Yes

by Brigid Bishop

Created on: November 04, 2008

Modern day relationships are not only giving men excuses to escape from responsibilities, they are making them run from responsible relationships!

Not only has the last forty years of child rearing produced multi-generations of women who can "bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan", but they have also allowed men to feel that women should be "equal" partners in relationships. Nothing wrong with equality, but when the scales of relationships were set so off-kilter to begin with, society has thrown the scale to the extreme opposite.

True role reversals in modern relationships are a rarity.

Women of my generation and those in succeeding generations are and have been groomed for success in career and education first and foremost, this was not the norm historically, historically men received this grooming while young women were groomed to be nurturers and providers of safe havens and beautiful homes.

Now, we women want it all and we go after it all.

Our feminine energies have given way to strong and assertive masculine energies which serve us well in school and on the job but undermine our ability to allow men to feel an equal responsibility in the relationship arena.

Women are now expected to earn good incomes, own great cars and homes and toys and trinkets and still provide primary household maintenance and primary child care, while men are still groomed for the most part in the "same old way" but without benefit of developing their nurturing side to bring the relationship scales into balance.

Men want to be coddled and cared for by the modern woman just as they did fifty years ago by our grandmothers. We are surely on our way to creating a gender androgyny that is likely to continue unless we learn to bring the yin and yang back into balance.

When a man marries today, he assumes that not only will his wife contribute economically to the marriage, typically she earns just as much if not more than he does, but he also assumes that she will take care of the home and the children, while he assumes that his primary obligation is to continue to provide half of the economic security of the union. Should the marriage fail, he feels he is doing "his fair share" by providing child support, but typically, the weekly checks and a weekly or biweekly visit are as far as his connection with the family he helped create will go. The male will then begin to move on, unencumbered, to his next modern woman while the original wife and mother now assumes 100% of the parenting responsibilities.

The electronic age of dating is not helping this problem.

We have multiple social websites available at the touch of a button. Communication is immediate through cell phone, text or email. Anywhere and at anytime men and women of today can communicate with each other. This not only creates a lack of a sense of "urgency" to communicate in relationships, but it also makes it extremely easy to fall prey to temptations outside of the primary relationship. A cyber flirtation may seem innocuous, but sooner or later these cyber relationships come out of the computer and into your living room.

Insecurities in modern relationships create fertile ground for infidelity and relationship "jumping".

A woman feels safe and secure if her man is texting her through the day, that communication being constant, the man may grow bored and easily find another female to communicate with. At first it may be innocent, but when the primary relationship begins to feel to bear the weight of responsibility, "poof", frequently the man moves on to a weightless and seemingly responsibility free relationship.

Men can now look at women as capable and strong entities, capable of providing for themselves and others, women can do it all. When he no longer is "having fun" or enjoying the relationship it is just too easy for him to move on and find a new fresh start, leaving the woman behind to be the responsible one and the male feeling no sense of guilt, because, hey, "She can take care of herself".

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