Separation AND Reunion Can Both Be Hard

Now I don't claim to understand you gals like a Dr. with a PHD in family psychology and with the new breed of men called "metrosexuals" I'm not even so sure I understand men any more! I do know a few basics I can pass on. First I know women are often stuck between a rock and a hard place. Many woman go to work every day and have taken on a new roll of being partial provider. You go to a work world of bottom line priorities and nurturing is not welcome in the work place in most cases. Yet after days, weeks, or months of being a worker bee as well as mom and holding down the fort at home your truck driving husband or boyfriend comes home and expects a certain amount of TLC. You've been in a mode of "git-er-done" and shifting gears to being spouse is very hard, and in many respects unfair. I may not have been driving my whole life, but I was in the Navy and spent 65-75 days at a time under water in a submarine. No calls home, no communication. Much like being on the road except a much higher divorce rate. We older guys come from a world where dad went off to work and mom took care of the home. We are often unprepared to deal with this modern world where the traditional rolls don't work and we never had an example of how to make it work. Our dads came home and de-stressed with sports, a man cave, or sitting behind a news paper. Wifes knew we guys understood and appreciated how critical their roll was and that if it were not for his wife he would not have a safe haven to decompress in. Men knew how to express gratitude for what his wife did and knew how critical it was to have a "safe haven" to come home to. Women did not need to go to a job where nurturing is not welcome. Women could place a priority on the full time, never ending, and very hard job of keeping a home a home. They would have friends to talk to or spend time with once in a while and they lived in a world were offering caring support was not only OK, but productive and necessary. Women use both parts of their brains at the same time so they can think and express themselves at the same time using both logic and feelings. Men use one side, logic, first. They often react at that point, and then review with the part that "feels". As they get more mature they learn to use the logic, then check in with the feelings, and then speak or react. New advances in science show this to be true. Non the less, you go into the work world and are forced to mimic how men think. How can you be expected to shift worlds back and forth? Men on the road don't get any practice and cant practice how to communicate with women because if he takes time to "check in" with his feelings about what he is experiencing rather that react with logic first he will run over that 6 year old kid that just darted out in front of his 79,000 pound rig. Now things are all mixed up. Women need to work because a one income household seems necessary just to make ends meet. Women are forced to disconnect with their nurturing side to compete in the work world and men have to accept the negative feelings they have about themselves for not being able to be the sole provider. No wonder the divorce rate is so high! We are all being shifted into new rolls that our parents didn't have to deal with, so we didn't see examples of how too live as we do. We saw examples of how to live like generations before us did. Times have changed faster than we could and todays men and women are playing catch-up. We need to catch up and figure it out so we can set the new example for our children. Any thoughts?

Bill, I agree that the world is over running both men and women. Tech stuff, economy is crap, wages are not enough, and the divorce rate is skyrocketing. So the norm now is single parent homes, with the other parent usually disconnected. Women are vibrant, reactive beings. We see what needs done, figure a way to do it, and do it. We mix emotion with reality, at light speed. But we are wired that way, and wouldn't want to be any other way. I truly feel sorry for men, who can't experience in a day, half of what a woman can...we are mother bears, in heels and pearls. We are showed our worth in WWII in the ship yards. We raise children with little more than faith in God, and hope for the future. And I pray for those women who fall by the wayside, into drugs, and mind numbing behaviors. They are ruining more than their own life... But all in all we are resilient.....we will survive. I have been a single mother for many years, a truck river for many more, and a truckers wife for many...I have been in all the shoes, and have learned what it takes in every situation. I am well rounded, experienced, and most of all, very thankful that I have had the chance to ride on this wild adventure I call my life.