Every single heterosexual couple that has come into my office is frustrated by gender roles! Women are raised to make sure everyone is happy. Women are raised to be responsible for relationships and the inside of the house. Women are raised to be loving and good and empathetic and make appointments and dates and sign kids up for acitivities.
Men are raised to be stoic and keep their emotions in (the OPPOSITE of women). Men are raised to work hard and sacrifice time with family for the sake of money and be responsible for the outside of the house. (Please tell me where you disagree and add on roles I missed!)
Couples come to see me in varying degrees of hurt, anger, and resentment from these roles. While the hurt and resentment is palpable, what I also see is a woman and a man very successfully enacting the roles they were raised for. My point is this: this is not an individual’s or a relationship’s fault. It feels that way in a relationship and we want to blame and we feel shame, but I have never seen one partner intending to hurt the other through their so successfully enacted gender roles.
What we do in my office is outline the societal gender roles (family of origin often supports gender roles in a variety of ways or intentionally opposes them). Once we have made the roles explicit, we now have choice and can address what is and what is not working for a couple (many folks love some aspects of their gender roles!). Blame and shame are useless because we didn’t get here on our own, and they are harmful if we want to remain in partnership.
