How a Man Ages a Woman

“I feel like I was duped,” a close friend confided recently. “Everything I was told about marriage was wrong: You don’t stay in love; you stop giving each other the benefit of the doubt; and there is no wine and candles on ‘mikvah night.’” She paused and added, “Look at me. I’m still young, but being married made me old.” 

In the weeks that passed, I looked — really looked at couples around me, whether young mothers changing diapers while their husbands scrolled Instagram or older women who seemed to have dragged their uncommunicative husbands to dinner at a kabob joint, just to get out of the house for an hour. I didn’t know about their lives. The only thing I know to be sure is that if you look and listen very closely, you begin to understand how a man can age a woman — physically and emotionally. 

These days, my social circles mostly consist of two types of women: those who have been married for many decades and would rather spend time with their dog than their husband, and those who have been married for less than a decade, have young children, and would rather spend time with their coffee than their husbands (and sometimes, their kids). Yes, men — even good men with good intentions — can slowly deplete women like no one else.

Please note that I am not a Licensed Marriage and Family therapist, but I’ve spent most of my life watching high-conflict marriages around me. The following was written with male-female marriages in mind, particularly those with young children. There are many ways that even a good man can age a woman:

He grows inured to her pain.

When my friend first hurt her back in an injury, her husband was incredibly sympathetic and attentive. But over the years, as she struggled with chronic pain and was seldom able to respond to a simple “How are you?” without referring to her back, he grew increasingly inured to her pain. It’s understandable, and it also happens with emotional pain.Another friend who’s struggled with depression since she was a young child found that her husband held loving space for her mental health struggles early in their marriage. But after a year or so, he, too, grew inured to her emotional pain, despite how hard she tried to “keep it together” for the sake of their shalom bayit (“peace in the home”). Like women, men are human. But it’s extremely painful for a woman to subdue her pain because she fears her husband has, sadly, grown desensitized to her suffering. 

He implies that she’s a bottomless pit of need without ever saying a word. 

Taking care of a home and children, especially while working, is indescribably taxing. But you know what’s worse? Living with a man who, even through a simple sigh, signals to a woman that she’s depleting him by asking for too much, too often. As one friend said, “If I could ask anyone else but my husband, I would. I wish I didn’t even have to ask him for help.”

When it comes to taking his family’s side, he’s on autopilot.

Couples get married to create a new “us.” For many women, especially new wives, there are fewer things more shocking than quickly learning that in your new marriage, that “us” is your husband and his family. And on the other side, there’s you. Just you and your Long Island Iced Tea. 

He helps around the house. 

Yes, you read that correctly. I love and appreciate men. But as a woman from a traditional Middle Eastern (Iranian) family, it’s taken me three decades to unlearn something: In America, we need to stop asking men to “help” out around the house.

Why do we expect men to “help” around the house, as though they’re an auxiliary or additional person in the home, rather than an actual occupant? A husband isn’t a metaphorical Airbnb guest who happens to live with us.

If you live alone, do you refer to washing dishes as “helping out”? Of course not. You’re washing dishes because you live there. So why do we expect men to “help” around the house, as though they’re an auxiliary or additional person in the home, rather than an actual occupant? A husband isn’t a metaphorical Airbnb guest who happens to live with us. If I rented out a room in my home to an
Airbnb customer and found him in my kitchen, sweeping the floor, I would be surprised and grateful. But when I find my husband sweeping the floor, I smile and resume cleaning the table. We’re both assuming responsibility for the space we occupy with two small children. 

Today, nearly all women work, and I harbor deep resentment for the childhood message I received from traditional family members: Don’t bother a man with housework requests because he works all day. It’s not only disturbing and cruel to women; it’s not even rooted in reality. Men work. Women work. Of course, there are some women, most of them mothers with very young children, who can stay home with their little ones while their husbands work. But guess what? What those women do is work. 

And if you spend 12 hours a day cleaning up after a child, you can’t be expected to spend the rest of your day cleaning up after a grown man. There are few things less sexy to a woman than incessantly picking up a man’s socks from the floor or putting away his cereal bowl in the sink after breakfast, and such small tasks weigh down a woman for one simple reason: Rather than feeling that she has a reliable partner with whom to tackle life, she’s constantly reminded that everything — even the socks — fall on her shoulders. 

The same reasoning applies to taking care of children. Just as a man isn’t “helping” with cleaning the home where he lives, a father isn’t “babysitting” when he spends time with his own children. In the past few years, I’ve heard a ubiquitous lamentation by many friends: Their husband defensively claims he’s watching the kids because he’s with them, but he’s glued to his phone. “I’m here,” one father kept repeating to his wife when she asked him to play with their toddler. He was there, but he was checking emails. His wife finally gave up, ended her Zoom work meeting early, and sat down to actively play with their child. 

I don’t know why so many men live — truly live — their home lives in such a half-mannered way (I had another hyphenated word in mind that begins with “half,” but I steer clear of expletives in the Journal). I can’t imagine a lovestruck father who holds his newborn infant in his arms, looks down at that perfect, cherubic face and thinks, “I will be part of your life from the comfort of the couch.” For a mother, not feeling that she can rely on her husband to fulfill at least some of her children’s needs is the most painful burden of all. It ages her physically, mentally and spiritually.

We marry so we can learn how to give. And in case you think I’m bashing husbands and fanning the flames of marital resentment, here’s a sneak peek of next week’s column: “How a Woman Tears Down a Man.”

Tabby Refael is a Los Angeles-based writer, speaker, and civic action activist. Follow her on Twitter @RefaelTabby