Two posts about family dynamics and responsibility — and against the myth of male weakness — at Good Men Project:
You’re Not Your Daughter’s Handsome Prince (Against Emotional Incest)
and
Two posts about family dynamics and responsibility — and against the myth of male weakness — at Good Men Project:
You’re Not Your Daughter’s Handsome Prince (Against Emotional Incest)
and
Did someone get into the Freud literature in the last couple of days? lol
I am lucky in that in my circle, it seems that for the most part people have worked out the whole wife/mother-in-law thing pretty maturely. The role of the husband in that conflict has always baffled me a bit. It seems so counter to even our traditional ideas about masculinity. To me, with the messages that I have received socially about what a man is (from media, and my family), it would have seemed to make more sense for the expectation to be that a man would control/take leadership. Then again both myself and my sister have always been very independent, and though god knows my mom would TRY to be that kind of stereotypical meddling mother-in-law; things would be negotiated much more quickly once she thought her privileges to see the grand kids were on the line.
Hugo, terrific reads! I wish more people would read what you write and would stop feeding the emotional incest frenzy. It’s maddening to see a daughter (in my case, a step-daughter) being taken advantage of for her dad’s emotional needs. And then they tell you that you don’t understand because you have no kids of your own. Well, you do have a kid and you are able to understand how unhealthy that is. Thank you so much for saying it out loud.