Man alone

Men are never really alone,” a sister-in-law said some years ago. “There’s always a woman somewhere, somehow,” she explained. My girlfriends and I were discussing the plight of single fathers — widowers, divorced men — left on their own to raise children and maintain a household. â€œImpossible,” one friend said. “It’s just not in their DNA. I can’t imagine my husband taking care of a household: maids, drivers, groceries, repairs and all that aside from taking care of the children.”

“Kawawa,” another said. “That’s the reason widowers remarry right away or divorced men hook up with a girlfriend immediately. They need someone to take care of them.”

One told of a widower friend of hers, who runs to her for all things big and small, from caterers to dating advice. Another had to help out a divorced cousin in picking a hairdresser and prom dress for his daughter. Yet another said her widower uncle had to be taught by her mother how to do the grocery shopping. We all sighed.

Mary Kenney, writer for telegraph.co.uk, said, “Once a man is married, he is hardly ever again unmarried. That is, should he be widowed or divorced, he will nearly always marry again. This is much less true for women. Widows and divorcees are less likely to repeat the experience of marriage.”

Kenney mentions the tradition that widowers are expected to remain unmarried until after two years of their spouses’ death, but many widowers can’t last that long being by themselves. 

She said, “Deep down, most women feel that men on their own are needier than women in similar circumstances: emotionally needier, sexually needier and in greater need of conjugal support in bringing up a family.” She explained: “Many studies claim that for a man to remarry is a compliment both to his late wife, and to the experience of marriage. It made him happy before, and will do so again. It is not unusual, either, for a man to remarry a woman who bears a physical resemblance to his first wife.” 

Feminist sociologist, Jessie Bernard, in her book The Future of Marriage, made a more cynical analysis. She said that men are “serviced” by marriage, whereas women do most of the servicing. Women, she said, put the work in: “They structure most of the domestic arrangements and take responsibility for everything from the Christmas card list to remembering in-laws’ birthdays. Men remarry… because they are beneficiaries of wedlock whereas women are the emotional, psychological and familial net contributors.”

Kenney continued that while women would like to remarry, they are inclined to approach it more carefully — since the personal investment by women is much higher, the rewards must be commensurate. She quoted one widow who said, “Another husband would have to be well worth ironing eight shirts a week for.”

Kenney ended her article saying, “Biology has never granted equality between the sexes, and I don’t think it ever will; but there are compensations in all things. If we feel that men are needier when bereaved, isn’t it because we know that women are stronger and more self-reliant in coping with life alone?”

Clearly, there are exceptions. I’ve seen single fathers flourish in their singlehood, and parent more effectively than their ex-wives, as though the presence of the ex deterred them from coming into the role or as though the marriage was too toxic to foster wholesome parenting. But of course the loneliness is all-pervasive.

A male friend who’s been single for several years said, “It gets lonely in the evenings. When they kids aren’t home, I have dinner alone. That’s the reason I eat fast (10 minutes, tops). If they’re home, after dinner is the lonely hour. But I’m used to it. I’ve rediscovered reading and I catch up on movies I’ve missed during their regular runs. It’s the price to pay but it beats being married any day. That was hell; this is peace.”

Given this, I don’t think it’s as simplistic as what Kenney says: “Women are stronger and more self-reliant in coping with life alone.” Single fathers thriving by themselves seem to depend more on how much of their situation was their choice to begin with. In my friend’s case, he was a long-suffering, unhappy husband, who had wanted out of the marriage for many years; hence his relief, newfound peace, and renewed sense of mission from raising the kids to running the household to finding the perfect furniture. 

Joan Price, writer for Huffington Post, said in an article dated July 2013: “As much as we love the story of a widowed dad raising his kids, we do not seem to love the story of a divorced dad raising his kids. Because that would mean that the mom either skipped out or was unable to care for her children, and we generally don’t like those stories, either.”

So what’s wrong with a divorced dad who wants to raise his kids? According to Warren Farrell, author Father and Child Reunion, “Kids raised by single dads do better academically, socially, psychologically, and physically than those raised by single moms.” But he’s quick to point out that it doesn’t mean men are necessarily better parents than women. He added, “Single fathers usually have more income and education, tend to be older, and are more self-selected, thus more highly motivated.”

The good news is, Farrell claims, most moms don’t disappear if a father has custody of the children. â€œTo moms’ credit, they are more likely to stay involved; to dads’ credit, dads are more likely to facilitate mom’s involvement than mom is to facilitate dad’s. In brief, the child living primarily with Dad is more likely to live in conditions that come closer to the intact family than is the child living primarily with Mom.”

I had told my girlfriends about Farrell’s claims and one of them said, “Whatever. Women scorned are just bitchy so we give men a hard time.” Another said, “I think the ability to cope with single parenthood is dependent on whether a man is widowed or separated. First, if a man’s wife dies on him then there’s the grieving process that takes time — a lot of time — so the adjustment period is difficult and drawn out. Second, in separations or divorces, it depends on who got dumped. The dumper obviously will be the happier for it so he/she will thrive, duh, while the dumpee is sure to be miserable. S***! I’d hate to be in those shoes.”

I agree. 

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Thank you for your letters. You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com.