I've heard it said that romance for a man is that she still loves you even if you can no longer provide.
Sadly, I think very few men have such a relationship that would survive an extended job loss, or getting seriously ill. There's plenty of anecdata of men opening up emotionally, only to have their partner recoil in disgust.
1. Men often suck at providing emotional support, as is a common complaint from women. So are men expected to rely on men for emotional support, or extramarital female relationships?
2. Men are typically limited access to female peers when they get married. For example, my first wife told me flat out which of my friends were too attractive for me to maintain friendships with. Reiterating that men are pretty lousy at providing emotional support so women who don’t have the weight of marriage forcing them to maintain the relationship are going to feel an imbalance and stop offering the uncompensated labor means we can’t rely on other women either.
Until men are raised to give emotional support, we’re not going to be effective at or equitable about obtaining it, either.
