Really interesting post and very good observations! Every relationship requires effort, from both sides, and it's extremely easy to become sloppy with that effort and I believe that it applies to both sides - men and women..
Thank you Maria. And yes, completely. I was writing from a specific angle but the tally runs in both directions, absolutely. The jar works both ways too. We all need to be handed one sometimes. ♥
This is well written, as always, but there is an undercurrent inside it that bothers me. I think it is the idea that the essay and, to an extent, many men, confuse being appreciated with being necessary. I mean, sure, everyone enjoys being useful, but if a person's self-worth depends on usefulness to the extent that someone has to arrange and perform small moments of it, then that self-worth is built on a very fragile foundation.
Also, in the context of men and women, if a man needs a woman to do this, she is carrying considerable emotional labor for both people in the relationship. First, she needs to notice when he feels diminished, then she needs to find a situation where she can bolster his ego, and finally, she needs to diminish herself in some way, even if temporarily, in order to restore his preferred self-image. But what if the woman does not want to perform helplessness? Or what if she expects him to tend to his own self-worth, which I do not think is a big ask from a partner. Certainly, there are playful situations where this can be mostly harmless, but as a relationship philosophy, it asks a woman to be less so a man can feel like more.
Maybe the idea is more "people should continue to notice each other" more than people should need each other. In my own marriage, I've always thought I'd rather be wanted than needed, though I know, in reality, it is a combination of both. I know everyone is different, but for me, given a choice, I would choose want over need every time.
Charlie, I can't thank you enough for this and I mean that without reservation. Emotional labour is *the* essay I have been circling and avoiding writing, because it's the one that's most necessary and most uncomfortable. You're right that it lives inside the pickle jar. I won't argue with that.
What I will say is that there's a difference between performing helplessness and simply not refusing help when you genuinely need it. The lid was actually too tight. The cheesebake was actually out of reach. I wasn't staging anything. I was just not insisting on doing it alone for the sake of appearances.
But your wider point stands: if the jar becomes a choreography, if a woman has to engineer moments of need to sustain a man's sense of himself, that's a different thing entirely and not something I'd endorse.
Emotional labour is a recognised flaw of mine. I don't have unlimited reserves of it and it depletes me. But when the relationship is worth it and the effort genuinely flows in both directions, I'll spend it willingly. 🌻
For sure. When it flows both ways, that’s healthy. And we all need help at times, right? I just know too many people, both men and women (often men in marriage and women in relation to their kids) who overweight “usefulness” as a trait.
I saw another reader in your comments a talk about his wedding vow stating he wanted to be his wife’s hero. It’s very romantic, and I hear some version of that from guys on occasions—though less now as I hit middle age—and, while I understand the sentiment, I wish people would amend that line of thinking to mean “I want to be your hero, when you need it.”
I mean, most of the time, we don’t need heroes, we just need someone showing up and being attentive and available. Sure, be ready to be the hero, but also make sure to show up every day too. I feel like people often over-value big, dramatic events in their lives versus the small, everyday ones and, if they do this, ignore that a relationship lives in the accumulation of little acts of attention and care.
Charlie, 'I want to be your hero, when you need it' <-- 😍 that's the amendment I didn't know the essay needed. You're right!
I'll confess I'm probably the least romantic person in this comment section. But I'll tell you what does move me: I have a Caffé Nero app with a game I cannot play. I approach strangers (usually younger ones) and ask them to play it for me. They save the day. I get my stamp. Nobody needs to be a hero. Just useful, just for a moment. That's all the jar ever was.
Like you, I'd rather be wanted than needed. Being liked for the wrong things (or useful things, or surface things) when what you actually want is to be seen for your kindness, your mind, the quality of your attention is a kind of loneliness. I can't control what people latch on to. I can only decide whether it's a relationship I want to keep maintaining. I have ended many friendships because I felt I was being used. A lot of people stay in those dynamics because being needed feels better than being alone. I'd rather be alone 😊
You said a lot right here: "I can't control what people latch on to. I can only decide whether it's a relationship I want to keep maintaining. I have ended many friendships because I felt I was being used. A lot of people stay in those dynamics because being needed feels better than being alone. I'd rather be alone."
I agree with you entirely. Though I'm not sure how many others feel like we do. A relationship based on need only feeds one person in the end.
The first line of my wedding vow to my wife was: “I want to be your hero.” I knew I was no hero, but at times she has made me feel that I am hers, or could be. It’s gratifying to sense that, if not a hero, I still matter in a special way, despite my many limitations and insurmountable ordinariness.
Your article rang true for me. Not because I have ever had an affair or would ever consider one. But only that we men, I sense, are more dependent on a smiling “female gaze” than we might care to admit. Most of us, I suspect, want to be seen as manly or strong or distinguished in some masculine kind of way. When barnacles of resentment accumulate in a marriage, they can obscure our sense of mattering to our beloved. And then maybe we look for a different source of affirmation.
Thank you for your compassionate way of understanding what seems to be true for so many of us guys.
Dear Glen, thank you for sharing the story behind your vow. 'I want to be your hero.' What a thing to want to be for someone. 🥹
I noticed the word you used: insurmountable ordinariness. I want to push back on ordinary as a limitation, because I think it's actually what most people are searching for. Not bland, reliable. Not boring, safe. The kind of presence that doesn't make your cortisol spike, that doesn't complicate your life, that you can actually rest inside.
Loved your 'barnacles of resentment' metaphor. They don't arrive all at once. They slowly accumulate until one day the ship is covered and you've forgotten what the surface looked like before.
I think you're right that it belongs to both people to keep making room to impress each other. The jar goes both ways.
They say all you need is love. I'm not sure I believe that anymore. I think what you actually need is to still want. To want to impress them, make them smile, earn that look in their eyes. When that's alive in both directions, the light stays on. When it leaves - for either person - no amount of love fills that gap. Thank you.
As I read this I thought about the times my partner complained about me not asking him for help in things because most times I considered it impractical at the moment but reading this I actually realize he kept a tally of all the times my need to be self sufficient made him feel useless to me and I guess this is a light bulb moment for me.
The moments where he already convicted himself and thought I didn’t need him and decided to withdraw because he felt I didn’t need him or that I was never going to take his advice because I didn’t value them.😂
He convicted himself. You did nothing wrong, sweet flower 🌻 The jar can only get you so far. Please scroll down to see what Charlie wrote. A relationship shouldn't rely on your helplessness to thrive. He totally knew he was a bit... basic. He saw himself out of that one 😁
To be honest he didn’t actually want me to be perform helplessness, if anything he found it impressive that I was self sufficient. But I think the thing for him is that his language is acts of service. So it would have been nice every time and again to throw him a bone. Think of him as a golden retriever, with nothing to retrieve for his love, he starts to question his purpose in your life. He wants to be the one to solve all your problems if he can help it so when he finds out you struggled with something he could have easily solved, it sort of rubbed him the wrong way that I was willing to ‘suffer’ when there was an option to ease my burden. And when he starts to get into it as the chronic over-thinker he is, it becomes a reflection of how he wasn’t doing enough for me to let my guard down.
I went through the thread of the comments with Charlie and honestly I learnt a lot of interesting things in the back and forth. Asking for help doesn’t have to be a performance. Just because you can do something yourself doesn’t always mean you have to. There is no prize for picking to do the hard stuff everytime when there is a less stressful option.
And someone wanting to make your life easier and help you in those times isn’t an assumption on their part that you can’t handle the hard things.
And ooh he didn’t see himself out actually 😂😂. I think being useful is a trauma response for him, just as being self efficient might just be mine.
We fought about it a lot until it just became a bit where he has made peace with the fact that I like to be independent and he just grumbles about it from time to time.
Your piece made me actually see things from his perspective and it made me less annoyed.
He is a good man that obsesses about being useful to me, almost like he is afraid that if I don’t find useful, I might not want him anymore that’s all.
Great essay, ma chère Liloo puce, some really great observations. You opened here not a cornichons jar but a Pandora Babushka ... absolutely valid argument, after 3 decades of practical experience I can tell that. And once the cornichons jar effect develops it becomes a tip of an iceberg which forms beneath; or the first hole in a Swiss cheese slices row. It leads many times into silence, which is the ultimate killer in a relation.
Oh I could go on and on ... et tu sais bien pourquoi ...
You're right that silence is the ultimate killer. Not arguments, not betrayal, just... silence. The moment two people stop trying to be heard by each other, the jar sits unopened on the shelf and collects dust. 😞 x Merci
Great piece! This is something I am very passionate about. So very many unhappy couples - who feel they need to stay because they need to stick it out - but they are just existing in the same space - sharing space - sharing things - but not actually sharing a life. I’ve had way more guy friends throughout my life - and in my experience men need to be needed (the jar), wanted (in your life), and desired (physically). There are variations on that but many time it’s shades of those 3 things. It’s never very obvious to me when people stop working at it - because as you said it’s slowly over time. We definitely need more of the jar.
Great insight and probably works for friends and children as well. It's so important not to take people for granted. Thank you for the reminder! Now I want a pickle!
Thank you. 🌞 This is so true. I am convinced that a large proportion of relationships, romantic or not end because of the assymetry in effort and this feeling of “being taken for granted”! x
Really interesting piece that I love. I think the pickle jar metaphor really can go both ways in a relationship. I think that as a man, I've seen a lot of men wander off into relationships and maybe it's that lack of acknowledgement when opening the pickle jar. But maybe it's the fact that they a lot of men will always try to make excuses and blame the spouse, when in fact, their wondering comes from a yearning to be a knight in shining armour and to be appreciated for that. Maybe as humans we all search for praise from those who mean dear, and when we don't get that, some people turn to affairs, some go to therapy and others aren't aware of that search.
Thank you Harry, this is such a thoughtful addition to the conversation: the wandering is easier to justify if the spouse becomes the villain, but underneath it, as you put it, is something much more vulnerable. Just a person wanting to feel like the knight again.🌹x
What an honor and what a wonderfully thought out article! I love the pickle jar connection, it is actually very true!
And we have in fact been asking ourselves the wrong questions all along. I’m learning that affairs do in fact begin because of them and not the spouse.
Thank you for your perspective and your amazing extremely talented (and sexy) voice😍😘
Very interesting! When are these behaviors complicated and when are they simple? Rarely do I meet someone who is happy in their marriage. The women I meet, that could be possible friends, quickly digress to complaining about their marriage, constantly, and the manipulation involved with everything related to money. It’s boring to me, even revolting.
The trend that was on social media with women telling their husbands that they couldn’t pay the mortgage this month was bewildering to me.
I really enjoyed the audio narration of this. Thank you for taking the time.
You bit off a big hard piece of cheese here, I commend your courage. Oddly, I think it takes a kind of advanced emotional maturity to ponder the notion that you weren't the problem when someone betrays a promise of monogamy with you. The easier, self-centered notion is that you could have prevented all that if you had not let your standards lapse, if you had anticipated and responded to change better, became sexier or better at sex, etc.
This kind of analysis leaves you as the locus of control for the loss. You had a loss, but you caused it, so by that logic, you can prevent another one. People will torture themselves with this notion, preferring the familiar "I suck" to the powerlessness of accepting that you can't make people love you, and you can't make someone keep a promise like sexual exclusivity, they have to make and keep that vow on their own, with their own resources.
I have a contraption to get the lids off of pickle jars, but I will keep it forever secret from you so that you always bring yours to me. Yes, as a man, I like being "useful" to women because trust is SO HARD for a man to earn in sexual politics these days. When a woman asks a man to open the pickle jar, she puts him in the comfortable, familiar, affirming position of being one-up to her, even for this seemingly inconsequential task. As you illustrate in this beautiful essay, this relieves them of their insecurity, of course their eyes light up like it is Christmas.
Many men, perhaps most men, are poisoning the air between men and women with hostile, often outright violent, defenses of their basic insecurity. Some of that insecurity derives from the hormonal focus of sexual reproduction in our DNA. All cis-het men know that a woman can manipulate them with seduction. We fear women's power to compel men to make choices which put the man on a level-playing field with the woman. We need consent.
We are conditioned to value independent agency of action--we do what we want. We are conditioned to believe that women do not have our powerful sense of agency and independent purpose. Women provide care, which involves service, which is seen by most men as being one-down.
Your insight turns the tables on that. I'll bet the men who open your pickle jars in your life adore you. Thanks for working hard on this, it is polished and an engaging read.
Thank you so much for engaging with this so thoughtfully and for the pickle jar contraption confession. I see you. 😄
I hesitated before posting this. A lot of work goes into kindling the fire of a relationship and I didn't want that to get lost — the pickle jar is not a magic solution and I hope that came through. Your point about seduction and the line between influence and manipulation genuinely stopped me. My friend Belle, whose note sparked this essay in the first place, has been sitting with exactly that question in her own life. If you fancy reading, it's here --> https://bellorbe.substack.com/p/holding-on-to-a-lie-that-eventually)
The pickle jar is part of a wider philosophy I haven't named yet, that wisdom and usefulness can come from anyone, anywhere. A child, someone in a wheelchair, a stranger in Primark. The moment of being needed doesn't require significance. It just requires noticing. Thank you for seeing that in the piece. ♥
Very well written and observed but you may be giving men more credit than we deserve! I would be interested in your thoughts of the opposite situation where the woman is the wanderer.
Tsu. The pickle jar image is doing so much work, & the compassion for the person auditing her own body & personality after being blindsided is the part I don't want to lose in what follows.
But I sat with this uneasy, & I think it's worth naming why; feels like you explained the affair almost entirely through one theory of his interior weather, the tally, the shame, the private verdict, with very little room left for the fact that leaving, or talking, was always available to him too. Understanding the mechanism starts to read like absolution, even though I'm almost certainly sure that's not what you meant.
& the jar asks something specific of her, not him: notice his diminishment, stage a moment to restore it, shrink a little so he can feel capable again. Like, that's not a small or neutral ask. Even the ending, which is trying to free her from blame, keeps the whole theory centered on his internal court instead of her own experience of the relationship.
But here’s the thing: I don't think the underlying truth you pointed out is wrong, people wither without ever being needed. You're absolutely right in that, it's so interesting how we can arrive at the same point via different routes.
Your pieces always make me think, thank you for that that. ♡
Really interesting post and very good observations! Every relationship requires effort, from both sides, and it's extremely easy to become sloppy with that effort and I believe that it applies to both sides - men and women..
Thank you Maria. And yes, completely. I was writing from a specific angle but the tally runs in both directions, absolutely. The jar works both ways too. We all need to be handed one sometimes. ♥
This is well written, as always, but there is an undercurrent inside it that bothers me. I think it is the idea that the essay and, to an extent, many men, confuse being appreciated with being necessary. I mean, sure, everyone enjoys being useful, but if a person's self-worth depends on usefulness to the extent that someone has to arrange and perform small moments of it, then that self-worth is built on a very fragile foundation.
Also, in the context of men and women, if a man needs a woman to do this, she is carrying considerable emotional labor for both people in the relationship. First, she needs to notice when he feels diminished, then she needs to find a situation where she can bolster his ego, and finally, she needs to diminish herself in some way, even if temporarily, in order to restore his preferred self-image. But what if the woman does not want to perform helplessness? Or what if she expects him to tend to his own self-worth, which I do not think is a big ask from a partner. Certainly, there are playful situations where this can be mostly harmless, but as a relationship philosophy, it asks a woman to be less so a man can feel like more.
Maybe the idea is more "people should continue to notice each other" more than people should need each other. In my own marriage, I've always thought I'd rather be wanted than needed, though I know, in reality, it is a combination of both. I know everyone is different, but for me, given a choice, I would choose want over need every time.
Charlie, I can't thank you enough for this and I mean that without reservation. Emotional labour is *the* essay I have been circling and avoiding writing, because it's the one that's most necessary and most uncomfortable. You're right that it lives inside the pickle jar. I won't argue with that.
What I will say is that there's a difference between performing helplessness and simply not refusing help when you genuinely need it. The lid was actually too tight. The cheesebake was actually out of reach. I wasn't staging anything. I was just not insisting on doing it alone for the sake of appearances.
But your wider point stands: if the jar becomes a choreography, if a woman has to engineer moments of need to sustain a man's sense of himself, that's a different thing entirely and not something I'd endorse.
Emotional labour is a recognised flaw of mine. I don't have unlimited reserves of it and it depletes me. But when the relationship is worth it and the effort genuinely flows in both directions, I'll spend it willingly. 🌻
For sure. When it flows both ways, that’s healthy. And we all need help at times, right? I just know too many people, both men and women (often men in marriage and women in relation to their kids) who overweight “usefulness” as a trait.
I saw another reader in your comments a talk about his wedding vow stating he wanted to be his wife’s hero. It’s very romantic, and I hear some version of that from guys on occasions—though less now as I hit middle age—and, while I understand the sentiment, I wish people would amend that line of thinking to mean “I want to be your hero, when you need it.”
I mean, most of the time, we don’t need heroes, we just need someone showing up and being attentive and available. Sure, be ready to be the hero, but also make sure to show up every day too. I feel like people often over-value big, dramatic events in their lives versus the small, everyday ones and, if they do this, ignore that a relationship lives in the accumulation of little acts of attention and care.
Charlie, 'I want to be your hero, when you need it' <-- 😍 that's the amendment I didn't know the essay needed. You're right!
I'll confess I'm probably the least romantic person in this comment section. But I'll tell you what does move me: I have a Caffé Nero app with a game I cannot play. I approach strangers (usually younger ones) and ask them to play it for me. They save the day. I get my stamp. Nobody needs to be a hero. Just useful, just for a moment. That's all the jar ever was.
Like you, I'd rather be wanted than needed. Being liked for the wrong things (or useful things, or surface things) when what you actually want is to be seen for your kindness, your mind, the quality of your attention is a kind of loneliness. I can't control what people latch on to. I can only decide whether it's a relationship I want to keep maintaining. I have ended many friendships because I felt I was being used. A lot of people stay in those dynamics because being needed feels better than being alone. I'd rather be alone 😊
You said a lot right here: "I can't control what people latch on to. I can only decide whether it's a relationship I want to keep maintaining. I have ended many friendships because I felt I was being used. A lot of people stay in those dynamics because being needed feels better than being alone. I'd rather be alone."
I agree with you entirely. Though I'm not sure how many others feel like we do. A relationship based on need only feeds one person in the end.
Hi Tsunimee,
The first line of my wedding vow to my wife was: “I want to be your hero.” I knew I was no hero, but at times she has made me feel that I am hers, or could be. It’s gratifying to sense that, if not a hero, I still matter in a special way, despite my many limitations and insurmountable ordinariness.
Your article rang true for me. Not because I have ever had an affair or would ever consider one. But only that we men, I sense, are more dependent on a smiling “female gaze” than we might care to admit. Most of us, I suspect, want to be seen as manly or strong or distinguished in some masculine kind of way. When barnacles of resentment accumulate in a marriage, they can obscure our sense of mattering to our beloved. And then maybe we look for a different source of affirmation.
Thank you for your compassionate way of understanding what seems to be true for so many of us guys.
Dear Glen, thank you for sharing the story behind your vow. 'I want to be your hero.' What a thing to want to be for someone. 🥹
I noticed the word you used: insurmountable ordinariness. I want to push back on ordinary as a limitation, because I think it's actually what most people are searching for. Not bland, reliable. Not boring, safe. The kind of presence that doesn't make your cortisol spike, that doesn't complicate your life, that you can actually rest inside.
Loved your 'barnacles of resentment' metaphor. They don't arrive all at once. They slowly accumulate until one day the ship is covered and you've forgotten what the surface looked like before.
I think you're right that it belongs to both people to keep making room to impress each other. The jar goes both ways.
They say all you need is love. I'm not sure I believe that anymore. I think what you actually need is to still want. To want to impress them, make them smile, earn that look in their eyes. When that's alive in both directions, the light stays on. When it leaves - for either person - no amount of love fills that gap. Thank you.
Wow. I love the pickle jar metaphor. You have good observation skills Tsunimee well-done.
Thank you, sweet pea x
As I read this I thought about the times my partner complained about me not asking him for help in things because most times I considered it impractical at the moment but reading this I actually realize he kept a tally of all the times my need to be self sufficient made him feel useless to me and I guess this is a light bulb moment for me.
The moments where he already convicted himself and thought I didn’t need him and decided to withdraw because he felt I didn’t need him or that I was never going to take his advice because I didn’t value them.😂
Now I am off to rethink my life choices 😂
He convicted himself. You did nothing wrong, sweet flower 🌻 The jar can only get you so far. Please scroll down to see what Charlie wrote. A relationship shouldn't rely on your helplessness to thrive. He totally knew he was a bit... basic. He saw himself out of that one 😁
To be honest he didn’t actually want me to be perform helplessness, if anything he found it impressive that I was self sufficient. But I think the thing for him is that his language is acts of service. So it would have been nice every time and again to throw him a bone. Think of him as a golden retriever, with nothing to retrieve for his love, he starts to question his purpose in your life. He wants to be the one to solve all your problems if he can help it so when he finds out you struggled with something he could have easily solved, it sort of rubbed him the wrong way that I was willing to ‘suffer’ when there was an option to ease my burden. And when he starts to get into it as the chronic over-thinker he is, it becomes a reflection of how he wasn’t doing enough for me to let my guard down.
I went through the thread of the comments with Charlie and honestly I learnt a lot of interesting things in the back and forth. Asking for help doesn’t have to be a performance. Just because you can do something yourself doesn’t always mean you have to. There is no prize for picking to do the hard stuff everytime when there is a less stressful option.
And someone wanting to make your life easier and help you in those times isn’t an assumption on their part that you can’t handle the hard things.
And ooh he didn’t see himself out actually 😂😂. I think being useful is a trauma response for him, just as being self efficient might just be mine.
We fought about it a lot until it just became a bit where he has made peace with the fact that I like to be independent and he just grumbles about it from time to time.
Your piece made me actually see things from his perspective and it made me less annoyed.
He is a good man that obsesses about being useful to me, almost like he is afraid that if I don’t find useful, I might not want him anymore that’s all.
Great essay, ma chère Liloo puce, some really great observations. You opened here not a cornichons jar but a Pandora Babushka ... absolutely valid argument, after 3 decades of practical experience I can tell that. And once the cornichons jar effect develops it becomes a tip of an iceberg which forms beneath; or the first hole in a Swiss cheese slices row. It leads many times into silence, which is the ultimate killer in a relation.
Oh I could go on and on ... et tu sais bien pourquoi ...
You're right that silence is the ultimate killer. Not arguments, not betrayal, just... silence. The moment two people stop trying to be heard by each other, the jar sits unopened on the shelf and collects dust. 😞 x Merci
Tu sais, c’est justement le silence qui pousse les gens d’aller off-road … a complex subject …
Great piece! This is something I am very passionate about. So very many unhappy couples - who feel they need to stay because they need to stick it out - but they are just existing in the same space - sharing space - sharing things - but not actually sharing a life. I’ve had way more guy friends throughout my life - and in my experience men need to be needed (the jar), wanted (in your life), and desired (physically). There are variations on that but many time it’s shades of those 3 things. It’s never very obvious to me when people stop working at it - because as you said it’s slowly over time. We definitely need more of the jar.
Mae, this three-layer framework is genius and I wish I'd thought of it when I was writing the piece: needed, wanted, desired. Yes!!
Three different jars, really, and a relationship needs all three to stay alive. Absolutely love this! 🌻
Great insight and probably works for friends and children as well. It's so important not to take people for granted. Thank you for the reminder! Now I want a pickle!
Thank you. 🌞 This is so true. I am convinced that a large proportion of relationships, romantic or not end because of the assymetry in effort and this feeling of “being taken for granted”! x
Really interesting piece that I love. I think the pickle jar metaphor really can go both ways in a relationship. I think that as a man, I've seen a lot of men wander off into relationships and maybe it's that lack of acknowledgement when opening the pickle jar. But maybe it's the fact that they a lot of men will always try to make excuses and blame the spouse, when in fact, their wondering comes from a yearning to be a knight in shining armour and to be appreciated for that. Maybe as humans we all search for praise from those who mean dear, and when we don't get that, some people turn to affairs, some go to therapy and others aren't aware of that search.
Thank you Harry, this is such a thoughtful addition to the conversation: the wandering is easier to justify if the spouse becomes the villain, but underneath it, as you put it, is something much more vulnerable. Just a person wanting to feel like the knight again.🌹x
What an honor and what a wonderfully thought out article! I love the pickle jar connection, it is actually very true!
And we have in fact been asking ourselves the wrong questions all along. I’m learning that affairs do in fact begin because of them and not the spouse.
Thank you for your perspective and your amazing extremely talented (and sexy) voice😍😘
Very interesting! When are these behaviors complicated and when are they simple? Rarely do I meet someone who is happy in their marriage. The women I meet, that could be possible friends, quickly digress to complaining about their marriage, constantly, and the manipulation involved with everything related to money. It’s boring to me, even revolting.
The trend that was on social media with women telling their husbands that they couldn’t pay the mortgage this month was bewildering to me.
Thanks!
Thank you so much! 🙏🏻🥹x
I really enjoyed the audio narration of this. Thank you for taking the time.
You bit off a big hard piece of cheese here, I commend your courage. Oddly, I think it takes a kind of advanced emotional maturity to ponder the notion that you weren't the problem when someone betrays a promise of monogamy with you. The easier, self-centered notion is that you could have prevented all that if you had not let your standards lapse, if you had anticipated and responded to change better, became sexier or better at sex, etc.
This kind of analysis leaves you as the locus of control for the loss. You had a loss, but you caused it, so by that logic, you can prevent another one. People will torture themselves with this notion, preferring the familiar "I suck" to the powerlessness of accepting that you can't make people love you, and you can't make someone keep a promise like sexual exclusivity, they have to make and keep that vow on their own, with their own resources.
I have a contraption to get the lids off of pickle jars, but I will keep it forever secret from you so that you always bring yours to me. Yes, as a man, I like being "useful" to women because trust is SO HARD for a man to earn in sexual politics these days. When a woman asks a man to open the pickle jar, she puts him in the comfortable, familiar, affirming position of being one-up to her, even for this seemingly inconsequential task. As you illustrate in this beautiful essay, this relieves them of their insecurity, of course their eyes light up like it is Christmas.
Many men, perhaps most men, are poisoning the air between men and women with hostile, often outright violent, defenses of their basic insecurity. Some of that insecurity derives from the hormonal focus of sexual reproduction in our DNA. All cis-het men know that a woman can manipulate them with seduction. We fear women's power to compel men to make choices which put the man on a level-playing field with the woman. We need consent.
We are conditioned to value independent agency of action--we do what we want. We are conditioned to believe that women do not have our powerful sense of agency and independent purpose. Women provide care, which involves service, which is seen by most men as being one-down.
Your insight turns the tables on that. I'll bet the men who open your pickle jars in your life adore you. Thanks for working hard on this, it is polished and an engaging read.
Thank you so much for engaging with this so thoughtfully and for the pickle jar contraption confession. I see you. 😄
I hesitated before posting this. A lot of work goes into kindling the fire of a relationship and I didn't want that to get lost — the pickle jar is not a magic solution and I hope that came through. Your point about seduction and the line between influence and manipulation genuinely stopped me. My friend Belle, whose note sparked this essay in the first place, has been sitting with exactly that question in her own life. If you fancy reading, it's here --> https://bellorbe.substack.com/p/holding-on-to-a-lie-that-eventually)
The pickle jar is part of a wider philosophy I haven't named yet, that wisdom and usefulness can come from anyone, anywhere. A child, someone in a wheelchair, a stranger in Primark. The moment of being needed doesn't require significance. It just requires noticing. Thank you for seeing that in the piece. ♥
Very well written and observed but you may be giving men more credit than we deserve! I would be interested in your thoughts of the opposite situation where the woman is the wanderer.
Thank you, petit filou ♥
Now, your question: The cornichon has ceased to feel adequate?
I really love this observation. People want to feel necessary and it’s easy to forget that in our day to day
Tsu. The pickle jar image is doing so much work, & the compassion for the person auditing her own body & personality after being blindsided is the part I don't want to lose in what follows.
But I sat with this uneasy, & I think it's worth naming why; feels like you explained the affair almost entirely through one theory of his interior weather, the tally, the shame, the private verdict, with very little room left for the fact that leaving, or talking, was always available to him too. Understanding the mechanism starts to read like absolution, even though I'm almost certainly sure that's not what you meant.
& the jar asks something specific of her, not him: notice his diminishment, stage a moment to restore it, shrink a little so he can feel capable again. Like, that's not a small or neutral ask. Even the ending, which is trying to free her from blame, keeps the whole theory centered on his internal court instead of her own experience of the relationship.
But here’s the thing: I don't think the underlying truth you pointed out is wrong, people wither without ever being needed. You're absolutely right in that, it's so interesting how we can arrive at the same point via different routes.
Your pieces always make me think, thank you for that that. ♡
Wow. I love the pickle jar metaphor. You have good observation skills Tsunimee well-done.