Long Relationships

Disclaimer: I admit this post is more geared to the heterosexual relationships. However, I do believe the principals can be applied to homosexual and even friendship and family relationships when looked at in different ways. I am in no way trying to disregard or ignore relationships outside of the heterosexual variety.

Hello relationship-ers. Welcome to today’s modern relationship.

There appears to be a bit of confusion in today’s relationships. Should the man wash the dishes? Should the woman fix the car?

Why, of course. You can do whatever you want to do. However, this can be used as a prime example of one of the things that goes wrong in today’s relationships and causes problems.

The cause of a lot of strife - perhaps not all, but a lot of it - is that society is changing in ways that doesn’t support the role based relationship of the past. No longer are we taught that women need help from men to reach things or open the pickle jar because you’ll have someone screaming ’sexist!’ at you. Heaven forbid you want to be a stay at home mother who likes to have her husband’s coffee ready for him when he gets home.

Our society is focusing more and more on the asexual being - men and women are completely equal. While that’s all fine and good, it fails to acknowledge that men and women simply aren’t the same. There are basic things - beyond penises and vaginas - that make men and women different. Granted, you have your tomboy woman and feminine guy, but you’ll generally have truths for the sexes.

No longer are we taught how to deal with the opposite sex, and that can cause problems. Why? Because society pushes for things, instincts push for others, and the environment you grew up in pushes even more.

It’s fine enough when you have a man who has been taught to respect women and a woman who has learned men should respect her meet up. But what happens when a man who has forever learned and heard about the independent woman meets a woman who wants to stay at home and be a mom? Yeah, some do still get married despite the differences.

Not only that, but you get couples who are confused about their roles with each other, with their children, and they worry about how they are viewed by society. (Or at least other people who scorn the stay at home mom or look strangely at the stay at home dad.) With all this confusion, it’s no wonder problems arise.

I’m not saying, “Whahoo! Let’s go back to the days of the past when ‘proper’ ladies wore skirts and all men were the breadwinners.” However, it is good to be aware that with the push toward politically correct, asexual, we’re all equal in all ways mentality, there is going to be confusion and there are going to be problems.