Is your wife, girlfriend or partner ALWAYS exhausted???

[curves2000]

Strange topic I know but it dawned on me recently in conversations with my male friends, that they always talk about how the women in their lives are ALWAYS exhausted. Tired, exhausted, "dying" and "half dead" This has been confirmed by the women themselves all the time. My female friends are the exact same way.

The last few women I have dated complained about it constantly, sometimes multiple times in a short conversation and multiple messages in a text convo.

I am referring mostly to women in their 20's and 30's who are otherwise healthy. It did not or does not appear to be the same issue with generations much older. My mom's generation and her mom's generation are/were in a different league. V12 engines so to speak! This isn't just my family, we all talk about it with the guys all the time. These older women are like machines in all aspects. Work, housework, cooking/cleaning/laundry etc, gardening, raising children/grandchildren, fixing things around the house, shopping, taking care of almost everything, volunteering at community events.

In previous generations, the traditional household had the male be the business equivalent of a CEO in terms of final decision, setting household strategy and more. The female mom/grandma was like the COO, making sure everything runs like clockwork and getting everything into line.

I am in awe of these older women and how much they are/were able to do. Life used to be really really difficult from a overall work perspective and people having much larger families years ago. We have it so easy in a lot of ways.

It's not like the usual reasons for being exhausted didn't apply to previous generations like work, kids, homework, cooking/cleaning, housework, sports activities and more. They did and in a lot of cases, a lot more.

Just an observation and wondering what it could be? Perhaps women also feel that young men these days do the same thing? I don't know!

[OutOfTheCube]

i don’t think so. I mean, she complains about being tired the same amount I do at least, and we both work, raise kids, take care of the house, etc. We are tired, lol. The older generation of women probably just didn’t complain cause they didn’t wanna get slapped around.

[Slava]

They’re tired of putting up with us, and I can’t say I blame them!

[Jason14h]

They are just making excuses to not have to cuddle with you and your friends .

Oldest trick in the book

[GGG]

A few things.

1) in addition to the household responsibilities many women added a full time job without adding an equal split of both the physical and mental load of maintaining a family.
2) It’s socially acceptable to complain rather than bear it with grim stoicism.
3) the requirements of parenting to the acceptable social standard have increased.
4) Having kids under 5 is exhausting. Talking about it should be expected

Also where is the corresponding post trashing the modern man?

[troutman]

Yes, even more post-menopausal. And I think we all sleep less as we get older.

[Bigtime]

Two theories:

1) CO2 level is higher now
2) They just can't even anymore

[Nyah]

Originally Posted by curves2000

My mom's generation and her mom's generation are/were in a different league. V12 engines so to speak! This isn't just my family, we all talk about it with the guys all the time. These older women are like machines in all aspects. Work, housework, cooking/cleaning/laundry etc, gardening, raising children/grandchildren, fixing things around the house, shopping, taking care of almost everything, volunteering at community events.

I'd argue that we (the modern women) are more like machines than older generations. In a lot of cases we still have to do all those things, and also maintain full time employment because houses aren't $10,000 anymore. Drive kids to and from sports/activities, maintain relationships and somehow try to find time for ourselves in there somewhere.

So, yeah. We're tired a lot of the time.

[PepsiFree]

I thought this was going to be some cool infomercial for sleeping pills or something. Leaving disappointed that it’s just boys talking about their sleepy women.

[MoneyGuy]

Code for “I have a headache.”

[SutterBrother]

Only if I’ve done my job.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Yes... but so am I.

Isn't everyone?

Like, who's not tired and exhausted?

[Bigtime]

'Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money' finally coming and they'll update it to have a Princess Valium in it.

Beyonce currently reworking "Single Ladies" to "Sleepy Ladies".

[CliffFletcher]

It’s more socially acceptable - even expected - for people to complain today. Same as saying you’re busy all the time. If two friends are having a conversation, and one says they’re tired and busy, and the other says they have lots of energy and time on their hands, who’s perceived to have higher status?

No idea if this is more common in women than men. But if it is, I’d expect it’s because women typically share and compare more than men.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

It’s more socially acceptable - even expected - for people to complain today. Same as saying you’re busy all the time. If two friends are having a conversation, and one says they’re tired and busy, and the other says they have lots of energy and time on their hands, who’s perceived to have higher status?

No idea if this is more common in women than men. But if it is, I’d expect it’s because women typically share and compare more than men.

And as a society we’re probably lazier and less active than ever before.

[dobbles]

Originally Posted by Nyah

I'd argue that we (the modern women) are more like machines than older generations. In a lot of cases we still have to do all those things, and also maintain full time employment because houses aren't $10,000 anymore. Drive kids to and from sports/activities, maintain relationships and somehow try to find time for ourselves in there somewhere.

So, yeah. We're tired a lot of the time.

I honestly think that is it for a lot of women. I know in my relationship I am constantly checking myself to see if there's more I can do. While the task split is fairly even with my wife and I, she does still bear a majority of the mental load. I still rely on her too much for things like making sure the kids have clothes that fit, picking up cards and presents for family, making sure food essentials are stocked, etc. And I think this is a burden that many men are just starting to realize exists. (not to mention the large percentage of men that just don't care)

So I agree with Nyah, women are just plain shouldering more burden than ever. It was one thing to have to carry the load without working, but doing it while working full time? Yeah, you're going to get a lot of exhausted women.

[81MC]

I’d be interested to know what sort of frequency and duration of ‘rest’ or ‘down’ time includes engagement with visual stimuli, and how that actually affects our energy levels.

Pretty sure we all either know someone or are that person ourselves who can’t sit down and relax without pulling out their phone. Sure TVs have been around forever, but there gotta be something demanding about the inputs required and the intense variety of content rapidly changing - I see my wife scroll through insta for 15 seconds and it’s overload man, everything from stupid dances to someone yelling about a recipe to an emotional tug to some stupid quote. Classic TV, you’d sit there and watch and if you didn’t like it you could get up and change the change the channel and sit back down.

There’s no reprieve where your mind is free to wander based on environment anymore. Even music, you could put on an album and you would be led, mind taking a back seat to what’s happening. Now people need to hunt and peck for whatever song they want to hear, I don’t know many people who just let things be.

Roads are busier, lights are brighter and EVERYWHERE, everything ####ing car is making sounds for everything that never used to be there, we have stimuli non stop every place you go. And some people of the mindset that sitting there doing nothing means nothings happening, so they won’t. Relentless relentless bombardment of environmental agitations that certainly do not leave much room for mental recovery.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by curves2000

Strange topic I know but it dawned on me recently in conversations with my male friends, that they always talk about how the women in their lives are ALWAYS exhausted. Tired, exhausted, "dying" and "half dead" This has been confirmed by the women themselves all the time. My female friends are the exact same way.

The last few women I have dated complained about it constantly, sometimes multiple times in a short conversation and multiple messages in a text convo.

I am referring mostly to women in their 20's and 30's who are otherwise healthy. It did not or does not appear to be the same issue with generations much older. My mom's generation and her mom's generation are/were in a different league. V12 engines so to speak! This isn't just my family, we all talk about it with the guys all the time. These older women are like machines in all aspects. Work, housework, cooking/cleaning/laundry etc, gardening, raising children/grandchildren, fixing things around the house, shopping, taking care of almost everything, volunteering at community events.

In previous generations, the traditional household had the male be the business equivalent of a CEO in terms of final decision, setting household strategy and more. The female mom/grandma was like the COO, making sure everything runs like clockwork and getting everything into line.

I am in awe of these older women and how much they are/were able to do. Life used to be really really difficult from a overall work perspective and people having much larger families years ago. We have it so easy in a lot of ways.

It's not like the usual reasons for being exhausted didn't apply to previous generations like work, kids, homework, cooking/cleaning, housework, sports activities and more. They did and in a lot of cases, a lot more.

Just an observation and wondering what it could be? Perhaps women also feel that young men these days do the same thing? I don't know!

It never occurred to you, in all of these relationships, to just ask instead of speculating with your friends why your girlfriends aren’t more like your moms?

[Minnie]

You been talking to jhunt?

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Slava

And as a society we’re probably lazier and less active than ever before.

Probably. I doubt our grandparents would have characterized going to Chinook to buy a new hoodie at Uniqlo and having trouble finding a parking space as ‘exhausting’.

Also, our life arcs have changed our perspectives. Women used to start having kids at 20-21. So they had only a short period of child-free adulthood. Now, men and women will often have 15 years of childfree adulthood, some of it still having meals, cleaning, shopping, etc taken care of by parents, and some of it living in their own place where they probably aren’t cooking every day and keeping a spotless house. Lots of freedom and time. That becomes the norm.

Then kids come - or buying a home and needing to budget, shop, take cleaning seriously, etc - and it’s a huge step up in demands and responsibility. There’s a reason “adulting” has become a verb.

And as GGG remarked, expectations around child-rearing are higher than before. Keeping them fed, clothed, and out of jail used to be the expectation. Now kids are driven everywhere in endless rounds of enrichment activities. That labour falls disproportionately on women. But in my experience, it’s also mostly moms who have turned parenting into a kind of competition.