When you marry mama's boy

From Nurturer to Competitor: when baby makes three

This man got chased off the internet for this tweet.

Scott, a new father is frustrated that his wife can’t give him the attention he craves because she’s occupied, rightfully, by the needs of their newborn. It seems that he was unprepared for the change a baby would bring into their relationship, including the change where his needs would no longer come first.

People use X to vent about anything, including their private affairs. Scott was doing what he has seen others do and assumed he would receive sympathetic responses validating his frustration about his unmet needs. But in the age of outrage where Cluster B communication style is de rigeur, Scott got more than he bargained for.

I’ll admit that I felt judgemental when I first saw his tweet. This entitled man-boy has chutzpah; whingeing about his wife not putting out while in the throes of new motherhood, possibly experiencing sleep deprivation, post natal depression, negative body image, and feeling turned off by her husband’s behaviour she observed during childbirth onward.

As a woman and mother, my immediate, unconscious reaction was to empathise with his wife while drawing a number of conclusions with a sliver of information, as we all do. It’s too easy to fall for the Karpman’s Drama Triad narrative of what’s going on so that Scotty here is villain to his poor abused wife, where we all get to side with her and shame him in our duty as collective rescuer.

There are co-existing narratives to every scenario that are hard to spot when we’re emotionally invested in the most convenient narrative that allows us to feel morally superior. If you’ve been with me for at least a year, you will know that this is an ego trick that we default to when we feel challenged. We are not morally superior - we’re biased people oversimplying complexity by drawing on easily accessible mental models to provide certainty to ease our discomfort.

Some mental models won't save the world (including the one that the world needs saving)

For interest’s sake, let’s ignore speculation that this post was a social experiment and Scotty here is fake, or that Scott is actually a closeted gay man cosplaying a heterosexual married man. I’m paying attention to this post because he expressed a sentiment that many men feel when fatherhood seems like a slap in the face.

Let’s use Scott’s tweet as a case study to look at what might be going on behind the scenes in Scott’s life that led to his cry for help.

Frazzled looking father holding his newborn

Identity loss and patrescence

This man is socialised with the idea that being a good man includes getting married to a woman, providing for her, and having children. He was following the script but what no one told him about was that he would have to sacrifice some things to create space for the entry of a new member into the family.

His self-perception is the first on the sacrificial altar. He’s now a man, husband, AND father. Patrescence is not a one-off event that will bestow him with all the skills and expertise of fatherhood while preserving his old ways. It’s a gradual emotional, psychological and spiritual transformation, similar to matrescence, that few discuss, let alone acknowledge in the discourse about masculinity and fatherhood. It will take patience, practice, and support to develop his skill as a father.

He is clinging to his dying pre-father identity while having to accept the responsibility and sacrifices associated with patrescence. He is likely unaware that he’s mourning his old self and trying to emotionally soothe himself with sex and any other instinctual survival habits. Frequent sexual gratification and external validation can be avoidance tactics to feeling his feelings or trying to make sense of them. I spoke about identity loss during matrescence and the narcissistic behaviours that signal distress of a neglected mourning process.

Why woman implode their marriages

The relational blueprint of the marriage

Many relationships take the form of a hierarchy that re-enacts a mother-child dynamic. This occurs in friendships, between managers and employees, business partners, and of course, in marriages. An emotionally immature, unindividuated man will act as if the world revolves around him and his needs, perpetuating the typical narcissism of a child who requires his mother’s support to soothe and regulate his emotions.

A man coddled by his mother can delay or stunt his individuation process and maturation into adulthood. Maternal dominance in the family system can prevent fathers from providing input into parenting practices, making the father appear as the less influential parent - if a father figure is present at all. The mother-son dynamic that is established can shape the son’s psyche and habits to require and feel entitled to a continuous narcissistic supply by the primary woman in his life. Her role is to satisfy his need for attention, affection, validation, recognition, and control on demand.

Many women are unable to recognise this type of dynamic between their man and his mother, and might interpret the relationship as close and healthy. When the man in this particular mother-son dynamic gets married, his wife unknowingly replaces his mother’s role, expecting her to provide him with everything he received from his mother plus sexual gratification. His wife must now play a dual role of mother and wife except he will draw out the mother role from her most of the time and the wife role for sex. As the narcissistic Golden Child, he will expect her to meet his needs in exchange for giving her his attention.

This dynamic is thrown off with the arrival of their newborn because the baby is completely dependent on the parent’s attention, nurturing, and care. The newborn becomes the new Golden Child of the actual mother, creating the conditions for competition between husband and baby for his wife’s attention. The husband, unaware that he’s emotionally immature, co-dependent, and competing with his own child, will feel resentful about the lack of attention, affection, and sex that he’s accustomed to receiving. His wife will feel confused or angry about his behaviour because of the demands placed on her by their baby and an adult who is acting like a demanding child.

If the father/husband is unable to wise up to the drivers of his childish behaviour and unable to foster a strong attachment with his child, he can develop deep resentment toward his child that can manifest as a sibling rivalry dynamic to reclaim the position as his wife’s Golden Child.

Poor or absent role models and support system

Parents who negotiate and continue to negotiate their respective roles and responsibilities as they navigate new parenthood can facilitate a smoother transition into parenthood. A clash of unspoken expectations can drive new parents apart which can impact on the quality of bonding between each parent and the baby.

New mothers and fathers thrive when they each have effective support systems in place before their baby is born. Effective supports include:

Practical support: ie. accommodation, meal provision, house cleaning, nursing assistance, transportation to medical/maternal and child health appointments, and finances.

Educational support: ie. personal and professional connections who can prepare each parent for the reality of parenting a newborn and provide information on maternal health, child development, feeding, sleeping, and guidance for creating a safe and nurturing environment for the baby

Psychological support: ie. the ability to vent about the realities of new parenthood to trusted and reliable family and friends who can also provide useful guidance.

Healthy role models: Strong connections to mothers, fathers, grandparents, and other elders who can provide wisdom, mentorship, as well as the other forms of support.

Scott’s confessional tweet suggests that he and his wife might have a poor or absent support system, or an underutilized social network due to fear of stigma and judgement about their relationship and adjustment challenges. If Scott lacks reliable and healthy role models, like anyone looking for answers without the wisdom of discernment, he will be drawn to his masculine ideal who might have questionable ideas about parenting and the duties of a wife.

What should Scott do?

I acknowledge that this analysis is pure speculation based on a tweet and there are many more perspectives. With that said, I refuse to look at a situation through a default, oversimplified lens to demonise and dehumanise the publicly judged villain using minimal information. As someone who views a situation through each role of the Drama Triad (victim, persecutor, rescuer) and the Empowered Triad (creator, challenger, coach/facilitator) in search of a higher truth, this approach buffers me from demoralisation by preserving my and the others’ humanity.

While Scott is judged as the villain, he has been judging his baby or his wife as the villain to himself as the victim. The solution in his mind? On demand attention and affection from his wife. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed and he needs to step up into his new triple role as a responsible man, husband, and father to discover a different and realistic solution.

Every challenge provides a hint at the solution that will ameliorate the situation and restore a sense of control. By looking upstream of a crisis, we can discover the conditions that contribute to it while viewing the situation through a humanising lens. Scott is disadvantaged by some of his circumstances and will also have untapped resources at his disposal that he can leverage to realistically improve his situation.

He showed resourcefulness in venting to millions of people. I’m hopeful that a few reasonable, influential role models found their way to him through the public shaming and humiliation with much needed compassion and wisdom.

What else might be going on for Scott and his wife?

What would you say to Scott if you were his role model?

Thanks for reading,

Nathalie

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Hack narcissism and support my work

I believe that a common threat to our individual and collective thriving is an addiction to power and control. This addiction fuels and is fuelled by greed - the desire to accumulate and control resources in social, information (and attention), economic, ecological, geographical and political systems.

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