The Struggles Of Being The Social Planner In The Relationship - Page 13

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Recent studies have found that widows fare far better than widowers after losing their spouse. Women are less likely to develop depression after losing their life partner, and overall become less frail than men do after the death of their spouse. Our theory as to why this is true? Women are better at nurturing and maintaining friendships and relationships outside of their romantic one. While female health relies greatly on certain hormones that we produce in social situations, that doesn’t change the fact that men need friendship and companionship, too. But, as you may have seen in many relationships or experienced in your own, men can become reliant on their partners for their social calendar. Men get so caught up in work and responsibilities that they forget to schedule socializing. For many men, if their wives or girlfriends didn’t make plans for them, they would be total hermits. If you are the social planner in your relationship, you know these struggles.

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You’ve tried every medium

When you learn of something you’d like for you and your partner to do—maybe a concert or a bar opening—you try every single medium to inform your partner. You’ll email him the flyer, but he’ll reply saying he’s busy at work. You’ll try texting, but he’ll forget to look at your text. You’ll go the personal route and leave a voice mail, but he complains he hates listening to voicemail. You’re considering sending a singing telegram just to tell him you’d like to attend the concert in the park this Saturday.

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It’s never a good time to discuss plans

It is conveniently never a good time to discuss plans. Your partner is always doing something like reading an email, going over finances, folding laundry or more. If he isn’t doing an actual task, he may complain he just has too much on his mind to discuss social plans. You walk on eggshells trying to find the right time to simply ask him if he wants to have dinner with another couple next week.

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If you planned nothing, you’d do nothing

You’ve tried to protest his ways—to see how long he could hold out if you stopped planning things for the both of you. And boy were you impressed. Your partner didn’t notice that the two of you didn’t go out, socialize or see friends for over two months. You finally had to give in and go back to being the planner.

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He’ll never look at his calendar

Trying to get your partner to sit down and look at his calendar is like trying to get a dog to get in the bath by himself—it isn’t happening. You’ve followed your partner around with his calendar, reading dates and appointments out loud to him, so he could keep doing some chore and still (hopefully) give you an answer about an event.

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He also won’t give you access to his calendar

Things would be a lot easier if your partner would just give you his Gmail password so you could put things in his Gcalendar, and check when he’s free. But he won’t give you that password. That, of course, starts a different type of argument.

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Then, he’ll wonder why you missed out

After you try and try to tell him about something your group of friends is doing, you give up. Then later, when he sees their social media photos of the event, he gets jealous and asks why you two didn’t go with them. AAAAAH!

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He has strong opinions about plans anyways

Your partner has very strong opinions on the plans you suggest or the places you take him. But, of course, he still won’t make the effort to just make the plans. Has he ever heard of the saying, “If you want something done your way, do it yourself?”

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You’ve waited on hold for your partner

Your partner doesn’t have the patience to wait on hold on the phone for more than 30 seconds. For this reason, you have waited on hold for him—sometimes for a half hour—until the airline/hotel/restaurant representative came back, and then you passed the phone back to him.

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He gets stressed if you pass along an invitation

When you tell your partner that the two of you have been invited to something, he gets stressed out. He tells you to only inform him of the really important events because too many invitations cause him anxiety.

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And he gets angry if you don’t pass along an invitation

You take your partners instructions and start to filter which invitations you notify him of. Then he finds out about an invitation you didn’t tell him about and gets upset, saying that’s something he would have liked to attend. Grrrr!

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He complains he only sees your friends

Well, yeah. If you’re going to be the one making the effort to plan things, he better believe you’re going to call your friends. Sometimes you’re nice and call his. But really, that’s his job.

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And only does your things

If your partner cannot be bothered to plan to do things he enjoys, then he doesn’t get to do those things and he better get used to it. It’s unfair for him to complain that you two only see concerts you like and only go to museums that are interesting to you, when he wouldn’t take ten minutes to consult you on the matter.

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If logistics become complicated, he bails

If logistics become the tiniest bit complicated, your partner wants to cancel the plans entirely. He cannot handle the tiniest change in schedule, route, plan, driving directions or anything.

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Sometimes, if you’re lucky, he’s very grateful

Every so often, when your partner is enjoying himself at something you planned, he realizes he has you to thank. If you’re very lucky, he occasionally has the epiphany of, “Oh my gosh. My partner has created such a fun and full social life for me.” But then he forgets it the next day and goes back to his old stubborn ways.