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Recently a post appeared in my Medium feed, written by Thinks of Nadir. In her post entitled: I’ve Asked 6 Women What They Regret Most After Losing Him — Here’s What Almost All of Them Said, she takes on an issue that I rarely see tackled here (or anywhere, for that matter). So, many congrats for taking it on.

It may just be my imagination because I haven’t been keeping score. But it feels to me like way more articles here and elsewhere focus on men’s relationship shortcomings than those of women.  So, I think her post is well worth your time, irrespective of your views. Here’s the link. If you’re reading this on my website & aren’t a Medium subscriber, you’ll get the gist of her post from my response.

There are two sides to every story and as I read the post, I felt the resonance of familiarity. Readers of some of my other posts know what’s coming. “Nobody asked me but…” I’m going to share my take on each.

From the Other Side of the Dinner Table

In her post, Thinks of Nadir listed the following six regrets women expressed after their relationship ended. My take on each follows.

Regret #1. “I took his presence for granted.”

This one plucked my conscience. In it, I recognized my own guilt in taking her presence for granted. In retrospect, did my thoughtlessness contribute to hers? Just wondering out loud. Most relationships don’t simply self-destruct, and it’s rarely (if ever) the sole fault of one or the other.

In my experience, we both took each other for granted over the course of the relationship. My pilot friends who flew close air support missions have a term for it. They called it “target familiarity,” which can lead to complacence and/or carelessness. For fighter-attack pilots, that kind of complacence can be fatal. In relationships, it’s often fatal to the relationship. But it’s rarely just his—or her—fault.

Regret #2. “I didn’t respect his efforts enough.”

As someone who is currently on the business end of this phenomenon, I can relate. An objective observer of “us” would recognize the division of labor is really lopsided. There are physical/health reasons for this and I rarely resent it.

The problem isn’t that I’m doing most of the work, including cooking and cleaning, in addition to the traditional “masculine” tasks. I did that for years while single. It’s the absence of a counterbalancing something—like shared interests or sexual congruence.

We’ve compensated by allowing each other to do what we want—alone, for the most part, to include the freedom to seek sensual fulfillment elsewhere, with someone more in tune with our needs. In the final analysis, though, what holds the marriage together is her practical need for someone to care for her when the health challenges she’s dealing with flare up.

Regret #3. “I compared him too much.”

I haven’t experienced this one, myself. But for men still working, in most cases he’s obliged to compete daily on a playing field that’s morphing in unpredictable ways. Let me hasten to add, the field needed to change. But the resultant disorientation is something even the self-aware and observant struggle with.

And yes, if it applies, it’s on “him” to deal constructively with it. But if he comes home to find it’s necessary to compete with “his” woman’s romanticized version of “the one that got away,” the corrosive effect may drive him to leave. Especially if nothing else encourages him to stay.

Regret #4. “I didn’t appreciate how much men don’t just want to be wanted — they want to feel needed. Not in a dependent way, but in a way that says, “Your role in my life matters.”

I was initially inclined to disagree. I don’t need to feel needed in the sense it was once thought men needed to be needed…as provider/protector. Thoughtful men recognize that women today don’t really need men for the same reasons they did fifty years ago. But the author added, “Your role in my life matters.” And I found myself nodding in agreement.

Technically, men don’t need women, either, unless they have a huge hankering to procreate. But the soul-satisfying connection that comes with someone whose intertwining life contributes to ours and vice versa? I think that this is a need most of us have, and it seems unlikely to atrophy, however much relationships evolve in our collective future.

Regret #5. “I underestimated his emotional side.”

I have heard enough women comment on how emotionally stunted men are, to almost accept women’s characterization of men as de facto emotional children. Having known men I considered to be arrested adolescents myself, I get where women may be coming from. But as I’ve grown older, I’m convinced it’s more nuanced than that.

Society’s expectations of men have not kept pace with women’s evolving capabilities and desires, both at work and at home. Men who’ve been paying attention are adjusting, some even embracing it. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ve found one of them. At the same time, collective evolution to environmental change is often slower than we would like.

Especially when there is a strong counterweight to that evolution. Thousands of years of socialization has taught men to bury their emotions deep and to not—under any circumstances—display weakness or vulnerability. Collectively, men are caught between the conflicting expectations of normative society—and the evolving desires/standards of women.

Men and women are bucking the same social headwinds, but with differing effects. Men find themselves caught between old and new paradigms. Navigating the demands of two still present but divergent paradigms require nuance. And as Scientific American has pointed out, nuance tends to be more common among women. Can and should men catch up? Sure. Just don’t expect all men to cohere neatly with women’s timetable. Some will, some won’t. As in all things, choose carefully.

The foregoing isn’t to suggest men lack emotion or that they wouldn’t enjoy the freedom to express it openly. It’s just that many of us have had emotion beaten out of us—sometimes literally. I think thoughtful feminists know this. But stepping outside dying paradigms is something many of us (men and women) are still learning. Emotional evolution, (if there is such a thing) seems unlikely to cohere with logical thought.

Regret #6.  “I thought love alone would be enough.”

In my experience, love is enough…until it isn’t. But relationships that feel out of balance will struggle to weather the inevitable stress life puts on close relationships.

A seldom-acknowledged truth in relationships of any sort is that they develop because they answer some need or want. Most of us go into long-term bonded relationships—marriage or relationships less formal—expecting they will contribute to our sense of fulfillment, happiness, or at least contentment.

I think most mature humans recognize relationships are not happiness vending machines. We know we won’t always get what we sought in our relationships. But if what we sought in that relationship dies, generally so will the relationship, eventually.

The Wrap

Men and women are still learning—some faster than others—how to navigate our new reality. Readers of my previous posts on Medium or my website know that I believe we’re in the midst of multiple, interdependent paradigm shifts. How that will affect men, women and how we relate to each other remains to be seen.

When we are better able to understand each other and to give each other a safe place to be our authentic selves, love will likely prove more durable not to mention more fulfilling for both men and women. Patriarchal society encourages if not an adversarial relationship, at least one that biases toward the familiar. In the third decade of the 21^st Century, that feels increasingly less favorable to durable love, to me.

What do you think?