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My Wife Respects Me Less Because I Improved Her Life (The Challenge of Helping Women)
In this episode, we delve into the dynamics of relationships and how raising the status of one partner can create unforeseen challenges. We explore concepts of fairness using the famous Capuchin monkey experiment, discuss historical and modern relationship structures, and compare these situations to international aid scenarios. We offer advice on how to navigate these dynamics successfully and share personal reflections on our journey together. Whether you're in a traditional or modern relationship, discover insights on managing status differences, the impact of shared goals, and strategies to ensure long-term harmony.
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] This morning. We had a conversation that reminded me how unfair life is as a man. We were noting that early in our relationship.
There was a very big because I told you I was like, I really wasn't that nice to you early in our relationship. I was not like as good of a partner as conscientious as a partner as I am now
Simone Collins: and I pointed out that like it didn't really matter because. You were way out of my league and there was a huge power distance and I gave him some examples.
Of other very powerful men who have women who are great and very happy to be mistreated by him just because he's that high end status.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. So then she, she pointed out, but she goes, Oh, but don't worry. Like you've elevated my status since then. So I actually require more of you. And I was Thinking about this, right?
Like she's not wrong. When I first met her, she was a social media manager, was a degree from GW, you know, now she's got a graduate degree from Cambridge and everything like that. And it's [00:01:00] done all this big stuff. But back then she basically ran a Facebook account and had a degree from a mid tier university.
And I was getting a Stanford MBA, right? And I ran more than
Simone Collins: a Facebook account, but yeah, I mean, yeah.
Malcolm Collins: I was working in brain computer interface, stuff like that. I can see the difference there. And this is a problem that a lot of guys face is they raise the status of the woman that they are dating.
And they expect her. To show a degree of appreciation in the same way that maybe we expected Zelensky to show some degree of appreciation for all the money that we've been funneling him. Exactly,
Simone Collins: that there should be
Malcolm Collins: some gratitude, some sense of indebtedness. And, and this is exactly, interestingly, not just a problem with women, but with like USAID and stuff like that is people don't really build like enduring gratitude.
for shoveling the money or doing them favors unless your fates are somehow intermingled. So, you know, whether it's with like USAID, this idea that we're actually building gratitude in these [00:02:00] countries, that's just not the case.
Simone Collins: And it brings me back mentally to Those capuchin monkeys that there was that famous experiment where there's video of a capuchin monkey being given some kind of treat and in return for doing a task and he's super cool with it.
It's all great. And then he sees his compatriot given a much nicer treat.
Malcolm Collins: He's being given cucumbers and the compatriots being given grapes. Oh, the nerve! The nerve!
Speaker: Getting grape and you will see what happens. So she gives a rock to us. That's the task. And we give her a piece of cucumber and she eats it. The other one needs to give a rock to us, and that's what she does. And she gets a grape and she eats it. The other one sees that she gives a rock to us, now gets again cucumber[00:03:00]
She tests the rock now against the wall. She needs to give it to us and she gets cucumber again. Oh my god.
Published on 9 months, 2 weeks ago