Let’s Denormalize Interrogating Our Male Partners for Information
By: Acamea Deadwiler
Tags: Love, Infidelity, Women, Relationships, Gender Roles

Let’s Denormalize Interrogating Our Male Partners for Information

We’ve accepted this as a natural component of relationships. It shouldn’t be.

Ketut Subiyanto / Pexels

I came across a clip of Bravo TV’s Real Housewives of Atlanta, where new cast member Drew Sidora was grilling her husband about his recent suspicious whereabouts. A few of the questions she asked:

Where were you? Did you leave Georgia? (He did.) Where did you go?

All the while, Drew’s husband sat there with a nonchalant demeanor, sipping from a champagne glass, attempting to downplay the situation with no valid explanations or definitive answers to her inquiries.

The exchange made me cringe.

This isn’t about Drew. I know nothing about the health or history of her marriage, the backstory of this particular incident, or how much of it was scripted and influenced by network showrunners. Also, it was only just a clip. Clearly not the full story.

It made me cringe because this is the most recent in a long list of examples demonstrating women trying to pry information from their male significant others. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least five more instances. I’ve witnessed similar situations play out repeatedly — despite the fact that I don’t watch the Real Housewives series or any other reality television shows.

That’s how prevalent the scenario remains.

I’ve seen it on television, in movies, and in real life — women giving men the third degree about where they’ve been, who they’ve been with, who’s texting their phone, and other attempts to forcibly remove a veil of dishonesty.

I’m sure you’ve witnessed it too. Yet, how often have you seen the roles reversed? Where a man is interrogating a woman regarding her whereabouts or sketchy behavior? How many examples do you have of a man who exposed his wife’s infidelity multiple times, choosing to remain committed to her?

It’s not like women don’t also engage in duplicity and negligence. Relationship shenanigans aren’t limited to one gender. Nonetheless, we rarely see situations where a woman is chilling with a glass of merlot as her husband pleads for answers. Pretend or otherwise, it’s an uncommon occurrence.

We’ve normalized deception and game-playing on the part of men.

It’s widely anticipated that this is something we’ll have to deal with at some point if romantically involved with them. Worse, in our anticipation, it seems that we accept shady behavior as typical relationship issues.

One of my very first bosses was a woman. I remember being 18 and listening to her complain about having a habitually unfaithful husband. There was a sadness evident on her face even when she tried to smile. She was tired and unhappy.

My boss went on to say how she’d been talking with her mom about her husband. She expressed a desire to file for divorce. Her mother’s response was, “he’s just being a man.”

My heart sank.

This is what makes such a mindset most problematic — and why I hate seeing us grill men for insight into events that shouldn’t even transpire and information that should be offered freely.

Disrespect is not normal.

Willful deceit, disregard, and secrecy aren’t things we should feel we have to endure. Emotional abuse isn’t just a “man being a man.”

My goodness. How did we get here? I know — through generations of society viewing women as here for the pleasure of men. We’ve established this hierarchy where even a deeply flawed and hurtful relationship with a man is ranked above being alone as a woman.

I guess the better question is, how do we get out of here?