probably only support a parasite who never appreciates you or your efforts.
....AND you may end up having to support her even after the marriage is over. Yes Yes I know she chose to be a stay at home wife but she got used to that standard of life therefore the exhusband owes her. His standard of life be damned though.
October 1st, 2008 at 1:33 pm
"Hairdresser: 'The sheer volume of women who cheat was staggering...they're so good at getting away with it'"
Like loyal dogs who want to be happy, many men want to believe their masters are good to them so they will get a pat on the head. What a shock it is for a lot of men to get the lethal injection of a false claim of domestic violence and/or be served with divorce papers.
October 1st, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Personally, I'm glad that the sentiments of these women are being exposed. They are no different from men who complain about their wives physical appearance, cheat on their wives, or leave her for someone else. Men and women do the same things to each other.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:10 pm
" This is why I say that any man who supports a stay at home wife in this day and age is making an incredibly foolish mistake. You will probably only support a parasite who never appreciates you or your efforts. "
" Personally, I'm glad that the sentiments of these women are being exposed. They are no different from men who complain about their wives physical appearance, cheat on their wives, or leave her for someone else. Men and women do the same things to each other. "
mortal weakness. the real issue: does the law treat the individuals, independent of gender, in the same manner. when there is abandonment or abuse does the law respond in the same manner. from my observation there are plenty of dogs of both genders.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Yeah, I agree with LorMarie.
There are innumerable, countless people in both genders trapped in unhappy relationships for one reason or another, and perhaps men and women handle it differently.
I mean, let's pick our spots. I think we can agree that when such unhappiness results in a divorce (primarily initiated by women) family law court is inherently, indisputably, and grossly biased against fathers for all sorts of bad reasons -- many dating back to pre-history -- and a lot of it stemming from the fact that unlike women, men have never been allowed to climb out of our constricting little gender box where we're supposed to be "the breadwinner" and not the nurturer.
But I can't buy the implication (and I am hoping no such implication was intended) that an entire gender is morally flawed because it is predisposed to connive, backstab, fail to appreciate and otherwise disrespect the other gender. I think members of BOTH genders are more than capable of treating other people, including their signficant others, badly. And many -- probably most -- members of both genders treat their significant others well.
I don't appreciate it when the radical feminist left foments prejudice against "men" in general by stereotyping us as abusers or rapists-in-waiting or porn addicts, and I don't think men should play that twisted little game, no matter how angry we might be at a particular woman or the unjust family law system.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Sad that none of these shock me. I've heard them in one form or another in the past.
But seriously - who wouldn't want to spend a lot of time with your kids?
October 1st, 2008 at 3:29 pm
"I think members of BOTH genders are more than capable of treating other people, including their signficant others, badly. And many -- probably most -- members of both genders treat their significant others well."
I agree absolutely. The problem is not women, who are of course no better or worse than we are, but a legal system and cultural mindset that holds men 100% responsible for our wrongdoing while women's wrongdoing is consistently explained and excused away as if they were small children and everyone finds this acceptable.
October 1st, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I believe I have mentioned that my older daughter (25) is a master designer at a metro salon where the least you will pay to get her to cut your hair is $100. That also requires that you wait until January 2009 to get an appointment with her.
I love to listen to her stories about all the rich psychotic women she meets in her profession.
She comments that 90% of the salon chat is about bashing men. And these are the pampered elite class of females, mostly married to doctors and lawyers and business entrepeneurs. Successful men who subsidize their wives' vanity addictions..
A lot of these women could easily qualify as "cougars..." aging predators looking for a thrill before their expiration date soon arrives.
In the matriarchal secrecy of the salon, women are very open about their promiscuity.
Mostly they gloat about how their husbands never suspect what is really going on.
And it is very clear that they do not in any way respect men. Especially the one they are married to.
Though they do like men's wallets.
Works out fine for my daughter. The clients take the money from their husbands, and give his cash to her.
Female vanity. That appears to be a recession-proof business.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Not privy Michael…? Methinks many of the non-custodial parents posting here are very well versed on this issue ...I know I am ... in my case I felt that even if I was ten times the parent that the Mom is; for a decent law-abiding good-guy Dad to be considered for custody he would have to prove repeated instances of abuse/neglect by the Mom. Which is rather difficult when the Mom can arbitrarily institute no contact despite Court ordered access.... not to mention make repeated false allegations on a whim... with no penalty whatsoever against Moms.
Dads that I know definitely do not do the same things to Moms - as Moms do to Dads ... not even close!
Dads go to Jail or prison based on perjured statements and
Moms laugh when caught with real provable evidence against them, secure in the absolute knowledge that there are no possibility of charges or frequently any police investigation …
also in contrast to Dads; the Mom (female) discount always applies without any accountability whatsoever - particularly with respect to crimes against children, ex-spouses or the public in general.
It then follows that these many children become ferus types that also subscribe to Mom’s “No rules or Laws apply to me mentality” … a major source of decreased in civility amongst youth. Next time a kid spits on you or your 88 year-old Mom while she walks down the street - thank a misandrist !
October 1st, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Moaning is a feminist's way of bonding. Something is always wrong and a man is usually to blame. They need to look in the mirror and hear their echo and not delude themselves with what they see and hear.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:59 pm
{She comments that 90% of the salon chat is about bashing men. And these are the pampered elite class of females, mostly married to doctors and lawyers and business entrepeneurs. Successful men who subsidize their wives' vanity addictions..}
But we're horrible people if we say anything negative at all about women, right? We all know how that works.
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:23 am
LorMarie said:
Personally, I'm glad that the sentiments of these women are being exposed. They are no different from men who complain about their wives physical appearance, cheat on their wives, or leave her for someone else. Men and women do the same things to each other.
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The difference is incentives, or risk vs. reward. there is a higher reward/risk ratio for women in the modern day under current laws compared to men.
In any dealings with others, so long as they can gain something by inconveniencing or harming you, you can never 100% trust them. It may sound like paranoia, but it's not pathological in origin, so much as a general evaluation of all eventualities. Alimony/child support/false DV reporting/adultery is incredibly similar to many other crimes, i.e. stealing car stereos: if you break somebody's window and pull out their radio, then you're ahead one radio. If somebody does that to you, then you're out both a radio and a car window.
In a fair divorce, you're out about 50% of the resources you formerly had access to. When compounding alimony and child support, it can bring the payor down to ~25-0% or less, while the receiving parent may be at about 60-85%. They don't need to care so much if you're down 75-100%, so long as they have 60-85%.
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:56 am
Rubic,
That is good math analysis about divorce.
But it is too bad that men do not realize that when they decide to marry, they are giving up more than just money when the eventual divorce occurs.
They gave up their dreams before they realized them.
(I think I have to credit the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer for that insight.)
It would be best if young men did not marry until they have established their careers and their lives.
Women don't need men anyway, now that women are liberated and educated and successful in their own quest to become wage slaves.
It's the babies and women's apparently innate desire to make them that makes this gender equality so complicated.
Just stop making them.
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:11 pm
“He doesn’t pay any attention to me, only to the kids. I had to leave him so I could have a life. He can still see the kids once a month. The kids don’t miss him that much.”
That one makes my jaw sag. She's leaving him because he's too close to the kids and she wants a life of her own. That life, presumably, is only going to be complicated by the presence of kids. Moreover, if he gives them all his attention, then the closeness is probably mutual. Naturally, the thing to do is take them away. "Don't miss him that much," my hiney.
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Gotta be a case of "damned if you do, damned if you dont"
Work alot? "ugh he never pays attention to me!"
Work part time? "ugh he's such a bum! i wish he'd get off his a$$ and work!
And of course the good ol "i'm having an affair because he doesn't satisfy my needs"
Thank god there aren't many women like that in my area. Ireland seems to have a good populace, of women AND men.
Maybe its the U.S.A that the problem is rooted in, i dunno.
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I served in the Navy for years. Ive also worked several construction type jobs and have been around men doing men things for most of my life. I have never heard men as a group say the horrible and selfish things that I have heard women say. In fact, as unseemly as it sounds, I have seen the most uncultured, unruly men treat even overseas prostitutes with the utmost dignity and respect. There is the occasional "pig" but its certainly not the standard and the "pig" is usually brought into line by any other men around.
One fellow I was in the Navy with had a wife who was left in a wheelchair after an accident. As a friend I asked him how he got along with the situation. He said "She says I can go out and fool around if I need to, she understands, but I love her, that is what I need."
Out of the hundreds if not thousands of men I have worked with and served with, the number of cheaters can be counted on one hand.
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:23 pm
“He doesn’t pay any attention to me, only to the kids. I had to leave him so I could have a life. He can still see the kids once a month. The kids don’t miss him that much.”
Mom doesn't miss him that much - the kids do miss the Dad that gave them so much attention. Some blatant projecting, mitigating the harm to the kids, punishing Dad, rationalizing, ignorance------oh lets just sum things up and call it a lie.
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Don't get me wrong, I'm not for anybody having these attitudes, but I've worked in a few circles of "men" that made me shudder to think they had kids.
I'm talking total, complete imbeciles without two brain cells to bang together, CONSTANTLY making vulgar sexual remarks and hardly EVER an intelligent utterance to make and the complete inability to respond to same.
Its on BOTH sides.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:56 am
"He doesn’t pay any attention to me, only to the kids."
So much for the myth of the self-sacrificing mother.
October 3rd, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I hate to bring up Seinfeld and video games to speak for an argument, but I have a quote from each of them that fits the point about secure rules about divorce making marriage more viable, or avoiding it until they're shored up.
(From Seinfeld): "Breaking up is the most important part [of a relationship]!"
(From Grandia, on the PS1): "A good adventurer knows how they're getting out before they go in."
November 6th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
roy has a point about the not having babies part but its a pretty apocolyptic solution. It doesn't sit well with me to put a future for my country up as a hostage to a bunch of malcontent women and men.
If you want to see the results of what roy is talking about take a look at the birth rates in Europe. Birthrates are at best sub-replacement and if the gloom and doomers are correct there won't be any Europeans, other than possibly Fundamentalist Muslims in a few hundred years
Thats not a future. Its suicide.
There are ways to balance the expectations in a relationship
While the gender wars are a raging, I'd say men are losing worse than women and no one is winning. We have to make it win/win somehow.
November 8th, 2008 at 7:24 am
Any man that gets married these days is nuts. Absolutely , certifiably nuts.