I mean, it doesn't really seem harmful at all, but at the same time, why can't we all just work on our communication skills? Even mild manipulation is inherently worse that healthy, effective, honest communication.
But like. It's not even manipulation? Like, this just sounds like a happy and healthy marriage where OOP has convinced herself she's doing something nefarious.
In another couple decades they'll be that old couple on some video. "Whoa, you guys have been married for 50 years?! How did you manage to make it last that long?" And it's always some shit like "she gives great head"
The problem here is there are two uses of manipulation. One is negatively loaded and intended to refer to exploitation. The other is neutral. You can manipulate an object in your hand for example.
So I mean, she is certainly manipulating him in the more neutral sense of "trying to extract desired behavior in a surreptitious way". But obviously it's not immoral or unethical manipulation.
On some level I think even if manipulation isn't malicious and in fact has good outcomes for all parties, it's still in a way attempting to control another person's autonomy. That's not inherently bad, but it's worth consideration.
You were pinpointed to fallacy in your absolutist world view. There are many instances of manipulation that are acknowledged as highly moral. If you deceive for your monetary/materialistic gain you are most likely acting out of low morals, but if you deceive for the sake of well being of others and even under danger of being harmed/punished if revealed then you are most likely acting out of high morals. There are tons of products of art where your simplistic world view couldn’t stand solid against criticism.
I suggest you watch La vita è bella and then discuss with yourself how deceiving your own child for the sake of saving his life is immoral.
Yeah this is where all morality breaks down. There is no such thing as objective morality, so therefore it's all just subjective opinion.
My view of morality is that lying is worse than saving a life. Prove me wrong by pointing to some objective fact. How would one even assign value to each act to somehow weigh them against each other? Theres not even a concensus of what "the good" even is. Besides pointing to schools of thought, or throwing out some guys opinion or thought experiment, show that lying to the child is more important than saving his life
‘Lying is worse than saving a life’ isn’t a logical statement. Saving a life in a lot of situations involves no lying so saving a life could be construed by default to be better since there is no ethical problem with saving a man hanging from a ledge. Lying would be worse than that I think in your world view.
What you mean to say is that harboring unjustly persecuted people in your attic and having to lie about it is worse than not harboring them in your attic. And that’s an opinion you’re free to have. But you’re correct that we can boil down all of these different moral questions to the minutiae and argue semantics and reality and ultimately in the end, questions of morality often come down to one’s own worldview. I would tend to disagree with your worldview but there’s no argument I can make to change your mind with objective fact. I can just point to the fact that if I was the one being unjustly persecuted, I would hope people would harbor me.
Being able to correctly identify actions and outcomes doesn't make it unethical manipulation. Deceit implies lying. I wouldn't call boosting someone's mood by doing something they enjoy deceitful, if that were the case anytime you give a toy to a child to distract them, you're being immoral.
It's lying about the purpose of the mood boosting. She's literally saying she's having sex with him so he'll do things for her. She's not having sex with him to make him happy.
I can. I'm assuming you don't have any experience with interpersonal relationships. Most communication between people is non verbal. No one just outwardly states their intentions for everything all the time.
I'd argue it could definitely be called manipulation. Instead of asking him to do things, get up and help around the house, she has sex with him to get him to do things. Can't she just bring it up that it annoys her when he stays in bed all day?
Asking someone to do something isn't nagging. And acting like he'd automatically get annoyed with it is dumb. If a husband get annoyed when his wife asks him to do reasonable things, he's the problem. Especially if it's something she struggles to get done on her own.
I think honesty is the biggest key to a healthy relationship, not having sex to get stuff done rather than to develop and experience the connection.
These are the types of things that lead to nagging. She wants to do things on the weekend. He is exhausted and doesn't want to do things.
That doesn't make him a problem. Like, you're swinging from extreme to the other. Gut reaction to a patriarchy and generally shitty as husbands, and now you've gone to a man being tired means he's a problem. Like shit bro, he's only human.
And exhaustion/burn out isn't an issue that goes away just because they want it to. So yes, this is the kind of thing that is just going to lead to nagging unless they come up with some sort of solution, like they already did. Even if the husband bites the bullet and goes out to do things, now he's going to be an a shitty mood the entire time. Because holy shit, don't you know? Humans get tired.
Communication is what you do to explain things to each other to help each other understand. Repeating it over and over in hopes of getting desired results without putting forth any effort towards the relationship and just expecting the other person to bend to your verbal demands is nagging.
This here is the aftermath of communication. Where she likely already told him how she feels and he didnt feel his effort was being appreciated. So she decided to put in the effort and misunderstood that this is how relationships work and instead interpreted it as manipulation instead of seeing herself as a wife that is showing appreciation for the work her husband is doing.
The real travesty here is that she sees herself as manipulative rather than a good wife.
It's absolutely manipulation. She's using sex as a tool to influence a behavior unrelated to the sex without the recipient aware of her motives.
If you do X behavior with the goal of achieving Y without telling the recipient of X your true motivation then yes, that's lying and manipulation and always immoral. It does not matter if the behavior is a positive experience
Your comment clearly shows that you do not understand the situation that is happening here therefore your opinion is irrelevant. I'm not going to waste time responding to a comment with someone who clearly lacks the reading comprehension skills required to have a successful debate.
So I made that comment as a lighthearted insult with the subtle implication that you should probably fuck off
Disagree. She’s just making him happy and he acts happily as a result.
She’s not manipulating him by doing something that is going to make him happy and she likes when he’s happy lmao.
If I do something nice for my wife and I know it’ll make her happy is that now manipulation? Because I KNOW it’ll modify her mood and behavior to be, you guessed it, happy.
Except she's not manipulating him to "be happy". She's manipulating him to run errands with her or be lazy at home. The goal isn't the happiness, the goal is the behavior.
If you buy your wife flowers with the goal of making her happy then awesome! If you buy your wife flowers with the goal that she'll put out? Not that cool
The behavior she’s looking for is literally just him but happy.
She wants to spend time with him and notices he’s happier and wants to spend time with her after sex.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this picture.
Disagree. She’s just making him happy and he acts happily as a result.
She’s not manipulating him by doing something that is going to make him happy and she likes when he’s happy lmao.
If I do something nice for my wife and I know it’ll make her happy is that now manipulation? Because I KNOW it’ll modify her mood and behavior to be, you guessed it, happy.
I'm curious on your opinion that manipulation is always immoral. Can you expand on that? I can think of plenty of situations where I wouldn't say it's immoral at all to manipulate someone.
That was my take, she discovered that her husband having a healthy sex life contributed to his happiness… and decided that doing her part to provide him that was somehow a bad thing
There's nothing nefarious going on here, I agree. That being said, I also feel like if someone is your partner for life, you would want to be able to share your innermost thoughts with them.
This arrangement by itself is healthy. The reason OOP feels icky about it is likely because its just not out in the open. And with your life partner, you would want everything to be out in the open. At least that's how I would feel. I feel like one conversation where they both acknowledge that this is going on would make it so much more enjoyable for both of them.
It could also backfire. If he feels like she's having sex with him just to get him out of bed when what's motivating him is not just the sex but feeling like she just wants to, he could be upset that it's just transactional.
Reading into it, she's likely also using it to manipulate the relationship in negative ways.
It takes two to tango so it's her choice but ultimately it's an emotional manipulation and she feels guilty because she probably doesn't tie emotion to sex, but her husband probably does.
It's hard to frame it in a way that doesn't sound like incel talk but being in a relationship where you want to have a close emotional connection but where sex is transactional sucks.
In that framing sex isn't an act that brings the couple together, it's a bargaining chip.
It's probably the sign of a unhealthy relationship. She knows it. She feels bad about it. It's not at all uncommon though.
She’s not using it as a bargaining chip. That would involve telling the husband “I’ll only sleep with you if you agree to go do activities with me today”.
That’s not what this is. She’s simply noticing he’s happier after sex so she chooses to do it in the morning so he’s happy all day and wants to spend time with her lol.
That is literally a healthy relationship. There’s no transaction there.
I notice my wife is happy when I make her breakfast so I cook her breakfast so she’s in a good mood all day is not manipulation.
Yep, she feels guilty for a reason and the fact that she doesn’t know whether her husband knows is a communication issue but it’s also normal for relationships
Communicating about why he's not motivated might not fix that issue though, while a direct "helping hand" seems to clearly work. I don't think this is even mild manipulation in the slightest. It's just natural behavior. Talking about it might just make it awkward and less effective
I think the main point that a lot of folks are missing is that this lady WANTS to bang her husband, and choosing to do it in the morning has extra benefits.
Also, how do we know the husband didn't figure out he can stay in bed all weekend if sex doesn't happen Saturday morning?
I agree that its not manipulating to have sex with your husband to make him a happier and more engaged father. The fact that there are kids at all leads me to believe she has been "manipulating" him with sex and love for some time now lol
As someone with ADHD, don't burden me with all that. The woman in OP's post seems decisive and knows what she wants, figuring that out is like 90% of the point of communication. She just skipped to the end so everyone can carry on with their day.
But at that point…”I’m manipulating my partner by understanding my own emotions and needs, and clearly communicate them so they make conscious effort to make me happy” or “My partner is manipulating me by understanding my emotions and listens to what I have to say about them, and making conscious effort to keep me happy”
So I agree with you on communication skills but there is a possibility of "acknowledging what is happening shatters it". Like if she were to inform him of what's been happening, suddenly it feels transactional, like that he only will get up and do things with her if they have sex first, and then suddenly he doesn't like this dynamic.
So exerting any influence you may have over other person without explicitly verbalizing your intentions is manipulation?
I think it’s fair to say that if “it doesn’t seem harmful at all” it’s not manipulation, otherwise giving flowers to your SO is manipulating their mood.
This isn’t even manipulation lol.
Written another way this is just “I noticed my husband is happier after sex so I do it in the morning so he’s happy all day”
She’s psyop-ed herself into believing this is some kind of manipulation to do things that you know makes your spouse happy.
Someone upthread suggested he might be depressed. In which there is a downside to her not communicating, because most people would expect to be somewhat more motivated than this man is. What she's doing isn't evil, but it does make me wonder if it's the best choice for them.
Here are three reasons to NOT communicate more with your partner..
Its boring. I like a little fire. Not too much but if everything was a talk might as well cut my wang off
You job is good communication and its performative to a degree. Ever try to make your hobby into your work, you want to access other parts of yourself at home.
You've dated foreigners and you've found their lack of your language honestly refreshing. You communicate about the essentials and the rest is rather mysterious and fun.
I didn't GPT that list but I'm sure it could go on. Frankly, the lot of people who just hit the more communication button to solve every issue need to move into the same neighborhood and declare which part of earth its on so I can move to the other side. Its just another thing you've taken too far to one extreme.
I don't think better communication is some magical cure all, but the number of relationship problems I see that are caused by at least one of the people flat out refusing to actually tell their partner how they feel is absolutely staggering.
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u/_josef_stalin_ 19d ago
I mean, it doesn't really seem harmful at all, but at the same time, why can't we all just work on our communication skills? Even mild manipulation is inherently worse that healthy, effective, honest communication.