The Art of Mothering Men

The Art of Mothering Men

I often wonder why breakups seem to be much harder on women than on men (most of the time.) After a breakup, it's commonplace to hear a woman speak of ‘finding herself’ but it is rare to hear of men embarking on these elaborate spiritual and emotional journeys, to find themselves again, to learn self-love, to learn their value outside of romance.

There is this common phenomenon in women that I will call ‘wife-ication.’ I would describe this as the gradual loss of self, and the phase when one makes their male partner quite literally their entire world. It begins like this: You’ve gone out to the club, it’s girls’ night and everyone is having a blast. Your friend’s phone rings, it’s her man and he wants to see her. Goodbyes are said and she leaves to be with her man. Over time you hardly ever see this friend, she is always with her man, but funnily enough, he isn’t always with her. He still hangs out with his friends and maintains a healthy social life. You stop inviting your friend out because she’ll always leave in the middle of the event to be with her man so what’s the point?

I had a conversation with a friend a while back about how men seem to be able to retain so much of their personhood in relationships, whereas with women, or the women we had seen, we have a tendency to start navigating our lives using our relationships as a compass. It would be a lazy and false analysis to simply say this is because of biological differences between men and women. I suspect this has a lot to do with how we are socialized differently. In a past relationship of mine I found myself, unbidden, starting to shift the plans for my life to accommodate this individual who obviously had no desire to involve me in any future plans for his life. I found myself stressed over the future, over university, where I would go, where he would go, trying to find a way to create the optimum environment for our relationship to survive the major shift that real adulthood would bring. I found myself slowly shedding my autonomy, my own goals, dreams and ambitions, meshing everything that I was with him, until I couldn’t distinguish where I began and ended. Even if I didn’t necessarily like a particular school or country, I’d consider it for the sake of keeping him around. I couldn’t simply just make decisions; I had to seriously think about how they could impact my relationship, think about how I would have to fit my then boyfriend into my schedule and so on and so forth. I can bet a million dollars he never once thought about any of these things. His life was simply his life, and I was an accessory that can simply be added or removed at will.

This friend told me how she was in a relationship during her A-level exams, her final year exams, and during an exam she just couldn’t stop thinking about her boyfriend at the time; how he was doing, how his exam was going etc. I’m just theorizing but I suspect that women fall much easier into co-dependency because of how we are raised. From a young age it is hammered into us that someday we will become wives, and almost every day of our existence is practice for when we become them. When I was in primary school I was already thinking of what type of husband I would want later on in life, and it isn’t rare for young women and girls who don’t fit into the mold to receive comments such as, “What kind of wife are you going to be?”, or “Who will marry you?” or “What type of mother will you be?” We are not given the space to become whole individuals; from our birth we are already being raised to be something else. We are being raised to be mothers, girlfriends, wives. This type of socialization is so extreme that even when you become a learned woman, a feminist/womanist whose eyes have been opened to the evil machinations of white supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy, and make an effort to unlearn all the harmful vitriol that has been stuffed into you routinely like a Thanksgiving turkey, you still find yourself displaying the same behaviors you thought you had unlearnt.

In as much as I understood how important it was to be independent, to have my own life and not simply play an auxiliary character in a man’s life, I slipped into the role of a ‘wife.’ I watched this previous partner have a life complete and separate from our relationship, and even supported this, while not making any real efforts to have something similar for myself. I realized when I was out with a group of people the other day that I had only ever gone out to group events with this partner, and had no idea how to navigate social interactions without him there. I thought I had escaped co-dependency but had in fact walked straight into it. I was so content within the walls of my relationship that I felt no desire to leave them and discover and create a life that was completely my own.

A few months ago I saw a TikTok from a university student who’s 21 stating that she doesn’t date seriously, and she will not date seriously in her 20s because relationships are a distraction from her goals. She went on to say that she likes the liberty of being able to make decisions like moving across the world, without having to consider anybody else. Now at the time that I saw this I was in the throes of love and romance, and I understood fully why she would say that, but would have chewed a block of wood before applying that into my life. I understood fully how much there was to lose, especially as a young woman, by chaining myself to a man, but I liked this particular man a lot, and felt these losses were worth it. By having this particular mentality I stopped myself from ever imagining the possibility of living an independent life.

For all my progressive-ness, I find myself, inexplicably, and almost against my will, turning into the perfect picture of maternity when I engage in relationships with men. It might have something to do with being the eldest daughter in an African family, while simultaneously being the first born. This means a lot of responsibility, and a lot of taking care of other people. This translates to all my other relationships, be they platonic or otherwise. One of the key fundamentals of motherhood, of being a wife, or what I’ve been conditioned to believe anyway, is that this consists of a huge amount of sacrifice. Sacrifice of individuality, of personhood, of self.

Taking a conscious step back from relationships and allowing myself the time and space to breathe without constantly drowning under the weight of multiple crashing waves of relationships was kind of essential to coming to this conclusion. It is difficult to find a solution on how to preserve one’s personhood as a woman navigating relationships with men, when nearly from the moment of our births we are planets orbiting a much bigger, and much more important sun. It’s easy to be an individual, with my own interests hobbies and pursuits when there is just me to consider. Once another person is added to this equation it becomes messy and confusing, this sudden commingling of souls, bodies, opinions, beliefs and pursuits. Where I begin and end, and where this other person begins and ends, I cease to know; we just merge into one big blob.

I’ve found that “mothering” in my relationships with my friends, majority of whom are women, is much more satisfying than mothering my male love interests. It is less draining and one sided to give to my friends, whom I know strive to take care of me the same way I take care of them. Sisterhood fulfills much more than any romantic relationship ever can.

In Korea, apparently women have just stopped, to the best of their capabilities, participating in patriarchy. They have stopped pursuing relationships with men, having children, and so on and so forth, and online I often see the growing sentiment among young women (me especially) that they wish they could just live in a secluded community with their girlfriends. Of course because capitalism is tied to patriarchy, and women’s participation in this patriarchy is central to production, they will be forced somehow or other, to participate. But whatever, be that as it may, it’s great to see more women seeing that patriarchy doesn’t serve them and just…leaving it behind it.

It was harsh, coming to the decision that I wasn’t going to bother seriously pursuing any relationships in the future if that meant that I somehow would have to deal with patriarchy in a space that should be safe for me. I didn’t want to have to mother anyone anymore, I have done enough of it already. Unfortunately somehow, because of conditioning, you will sooner run out of water in the ocean than a man who needs to be mothered. It is quite unfair to miss out on the experience of being loved, being cherished, held, safeguarded, but it is even more unfair that we are robbed of the opportunity to love as much as possible, because we are, majority of the time, getting the short end of the stick. But it becomes easier over time to live with this current decision, having surrounded myself with the love of friends and family, and that to a certain degree, I somewhat enjoy having this level of autonomy over my life. It is not a death sentence, to be single, to be alone, to not constantly indulge in love and romance. It is a chance to mother the only person who should ever matter above everything: Myself.