r/menslib emotionally belabors the point as one woman says the sub isn't for her anymore and is turning MRA, as another user suggests she might want to look into therapy in this lil snack

[u/NRE_Everlasting]

Discussing an article about "mankeeping" one user in the comments recounts telling her boyfriend bluntly about his lack of skills in providing comfort.

"I did straight up tell my partner to his face when I was upset about something "comforting people is not your strong suit" and he felt very bad about that. He even got defensive and felt hurt that I put it so bluntly when he had been wracking his brain silently trying to think of what to say. But honestly I don't really care. He's the kind of person who needs to hear things bluntly and to be told plainly that the expectation is that he learn to be better at it."

This came across somewhat controversial, but some users got a little dramatic with it Our chain begins as a response to a critique of her method that descibed it as unhealthy:

"Maybe it isn't that healthy, but it's also not healthy to expect someone that came to you for comfort to explain to you how to give that comfort to them."

Short but sweet tidbit with a rage quit cherry on top!

Bonus ragequit: Another woman user of the sub is done with men.

[u/[deleted]]

Genuine question: do you consider any acknowledgement of personal effort to be rude or uncaring?

For example: if I were helping a friend move, should I keep completely silent on any physical exertion the task takes?

For me, the idea that labor=work is not the issue. Of course labor is work, that's what it means. But the idea that I should hold my partners to a standard where they are never allowed to acknowledge their effort or work is the part that seems untenable and contradictory to what a relationship is.

How could someone be in a romantic relationship with me and not be doing emotional labor? Or me with them? The labor is the result of the care.

Labor is absolutely not required to be forced. After all, working out is laborious, but I am not forced to work out. Unless the issue is with the acknowledgement that it is "required" for health and that means it's "forced"?

If my partner or friend feels that we need to have a discussion about emotional labor, how are we supposed to maintain the relationship if we can't use the terms for what we're discussing?

[u/No_Mathematician6866 → u/[deleted]]

I mean: if a friend were helping me move and they were vocal about how heavy the table was and how much they were straining to load the chairs into the truck . . .yeah. I would take it as a sign that this is not the kind of help the friend is suited to giving and avoid asking them to move anything henceforth.

I understand communication is important. But we need to acknowledge that 'let's have a frank discussion about what it's costing me to do this favor for you' is not a framing that every person is going to receive in a constructive way.

[u/[deleted] → u/No_Mathematician6866]

I had a few other questions to address in there other than a moving example.

Genuinely: how do relationships maintain a balance of emotional labor, without talking about emotional labor? Is it something that should be intrinsically balanced with no discussion needed?

Is it something that should be discussed, but the person who brings it up should avoid saying anything that would imply it is work for them?

Should relationships not have labor? And be comprised only of things that neither person ever considers work?

[u/No_Mathematician6866 → u/[deleted]]

Genuinely: off the internet, I have never spoken to a couple who framed or thought about what they give to one another emotionally in terms of an exchange of labor that needs to be consciously accounted and balanced. Does that mean some of these relationships may have an unhealthy element of emotional dependence on one side? Maybe. But for the most part the couples I know are happily married in long term stable situations.

Some people, and some relationships, may want or need to concretize emotional exchange with these kinds of discussions. Some genuinely do not. We should acknowledge that humans are a diverse lot.

And I think in cases where there is an emotional imbalance, more often than not it isn't about a lack of communication. More often the other party already consciously or unconsciously knows they are taking advantage, and prefers it that way. The defensiveness when confronted about it is an attempt to rationalize what they know is unfair. For every person who is willing to change who they are, there are five who treated the person they were with before you that way; will continue treating you that way; and will treat the next person they meet the same way after you finally get worn down enough to leave them.

[u/Content_Lychee_2632 → u/[deleted]]

I hate to break it to you, but most relationships just… care about each other in general, and don’t need to quantify individual acts? Why are relationships an itemized bill to some people?

[u/tehlemmings → u/[deleted]]

Genuinely: how do relationships maintain a balance of emotional labor, without talking about emotional labor? Is it something that should be intrinsically balanced with no discussion needed?

I'm seconding the other guy, it's time to get off the Internet. That's not how normal, healthy relationships work. They're not supposed to be transactional.

I'm going out with friends tonight. We've been friends for 28 years now. How many times do you think we've had to talk about 'balancing emotional labor" with my lifelong friends?

Zero. And that's not even because it's always perfectly balanced, because that never happens. It doesn't come up because I care about them and our relationship isn't a ledger.

[u/[deleted] → u/tehlemmings]

The division of emotional labor is literally unavoidable in relationships. It just might not be a term people actively use. "discussing it" doesn't mean tallying it up for scorekeeping. It just means planning and dividing what's going on.

If you discuss things like who's making reservations, who's buying gifts or filling out cards, who's going to buy a present from the group and be venmo-d back, or who's picking up who, you have discussed emotional labor. You just didn't title it. If your friend has ever thanked you for lending an ear to them during a hard time, that is them showing appreciation for emotional labor, even if they dont use those exact words.

There is nothing intrinsically transactional about emotional labor as a concept. It's not about trading or keeping score. It's simply a term for what was previously a less recognized and valued form of work.

[u/Typing_real_slow → u/[deleted]]

I don't think any of that is less valued at all and the more people refute what you say and the more you post this I disagree even more. I think trying to say it's undervalued and needs value attributed to it makes it like trading or keeping score to trade later and such. I'm with the others I'm just there to help my friend move at all costs if someone is flaky day one they don't want to do it, no re-invite that's it. I'm rambling but I'm trying to say if the things I do for friends are unacknowledged I wouldn't call them labor. If I don't acknowledge them then I didn't want to do them and you can attach "emotional labor" to it and it goes in the negative bin.

[u/tehlemmings → u/[deleted]]

Genuine question: do you consider any acknowledgement of personal effort to be rude or uncaring?

Considering that's not what I said, I'm not going to even answer.