Alex Buscemi
For whatever reason, American culture has developed the infuriating mindset that it’s up to the woman to take care of everything in the house. Cooking, cleaning, getting the kids ready for school — all things that the woman of the household is required to do. The husband? He gets to kick his feet up while Mom toils away.
This has become especially problematic as many families transition into dual-income households — that means Mom works all day AND takes care of the household duties.
Enter TikTok user and reformed Clueless Husband J Fisher (@jfisher62). He spent much of his marriage thinking his wife was responsible for everything that happened under the roof — and it nearly drove them to divorce.
Luckily, he’s done a lot of self reflection and is sharing his journey from Clueless Husband to Attentive Husband for other men to learn from.
Keep going for his insightful pearls of wisdom.
This reformed “Clueless Husband” is owning up to the problematic views he used to hold about how a family operated
“One of the things I really try to process now as a middle-aged man is the full extent to which I really thought that I was the main character. Let’s give you an example. Early in our marriage, my partner and I, say we’d be going on a trip, my partner would at that point in time be doing the laundry, vacuuming the house, making sure the dishes were done. I would literally think: well, yeah, but you don’t have to do that. That’s, YOU wanting to do that. It’s not what I WANT to do.
She would get everything ready. And eventually, I would say, ‘Oh, now it’s time to get ready’, and have a go, and this is not a joke, this literally happened on more than one occasion. I would get a backpack or suitcase or something. And I would get my own clothes. And I would get 2 or 3 books that I wanted to read. And I would literally bring highlighters because I’m a nerd. And I’d think, I’m ready. I’m ready to go on the trip.”
@jfisher62 What NOT to do as a husband #fyp #husbandsoftiktok #wivesoftiktok #fairplay #parenting #feminism #dismantlethepatriarchy #relationship #marriage #support #partnering
“Looking back I’m like, what, WHAT?! How could I possibly think that was okay? And the thing is, when we had kids it didn’t stop, right, my partner would do all the work to get all of them ready, and make sure they were bathed, snacks packed, and I would get myself ready. I’d think, oh, I saw my own father do this quite a bit where he would take care of his own needs, so I know I didn’t learn it from nowhere. But I also had to UNLEARN it, because it NEVER was okay.
I thought that my role was to do all of these things outside of the home and that the home was, you know, a woman’s domain. I saw that modeled and even taught as the way it should be, but oh my gosh, is that not PARTNERSHIP and that sucks. So if you are a person, especially if you’re a man, and you think that division of labor is okay, you shouldn’t be married, you shouldn’t be in a relationship. And I shouldn’t have been at that point in time. And that would have made me so so very mad because I would have been like, what more do you want from me? Turns out quite a LOT!”
He encourages men unlearn their tendency to put their own needs above their family’s needs
“Here’s part 2 of men centering themselves, versus how women kind of moved through the world. I would wake up sometimes on a Saturday morning after a hard day or hard week of work and make sure I got a shower, and I would do this thing where I would literally massage my knees and stretch out for half an hour. And then I would go running for like an hour, while my partner was taking care of OUR babies, who has been taking care of OUR babies the ENTIRE week WITHOUT a break. And I just kept thinking, well, if you had main character energy, you would get up and you would do the thing, and I would just fill the gap in. But that is such a selfish, self-focused perspective to think that somebody else who’s been doing this labor would have to then speak up. But that’s how, as men, we are socialized to move through the world!
You just DO WHAT YOU WANT to do WHEN YOU WANT to do it, and everybody else MOVES out of your way. It’s almost like being a highway patrol officer who’s permanently a highway patrol officer, you’re going down the highway, and everyone else starts slowing down and going the speed limit for you. And if you didn’t have an intersectional identity, if you never got off duty, you might just think, EVERYBODY drives like that. So as a man, you don’t know that people are slowing down around you because they’re kind of SCARED of you. Maybe you’re actually even a little bit DANGEROUS. Everyone is altering their behavior so that they don’t get HURT by you.”
@jfisher62 Replying to @brittany_longstaff Key conversations to move forward #fyp #relationship #lightbulbmoment #love #marriage #dismantlethepatriarchy #husbandsoftiktok #wivesoftiktok #boundarysetting #healing #divorce
“I really couldn’t see that. So when we bring this conversation into values around having kids, same kind of thing, right? It was a huge priority for my partner to get out on a weekend and not only to have a break from her day to day and taking care of the small babies, on top of me, who would also look to her to fulfill my own emotional and physical needs in ways that were very very childish as well. That is HELL. All she wanted to do was get out and ride bikes with the family, have experiences! Sometimes I would support that, but there were other times when I was, ‘Ugh, I really can’t because it’s not my value right now. My value is to get rest after this long week of work, and I just need to be home. And I would like you guys to be here, and I want to be around.’ It’s so kind of manipulative and controlling.
But here’s the thing, my partner wasn’t doing it because her values were just that she wanted to get out, HER VALUES were centered around the experiences of THE KIDS. HER VALUES were centered around how to make the FAMILY BETTER. MY VALUES were centered around how to MAKE ME MORE COMFORTABLE. That dynamic is a LOSING dynamic for EVERYBODY, but especially for women in a relationship, especially for moms, especially for primary caregivers. That’s not okay.”
He expanded on these thoughts in replies to viewers
@jfisher62 Replying to @Kimberly Schroeder J #fyp Chronicles of a Clueless Husband Part 5: Why One Person Can’t Bear It All #husbandsoftiktok #wivesoftiktok #longtermrelationship #friendship #community #marriage #healing
@jfisher62 Replying to @beebeejay01 The One About Money & Financial Entrapment in Marriage #premarital #finances #entrapment #sahm #sahp #money #budgeting #longtermrelationship #husbandsoftiktok #wivesoftiktok #cluelesshusband #marriage #fyp #retirement #value #patriarchy
@jfisher62 Replying to @Taj Turner The things that made me a clueless husband are directly correlated to white supremacy culture. We must all check our own intersectional privileges as partners, parents, community members, stewards of nature, but some more than others. #privilege #fyp #partner #husbandsoftiktok #wivesoftiktok #intersectionality #marriage #dismantlethepatriarchy #logodesign #negativespace
The internet has fallen in love with his self-awareness and important message to men everywhere
h/t Bored Panda
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