I would also call myself a fairly passive male in our relationship. I have been in about as many physical altercations as has MrsNOP has. I do take issue with your characterization of men as being relationship fixers in greater number than women. I find little evidence of this, except possibly on this board; but remember we are a select (weird?) group who are willing to talk about personal issues with strangers. No, I believe that women are still far more likely to try to fix a relationship than are men. Men are still primarily focussed on job and other outside influences. And when things go wrong in the marriage, men, unfortunately, resort to divorce and to violence more frequently than do women. I'm not saying that most women who attempt to fix a marriage are competent to do so, but at least they try.
It's very frustrating to me that my W is not willing to put effort into the marriage, but I can't blame this on feminism. In fact, I am in a real quandry. She is a traditionalist in that she wants me to take the lead in many issues. She will never initiate sex, but that's not all. She will often ask why something hasn't been done, that she did not ask to be done. I am expected to be primary breadwinner, loving father, Cassanova-like suitor and mindreader! However, she also wants to have her way much of the time. I end up being the one patiently explaining that a $500,000 house is a budget buster; she then loves to call me a chicken$hit, because I insist on us not bankrupting ourselves. Judging from the standup comedians of the pre-feminist 50s, I feel that such issues existed even then. If anything, withholding of sex as a conscious act was one of the few weapons women had in earlier generations (e.g., Lysistrata).
Feminism has given many women the ability to walk away from marriages that are abusive or otherwise infulfilling, without having to worry about substantial economic deprivation. Men have to bring their A game much of the time if they want to stay married. I think men need to rely more on their gentlemanly qualities than on their barbaric qualities of they want to succeed in marriages. Josef Mengele was a man, but so were most of the New York fire fighters on 9/11. Men in this century are resepected primarily if they possess wisdom rather if they possess strong arms. Men of wisdom are not depicted frequently in the media, but they need to be role models. We need to exercise what wisdom we have in our marriages every single day.
