I always considered marriage the epitome of feeling connected: you share a life with a partner and maybe even have children. Society at least acts like it is.
I have a coworker in his 40s, conservative and Christian, married to a woman holding a job, he is also employed and has a good job, all things considered and they have a child.
I don’t see this person much but each time he sees me he approaches to basically complain and rant, mostly about democrats and foreigners, getting very emotional to the point of crying.
At first I hated him for spewing so much shit, but now I think I’m starting to pity him: he has a job, is married to a working woman, they have a child, they are homeowners… and he still feels angry and needs to rant to feel good. It’s like he’s angry at everything.
Which takes me to think, maybe there are things men need emotionally that women cannot provide, but I couldn’t write a list.
What are some of these connections men need out of a marriage?
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Brah. braaaahhh
Idk what else to say. Just, braaahhhh
Your coworker is a twat.
Ignoring his political alignment, anybody who comes to work and vent about their home life just sucks in general. Doesn’t matter what walk of life they come from.
Fucking energy vampire.
They’re not lonely, they’re just assholes.
Dude was probably raised on stupid conservative shit and never did the work to find happiness in himself.
You don’t need connections to be happy and the connections people are drawn to tend to amplify what they’re putting into the relationship. If this dude is miserable and looking to others to fix it they’re just going to dig their hole deeper.
I’d clarify that this is different from leaning on friends when you’re going through a hard time, if you establish a positive relationship you can lean on it for stability when your life is rough… and some folks culture positive relationships during hard times by compartmentalizing them into a positive part of their lives (an example I’ve seen was a friend who joined our board game group during a rough time but didn’t reveal their troubles until later - when all that shit was going down our space was where she came to just have a good time and be positive).
Life’s hard. People raised on the ideology of bootstraps and “Having a family will fix it” are playing on extra hard mode.
Anytime we talk about human behavior, it is a good idea to learn and use the lens of behavioral contextualism. If and only if the contextual behaviorist analysis concludes that human connections is the issue, Sue Johnson’s texts will be great to understand your coworker. Otherwise, the contextual behavioral analysis will let you know what’s going on.
Edit: Removed excess text
Are you Hoffman or Hayes?
Seriously though, your reading list is a bit one sided. I’m happy you found a hammer you like, but not every relationship is a nail.
Marriage is a legal and religious construct. It does not fix a lack of connection.
I met a former religious couple at my old job.
She and her husband are in their 40s and tried to invite us to an orgy. I did the polite thing and let them know maybe later.
She showed me photos of her dressed like an Amish person in her 30s. She shared that during that time, her kids and church kept her busy. She and her husband never felt aligned, but they feel a strong loneliness when they’re not together.
And when her kids went to college, she and her husband finally bonded and discovered they both love orgies. And it was only at that moment when, after like 20 years of marriage, did they actually connect as human beings.
Wild.
Aww, what a cute story. I’m happy for them
I think you are conflating the vision of success with happiness. These two things hold no relation.
He probably watches a lot of right wing/conservative media, and those shows generally aim to get people riled up to be against democrats and foreigners to an unreasonable extent. That and other personal issues messed up his brain. Like others have said, dude needs therapy.
The thing about marriage is that anybody can do it. You don’t have to love somebody to marry them. It isn’t special. There’s no test you have to take together or qualifications you have to meet.
So yeah - he’s angry, and lonely, and he’s also married, but none of those things are related to each other.
Sounds like he needs therapy, but in our society men aren’t encouraged to share emotions if it doesn’t perpetuate an image of strength. So he’s expressing his emotions in a “socially acceptable” way: anger. Which is probably what also got him into these backwards ideas about his political ideology as well.
Yes, my ex wife and I can attest to that. Your coworker seems like a dick and should talk to a therapist.
look, this person is probably an asshole regardless, but to answer you: Yes. Maybe more than if you are single. I stated dating a guy that was super rich and good-looking and he was super nice to me, It was like a real life fairy tale… until we got married and the routine started to show us how lonely we were with each other. We had nothing in comom, he was a bit dumb and shallow and the only subject he was interested was sports. I hate sports and like movies, shows and science. At the end he would say i was too nerd and I would say he was too dumb, but the reality is that he was very nice and so was I, we just were not ment for each other.
While I can’t attest to why your coworker is angry all the time, I can say that it is possible to feel lonely in a marriage. While you are connected in a functional marriage, your partner isn’t going to be and can’t possibly be the only source for your needs. You’re not going to have all the same interests as your partner and it’s good to have friends outside of the marriage to share those interests. Sometimes your partner will drive you crazy, so it helps to have friends that can help you with that. If you don’t have anyone to help with those needs it can get lonely quickly.
Marriage is a social construct not built upon love or companionship. It is just a social relation that is related to the two, with religious and legal backing to fortify it.
If you see marriage as a means to love and companionship, you are not gonna have a loving relationship. Love and companionship are completely viable (and I’d argue stronger) outside the strange little box that society tries to place it in
Fuck marriage.
I don’t think there is anything that a person of any gender can’t provide in a relationship. I do see that society shuns certain people from performing certain roles, but anyone can do any one of them.
If he is only ranting politics, he might not have anyone to talk politics with. Maybe he is the lone conservative, lapping up every scrap of talking points from Fox (or maybe Newsmax), but can’t spew them out around family who sees him as being crazy for watching Fox. If you aren’t pushing back, he probably sees you as safe, and if he is finding it hard for him to deal with political stressors, that’s probably why he is ranting and getting so emotional.
What are some of these connections men need out of a marriage?
Basically the same connections that women need out of a marriage. A peer group, a purpose, and friend groups to share interests with.
Unfortunately many, if not most, people simply don’t know how to go about it. They throw themselves into their work and whatever of their time is leftover gets dedicated to family. The interests and friends that they had prior to marriage and kids are left behind and those sacrifices leave them feeling alone and unfulfilled. They also don’t understand WHY they feel that way when to the best of their understanding they’re doing everything right!
Marriage isn’t, except in exceedingly rare instances, a “one stop shop” where your partner somehow magically fulfills your every need. That’s straight up Disney Movie bullshit.
People, regardless of gender identity, absolutely REQUIRE relationships outside of their marriage.
A peer group, a purpose, and friend groups to share interests with.
Unfortunately many, if not most, people simply don’t know how to go about it. They throw themselves into their work and whatever of their time is leftover gets dedicated to family. The interests and friends that they had prior to marriage and kids are left behind and those sacrifices leave them feeling alone and unfulfilled. They also don’t understand WHY they feel that way when to the best of their understanding they’re doing everything right!
I really feel this. I am especially struggling with making friends in a new place. I have hobbies, but they are solitary so they don’t help me with my loneliness. And it doesn’t help that work takes up more of my time than I wish it did.
It’s easy to feel lonely around your wife if you don’t think women are people. And if he’s a Republican in 2024, that’s probably how he thinks. Drink your respect women juice and you’ll find marriage much more enjoyable.
Exactly and OP is giving people like him a out by pitying him and using the phrase “there are things men need emotionally that women cannot provide”
why should one gender’s emotional needs be fulfilled by another? that’s misogynist by nature
OP’s coworker is an horrible person and deserves evactly what he’s getting and much worse
I think what OP should have said is that people have needs, and one single partner can’t provide all of those needs
It is a known personality issue.
It is called avoidant personality disorder (AVPD) or schizoid personality disorder (SPD). Both of these conditions can lead to feelings of loneliness due to inner walls and barriers that the person builds to protect themselves from perceived threats or emotional pain.
Here I thought it was normal to feel lonely. When that whole FOMO term use being thrown around a few years ago actually made me both aware how often I was feeling it more than others perhaps, but also that I wasn’t alone in feeling it all the time. Always kind of figured the fomo part was tied more to self centeredness or lack of self worth acknowlment or such on my end though. 34 years down, likely only 34 to go, I’ll figure myself out eventually, haha
Edit: Not married though, a couple occurrences of staying in relationships to long when I should have left though, fear of being more lonely.
