Men’s Fears of Disappointing Their Partners

Adam and Eve

Source: Smith-Pixabay

Stereotypically, protecting and providing for women and children is a large part of what defines masculinity. Men are expected not to need anything from anyone, while at the same time, they are expected to make sure all their partner’s and family’s needs are seamlessly taken care of.

A good man takes care of his wife and family, and if he falls short, he is judged by himself and others as less of a man. This is a vulnerable position for men as they are continuously subject to failing and feeling bad about themselves.

The single biggest fear expressed in a survey of 5,000 men was that they would not be able to make their partner happy. In fact, eight of men’s top ten worries have to do with not being good enough for their partners or families.

It does not matter how often a man’s partner tells him how well her needs are being met or how happy she is in the relationship. Men rarely feel they can relax the vigil of their fears to escape the belief that they are “only as good as what they’ve done lately.” This terrible sense of unending obligation and impending failure creates an enormous emotional burden for men. It greatly impairs their capacity to experience pleasure or even to know themselves separately from the needs of others.

These fears of disappointing their partners and families and their pathological self-reliance stem from men’s deep-seated beliefs that their needs don’t really matter. This leads to a profoundly impaired ability to experience pleasure in almost any form.

For example, Steven and his wife have both been working at home full-time since the pandemic. His wife took the guest room for her office because her work required more privacy. Steve originally thought he was okay with that and was fine with using the dining room table for his work, despite experiencing the bulk of family interruptions because he was working in the more public space.

Gradually, Steve realized that he would like to move his office to a more private space and proposed to his wife that he set up shop in a large closet in one of the children’s rooms (there was actually a larger space available, but Steve could not even imagine bringing himself to ask for that more desirable space).

Steve’s wife told him that she did not like that plan, that it was not her preference, but that she understood how important it was to him to have a space of his own and that she was absolutely fine with proceeding. Steve was frozen. His wife repeated several times that she was fine with the plan, but as long as she didn’t say she liked it, he couldn’t get himself to feel okay about taking the space for his office.

He said, “I need her to want it too... I’m getting something I want, and I don’t know if that’s okay. It’s not right or wrong, which would be easier. It is harder to stand up for what I want just because I want it. She says what I feel is okay, but I won’t believe it unless she feels that way, too.”

Men don’t create this suffocating sense of obligation on their own. It is a folie à deux, as women have been socialized to expect to be taken care of by men as much as men are socialized to feel responsible for taking care of women. The result, in many heterosexual couples, is that both people end up feeling stuck in the role of the caregiver, frustrated in their own and the couple’s inability to work their way out of their polarized roles. They each feel obligated to take care of each other, but neither of them can really enjoy being taken care of because they are preoccupied with their potential failures as caregivers.

Men’s childhood experiences of feeling responsible for caring for their mothers set them up as adults to be hyperfocused on any indication that their partner is dissatisfied with them or just unhappy. Research confirms that the woman’s happiness is the primary determinant of men’s happiness in most heterosexual couples. The childhood saying, "If momma ain't happy, then nobody's happy," transforms into the new mantra of men’s partnered adult life "happy wife, happy life."

Men in my office often complain that their partner has just said something critical, and I often have to strain to understand how they might have heard it that way. One man insisted that he could tell when his partner was upset as soon as he walked in the front door before even seeing her. I don’t doubt that they had become so mutually locked into these polarized caretaking roles that he could.

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This post is excerpted from Hidden in Plain Sight: How Men's Fears of Women Shape Their Intimate Relationships (Weiss, 2022).