Uglier Weaponized Incompetencies - Holiday Version

"Partying" and dread

I’ve read a lot of very good essays lately about the pressure on women to be the holidays, to create and execute them with little help. Along with everything done for children and other relatives there may be a lot of spoken or unspoken need to make men feel like special, joy-soaked little kids, a demand that is essentially impossible to fulfill because he’s a nominal adult.

There seems to be a gap in this conversation, which would be filled by acknowledgement of the specific things that people do to make the holidays scary. The most obvious of these is assaultive and explosive behavior. Reports of domestic violence increase during the holidays. Since he continues to bray up at us from Hell, I’ve repeatedly mentioned a stepfather who flipped over a table completely set for Thanksgiving dinner, and threw the plates around my mother and me (at 7 yo) as we cowered against a wall. That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about. His excuse was always alcohol, and I’d like to single out the connection between the societal permission to drink, drug and otherwise “party” during the holidays, and the fear that it brings to partners and children.

The holidays create opportunities and a permission structure for adults to over-indulge in alcohol and drugs, in a similar way and to a similar end that children are rewarded with dopamine-inducing packages. My first husband (H1), my children’s father, has always used Christmas/New Year’s as an open excuse to binge, which has made this time of year scary for the past two decades, far past our divorce. While under the influence of whatever he becomes incoherent, illogical and unpredictable, simultaneously childlike and potentially aggressive. Cocaine would put his jaw on constant circular rotation. As far as I’m concerned, men on substances are either monsters or monsters in waiting, by their own choice. It goes without saying that they are also not helping out with the holiday chores.

Frequently a perfectly fine father, while on binges H1 has (accidentally) burned my son with a cigarette and then publicly humiliated him for crying, taken my children to all-night raves, paid a street prostitute to watch them in his car while he was in a strip club, left them hungry and unsupervised for a day with a table covered with guns and ammunition, and done who knows what else. Just leave, society says. I kicked him out one New Years Day when the kids were little because I found out that he had left them alone sleeping in his car in downtown Baltimore while he was in a gun shop augmenting his collection - something that I think would take a bit of time. But most of the events listed above only happened because we were divorced and I was no longer there to intervene. Yes, I’ve called Child Protective Services and spent years fighting in family court to no avail, because almost any man with two pennies to rub together and any interest in seeing his children is going to get his time with them, period. Then you are what is called the “protective parent” in abusive situations, but without the access to protect.

Male absence, be it physical, emotional or labor-related, is frequently called out as a form of exploitation when we talk about the burden of holidays on women. We also have to acknowledge that for many family members the lack of presence of certain men, or their complete passivity, can be a sad blessing - or as good as it’s going to get for now. The current dialogue about women’s woes is truthful, but a generally limited and privileged truth, as I have written about recently. That’s just not going to work; it will leave a lot of women unmoved, feeling unseen and pissed off, for good reason. When I was in my 20’s I attended a Christmas party in a private home, where the older generation - a number of middle-aged men and women - were all nodding out on heroin in an adjacent room. As a school social worker, I have been shocked by the sheer number of children who don’t have any Christmas at all, unless it is donated. People who have experienced these types of widespread realities as their own sad or scary normal need to be heard in regard to the holidays and what they mean.

If you are afraid for your own or your children’s well-being (physical or psychological) during the next two weeks, I see you. No matter what he says or does it is not your fault, it is simply happening because he’s choosing to be an ass. He knows what drinking/drugging/whatever dysfunction will make him into, and he does it anyway. He has no God-given right to “party” during the holidays in spite of the harm it causes to other people; he is an adult making choices. The same goes for bad behavior he blames on childhood trauma (a really widespread phenomenon), his life disappointments, the brilliant-man blues, the anxieties caused by his family of origin, etc. If you buck up and stay more or less on track for the children and others, so can he.

Zawn Villines, author of Liberating Motherhood on Substack, is extremely helpful on parts of this topic:

One of the most harmful and pervasive sexist myths is that the main way patriarchy harms men is by blunting their emotions. While it might be true that men think they’re not feeling emotions, it’s a complete fabrication that men in patriarchy can’t feel.

Men living in patriarchal societies do nothing but feel. That’s why they start wars and throw tantrums and parent by emotion rather than research, and kill their partners, and act as if they are being abused if anyone asks them to put away the dishes.

Men, like everyone else, have a range of emotions at the holidays. They may have valid reasons to be unhappy. Perhaps they miss a dead family member, or wish they could have done more for their kids, or have a history of family abuse around the holidays.

Women learn to keep these feelings in check, to not allow them to destroy the celebration. But men believe they can and must act how they feel. An unfortunate side effect of this belief is that, if everyone else is acting happy, many men believe that means they are happy. So your hard work and cheery good mood (that you went to therapy to maintain) are signs that you’re not struggling, do not deserve support, and should instead support him.

They want to undermine their partners

For some men, holiday bad moods are a combination of low impulse control and willful ignorance of their partners’ work. For a lot of men, though, there’s something more sinister at work.

For emotionally abusive men who don’t respect their partners, bad moods are a deliberate attempt to undermine the work. They know she’s worked hard for this. So they have to take it from her. In a lot of cases, these men will dig the knife in deeper by pointing out how the holiday sucked, so her work didn’t matter.

They’re unwilling to consider others’ emotions

Patriarchy teaches men to center themselves. So they don’t consider that their mood is one of the things that will define their kids’ childhood. They don’t weigh how their mood might affect others’ trauma, or how it can ruin the holiday.

They just react, because society teaches them not to care, then lets them get away with not caring—all the while blaming women for anything that goes even slightly wrong this season (and every other season, too).

They want all the attention for themselves

Like a toddler who will accept any form of attention their parent is willing to give, men displaying bad moods over the holidays have a very clear objective: redirecting attention to themselves.

A lot of men struggle with not being the center of attention—with seeing a woman tend to the kids, with watching family members marvel over a woman’s hard work, with having a partner who has something to do other than fuck him, fawn over him, and endlessly listen to his feelings (all while he pretends he has no emotions because he’s so logical).

His bad mood is a way of redirecting the attention away from the holidays and onto himself.

Getting drunk is also a very good way to redirect the attention onto himself, because then the family has to “manage” him, tiptoe around him, take care of him, pretend it’s not happening. Be scared of all the things that abdication of personal responsibility can bring about. It creates the excuse, the cover, for him to be belligerent, cruel, useless or aggressive, and not be held responsible for it afterwards.

My children are young adults now, although my son has special needs and a guardianship court is forcing me to continue to co-parent with his father. The kids decided to go away with me for Christmas this year - a first, and one for which he will make us pay, in some way or another. I had half expected to go away by myself, because (as you may have guessed) I have learned to dislike Christmas. But I would never leave them on a holiday if they want to be with me, and I will be quietly happy, pleasant and festive, without any major dopamine or adrenaline infusions. I am perfectly content to cook and decorate and clean, because they will pitch in to their abilities, and will not be mean or humiliating to me. Love, low-key. My father will be there but he is not generally a holiday-wrecker and if he chooses to sulk we will ignore him. It helps that he doesn’t drink.

This Christmas might be OK, God willing. The biggest gift to us would be peace, and I wish that for you and yours as well.

_______________________

In the U.S.:

Safety planning for holidays and weekends - National Domestic Violence Hotline

Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous hold around-the-clock meetings, remote and in person during the holidays, free. Of course if you are trying to make him attend or begging him to, it is not going to work. His addiction is not your job, not just on a moral level, but mostly on a practical one.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Hotline and referral to services

Adult Children of Alcoholics and Other Dysfunctional Families also holds around-the-clock, free remote meetings during the holidays. These meeting work well for family members and partners of anyone with any type of substance abuse (and, as it says, many other types of dysfunction). I personally feel that it is better than Al-Anon because it does not promote any concept of you being tied to or responsible for a partner/family member’s addiction or the person while they are using - but whatever you find helpful is good.

You are NOT co-dependent! That’s not even an actual diagnosis! Learn more here

An excellent discussion of the many ways women are roped into being responsible for their partner’s addictions, including by therapists, here