“Be ready to be everything to him,” I said.
My coworker looked at me with wide eyes that seemed to encompass a new understanding. I couldn’t read the expression on the lower half of her face since she was wearing a mask, but she did say, after a pause, “That’s… interesting. I guess I never thought about that before.”
We had to get back to work so she said goodbye and left, but I was left struck at what had just come out of my mouth.
My coworker had stopped by for a quick chat at my office. She was a little peeved that her fiancé was going to spend yet another Friday night drinking beer and playing pool with his buddies. “At the end of the week, I want to come home and be with him,” she’d said.
“Oh, honey,” I responded. “Let him go. Do you know what it’s like to have a husband without friends?”
We got to talking about her upcoming wedding, and I just kept talking about how my husband had, throughout our marriage, expected me to be everything to him — secretary, lover, therapist, best friend, financial partner, etc., whereas to me, he was my husband and the father of my child.
“Be ready to be everything to him,” I said, then laughed nervously as her eyes got wide.
“Uh, marriage, one out of five stars, do not recommend,” I tried to joke to ease the tension of my overshare.
Even though it was awkward, I’m glad I had that conversation. No, I wasn’t trying to turn her off to the idea of getting married. However, there are a lot of things about heterosexual cisgendered marriage that women are never prepared for and deserve to be aware of. One aspect I’ve discovered is a dynamic common among many couples in which the wife fulfills a multitude of roles for the husband, while she has a network of people to rely on for various needs. Good thing, too, because being everything to someone is really, really exhausting.
I know this from experience
My husband’s family is gone. His father died in 2013. He’s been estranged from his mother and siblings for years. He has one niece that he gets along with, but she lives about an hour away and has no transportation for visits.
When I met my husband, he seemed to have friends, but I realized over time that these folks were more like coworkers or acquaintances. My husband wasn’t going to spend much time with them aside from the occasional backyard barbecue or board game night, and he certainly wasn’t looking to them for emotional support, to talk things through regarding our relationship, or just have, literally, a friendship. On the other hand, I have several women whom I go to for emotional support on a regular basis, some of whom I’ve known since high school, as well as a relationship with my mother.
Essentially, I’m my husband’s only real friend, the only person he would come to with a major problem, the only person he would talk with about the meaning of life, the only person he could conceive of opening up to. When I was younger, the prospect of being the only person a man could be his true self around seemed kind of romantic. Only Belle could see the humanity in the Beast and bring out the best in him. Only Bella (name coincidence or not?) could accept Edward for who he was and love him despite his monstrosity.
Well, here’s the straight poop, folks — being someone’s only friend in the world actually sucks
When I have an emotional need, whether it’s to vent or look for a solution or commiserate, the person I go to rotates between several supportive women in my life — my high school bestie, my close coworkers, or my mother. Often, I’m working through something that has to do with my husband — how we are connecting or not, what we’re fighting about and the like. Obviously I wouldn’t go to him for perspective because I’m talking about him. Also I can rotate through my friends based on what I think they’d be able to help me with best. For example, if it’s child related, I talk to my mom, but I don’t go to her for marriage advice. This prevents me from going to only one friend with my emotional needs and I “spread the wealth” instead.
My husband doesn’t have that. He has me. Which means that he doesn’t get to run problems or issues by other people before bringing them up to me. And every problem he wants to talk about has only one audience: me. This is one facet of what is now being termed as “emotional labor.” Being a good friend takes work, and that work is compounded when you are your husband’s only friend.
The stereotype is that the woman in the relationship is always putting the kibosh on their husband going out “with the boys.” I desperately wish that my husband would go out with friends once in a while so that I wouldn’t feel guilty about having girls’ nights. I mean, how the hell did this happen to my husband, and to so many other men? And what am I supposed to do now that I’m 9 years into my marriage with a child no less?
One of the best articles I’ve ever read about this ongoing issue was published in Harper's Bazaar, in 2019, by Melanie Hamlett. The subhead says it all: “Toxic masculinity — and the persistent idea that feelings are a ‘female thing’ — has left a generation of straight men stranded on an emotionally stunted island, unable to forge intimate relationships with other men. It's women who are paying the price.”
So now I have the words to describe the problem, but what am I supposed to do?
Continue to micromanage my husband’s life by setting him up with playdates? I mean, how do I undo so much brainwashing?
I can’t. I can tell him to go to therapy — which he does — and get us in couple’s therapy — which we are. I can continue to be as supportive as I can be. It helps me to think about it from his perspective. How isolating must it be to have only one friend? And I’m not sure I’m a particularly good one.
These are steps in the right direction. The next move is to try to raise a generation of boys who aren’t afraid of having real friendships and to actually access their emotions. I can’t wait to have a son so I can start from scratch. His future partner will thank me one day.
