In What Ways Are Heterosexual Relationships Set Up to Fail?

The more things change, the saying goes, the more they stay the same. Despite significant shifts in socialization and newer ways of approaching how children are raised regarding their gender identity, stereotypical notions of both masculinity and femininity remain entrenched in our pop cultural landscape. This indoctrination process has important implications for how individuals develop psychologically and is demonstrated in stark form when individuals embark on romantic relationships.

In particular, the damaging ways that both men and women are socialized regarding their respective gender identities pose significant risk factors for heterosexual couples, who are most likely to mirror and internalize traditional notions of gender. This is a particularly timely topic to consider given that researchers have identified that “relationship satisfaction in U.S.-based couples has been significantly negatively impacted throughout the pandemic” (as reported by the APA, 2024). Moreover, understanding how socialization processes and cultural values impact the behaviors of individuals when they couple up has important consequences for overall psychological, emotional, and physical well-being.

Reading for Better Understanding

There is a plethora of literature that is both accessible and illuminating for individuals who are interested in better understanding how the way they have been socialized has impacted both the values that they have internalized and the relational processes they may be unconsciously carrying over into their romantic attachments. Oftentimes, the attachment literature is overemphasized in this realm—at least in popular psychology—however, there are other ways, more subtle and less obvious, that cultural indoctrination impacts the roles that individuals adopt when embarking on a romantic relationship.

In the canonical The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (2004), the cultural critic bell hooks investigates the damaging role that the larger system of patriarchy plays for both sexes and, in particular, how the values associated with this ideology play out when men and women couple up. However, it is also noteworthy that she demonstrates that patriarchy is damaging for homosexual couples as well. What is particularly noteworthy about this analysis is that she turns a feminist lens on how the system of patriarchy is damaging for men, in addition to its better-known and acknowledged oppressive impact on women.

For instance, as she frankly identifies, “Patriarchy promotes insanity. It is at the root of the psychological ills troubling men in our nation” (hooks, 2004, p. 30). Although this publication is 20 years old, the cultural indoctrination process she describes still holds true for our youth today. One could argue the points she made back then have perhaps even more pronounced troubling effects right now, given the greater role that social media and technology play in transmitting faster and wider many of the values associated with patriarchy, such as male domination, suppression of male emotion, the sexual objectification of women, and the pressure for males to conform to a rigid and unrelenting form of masculinity.

It is no coincidence, for instance, that today, young girls and women are more prone to consuming social media or getting entrenched with online shopping in our increasingly digital culture while boys are lured by video games or pornography online. Indeed, the threats posed by our digital culture today vary in very stereotypically gendered ways, which also carry over into romantic pairings between the sexes.

Other Helpful Resources

For those readers interested in more recent resources, several timely podcasts further expand this topic. For instance, “Unf*ck Your Brain: Feminist Self-Help for Everyone” is a compelling podcast that invites listeners to deconstruct the way that stereotypical notions of femininity and masculinity confine each respective sex—with a particular emphasis on how women’s continued oppression and socialization within the confines of a larger male-driven and sexist system promote anxiety, self-doubt, and topsy-turvy value systems. While the host appears to be talking to a largely female audience, I would argue that male listeners can gain a particular insight into how women are socialized with a value system vastly different from the one that they are indoctrinated with.

David Duchovny recently launched a podcast, “Fail Better with David Duchovny,” that indirectly challenges masculine norms of stoicism and emotional indifference by offering a frank and vulnerable tone as the host. In particular, his episode with Gabor Maté, “The Reason We’re All Addicted,” offers a raw discussion of the pressure men feel as fathers, and how intergenerational trauma—which inevitably includes restrictive notions of masculinity—impacts the father-child dynamic. To listen to this episode, readers can click here.

Awareness Is the Key to Change

While no one resource or website will allow us to fully solve the relationship problems that inevitably arise when two people try to come together and share their lives, it is an important step to critically reflect on larger cultural processes that inform the way that we approach romantic relationships. Moreover, the often-conflicting ways that men and women are socialized set up heterosexual pairings in particular to be rife with conflict.

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For instance, men are socialized to value their autonomy and self-interest over anything else, while women are socialized to place their self-worth on how they connect with others. Interestingly, such opposing values have been reported in the interpersonal attraction literature where research has demonstrated that a male’s biggest reported fear in relationships is a loss of independence, while for women it is a fear of becoming disconnected or left out or isolated from their mate. Oftentimes, couples don’t realize how such internalized gender norms play out unconsciously in the way they relate to their partner.

One way of better gaining awareness of such cultural and socialization practices is to seek out resources that name the larger systems we are being indoctrinated in—such as that of patriarchy, as hooks does—to better understand what we are being influenced by. Then, individuals can make more informed decisions regarding whether or not they want to replay certain relational patterns in their present relationship. Indeed, one cannot reject the damaging aspects of the culture or choose to opt out of certain entrenched heterosexual norms without first becoming aware of them.

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Copyright Dr. Azadeh Aalai 2024