You Can't Fix Him: Avoiding Mothering Relationships
You Can’t Fix Him: Avoiding Mothering Relationships
by maddie barron
art by aleks carney
He’s the sweet, bumbling “fixer-upper.” He’s a-dork-ably funny, and he never learned how to do laundry. His ineptitude is endearing at first, until you’re months into proving Freud right and teaching a grown man how to rinse the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Or maybe it’s exciting to have power over a man who admits you are more capable than he will ever be.
Arwen Antaran knows firsthand that it’s impossible to “fix him.” Antaran, a 20-year-old forensics student at Clemson University, recently got out of a heterosexual relationship that felt more like babysitting than dating.
Therapy sessions, room cleanings, and sponge bathing were a few responsibilities Antaran took up while she dated Roman, 21.
“All the things that you’d expect a mom to provide for her son, I was doing,” Antaran says.
The remarkably un-sexy phenomenon of mothering boyfriends plagues the Gen Z dating pool. Enough time rotting online will find you miserably watching wives cook dinners alone or in the comment section of a girl fighting strangers over if she should break up with her boyfriend for forgetting her birthday. The flagrant disparity between what women versus men contribute in straight relationships is like the difference between a mother keeping her child alive, and the child offering sentimental crayon drawings in return.
Kaylee Reigel, a junior at the College of Charleston, ended her last long-term relationship with her high school sweetheart because the burden of responsibility became too much.
“I had to teach him how to be a man and how to communicate and respond to things,” she says. Their relationship escalated to the point where Reigel helped him graduate high school, sitting him down at the table and helping him with his homework.
Second-wave feminism earned women more presence as professionals, dramatically shifting heterosexual dating dynamics. Feminist author Jane Ward describes in her book, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, how post-1980s sitcoms depicted self-reliant, career-professional women in heterosexual relationships with bumbling, unreliable male partners. Women were deemed more competent in all matters of the family, the relationship, domestic responsibilities, and—suddenly—in the workplace.
And now, in a highly distant, online dating pool, Gen Z women desire fruitful heterosexual relationships but find their bachelors lackluster.
Expert on heterosexual relationship dynamics and Middlebury Professor of Feminist Studies Laurie Essig says Gen Z men are navigating a world where they’re socially isolated and experiencing a “crisis of masculinity.”
In an interview with ABC 45 News, researcher Daniel Cox says Gen Z men are opting out of dating because it decreases the risk of rejection, and online dating comes up short. Already a generation defined by online interactions, Gen Z lost a significant amount of face-to-face socialization during formative years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Young, heterosexual men were not exposed to important milestones surrounding love and romance. Due to heightened isolation, the only consistent face-to-face relationships with women for Gen Z men during adolescent years were with family members. Their limited experiences with women fall under two categories: across the dinner table or in porn. Of course some wires will get crossed when it comes to actual dating, because their few relationships with women have been defined by acts of service, not mutual partnership.
Women are taking alternative paths to avoid premature motherhood and secure fulfilling, mutually beneficial relationships.
Heteropessimism
The heteropessimism movement is gaining momentum alongside similar movements that denounce dating straight men entirely.
“Straight women are figuring out that they can’t rely on straight men for things that they’re supposed to get out of a couple,” Essig says.
“You can’t fix him,” Reigel warns. “So don’t try, you’ll both end up broken.”
Overall, members of Gen Z are having less sex, but specifically, Gen Z women have taken up voluntary celibacy to take back autonomy in relationships where they feel like they’ve been taken for granted and used, both emotionally and sexually. Amidst particularly inflammatory male rights movements and Trump’s re-election, the South Korean 4B Feminist movement to entirely abstain from sex and dating with men has reached the mainstream US. I claimed the term “born-again virgin,” myself.
Actress Julia Fox is open about her celibacy journey, telling Elle Magazine in a 2023 interview, “I feel like knowingly engaging in a heterosexual relationship, you are signing yourself up for an unhealthy dynamic.”
Other women still allow relationships to organically blossom in their lives, but have gone through extensive work to decenter men and male validation in their lives.
Self-help YouTuber thehippiearab focuses on a specific genre of video essay directed towards women trying to avoid patriarchal influences in their lives. One video titled “stop thinking about relationships and get a life, respectfully,” has over 200,000 views on the platform.
A life that doesn’t revolve around men has the mysticism and whimsy on par with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I am a fervent believer that every woman should embrace unabashed freakness. You’ll find that everything becomes a lot more fun and men are intimidated by your lack of inhibitions.
Into the Belly of the Beast
Most women, however, have not entirely abandoned the idea of finding a healthy, balanced partnership, but navigating the modern world of dating requires setting tough boundaries.
Antaran, despite her negative experiences, remains hopeful that she will find a partner who “makes love easy.”
“I deserve the love story that I want,” she says. “I don’t have to prove myself worthy because I already am.”
She says understanding your needs before dating is necessary to avoid attracting the “unmothered types” and “commitment-phobes.”
Since Reigel’s last relationship, she’s better at setting boundaries and placing her own needs above her boyfriends. “I’ve been able to stand up for myself and say ‘this isn’t fair,’ and slow things down a little,” Reigel says. “Just have to know what you’re looking for to avoid what you’re not.”
Setting boundaries can be difficult, and many women like Antaran fear rejection or judgment for doing so, but men intimidated by boundaries are doing you a favor; they are letting you know from the get-go to steer clear. Personally, nothing quite makes me gag like a grown man whining.
“It’s so important to hold on to those boundaries and never let go of them. We often throw [boundaries and expectations] away when we really love someone,” Antaran says.
To avoid engaging in potentially damaging hookup culture, or the nightmarish, emotionally burdensome “situationship,” Gen Z women are staying off of dating apps and trying to meet people organically.
Essig says most women are not getting what they need out of dating apps and a smaller dating pool is preferable over the feeling of dread and disappointment stirred on by dating app usage.
Reigel completely avoids dating apps, saying it’s “outrageous” the way men engage with women online. Her advice to women: Don’t stick around when you catch red flags.
“Run,” she says.
Alternative lifestyles
Essig advocates to shake up relationship dynamics. She points to several studies that reveal the happiest demographic of people are unmarried, childless women. Perhaps women seeking romantic and sexual partnerships can engage with one or more lovers, Essig suggests, but choose platonic life partners to share a domestic life with.
Scientific advancements in alternative reproduction, in addition to fostering and adoption, allow a variety of individuals to experience parenthood. With rates of marriage and sex decreasing for Gen Z-ers, platonic co-parenting feels like a natural evolution in partnerships where all needs would be met.
Overall, there’s only so much burden that can be placed on women under these circumstances. I can’t keep buying all these Virgen de Guadalupe candles from the Dollar Store.