The time for pressuring men to take care of us in ways we’re not capable of doing has passed.
Hey everyone, I’m back. In case you’re new, I’m Olivia S. Benson — you gotta put the S — and I’m the author of a couple of books. One is called Answers from Within: Answers to Work-Life Issues in the Age of Spiritual Evolution, and the other one, which we’re discussing today, is For the Love of My Father, which is a spiritual guide for women healing from the absence of a father.
For the past, I guess it’s been about a month or so, we’ve been discussing a chapter in the book that is titled — this is the book, and it’s available on Amazon, For the Love of My Father — and we’ve been discussing a chapter that’s titled Getting Ready to Love Another. And it’s all about, obviously, first of all, if you’re here, it’s probably because you believe you have some daddy issues, or if you’re male, you’re in a relationship with someone who has daddy issues, or you might have been a dad who was absent, and this is your opportunity to learn about what your daughter might have been going through. So at this point, we were discussing sort of healing your daddy issues, and then getting ready to be in a healthy, wholesome relationship.
So I’ve been discussing different points from the book, and of course, the posts that I’ve been making are also sort of focused on that particular chapter. But this week, on my Facebook Author Olivia S. Benson page, I posted a particular quote. And by the way, when you see these quotes, it’s not the entire discussion, it’s just a little piece, a segment that I take, that I think can sort of make sense. And the post that I made, one of them that I made this week, and that we’re discussing today, it says: the time for pressuring men to take care of us in ways we’re not capable of doing has passed, much as the time for women to enable men and try to fix them.
Now, there’s a lot packed into that, and if you go to the book, if you already have it, if not, like I said, it’s available on Amazon — and these quotes are just little nuggets — this is coming from page 113, going over to 114.
We Women Have to Decide Who We Want to Be
And basically, what I’m saying at this particular point is, okay, there are a couple of things. First of all, we know that women have been in a — I don’t want to say submissive, but it’s kind of like we’ve been under the control, under the dominion, historically, under the control and dominion of men for a very, very long time. And I said it in this book, and I said it in my prior book, Answers from Within.
In fact, in Answers from Within, which is also available on Amazon, there is a whole chapter devoted to how women have suffered under the control of men. But nonetheless, fortunately, at this point, we have advanced. And the essence and the reason that I posted this is because of one thing.
We women have to decide who we want to be and how we want to be. Because to a significant extent, we are always saying we want to be equal. We want to take our rightful place, which is part of the premise of this book.
We have to get right. We got to look at our issues and heal our issues and get right so that we can make it to all the places we want to go. Well, we say that we want equality. We want to take our rightful place. But then on the other side of the table, we still want to — some of us, by the way, some of us, not every single one of us, but some of us still want to say in some ways that men are supposed to be taking care of us. And that’s a very contradictory thing.
If That Works for You, Fantastic
Now, let me clarify. There’s some things that I think in a relationship are important. And by the way, first of all, I’m not talking necessarily about marriage, because when people are married, they have to reach an agreement as to how things are going to balance. But I’ll give you an example. Things that I see.
Women who, let’s say, are dating a guy and they expect this guy to pay their bills and whatever your thing is, it’s your thing. And whatever’s worked for you and maybe whatever works for him. If that works for you, fantastic.
But the problem with that in terms of just as a generality is that if you want equal rights, if you want to be respected, and all the things that go with that, how can you say, I’m going to expect you to take care of me in this particular way — and at the same time, but I want equal rights, and I want respect. And I want to sort of be in charge of myself.
Clearly, if you are expecting another human being to take care of you in all the ways that women traditionally have — and that was the case. Women needed men. Most women needed men to take care of them, because there was no way for them to make money. To be — at some points, even women weren’t even able to work.
So there were so many things. If you were a widow, if your husband died, it was like the worst thing that could happen to you, because maybe you had not had an opportunity to have an education, an opportunity to go to work, any number of things. And it was simply the worst thing ever that could happen.
Now We’re in a Different Time
But now we’re in a different time. Women have come a far way from not being able to work. Now we’re able to work. Now we’re able to get an education. And pretty much, even though things are not equal as yet, women have moved along a lot. And to be honest, I think sometimes this is a little bit confusing for men.
Because we’re saying, we want to be equal. We want to work. We want to take care of ourselves. But at the same time, we want men to take care of us. And what I find even more difficult, and I believe can be a little bit confusing to some men — there are women, obviously not all women, but there are women who expect a guy, a man, to take care of them. But at the same time, they don’t have anything to offer.
That’s a Business Deal
Now, I want to be very clear. I’m talking about very specific circumstances, things that I’ve observed, experiences that I’ve had, acquaintances that I’ve had. I had a friend of mine basically tell me — this was a while ago — but she would say, listen, if you have a guy, and you’re not basically taking him for everything he’s got, it’s because you’re stupid.
And what I said to her was, well, if you’re saying to me that when I’m in a relationship with a guy, my job is to take from him in exchange for companionship, sex, or whatever you want to call it, then that, for me, is not a relationship. That’s a business deal. And she was very adamant that basically that’s the way she had been trained. It was to take and to get.
And then to take that a step further, and what I see many, many times is that women will say, he’s supposed to take care of me. And they are like, well, he’s supposed to take care of me, but I don’t do certain things. I don’t cook. I don’t clean. I don’t — in other words, he’s supposed to take care of me, but there’s nothing that I have to do for him.
Everything in Life Is About Balance
And I’m not sure what they’re suggesting in terms of what the exchange is, but I do know one thing, and that is that everything in life is about balance. Now, let me say this. For sure, for sure, there are things that I expect a man to do to care for me. There are. And I believe a man should take care of his woman in some very specific kinds of way, things that he does for her, because she is his queen.
Not because he’s having sex with her, not because she went on a date with him. It is because he loves and cherishes her and wants to take care of her and wants to treat her in some very specific ways. Likewise, if I am in a relationship with a man and he is taking care of me in those kinds of ways, I want to make sure that I’m bringing something to the table.
It doesn’t have to be cooking and cleaning like in the olden days, but certainly there’s something that I’m bringing to him to enrich his life and to have balance in the relationship. Because what happens with humans is, if you’re a woman and you are in a relationship with a guy and you believe that he’s supposed to do certain things for you because he’s a man, and it’s sort of almost transactional — you’re going to do this for me, you’re going to pay my this, you’re going to do my this, or whatever the case might be.
Now, if that’s the basis of the relationship, the next thing that’s going to happen is that that person is going to try to get his money’s worth. That’s how humans typically are. Now, like I said, to each their own. Everybody has a formula. Sometimes the formula works and many times it doesn’t, because it’s out of balance.
But the big deal right now that I’m addressing with this quote is that if we as women are seeking equality and we’re seeking advancement and we’re seeking to take our place in the world, then this idea that men are supposed to take care of us in a particular kind of way and for particular reasons, that idea needs to be modified.
Now You Need to Look at the Perspective
So we’ve come, and we continue, and we will continue in our continual discussions about daddy issues, how it affects us. And then the fact of the matter is that you fix yourself, you work on yourself, you develop yourself spiritually, you make your connection with God and all these kinds of things. And then the next thing that you’re needing to do is to adjust your perspective on what a relationship is. Because if you can see clearly once you’ve dealt with the daddy issues underneath, now you need to look at the perspective that you’re going to have in any relationship. What are your expectations? What is a man supposed to bring to you, and what are you to bring to him?
So we find ourselves in the world in general — and here in America — in a place where we sort of need to decide what our position is going to be, and we need to find balance. And it’s very, very possible. This is not something that gets so unbelievable. And by the way, everybody’s not in the same place. Different people are in different places with this particular issue.
But so in general, we’re here in America, and the question is, how do men and women rebalance the nature of relationships? And I believe that each person has to find the answer to that question, and the person that matches them with regards to their perspective.
But a general position that was the ancient position, the old position — and it’s very interesting, because what I found is that while women had to be subjugated, while men subjugated women, women found a way of getting what they needed to get one way or the other. So there’s no innocence in this, so to speak. Men wanted to oppress and keep women in a certain place, and then women said, okay, well, you’re going to keep me in this position, well, what you’re going to do is you’re going to take care of me. And no judgment, it is what it is. We just need to deal with the present. But now we’re in a different position.
So the idea that you’re just going to take care of me because I’m a woman and you’re a man, and we are in the modern day, so I’m going to hold on to the old part of that perspective and say you need to take care of me, but then I’m going to demand equality and I’m going to demand respect — that is out of balance. And so this is something that we need to reconsider.
You Cannot Fix Anyone
And the last part of the statement, which is just as much as women need to stop enabling men and trying to fix them. Because as much as we complain about what a guy might do or a man might do and things like that, there’s a lot of enabling that goes on with men, many times by mothers and even other women.
So for example — and we talked about this several videos ago — a man could be unfaithful and two women will fight over him. He could stand right there and two women will fight over him and not address him as the real perpetrator in the matter. That’s enabling.
And also, many women have the tendency of saying, well, this particular thing is wrong with this particular man, but I’m going to fix him, and then once I fix him, he’s just going to be perfect. Well, we’ve been around long enough to know that each of us is responsible for our own healing. You cannot fix anyone.
So there are many things in this particular passage. It’s on page 113 going over to page 114 of For the Love of My Father, which I said is available on Amazon, and it is posted on my Author Olivia S. Benson page on Facebook, and Olivia S. Benson on Instagram and on Twitter. Also, check out my website, and the website is OliviaSBenson.com.