Are We Our Own Worst Enemies?

A couple of weeks ago a close friend told me about a recent argument that she had with her husband of ten years. Over the past ten years she has confided in me about the fact that he does little to help her with the children or housework. She recently had another child about ten months ago and was diagnosed with postpartum depression, and the jackass husband still does little to help her.

About two weeks ago she informed me that she told him that "enough is enough" and one day while we were at work he text messaged her that he wanted a divorce. Isn't that lovely? I haven't spoken with her during the vacations and so I am assuming that he was merely throwing a fit.

In addition to the text message, before she came into work in the morning he had told her that she wasn't being a "good wife" because she rarely had sex with him anymore. She responded, "Well, if you would help me more often then I wouldn't be so damn exhausted and maybe I would actually feel like having sex".

Over the years I have listened to these little fights and watched her have to take primary responsibility for the children and household, while at the same time being the partner who makes the most money. (Hell, it's my opinion that if women make more money than men and have more of a professional job that requires more time and attention, then the men should be putting in more time than us with household duties. But I've digressed.)

Throughout the ten years I've discussed the situation with one of our close male friends and we've pondered the following question, "Is he really a lazy ass, or is she a 'micromanager' and won't allow him to really help her because he's not doing it the exact way that she wants it done?" I posed this question to her a couple of times and she was unable to answer and told me that she had to think about it.

All of my life I have heard similar stories from women at work or on the internet. I used to sit in the staff lounge and listen to women talk about how men are "like children", that they can't take care or themselves or do anything right. I've listened to other women complain that even when they technically aren't single that they still consider themselves to be a single mother.

I've always thought that this was bizarre. Most of my close friends (with an exception to the one that I mentioned) are not married or dating "helpless men" and I most certainly have never dated such a loser. Do men only act like this because they are allowed to get away with it? Are men really lazy, or are many women such control freaks that men just think, "Screw it-she's just going to bitch at me because I didn't do it her way, so I just won't do it at all". Would men not act like this so often if women stopped socializing them to act this way by not setting boundaries with them?

I'm at that point in my life where I see women as being way too complicit in their own oppression, yet are failing to take responsibility that they also are partly responsible for creating these "worthless men". I'm tired of the incessant "down with the patriarchy" crap that even I subscribe to because I have seen far too many women be responsible for their own demise.

When it really boils down to it, who is really at fault here? What are your opinions?