Tracey Cox reveals why a man child makes the worst partner
Forget the commitment phobe and the cheater…why a MAN CHILD is the bloke you REALLY need to watch out for – as Tracey Cox reveals why they make the worst partners and kill desire
- Tracey Cox said a man child is just as dependent on you as a child would be
- These Peter Pan-type men never grow up and have teenage emotional maturity
- Read more: Tracey Cox’s 21 PROVEN ways to get your man to last longer in bed
If you’re a woman reading this, here’s a question I’d like you to answer honestly.
If you think about what you do for your partner and what you do for your children, are they very similar?
Answer yes and chances are you are living with a ‘man-child’: a man who is an adult but as dependent as one of your children.
Welcome to Peter Pan Land: one where men never grow up.
Tracey Cox says that hooking up with an emotionally immature man is the single biggest turn off for women (stock image)
The years advance but their emotional maturity remains teenage.
Recent research scientifically confirmed that the man-child phenomenon is real – and that it’s having a disastrous effect on women’s libidos.
Researchers conducted two studies of more than 1,000 women with children under the age of 12 and found evidence of what they already suspected. Women who did the lion’s share of household chores are more likely to perceive their partner as dependents. And thinking of your partner as another child reduces your desire for them.
When the story made headlines last week, thousands of women commented. Probably because men behaving like children is something we complain of the moment we start having relationships with men.
I vividly remember saying to a friend, ‘But he’s like a baby!’ about the first man I ever lived with. ‘Better get used to it, they all are,’ she said wryly, a few years older and more experienced than me.
So, is YOUR partner a man-child?
Plenty of women cook and clean and look after their partners. Does that mean all men are guilty of being a man-child?
No.
There’s a key difference is this. If your partner appreciates all you do, reciprocates and supports you back, the dynamic is healthy.
He’s also not a man-child if you do all the domestic chores but he does the heavy lifting in other areas. It’s sensible to work together as a team and play to each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
The classic man-child has giveaway traits – and they’re not pretty.
He’s not just untidy and never cleans up after himself, he still acts like a teenager in many other ways. He’s the guy who hangs out at the pub with his single mates, always the last to leave even though his wife is at home struggling with two kids under two.
He doesn’t accept responsibility. It’s not his fault he didn’t pay the bill on time, got drunk, turned up late, forgot to buy you a birthday present! He doesn’t manage money well either, the type that ends up with a massive tax bill because he hasn’t paid it for years (again, not his fault though).
And that’s just the start of it…
Adding to the list of undesirable traits, men who are man-children are unreliable. They’re not great at committing to anything and can’t see why it’s such a big deal if they don’t and let you down. Again.
He’s zero help when it comes to disciplining the kids. Because he’s a big kid himself, he often sides with them, telling them ‘Mum’s no fun’ and sneaking them the ice-cream you’ve just vetoed later.
Dare to criticise or suggest he behaves differently, and they’re something wrong with you. You’re nagging or over-reacting. Before every social event, your heart sinks because you know you’ll have to spell out how your partner should behave. Don’t drink too much, don’t take all the food, do make an effort to talk to people. The same instructions you give your 16-year-old.
Sounding depressingly familiar?
You’re living with the guy who piled into the comments section when the story made headlines here. The one who called the reignited man-child debate ‘toxic feminism’, classic ‘let’s blame the man for everything’ female ‘tiddle tattle’.
No doubt, he was being served pizza and beer by you as he was typing. No wait, dictating while you typed for him.
How do men end up this way?
Stereotypical gender roles are partly to blame for why so many women are in this mess. We’re raised to be nurturing but few mothers teach their sons how to iron, clean and cook. Women are rewarded for being ‘carers’ from a very early age.
Men rarely question the gender divide: those who benefit from stereotypes aren’t likely to. Why would your husband wrestle you away from the sink, saying, ‘No, let me!’ when it means letting go of that opportunity to relax and watch telly while you do all the work.
As with any bad behaviour, the person on the end of it must also take responsibility for allowing it to happen.
Lots of women enable their partners to be man-children – and we aren’t talking down-trodden, uneducated, timid women either.
Why do women let men get away with it?
The women who end up in these relationships are often highly efficient over-achievers. They’re so used to doing everything well, the fact they are doing everything at home as well as at work barely registers. After all, what takes him half an hour, they accomplish in a millisecond. They don’t have the patience or time to sit back and watch him flounder.
Marrying Peter Pan also works for women who like to have control in the relationship. If you’re doing everything for your partner, you have control over what they eat, drink and do.
If there’s a hint of fear of abandonment going on, you’ll feel safer with a man who is completely reliant on you. How would they manage on their own? He’s far less likely to leave you than a man who can look after himself.
But while living with a man-child might answer some needs, for a relationship to be healthy, the scales need to be reasonably balanced.
If you’re providing all the practical and emotional care and your partner shows little appreciation and rarely or never reciprocates, that balance is way out of whack.
Here’s why most women eventually wake up and walk out.
You’re knackered!
‘I’m exhausted and still I keep going, cooking, cleaning up, making sure the family is feed and warm and looked after. His contribution is to sit on the sofa swiping through his phone. How does he live with himself?’
‘Tired of having to do all or most of the household chores’ is a reason commonly cited by women in divorce. Yet we continue to carry out 60 per cent more unpaid work than men.
Statistics show the frequency of sex rises in households where men do their fair share. So it’s not surprising to find out the first casualty for women in a man-child relationship is desire.
There are certain prerequisites for sexual arousal and feeling stressed and exhausted isn’t going to put anyone in the mood.
Laziness is not admirable
Here’s a behaviour anyone living with a man-child will instantly recognise: weaponised incompetence. That’s the psychological term to describe when a person pretends they don’t know how to do something or deliberately does it badly, to get out of doing it in the future.
You ask him to pick up the groceries and he comes back with only half of what’s on the list. You ask him to clean the bathroom and he ‘forgets’ to do the bath and the shower…and the floor.
He might think it’s funny but not pulling your weight has devastating consequences. Why would you want to be with someone and sleep with someone who takes advantage of you?
If your partner doesn’t appreciate you, resentment and anger simmer away in the background of your relationship, wiping out desire.
Laziness is not an admirable quality. If the person you’re living with is no longer your friend, they’re the enemy. Why would you want to open your heart – or legs – to them? They can’t be trusted to do the right thing by you.
Acting like a child isn’t sexy
‘He likes it when I baby him, and it makes me feel affectionate when I do. But I find it hard to then switch to thinking of him as a sexy, powerful, attractive man I want to sleep with.’
HE’S HELPLESS AND CLUELESS, HOW IS THAT SEXY?
*Sophia is 34 and been living with her partner for 18 months
‘My partner can walk past an overflowing bin or coffee table piled with cups and plates and claim he ‘didn’t see it’. I ask him to make the bed and it looks like five toddlers have rolled all over it when he’s finished. He’s useless with money and I had to sit him down, like a student, and come up with a budget. Now I’m the one that’s having to constantly check if he’s sticking to it because it impacts on my finances if he doesn’t.
He’s always saying I do more because I’m better at everything. I don’t doubt that I am. But it’s because I’ve had more practise – you don’t need a degree to be able to stack a dishwasher, for God’s sake.
His behaviour is destroying our relationship. How can I have respect for him when he’s like a child and can’t do anything for himself? I met an ex of his at a family gathering and asked if their relationship had the same dynamic. The answer was yes – it was a huge factor into why they’d split. I’d love to have asked what their sex life was like but didn’t want to push it.
The truth is I have no desire to have sex with my partner. It feels like just another thing I am doing to please him. He’s as useless in bed as he is out of it. I’m the one who initiates sex, I’m the one who takes charge and directs things. I virtually give myself an orgasm by giving such specific instructions, he can’t possibly get it wrong. There’s no masculinity about him at all. He’s helpless and clueless and how is that a turn-on?’
Having a partner who behaves like a child sets up an unnatural dynamic and association. This seeps into sexual territory as well, creating unpleasant subconscious feelings. We don’t have sex with our children, why would we want to have sex with an adult who behaves like a child?
Feeling like you are your partner’s Mum isn’t going to make you pounce on him in bed, it’s going to make you want to tuck him in and kiss his forehead.
‘I saw my ex as a boy, someone I needed to take care of, not a man who was capable of giving me pleasure,’ one woman told me. ‘I can’t tell you what a relief it was to find a man who was my equal and acted like it. We have more sex in a week than my ex and I had in three years.’
And there it is in a nutshell…
If you don’t respect your partner, you won’t fancy them
Women want to feel proud and excited by their partner not frustrated and disappointed in them. You need to be able to see strengths, things you admire.
We want to be with someone who stands beside us, not tucks under our skirts. Who can offer a fresh perspective and help shoulder life’s challenges, not drop them at our feet.
While it’s blatantly obvious to any woman why these traits squash any desire for sex, the man-child phenomenon’s effect on libido has not been studied seriously before.
One of the co-authors of the study, Emily Harris, said this is partly because people make assumptions about female desire in relationships. We focus on things like hormones and quote statistics that show female desire for sex falls more quickly in a long-term relationship than his does.
This might well be true, but we need to look at the reason WHY this happens.
We know now that women desire falls faster because we need more exciting, varied sex than men do and that’s rarely delivered by men in long-term relationships.
If your partner also drains all your energy, emotion, funds and patience, why on earth would you be champing at the bit for it?
Forget cheating, this is what kills relationships.
Tracey’s podcast, SexTok with Tracey and Kelsey, starts a brand-new season today. Listen wherever you listen to podcasts or click here
If you enjoyed reading this article…
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Also, these are 18 things you should never say in a relationship, according to Tracey Cox
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