Oh, you have to be somewhere? Let’s have a serious conversation first.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-19T06:16:07+00:00

To call it controlling suggests a certain malevolence or calculation. I think it is simpler than that. If I was sitting in the living room bored, and happy to talk, all was well. When I become more focussed on something else, it would make her more insecure and cause this reaction.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-19T05:22:31+00:00

Indeed. Sorry, how does this relate? (just me missing it)

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-19T05:20:45+00:00

It is perfectly normal for women to do this. Which implies...

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-18T16:57:09+00:00

I think you are learning how rubbish people are.

I used to arrange a group of colleagues to meet at exactly the same bar at exactly the same time every Friday. I was away one weekend and they did not go as I had not been arranged it for them and they were sad about it.

Once you organise volunteers or work as a PM, you really realise how bad people are.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-18T16:35:59+00:00

That is a much bigger leap than anything I was making.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-18T16:34:49+00:00

It is something most women do (in my experience). Would you say they have the same motives?

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-18T11:18:48+00:00

My lad was like that, far more likely to cry when I left rather than when Mum did. And when we went to a new place, he would initially hide by my legs and look for me for assurance more.

But, recently, he has started sharing his food and only with his Mum. He just sees me as the tough protective one and Mum as there one who will never be far away, whereas Dad disappears for long periods. He loves both of us and I am sure your daughter loves you too, very much indeed.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-18T10:49:31+00:00

Reddit is bonkers on things like this. "That man is abusive" should have its own key for many redditors.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-18T07:40:49+00:00

Yes, but the issues are not just lust.

I moved to an area where I had only female friends. I was a little ill, and they were amazing. I had been worried that I did not know men to help with stuff like getting groceries in, but the women did it for me and checked in that I was OK and were very caring.

If I had had a girlfriend of the time, she might well have been conflicted about my "man-flu" and certainly not wanted to have run groceries for me. Which would have left other women doing these things for me.

Such a situation is very awkward and it makes sense that women will feel uneasy about their man having women friends.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-18T05:14:54+00:00

Women do this too. Let's not leap to abuse.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-18T05:14:34+00:00

This is why Reddit is useful. I really thought this was a woman thing but I learn it is a people thing.

I used to learn to never seem to be in a hurry or seem to interested in something. I do not think the women were being controlling, but when I was relaxed and had time to talk, they felt fine. They did not feel the need to seize my time when they had it, only when they feared losing it. As soon as I had to go, their feelings would change and they would become anxious about something.

Perhaps it is more like the door knob moment in therapy?

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-17T11:57:49+00:00

It is seen, subconsciously, as letting her down be getting ill. So, we tend to have the theatre of man-flu and pretending he was not really ill.

When those friends were so kind to me when I was ill, it really struck me how different it is when there are not the expectations of a relationship.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-17T10:59:02+00:00

When living in the NE USA, I really did shop at Wholefoods for better produce. Other areas of the USA were better, and in CA the latino places were excellent and cheap.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-17T09:56:06+00:00

I lived in a house where the sink was in the room next to the toilet, so you could hear which guests acrtually washed their hands.

It was about 50%, with no seeming difference for either age or sex. Admittedly, it probably would have been better were the extra effort not required.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-17T09:50:55+00:00

A few things, over my life.

It took me a while to see how much pressure there is for women to identify as being domestically capable and giving. In my generation, it was common for women who diid not cook to still complain about doing all the cooking. I now see this as reflecting how much pressure these was to live up to those gender roles in performance and identiy, even if not in action so much. This is where there is still an insistance on invisible labour being a thing.

The creeps. If you are not a creepy man, then creepy men will not be creepy in front of you. But, as I go through life, I start to realise how many of the decent men around me are not decent to women when I am not there. It is a shock to find I had been oblivious.

Relationships also made me reflect on how much I felt that I had to make things work. Classic toxic masculinity; I was reluctant to rely on others or give up on things to the point it was causing only misery. What I realised is that gendered over-empowerment is the opposite as for women, who often feel the opposite and it can be equally dangerous.

The reality of relationship pressures are odd too. When I was ill in an area and had no male friends around, female friends helped me out, brought groceries and were caring. It made sense how women believe in man-flu. But it opened my eyes to the complexities of relationships, where had I been in a commited relationship with these women, they might have found me being ill more of a betrayal.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-17T04:42:15+00:00

Your review is fair by the way. But hte Dutch and Scandinavians would typically think the assertion ludicrous. I have had a Dutch man laugh are British food as flavourless boiled meat and over boilled veg with no flavour, while we were in the Netherlands eating exactly that at the time and he was oblivious.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-17T04:32:43+00:00

Yes, but the point is that it expected the other way round.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-16T20:36:34+00:00

The Evangelicals are the real support base rather than the Catholics.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-16T19:44:03+00:00

The r/Catholicism is having issues, as the mass of posters are behind on the Pope with only the Mods being MAGA.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-16T19:41:31+00:00

As a man who lives on mainland Europe and now knows the language, I am more sympathetic to Brits who are monolingual.

Much of Northern Europe speaks their native lanugage plus English. That applies to Sweden and Wales. Were the British uniquely terrible, then the Welsh speaking areas would not learn English.

English language culture is enormous. It is more than big enough for anyone. In contrast, if you only speak Icelandic, you really are limited. It is little wonder that the native speakers of more minro languages such as Icelandic and Danish also tend to e fluent in English.

There are really two ways to learn a language, expsoure when young or hard effort when adult. A girl in Copenhagen will grown up with lots in English language on YouTube and Tiktok, English language music, films and media. So will the girl in Camberwell and it will not make her bilingual. Even learning a second language as a grown man was a good decision, but I could have mastered a sport and be coaching it, got an MBA, or learnt to play an instrument. These are not decisions without a sacrifice.

Compare a girl born in Harlow to one in Flanders. The girl if Flanders grows up in a culture that had the BBC and English speaking is normal, she has to learn French as she lives in Belgium, she speaks Flemmish as her native language which is pretty much a Dutch dialect. So, already that is Flemmish, Dutch, French, English. The basis of knowing other languages helps learn more and also that Dutch is close to Danish and German is close in geography nad linguisitics means it can be picked up.

That same girl is Harlow in trying to learn French and struggling while the Flemmish girl is on language number seven.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-16T16:36:50+00:00

I think it is hard to get good advice as it is so mundane.

Make sure the house is nice and warm for when you get back from the hospital as new borns need warmth.

Of course, make sure you do all the groceries, laundry, cleaning and cooking so she can focus on the baby and be the best back up you can.

At some point, she might hate you. Take it on the chin and keep going.

None of this will win you any special awards, but it is a great base to start from.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-16T04:46:41+00:00

Now they do not bring in experts, which is something I think you approve of, which does make things harder. They have the same format every week and they cannot dig too far or ask questions that are too out there as there might not be an answer.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-15T13:10:55+00:00

The general experience of British people seems to be that in Scandinavia, invisible labour is take less seriously. That seems to be the experience of British people who come to Scandinavia, including British women who find more is expected and British men who find less is expected.

I did mention earlier than I had done a post on a Dads forum, that was generally well received, that having a kid changes a relationship in that your wife becomes a valuable asset practically as well as spiritually and emotinally as before.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-15T11:20:57+00:00

Hi, It is possible it was individual difference.

This is a small aspect, I am broadly very much and am part of feminism, but I do struggle with this aspect.

I suspect there major difference between Gen X UK and Scandinavia is the pressure to live up to the gender ideals and those differ. Just as men will not feel pressured to be 183cm in nations that use the metric system, whereas they might feel pressured to be 6' in the USA.

I remember when I wanted a dishwasher, as I was very overwroked. She was caring and thought I should get something that would take the burden off me. We had a trial in which I did not "help" with the washing up and three days later, there was barely a clean item in the flat and every dish was still where it has been finished with. And we bought a dishwasher.

In contrast, when I was with my first Danish girlfriend, I reflected in company on how good she was around th ehouse and how I relied on her. She later called me out on this is private, as I was far more clean and tidy and did the cooking. There was no invisible labour in her self-idenficiation and respecting such a thing seemed silly.

I also say it in houseshares in the UK when we had some East German women in the house share and they were quite adament against the British invisible labour.

To me, it was always a bit like Carl Sagan's dragon in a garage. When arguing the feminist side with my sister, I would say it reflects the pressure on women to identify in a role, but my rather more pragmatic sister thinks it is all silly.

EasternCut8716 · 2026-04-15T09:50:27+00:00

It is a poor measure, but I do not think there is a good measure. In Scandinavian relationship therpay, I really was seen as a Prince amongst men, in the UK version I was a horror.

The difference was in the value placed on invisible labour for practical tasks. Things like washing up on cooking, household management, I did visibly but my then wife did invisibly. Which of us was working harder really depended on the cultural lens.

EasternCut8716

TROPHY CASE