I always considered marriage the epitome of feeling connected: you share a life with a partner and maybe even have children. Society at least acts like it is.
I have a coworker in his 40s, conservative and Christian, married to a woman holding a job, he is also employed and has a good job, all things considered and they have a child.
I don’t see this person much but each time he sees me he approaches to basically complain and rant, mostly about democrats and foreigners, getting very emotional to the point of crying.
At first I hated him for spewing so much shit, but now I think I’m starting to pity him: he has a job, is married to a working woman, they have a child, they are homeowners… and he still feels angry and needs to rant to feel good. It’s like he’s angry at everything.
Which takes me to think, maybe there are things men need emotionally that women cannot provide, but I couldn’t write a list.
What are some of these connections men need out of a marriage?
Thanks for the response. I guess I do see much of human behavior through a contextual behaviorist lens. Sorry if it seems excessive. I am not Hayes or Hoffman. It is just frustrating to see blanket explanations for human behavior, instead of understanding specific processes. I guess I really want to avoid the fundamental attribution error and reductionism, something contextual behaviorism deliberately aims to avoid.
While I recognize Emotion Focused Therapy is helpful to understand and, if possible, change social behavior (which is why I mentioned it previously), I maybe should have brought up Emption Construction Theory or even Sapolsky’s multi-lens framework, considering different timescales of explanation. Would you have suggested something different? When does contextual behaviorism fail?
Thanks for helping me potentially falling into reductionism. I wouldn’t want to fall in that trap.