A Woman’s Guide: Enduring Your Heterosexual Relationship, Preparing For Marriage

You, a woman, are living with your long-term boyfriend. You’re terribly in love with him, but as a result of tensions in your living styles (oh, no!) you’ve watched yourself become more confrontational.

Tip: if this relationship fails, it’s a reflection of you as a person.

Scenario: You realize that you are less comfortable than he is with mess in the house. You wouldn’t call yourself a neat freak, but he does. You don’t want to cater to his lower level of cleanliness (Uh-oh! That’s your first mistake) but you feel like you’re nagging him if you keep asking him to clean up after himself.

You tell him how you feel. (That’s your second mistake!)

He’s understandably upset.

Have you considered:

• Take a deep breath
• He didn’t mean to offend you, and that’s what matters.
• All of this is your fault

Later: Despite his radical feminist efforts to help you clean and cook, he can’t help but make more mess and leave spots when cleaning. (Maybe you’re uptight, have you thought about that?)  After an indirect conversation, where you recounted helping your mother cook as you grew up and he remembered playing outside with his friends, you realize you had more domestic responsibilities as the eldest sister than he did as an eldest brother. How do you counter the cultural paradigm that encourages girls to learn and continue to practice domestic tasks while young men are dismissed with a “boys will be boys”?

Whoopsie! Those are some big, threatening words for your woman-brain! 

Tip: If you can’t take care of one man now, how will you ever raise children?

Have you considered

• Not being a woman?

-SL ’22