School of thought
our experts eleanor morgan and anjula mutanda answer your mental health questions
eleanor says:
I can imagine that resentment towards your ex-boyfriend grew incrementally. In the first throes of romance, flooding endorphins are like a spell. We can become addicted to a person and how they make us feel and lose our sense of self and principles for a while – even if there are niggling suspicions. It’s a tale as old as time.
The money left for the cleaner, the gift-buying, the essential-but-boring-as-sin household chores; all done with a growing awareness of imbalance over time, right? I wonder what the straw that broke the camel’s back was. More importantly, I wonder how you expressed your frustration to him, as, like you say, it usually takes more than a bad division of house admin to shatter a relationship.
How did you raise these issues with him? Did you feel listened to? Perhaps, at its heart, this really was a problem with communication; a tangle of your own resentment at feeling like your ethics were threatened and that you weren’t being heard. Maybe he lacked the emotional maturity to truly hear what you needed. In which case, he wasn’t right.
Fearing ending up alone is a natural human tendency. We all need nurture to thrive. You could capitalise on this introspective mood instead of berating yourself. Consider what would really make you feel fulfilled and equal in a relationship. Look at how you communicate your needs in other areas of your life, too, and whether that differs to how you express yourself in a relationship. How do your inner and outer voices join up?
I’ve come to firmly believe that one person cannot meet all our needs. It’s too much pressure. We get different things from our friends, co-workers, etc. The swipe-left nature of modern dating can make us forget that: if someone doesn’t tick all our boxes, we might duck out and wait for someone who does. But can any relationship really flourish without some kind of compromise on our ideals? I doubt it.
However – and it’s a big however – this ‘gender difference’ you speak of does not have to exist. It’s 2017. A man with a solid sense of self will not feel threatened by a woman with strong feminist principles. He will want to listen, to be your equal. Do not allow this unsuccessful relationship to make you fear the future. Use it constructively.
‘ I split from my boyfriend because I couldn’t stand how much I had to compromise my feminist principles. I was doing more than my fair share of house admin, from paying the cleaner to buying gifts for his family. Other things weren’t right too, but I worry I’ll always be on my own if I can’t learn to live with the gender difference.’