I’d like to introduce to you: the family man. Not the responsible, fatherly, working class man of popular culture, mind you. A hologram. A cultural trope, a symptom of how patriarchy is failing even those it is built to serve, who finds himself plagued by inadequacy, with a bent for self-destruction.
In his early life, this man tends to settle down quickly. He partners or marries, has children, and makes a big show of his trappings and commitments. Buoyed by the encouragement of his peers, he puts his family values proudly on display, basking in the praise of his proven goodness. And for the first decade or so, this is enough. He works hard, feels he is a good man, and delights in evidence of his loveability. With the support of his wife or partner, he throws himself headlong into a provider role, chasing promotion, profit and public admiration. Life is good.
Until it isn’t. Eventually, the tide begins to turn, and a crisis of masculinity sets in. He is restless. Having done what was asked and expected of him, earlier than he could ever have hoped, he begins to itch. The promise land doesn’t feel quite so golden anymore. While he continues to over-enthusiastically praise his wife and display his family in public, he starts to become withdrawn, sulky or even mean in private.
Initially, he may begin to self-harm, or even self-destruct. He blames himself for not enjoying what he desired so strongly. Perhaps he tries to drink his pain away in a sea of pity and self-flagellation. And for some men, this is the end of the road. They fester and flounder for the rest of their life, becoming bitter and resigned. For these men, their wives and partners – if they have any sense – eventually tire and leave. The men are sad, surprised, but no longer marketable. The damage is contained to them and their family unit.
For others, however, this is just the beginning. These men, tiring of self-hatred, begin instead to channel their discontent into a mid-life crisis. Suddenly, they announce, they don’t know what they really want to do with their life. They begin looking for new and exciting ways to validate themselves. This man might change careers, start a business, or throw himself into a sport or hobby. But if it works, and he finds a modicum of joy outside of his relationship, he is rarely satisfied. Instead, he turns the blame outward, feeling chained by the commitments he’s made and resenting his wife and family for holding him back.
The job, the business, the marriage, the children, the house… all the original sources of power that once seemed so important to lock down and hold up to the world as proof of their worth, have lost their lustre. He starts to wonder if he made a mistake by wasting his obvious brilliance with such trapping lifetime commitments.
His transition takes place in stages. While he stops engaging at home, he does not yet stop his performative public espousal of family and its importance. In fact, he may escalate it, in a desperate attempt to recover its original validation. He’s bored, withdrawn and snarky at home, but proud, engaged, and self-congratulatory in public. The man doth protest too much.
The reasons for this are clear. After years of its protection, he still needs the decency shield of his family man status. He needs the excuse, too, taking great comfort in retaining plausibly deniable reasons for why he hasn’t fulfilled his ‘true potential.’
This contradictory and gaslighting behaviour is deeply confusing for his spouse. He doesn’t make her feel good, but she can no longer put her finger on why – especially not when other people assume she is so lucky and cared for. Especially not when he’s such a good guy.
She internalises his abuse and the withdrawal of his connection and affection, dismissing her concerns as insecurity or, worse, as further evidence of her waning currency and value. She is tired, ageing, feeling less attractive and no longer the receiver of the love bombing and endless flattery that initially captured her. His need to make her feel special and powerful has run its course.
The promises he made have become a yoke around his neck and by dutifully fulfilling her end of the bargain, she has become disgusting in his eyes. Her submission to his power is proof that the dupe worked. Her belief in him and support of his dreams make her stupid, because he knows deep down that he isn’t good. If she believes his performance, she too must be stupid. She is no longer a prize to be won, simply a burden to be suffered.
Unsatisfied by the early wins of his new-found freedom, this man eventually moves toward cheating and betrayal. He forms close relationships with women around him. Younger, more attractive women, who have exercised the independence he denied his wife, have become more interesting to him. He opens up to these women, becomes vulnerable, tells them that he feels safe with them, that he can confide in them.
Most often, these relationships are tainted by an unequal power dynamic beyond age and social status. He is an employer, leader or authority figure. This is a safe environment to test his rising urge for infidelity, where the woman (or women) in question will not or cannot resist with the same vehemence that others might. Emboldened by the intimacy, he begins to convince himself, and his new soulmate, that he is a victim of circumstance. This, he tells himself, is the kind of woman he could have had if he hadn’t erroneously settled so early. Smart, young, attractive, independent, successful in her own right. Someone worthy of his admiration, someone who better reflects his own brilliance.
Let’s be clear, though: he does not value this woman for her achievements, independence or individuality. She is merely a vessel, a more flattering mirror of his true value that he isn’t being adequately praised or recognised for – especially by his wife.
His wife, in fulfilling exactly what he wanted and demanded of her, fades in importance or even becomes the enemy. She is a reminder of his inadequacy, of the ways he is disappointing himself and his family, that the script of traditional masculinity has failed him. She is a shell, a conduit for a version of his success that has reached its expiration date – and thus, so has she.
When his confidence strengthens enough, when he has tested the waters – first carefully, then with increasing boldness - he will cheat. If it feels safe enough, he will cheat physically. If his guilt and desire for self-preservation remains too strong, he will keep his cheating emotional. He may even leave, but only when he has a guaranteed relationship to go to. Without the security blanket of a new partner, he’ll stay for longer – perhaps for as long as his wife will tolerate him. Almost without exception, these men leave only when they have the safety of another long-term monogamous relationship. He’s only ever been able to feel safe in his power within the confines of a nurturing romantic relationship. He defined the terms of his power and value early, reflected through the eyes of an adoring woman, and without that mirror he is lost.
He is also afraid of himself. For all the independence he claimed to need in his first marriage, he didn’t desire a growth journey, and is not looking for a path to self-discovery. He’s terrified of what he’d find if he truly committed to such a journey and suspects (correctly) that he will be found lacking. He worries that the gaping hole inside of him may prove unfillable. He cannot be alone.
These men are deeply insecure children that our community places in positions of power. They become aware of their potential inadequacy early in life, and terrified of being unable to fulfil the trapping expectations of patriarchal masculinity, they set out with something to prove. First, they secure a family. Then, they chase professional and financial accolade. By mid-life, they’re deeply confused. Having never taken the space to do any inner work, they’re frustrated that the boxes they’ve ticked never seem to fill the gap.
Rather than commit to this work and examine the conditions that led them to feel so lacking to begin with, they look for fresh sources of validation and reassurance. Interestingly, they often combine this hunt with the pretence of awakening. They discover meditation, spirituality, self-help books, cultural wisdom. They’re grasping for meaning in a society that never offered it to them, and doing damage to themselves and the people who love them in the process. Floundering in the unfulfilled promises of patriarchal capitalism, these men feel cheated and confused. The peace and self-satisfaction they assumed was their birthright, if they only followed the rules, seems just beyond the horizon at all times.
If they waited long enough to crack, these men will generally stay in their next relationships, recreating the very dynamic they rejected in the first. With luck, and with time, they will eventually view the destruction of their first families with a tinge of guilt and regret. In the best version of this story, their former partners recover from the betrayal and crawl out of the shadows, rediscovering the autonomy, joy and self-determination that was robbed from them, as these men may begin to join the dots. They become doting grandparents, assuaging their guilt by providing financially for the children they left behind, devoting their later lives to the women they captured during crisis, in the hopes they too don’t see the light and leave.
This is a story filled with bias, inequity, and anecdote. A story that disproportionately features the white, cis-gender, middle-class men who benefit in every way from the systems of power that were made for people like them, but do not really serve them at all.
The women they hurt recover, as women always do. They rebuild, reorient and eventually, feel relieved for the chance to escape. They stay civil for the children, gain increasing perspective on the true nature of the little men who once held such power and sway over their future, and oddly, become the most respected figures in the lives of old, guilty men. They become the oldest friends, the trusted confidantes, the patient co-parents, and the only ones who truly understand how deep and dark their exes’ trembling vulnerability runs. In time, as wounds heal and time passes, they’re left with pity, patience, wisdom – and a growing community of women who know, the hard way, what it took to get there.
Patriarchy hurts us all.
Alicia McKay
