survival skill

During a session with my therapist, he brought up the old belief that women are just better at communicating, noticing others and responding to emotions. I know he was not trying to say anything about men not being able to, just that they do not default to that setting.

A lot of men just do not have that skill set, but not all women have that skill set either. The women I know who have that skill set are women who have had some type of trauma in their past. A trauma could be anything in their life, but this skill set comes from having someone in their life who was not a dependable support for them. It could be they were not reliable to provide for them. It may also stem from some type of emotional abuse. They might also have just been in an unsafe situation.

All of these experiences will lead anyone to hone skills to watch others carefully and figure out what they need to do to stay safe. You avoid waking your drunken father. You try to do extra chores, so your mom will not tell you how useless you are compared to her as a child. You carefully maneuver around emotional landmines to not set off your partner because you never know which one is active at any given time.

Women just happen to be in a position of power disparities more than men. In American society, men are expected to be the breadwinner. While women are expected to take care of the children, do the housework, keep a household running, volunteer at school, and sometimes they have to go out and have a job on top of everything else.

I am by no means blaming men for these conditions that women endure. A lot of women are the reason that women feel so scrutinized. You have heard all sorts of mother-in-law stories, but there are also female co-workers, mothers of your kids’ friends, and your next door neighbor lady. The world is full of women who judge other women, put down other women and hold women to higher standards than that of men. An easy example of this, my own mother expected me to clean the house, do the family laundry and help my brother clean his room. He was never expected to do any of those tasks even at my age or older. I got in trouble for not doing these tasks or not doing them to the level my mother expected. My brother had no such expectations hanging over his head.

Women are easily targeted in our world. We are not just naturally good at emotions, reading people or knowing what needs to be done around us. Women have to identify the triggers in the people around them to make sure they do not set them off. Women are taught they must regulate others’ feelings for them in order to feel safe. They are taught to remain vigilant and keep one step ahead or else they will suffer the consequences.

This is the classic sign of childhood abuse. You learn how to act in order to not be cut off from the things you need: food, shelter, support. Pain is used to condition you to behave better. We know conditioning works. If your wife is not like this, then lucky you. She has not had to learn to be this way to prevent trauma. If you are a man and have these skills, I am very sorry for what you have been through. If your kids act like this, have a hard look in the mirror and think about what you have done to cause this.