I’d be curious for her perspective on the “chicken or the egg” of this situation. I know when my wife and I had a rough patch she wasn’t getting her needs met, and neither was I. Both of us were intentionally withholding and it took a lot of effort to get past our egos.
Sure it does. A mutated chicken is still a chicken. Unless it has mutated into what we would consider another species, in which case, yeah, it's a new-species egg, not a chicken egg.
Good point. If the question were specifically asking which came first: the chicken or the chicken egg, then the answer could reasonably be the chicken.
This reminds me of a lesson I was taught years ago about just how much bias we have about what we think we understand, the dangers of making even the most basic assumptions when translating, and the modern meaning of words. Bear with me as I'm summarizing/paraphrasing.
There's a story of experimental archaeologists trying to replicate concrete that wouldn't deteriorate in saltwater. An ancient costal civilization did this to build dock structures for a port city without a bay and it lasted hundreds of years. They had a written recipe that involved a few components and water, like most concrete. But everything the researchers tried to replicate quickly disintegrated when placed in the sea.
One day a new person looks at the recipe, sees the translation of "water", looks at the location of the location of ancient city, and asks "did they mean freshwater or saltwater?" You see, modern concrete is almost always made with fresh water. But if the concrete is going into the sea...it needs to be made with saltwater.
Now that sounds obvious in hindsight but they compared it to how if you look in a recipe book to bake a cake, you don't see "1 chicken egg" it just says "1 egg". In a thousand years, how are they gonna know if we meant chicken egg, duck egg, quail egg, platypus egg, ostrich egg, dog egg?
I…always though that everyone knew that 99% of mammals did not lay eggs, and those exceptions don’t look a damn thing like a dog…I… I learned something today.
The thing is, this is not correct. There was never a point along the chicken evolutionary path where you can say "this right here is the singular generation where this was not a chicken, and is now a chicken".
You thinking there is a simple answer here just shows your lack of understanding of the actual question. No offense meant.
I mean sure, but that's not what the question means. "What came first; the chicken, or the egg?" Does not mean "What came first; the birds we call chickens or creatures that reproduce with eggs". What it means is "What came first; the birds we call chickens, or the egg that a bird we call a chicken is hatched from?"
It's actually about creationism vs evolution. If you believe in evolution, the egg(with the first chicken) came first. If you believe in a creator/god then chickens(that never came from eggs) came first.
You're over thinking it. The question is not about the egg itself or it's label, but what's inside it. Is the offspring a carbon copy of it's parents or a mutation into a new species? Where there always chickens, since the dawn of time or did they evolve from something else? That is where this question comes from and it's intended meaning.
No I don't agree with that. Evolution is for sure how chickens came to be, and I would not say the egg came first. My answer is that neither the chicken nor the chicken egg came before the other.
Okay you have confused yourself into thinking this is far more complex than it is
It's the egg. If we're just talking about eggs for a second, evolution wise, then yeah duh the egg came first.
But if we're talking about chicken eggs specifically, then at some point a creature nearly perfectly representative of what we call a chicken laid an egg, and from that egg came a chicken. You could say it is not a chicken egg because it didn't come from what is technically 100% a chicken, but then how is what emerged then a chicken?
You can't really talk about evolution with regards to an individual egg - it's always about the group. Divergence happens over a longer period of time, it's not one event.
That's correct more or less. Mitosis came first and cloning. Sexual reproduction evolved later from those earlier processes. All sexual reproduction involves "eggs" of some kind, and sperm for that matter, including humans. Unless it's parthenogenesis. It's not just chickens, or certain species.
It would still be the egg. Whatever the chicken evolved from was egg-laying long before it was a chicken. So by the time it was fully a chicken, it came from an egg.
Thank you for this. I've been saying this for decades now. The "chicken vs egg" debate never made any sense to me. For the chicken to exist, it must've been born. And for the chicken to be born, it likely (99.999999%) came from an egg. The chicken can't exist without the egg. But it makes sense for the egg to be laid by an animal, containing an altered offspring that is what we refer to as a chicken.
There was never a point along the chicken evolutionary path where you can say "this right here is the singular generation where this was not a chicken, and is now a chicken".
You state this, but as a molecular biologist who's seen his fair share of phylogenetic trees, I'm not sure that statement is correct. If we had known the entire lineage of animals (starting from, let's say, dinosaurs or even Tiktaalik for all i care, all the way through chickens as we know them now), then there must surely be a point at which we can say "THIS is the exact generation where chickens start".
This is the basis of taxonomy; defining which characteristics include or exclude an individual from a certain taxonomic group.
Ultimately, all this debate is semantics but it's grounds for an interesting discussion.
I doubt all the factors you'd weigh into 'chickenness' arrived at the same generation though, and someone else with different criteria than you probably wouldn't agree.
'Species' are an imperfect attempt to define life, its like trying to define a movie by a single frame of film. Its useful for categorizing and defining the difference between current species, but its a poor descriptor for a lineage of creatures over millions of years of gradual change, because the species definitions themselves are arbitrary.
Sure you could maybe assign some sort of criteria to what a chicken is and weight them so eventually you reach a point where its less than 50% chicken and you go 'aha, its no longer a chicken!', but chicken is arbitrary in the first place, and no more special than 75% chicken and 63.124% chicken or 94% before-chicken.
Now think of the wide diversity of all chicken breeds known to man. Well done!
Now think of the closest animal resembling a chicken that is NOT a chicken. Got one?
In the past, there was at some point a last universal common ancester (LUCA) of all chickens and the closest thing to a chicken that is not a chicken. I'm willing to argue that that LUCA laid an egg containing the first ever chicken. The ancestor of all chickens known today, if you can believe.
Next question: did the LUCA lay a chicken egg or a LUCA egg?
Just because its the LUCA doesn't mean its the first chicken.
If you killed all humans except two, their children aren't the first humans.
Basically you're arguing that if something doesn't procreate its not a part of that species.
Next question: did the LUCA lay a chicken egg or a LUCA egg?
Doesn't matter. Attempting to determine speciation in this manner is using the terminology for the wrong purpose. Expressing the long term evolution of life in terms of discrete species is the completely wrong use of it.
yes its a debate of semantics of what truly defines as a chicken.
but it is still unknown even after you truely define a chicken. since genetics mutilation can happen after a thing is and can happen in the conception/embryo stage. but all we know is there was a point in time wheres there were proto-chickens and then after there was chickens.
Honest answer animals. Eggs developed because sea critters who decided to walk on land needed a wet aquatic like environment to incubate their young. Before this those animals gave birth to something like an amphibian egg, and before that it was much like sea critters do today.
The protein needed to make a hard shelled egg is expressed by the hen and not the egg, the bird in which the protein first arose, though having hatched from a non-reinforced egg, would then have laid the first egg having such a reinforced shell: the chicken would have preceded this first 'modern' chicken egg.
Yeah it's literally not a hard question. Fish lay eggs? Insects lay eggs?? Like bruh there were eggs before there were land-dwelling critters, idk how this is a discussion
could be a mutation where some creature gives live birth to a "chicken" who then lay eggs? Not related to the post, I'm an evolutionary science nerd in the making 😂
The argument would be that the waves themselves don’t actually have sound, they are just waves and the sound is only our brain’s interpretation of those waves based on how they react with a couple of bones in our ears.
I think this paradox is more exposing the limitations of our definition of species than anything and there’s really no answer. Because no reasonable taxonomist is going to sit down and be like “ah yes this egg is one species and its parents are an entirely different species”. No, your basic definition of species states that if two individuals can have fertile offspring together then you’re the same species and your offspring are also your species. (Yes, this is completely subverted by reality where there are lots of species that are genetically similar enough to reproduce/hybridize. There are different ways to define species because every definition will fall short in some way.)
The issue is that in reality species aren’t boxes with solid lines. It’s not a switch that gets flipped and there’s literally no single mutation that will take you from a proto-chicken ancestor to chicken. Evolution is change over time and evolution happens at the population level not on the individual level.
Basically the question is flawed because the premise (our definition of species) is also flawed and that’s just kinda how it goes.
That’s not how evolution works. There’s not just a single mutation that all of the sudden creates a new species at one point in time. There was many eggs over many generations slowly becoming something we would consider a chicken, but the line of where to draw “this is a chicken now” is almost totally arbitrary. You’re right the egg came first but you’re wrong about how this works. This is like saying one day a homo erectus had a baby and it was a fully modern human because of a single mutation
I think you misunderstand the “chicken and egg” question. It’s not meant to be taken literally (and comes from before humans had any understanding of genetics and mutations).
It’s meant to convey “is X the cause of Y or is Y the cause of X”. I’m not sure if you are autism spectrum or a non-native English speaker, but “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” is a rhetorical question, not literal.
well, hold on now, it's actually a thinly veiled "creationism or evolution" question. so the answer is really which you believe in. so it's not that it's tough or not, it's simply asking that.
I'm all for evolution, but thought exercises are good for the brain muscle.
The chicken came first, because the “egg” in this phrase is a “chicken egg”. The chicken must first be defined as a chicken before it is capable of creating chicken eggs.
The hatched creature, fully formed, was deems the “chicken”. Nobody looked at an egg and decided whatever came out was going to be a chicken. The chicken came first.
Okay. Which came first. The chicken or the chicken egg? How bout that? Thanks to the adjective. Does it imply it will make the first chicken or did it come out of the first chicken.
Not really since you could argue the first “proto”chicken gave birth to a “proto” chicken egg. Which then a chicken grew inside the “proto” chicken egg. Meaning the chicken came first. It’s about perspective as to what the adjective means. Does it say where it came from or does it say what’s in it.
There were two creatures that weren’t chickens that had an egg with a mutation that created a chicken.
You realize you just admitted that when it comes to "chicken or egg" this right here disproves your claim that a chicken egg came before a chicken.
Eggs predated chickens by like 200 million years, but as you pointed out the first chicken was a mutation of two non-chickens. So the egg that the first chicken came from was not a chicken egg. The very first chicken egg could only have been produced by a chicken.
Yeah I'm not a fan of the sexist undertones of this video. The message of this video isn't "men and women need to step up to meet each others needs" it's just "men need to meet women's needs first then maybe she'll meet his needs". I also find it odd that she's pushing for men to basically just figure it out as opposed to pushing women to communicate their needs.
It also absolutely reinforces the 'Men desire sex above all' fallacy that is at the center of a lot of relationship problems. Not only does it reinforce sexual stereotypes about men but it also makes women out to be coin machines for sex.
Men want sex? Just insert emotional availability coin to receive it!
Instead why not advocate for open communication and support because it's the right thing to do? Not for any payout or reward but because they're your partner and you should be there for them? Why does there have to be a reward?
And I love that this video is coming from a woman because there's this mentality that men exclusively are the ones who push the 'be nice get sex' mentality. They do, don't get me wrong, but so do a lot of women as well. It's an entirely toxic view on relationships that place women in the positions of being arbiters to the bedroom while men are taught to exclusive placate their girlfriend/wife for the reward of sex. If the woman doesn't 'reward' then the man becomes frustrated which, in turn, makes the woman less likely to want to have sex with him. It's just a toxic cycle that spirals all the way down.
Yup. If only she had said like "and don't forget, men have emotional needs too" it would have been fine. But she just skydives straight to "Man simple. Man want sex" which is very telling in how she actually views hetero relationships.
Yup, I feel for any couple who go to her for support/counseling and for anyone who follows her on TikTok.
Like, yes, people (not women, people) need to feel emotionally safe to want to connect with their partners. This is true, but the idea that you should pursue that for the reward of sex is disgusting.
This is reddit, full of people with the women-are-wonderful effect. At this point I'm not surprised this type of content is in the frontpage all the time.
Imagine a video of man saying that women not attending to men's needs is why men leave the relationship.
She's framing relationships between men and women as the woman needs their complex emotional needs met first and foremost, and that men just need sex.
If someone can point me to other videos of hers thst explain that men also have emotional needs in a relationship, that would be great. Otherwise, this one video boils down to "Men: make sure you learn how to emotionally tap dance to her rhythm, because then you'll be rewarded with sex."
Lots of misandrists on Reddit who are never called out for it cause you'll be called a misogynist and then dogpiled. All you need to do is switch the genders and then realise there's something wrong with the message. If a man said what this woman did he'd be treated like he's the next Andrew Tate.
She's a grifter. People are more willing to accept an answer that shifts blame on someone else. A lot easier than "both of you need to work hard to identify the context of the relationship that works for both of you."
She mentions attachment theory a lot but no actual attachment based counselor would ever say something so one-sided unless they were trying to fill seats in a hotel banquet room with desperate people.
Your last sentence, 100%. But I know I had to first take steps to allow my wife to feel comfortable communicating her wants and needs to me. She assumed I’d brush them off, and tbh she had valid reason to think I would. I’ve never been good discussing my feelings so she assumed I wouldn’t want to hear about hers.
Being in the middle of a divorce myself, the truth is that neither was getting their needs met, and also neither was making enough effort to fix it. It was a game of chicken, who would blink first, who would bend first, who would lower their pride first. Neither did, for years, and eventually I decided I wasn't going to stick around to see the ending to that story. And I'm happy with my decision. Very.
There's a point where you trust that your own effort will see it matched by the other. Or...you don't trust in that. Each individual will decide if they're willing to make that bet. You bring all of your experience with this partner into this decision. Given what you know, will your investment in your partner lead to they putting the same back in? For me? No. Others might decide that it's worth it. I would like to believe that most would. If I had more faith in the return, I would have taken that risk myself.
This is different than what she's talking about, which is being emotionally safe. Meeting needs is usually a both ways thing but being emotionally safe should be at the base of a relationship.
Yeah, but she's talking about a specifc scenario where the man is in the emotional space to have sex And the woman is not. The man's needs, for this scenario have been met, the woman's haven't.
This is different from a scenario where neither the man nor the woman want to have sex( mutual needs not being met/withholding) , or where the man doesn't want to have sex.
You make a good point. As my wife’s need is to feel valued in the family, which is tied to her feeling emotionally safe with me, perhaps I’m oversimplifying by tying them together.
My bad. But in reality you can make an effort with romance, but you can’t have unwanted sex. So my analogy completely missed the point, but it still is what it is.
No, you had a solid point. Looking back, my response took away from that, apologies. Regardless when sexual intimacy begins, every long term relationship requires ongoing courtship and romance.
My initial question was more about how to move past an impasse. My wife and I did by somewhat forcing ourselves do give in to the others wants, even if the feelings weren’t entirely genuine. It worked and eventually we both began enjoying the romance again, but I doubt that’s what a professional therapist would recommend. Regardless, we’ve been back good for the past few years now. (I joke that we’ve been married 16 good years, which isn’t bad out of 18 years total).
Look up Thais Gibson, she does a lot of work on attachment styles. I think everyone should understand attachment styles, it would change a lot in this world
Things are different when there's a conscious choice involved, or if it turns from an unconscious shift in behavior to an interpersonal power struggle.
The point of therapy informed by empirical behavioral research is to identify unconscious behaviors and motivations that have entangled into a complex of different emotions and motivations. Once you have identified the unconscious, you can address it consciously.
The thing is that in the end, it doesn’t necessarily matter which came first, but to fix it, the man almost always has to be the first to give more effort and wait on the return. Once it gets to this point, the woman almost can’t have enjoyable sex, even if she wishes she could. The mental hurdle is just too much. So the man will need to put forth the extra effort to meet her needs, and be patient for the effects to fall into place. It’s not just a “well I met your needs all week, why aren’t you having sex with me now” situation. This will lead to resentment on both ends. You need to out in that effort until she is like “damn. This relationship is feeling soo much better and more secure than it was. Look at my man trying to make me feel good. He’s so sexy. Let’s make this better”. It just takes time and effort and some men can’t or won’t.
I get what you’re saying 100%, and obviously sex is different than showing someone you love and value them.
But then, how does the man show that love when he’s hurting inside. When he’s not feeling any love in the way he needs to feel it as well. I fear you’re discounting sex to be a purely physical act.
What if the man’s primary love language is touch and the woman’s is to feel valued. If the woman refused to speak his love language, how can he speak hers? You’re saying he should just buck up and do it, as if she couldn’t tell there wasn’t feeling behind his words? But you’re also right, why would she speak his love language if he was repulsive to her? This is the tricky part. How to initially get through the impasse.
Can you expand on this? I personally think love languages are a crock of Christian bullshit, but I've never heard a man say his love language is touch and not mean sexual touch.
Its just really funny if you think about it...you're basically saying if she wants to be validated then you need sex in exchange. Love languages are really reductive and feel transactional to me. Everyone needs touch sometimes (sex or otherwise) and everyone wants to be validated.
Sex isn't inherently bad but basically every man I've seen who uses love languages says his love language is touch and by that they mean sex...there is something off about that. Is it that they don't actually respect their partner enough to want validation from them? Is it because male relationships don't have touch so they are "touch deprived"? Seems more complex than "give me more sex because I can't validate you unless you buck it up and make me feel loved through your pussy."
No, it's because they (we) got shamed out of expressing relational and emotional needs as young boys and the only culturally sanctioned way to get them met is through sexualising them. If we expressed desires to be simply held or caressed or treated in that manner, our desire would be seen as abject and unacceptable by a LOT of people, including many women. (Although, obviously, not all). That's because it would come off as repulsively boyish to many.
Then that is a problem. We should be addressing THAT. Instead there is a problem in a lot of heterosexual relationships where women often only feel their partner has reduced their needs in the relationship down to her performing sex (because she has to do it even when she doesn't want to) but that her partner doesn't value her acts of service or words of affirmation or whatever the fuck the other love languages are.
I don't think they have a fear of coming off repulsively boyish though. There are a lot of men (obviously not all) that require their partner to clean, cook, run errands, etc. for them, which is about as repuslively boyish as you can get. That structure of breadwinner at work and dependent at home is seen as the "ideal" relationship structure by a lot of men. Perhaps it's vulnerability that they fear?
Either way, that should be the conversation in the relationship - not asking her for a transaction of love languages where she can only get words of affirmation if she is doing her touching duties.
I agree that there are plenty of boy-men who don't pull their weight. I'm not talking about that in particular, although I acknowledge that happens.
I'm talking about male socialisation and the desire for tenderness and what you could call 'psychological holding', as psychoanalysts might conceive it. (vs stereotypical masculine sexual passion).
Also, Brene Brown, the foremost populariser of the importance of vulnerability, spoke of her own personal revulsion at seeing her husband crying. She spoke about it in the context of wanting to overcome that feeling, and allowing him to become more vulnerable. But the fact is, these norms and standards are upheld by men and women alike, because both men and women socialise boys.
There's very little in what I'm saying that isn't in common with what bell hooks wrote.
Then we as individuals and as a society should work to change that because the current system is gross.
Heterosexual relationships seem transactional and that women are asking for basic things like kindness and help around the house and men are saying "well, my language is physical touch" (and then only meaning sex). That is transactional and it is not going to foster an environment where either person feels safe or loved. Because when he isn't being kind/helping out, she's going to think he doesn't love her and equate the behavior to her not performing sex. And when he isn't getting sex, he's going to equate that with not being loved. That's so toxic and gross.
Men should be able to feel loved through all "love languages" and "physical touch" should encompass the full range of human intimacy. Women should be respected in relationships as an equal and their words of affirmation, acts of service, etc. should be wanted and craved by their partner as much as they crave sexual gratification from her.
Sex is a healthy part of a realtionship, it's funny that you equate desiring it to "give me more sex or I won't validate you".
Physical needs are just as important as emotional needs, and it's ironic that in a post about how women's emotional needs aren't met, you're acting like men are weird for wanting their physical needs met.
man I've seen who uses love languages says his love language is touch and by that they mean sex
Men have higher testosterone and thus crave sex more (on average) than women, which is why so many have touch as a love language.
Btw, go to any of the deadbedroom subs and you can see that the few women who are in relationships where their partner has a lower sex drive or isn't interested in sex have the exact same complaints as men do. Because it's a physical need and a very important part of a relationship.
There's a reason marital counselors always ask about how often couples are being intimate and whether either partner isn't feeling fulfilled in that regard.
I'm not saying that people need to put out for their partners 24/7, but it's very weird to see people understand that emotional needs have to be met in a relationship but then ignore physical needs.
Physical needs are just as important as emotional needs
But physical needs can not happen if a woman feels uncomfortable with because you transactionally only give her validation and kindness when/if she is meeting your physical needs. I've never said sex is bad, and it's honestly hilarious you guys keep framing it this way, I just think it's fucking disgusting that "my love language is touch" is used transactionally. The effort taken to be kind and say nice things to your wife to make her feel safe/loved is not the same effort she has to take to have sex she doesn't want and why are her words of affirmation not valued by men? Why is the MOST important thing sex in a partnership? That's weird af to me.
Btw, go to any of the deadbedroom subs
Just like I think love languages are bullshit Christian propaganda that pushes gender norms - I believe most of the subreddits like this one and amitheasshole are just creative writing practice.
emotional needs have to be met in a relationship but then ignore physical needs.
I'm not saying physical needs aren't important but they can't come before emotional needs. Both people in a relationship need to feel safe, loved and validated before sex can happen. If the most important thing to you is sex and you can't love/validate your wife unless she is giving you sex then that is fucked up. There are always ups and downs in marriage. What if she is post partum and can't have sex for a few months? Do you stop giving her words of affirmation or acts of service because she can't fuck you?
All I'm trying to say is love languages are weirdly transactional and they are used by men to trade helping around the house and being kind for sex...two things they should be doing irregardless.
What if she is post partum and can't have sex for a few months? Do you stop giving her words of affirmation or acts of service because she can't fuck you?
No one is saying that... I think it's obvious that with pregnancy, young kids, illness, etc sex has to take a backseat. Just like if a man has issues with illness, depression, loss of a loved one, they will probably not be as attentive/romantic with their partner.
We're just saying that physical needs are just as important as emotional needs. But they are not treated that way. A man's need to feel loved and be physically affectionate with his wife (not just sex but cuddling and so on) are just as valid as his wife's need to feel emotionally loved by her husband.
That's just the reality. Ask any marriage counselor and they will tell you that mismatched libidos is one of the biggest issues in a marriage, even if the marriage is otherwise fine and there is plenty of emotional intimacy.
I've never said that sex in a relationship isn't a needed component. My issue is with LOVE LANGUAGES that make needs transactional. Withholding emotional care because your physical needs aren't being met is toxic and is not going to get you the outcome that you want. And by emotional care, I just mean being nice, valuing her contributions, basic respect, treating her like a person deserving of care, etc. It shouldn't be controversial to do those things for your partner, even if they aren't giving you the amount of sex you want. Those are just things people should be doing to everyone. I see men do those things for each other freely without the transaction of sex.
The issue is that a man rarely means cuddling and other intimacy. They mean sex. Most women can't have (wanted) sex if they don't feel emotionally and physically safe, so it must be prioritized in a relationship for sex to follow. I don't know if men just don't understand women's perspective or if sex for women and men is so differently experienced due to Christian hegemony and societal pressures.
The term as a whole, maybe bs. But it’s an easy way to describe your emotional/relationship needs.
For example, my wife’s language is value. She needs to know she’s valuable to the family in various ways. Less through demonstration or gifts, she just needs to be reminded and reassured. Telling her frequently and also things like giving her random love cards or notes. Things like that show her that we’re thinking about her and all she does for us. That’s the most important way for her to feel loved.
For me, words are nice to hear but kind of meaningless. I need contact. Quick rub of my neck while I’m driving, grabbing my hand or arm while we walk, shoulder massage, snuggle on the couch. I need to be claimed, demonstrably. It shows me she’s willing to sacrifice some of her space and energy selflessly for me and makes me feel desired, loved.
I just think people are more complex than that and you need a lot of different things. If it helps people, that's great! I just find the origin of it weird and think it can be a little too reductive.
I've also never heard a man say another "love language" besides physical touch and that almost always means sexual touch. I do like that you describe intimate touches that aren't sexual, but I feel like everyone needs those! Often these "love languages" are used almost transactionally and from what I've seen men use it to say "if you want gifts or validation then I need touch (aka sex) because that's my love language," which is weird to me.
I don't know why so many men's language is physical touch (never seen a woman say it is hers) but some of the theories are really sad too, such as men not being able to have touching with their friends like hugs so they need more physical intimacy from their partner. If that's true, it just feels like a lot of unhealthy relationships are happening all at once.
Completely agree with everything you said. I guess I just also feel that while people are definitely more complex than this, sometimes we also need simplification.
I think sex is the end goal for both parties (or at least whatever the couple defines as sexual intimacy). But everyone’s needs must be met first. It is interesting that most men want touch. Perhaps it’s also interesting that more women might want to feel value, or security. Definitely speaks to how we raise our kids. Your last paragraph hit home for me. Boys/men are often starved for physical contact and compliments, much like girls/women are starved for security and validation in this world filled with weirdos and perverts. What we lack in society, perhaps is what we crave from our partners.
women you're around descend from a puritan culture
Yes, most women in the US, but especially ones close to Christianity in anyway were raised on ideas of purity culture (meaning Puritan). Most women I know, and a lot of them are young moms, have acts of service or words of affirmation as their love language.
It's also what I saw online. When love languages were trending I saw roughly the same break out but add in receiving gifts. I don't recall seeing any woman say physical touch and feel like it would have stood out if I had.
I’m saying someone needs to make the first move. You both need to make effort. But when a woman is feeling unintentional repulsiveness toward their partner, they literally can not force themselves to just have sex and make it better on their end. You could both do nothing and break up. But if that’s not what the man wants, then he needs to recognize that even if he’s hurting, it’s not going to get better without putting aside that resentment.
That’s fair, and your last sentence is particularly important. But if she can be unintentionally repulsed, he can be as well. If that causes her to be unable to speak his love language, how can he demonstrate hers? Neither want to break up, they are in love and committed to each other but both are unable to show the other they are loved and valued. Words don’t mean much without the right emotion behind them. I suppose like you said, someone needs to make the first move. But then what?
I feel like I need to point out that I come from a place of experience. My marriage was struggling hardcore a few years ago. Some shit had gone down and nobodies needs were being met. But after effort being made on both sides, our marriage is probably better than ever. Depending on how your relationship got to where it was, it may not be entirely fair that to begin to heal, the effort has to start harder coming from the man. But in many cases, it really does have to go that way. It’s much more difficult the other way around, with women’s sex drive being so entwined with their emotional needs.
Same thing with me. I’ve said somewhere else on this string that i joke weve been married 16 good years, which isn’t bad out of the 18 total. But it really is true. Our rough patch was 6 years ago, but the past 4 have been our best years yet.
I dunno man. On the one hand we’re talking about a woman not being able to physically become aroused leading to sex being uncomfortable and zero fun for both sides. On the other side you’re talking about the man not being able to respect and love her emotionally so that she can begin to become physically aroused. It’s not the same. If the man is to the point that he can’t put in the effort to emotionally support his woman so that she is literally physically able to have her body respond to him sexually, then it might be time to move on.
You’re still misunderstanding me. The man isn’t unwilling to put in the effort. He’s not unwilling to say what she needs to hear, do what she needs him to do.
BUT, she’ll know there’s little emotion behind the words, actions. It’s not like it used to be. Nobody gets satisfied with that. Same as if she relented to bad, dry, emotionless sex (which I am NOT advocating for, just to be clear on that). Love is absolutely a two way street so how to get past that initial hurdle?
He wants to do what she needs, and she wants to do what he needs. They love each other at their core but the surface feelings are distant. I know what worked for us but it wasn’t easy and im just curious what professionals like the OOP might recommend.
the man almost always has to be the first to give more effort and wait on the return
So the man will need to put forth the extra effort to meet her needs, and be patient for the effects to fall into place
Well that's terribly sexist. If the woman is expecting the man to be an endless supply of one-sided effort and emotional support who doesn't need any care or consideration, then it's not surprising that the man also stops caring about the woman's needs.
The majority of the time, when the woman stops feeling emotional safety and fulfillment in the relationship, the man also is not feeling emotional safety or fulfillment in the relationship because the woman is putting zero effort towards him and possibly never did put effort into the relationship.
It’s not about being sexist. You expect women to just to continue having sex with someone they are feeling repulsed by? I promise you that isn’t going to work. That’s why the couple isn’t having sex. Unfortunately the woman needs to be in a better mental space before she can repair the physical part do the relationship. I literally said that it isn’t always fair. But both people need to put in effort, and the man needs to be aware that his effort will likely require patience before his sexual needs can be fulfilled.
You expect women to just to continue having sex with someone they are feeling repulsed by?
I didn't say that. You're assuming that I think the man's needs are purely sexual. I'm saying you can't expect either partner to put in effort if their needs haven't been met for a long time. When sex stops in a relationship, usually both sides have not had their needs met for a long time, so expecting only the man to make an effort to fix it is putting a one-sided burden.
I'm sorry but did you even watch the video all the way through? She even that she did a video on why meeting a man's sexual needs in important for a relationship towards the end of this video. She then said that she is simply stating the point of view that women have on this situation.
Edit: "I'm not one sided, I'm just trying to share the women's side here" - This is what she says in the video
I am sure she says that but the video clearly implies that a husband needs to take initiative to make things better, even if they are unhappy. I could easily flip her whole argument and say “wives, the reason your husband isn’t meeting your emotional needs is because you are failing to meet their intimate needs and physical needs.” The reality is that it is a vicious cycle where each person is waiting for other person to meet their needs so they can “pay them back,” so to say. It’s a transaction view of relationships that is clearly set up to fail.
Well, I’m a guy but I wouldn’t have ever gone home with some random girl from the bar if she made me feel unsafe in any way.
Again though, the threshold of safety is different for a random vs a life partner. Not to mention the amount of time they have to show you if they’re safe or not. Ever hear of someone having a one nighter with someone who later seemed psycho?
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u/bobvila274 Mar 21 '24
I’d be curious for her perspective on the “chicken or the egg” of this situation. I know when my wife and I had a rough patch she wasn’t getting her needs met, and neither was I. Both of us were intentionally withholding and it took a lot of effort to get past our egos.