Welcome to domestic hell...

You don't have to be mad to live here, but it helps.

For many men, being in a relationship (with a woman – I had to quantify that) is akin to being locked in some Kafka-esque nightmare. A weird surreal landscape where they are lauded and reviled for their so-called "power" and at the same time told to shut up and do as they are told. You might be a big-shot at the office, but when you get home make sure you leave your balls at the front door.
It's a bit like the episode of "The Twilight Zone" where the man is presumed dead. He cannot move or speak, but he is very much alive. Locked inside his lifeless body he screams out to be heard. That is the way of it for men these days. Society has a clear, even strident, view of how men are and how they behave. It is reinforced in the unending stream of articles expounding our lack of commitment, our brutishness, lack of sensitivity, lack of caring. We are constantly lambasted for our inadequacy as fathers, yet eyebrows are raised at any man who spends too long in the company of children. We are the socially clueless idiots who have no idea of body language and very little social skills. The big, lumbering, sports-loving, beer-drinking dolts that knock over furniture in our haste to get to the TV (Hey Homer!). The untamed Yee-haa!s who are a danger to law, order and everything that is good in this world. We must be kept firmly under thumb before somebody gets hurt. Advertising has a field day sending us up – can't cook; can't speak; can't maintain an erection; hyuk,hyuk, has he learnt how to use his thumbs, yet?
And we say …nothing.
If you look into most households in this supposedly patriarchal society, you’ll see an interesting dynamic. While the workplace has changed dramatically over the years, most households haven’t.
Women complain that men don’t engage then shut them down when they try to.
Women are used to being the emotional drivers of the home and they don’t want that to change.
Women say they want men to be more emotional – but not too much – they don’t want men to show vulnerability. It frightens them. They want the reliable, stoic guy who’ll keep holding it together. Maybe it’s because when a guy shows emotions it’s usually when he’s hit crisis point.
Women want to pick and choose which features a man has – they want him to be a SWISH (sensitive when it suits her).
Women want men to do the housework – but only they way they want it done.
Women want to joins men’s clubs, but still have women-only areas for themselves.