I heartily agree that a large part of this dynamic comes from social conditioning that doesn’t do anyone any favors. And, I also have to say — thank you, you have no idea how unfathomably tiresome this can be! And, there absolutely are controlling women out there, but this whole need to be in charge, to be the leader, to be in control that is a part of what is expected from men….. meanwhile, every single relationship that I see that is functional, the woman is the center tent pole holding the whole entire thing up, at great personal cost. They are doing the emotional labor as well as all of the administrative labor to keep things from going off the rails and are still expected in many cases to defer. It’s like having a boss who always steals the credit for your work and ideas and expects you to make him look good and then pats you on the ass for your trouble.

Something like 65% of Americans still believe that the man should be the head of the household and even if that isn’t a conscious active part of your particular relationship, it does subconsciously inform things if you haven’t affirmatively deprogrammed from it. But yet there are no jokes where the woman says to the man, “Hey honey, which one of these do I like again?” There are no jokes about a woman being a man’s other child.

Overwhelmingly, all of the strongest people that I know are women. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t tough and courageous men out there. Of course, there are but the preponderance of truly resilient and exceptional people that I know are all women who are figuring out how to survive and thrive in a world that underestimates them.