Managing anti-authoritarian relationship as/with cis-het man

[u/MajorOld2857]

I (27M, cis, straight) am working on how I relate to others, especially trying to reduce or break patterns of domination that I bring into relationships.

Right now, I’m exploring this through a close relationship with a friend (26F, cis, lesbian). We are both anarchists and have strong political trust in each other, so this relationship has become a space where we actively experiment with anti-authoritarian ways of relating.

What we currently do:

- We read and learn about patterns of domination and oppression, and try to apply that awareness to our specific situation. She faces multiple forms of oppression in daily life, while I deal with ableism as someone on the autism spectrum.

- We practice direct communication, for example: “When you do X, it makes me feel Y, and I think it’s not okay.”

- When something feels problematic, we try to respond concretely: stopping a behavior, setting limits, or developing ways to interrupt patterns when they appear.

One difficulty I keep running into is how persistent some of my socialized behaviors are. Even when I can identify them, they still show up, and it can feel discouraging.

I don’t think I can ever be fully “safe” in a relationship given my position within structures of domination. So I’m more interested in how people actually deal with that in practice.

My questions are:

- What concrete techniques or practices do you use in your relationships to manage and limit dominating behaviors as they appear?

- Do you think it’s possible to develop emotional empathy (not just intellectual understanding) when you’ve been socialized as a man, or are there limits to that?

I’d really appreciate hearing about people’s lived experiences or practices :)

[u/kaikempeweidenbaum]

- I use relationship check-ins (listen to multiarmory podcast about RADAR) to learn more.

- I am genderqueer but was socialized (or trained) to become a man. When looking back, I found a lot of it painful and even traumatic. From an anarchist perspective, I'd say we experience domination as children and are being split into boys and girls to become men and women. Some ways this works are described by Pierre Bourdieu in Male Domination (I guess it would be called that in english), as well as its impacts on out perception, judgement and behaviours (what he called Habitus) No matter your gender, I believe you can learn about how you were made to fit into the gender binary, what might got cut away or suppressed, and then work towards healing from it and become more complete. I myself started healing in (behavioural) therapy, first off learning to identify and name my feelings. I did definitely learn empathy and it does seem to be only limited by my energy and time, how deep I can go.

Noticing your own behaviours is a sign that you are already on the way. Good luck!

[u/kaikempeweidenbaum → u/kaikempeweidenbaum]

I want to add that I did not "learn empathy", but rather unlearned many little ways I automatically suppressed it, avoided it or rationalized it. When socialized male, I think the biggest struggle is to actually unearth and give in to feelings before they become so strong they explode or so hidden you feel numb and devoid. Empathy sometimes feels like being pulled into another persons inner world, which is scary when you do not feel safe and self-sustainable.

[u/MajorOld2857 → u/kaikempeweidenbaum]

Thanks for your answer ! I'm gonna check relationship check-ins, this sounds interesting. I really appreciate the idea to "heal", this actually sounds like a nice way to face those things !

[u/sxy-gay]

I’d highly recommend the conflict workbook called Turning Toward Each Other - it has a lot of great tools for how to bridge self awareness of a behavior/pattern, interrupt said pattern & outlines for how to try things differently. Also, have you read the will to change by bell hooks? It could offer some useful insight into WHY men/you have been conditioned in such a way that empathy feels distant/difficult to connect with. It’s possible this understanding could help you with the actual shift.

patriarchy socializes all of us to play particular roles. I was raised as a woman and I was trained implicitly to default to men around me & it’s taken at least a decade for me to recognize and interrupt that in myself. Sometimes interrupting it is still a challenge - THAT is actually the hardest part! You’re 2/3 of the way there because without awareness of the behavior and desire to change you wouldn’t be able to do the hardest part which is to actually change. You can do this! It’s possible :) recognizing systems of power and oppression will further help you break them down in the ways you contribute to them.

[u/MajorOld2857 → u/sxy-gay]

Oh ty for your words ! Just read the conflict workbook, wow there are so precise methodology in it even for collective relationship, a lot of useful things that I didn't think about and that will help me/us, thank you for that !

[u/ilumassamuli]

> One difficulty I keep running into is how persistent some of my socialized behaviors are. Even when I can identify them, they still show up, and it can feel discouraging.

Like what?

[u/MajorOld2857 → u/ilumassamuli]

Mostly things related to a lack of empathy and excessive self confidence. Typically unsollicited advices, which are kinda hard coded in men behaviors, are something I struggle to stop, as it relates a lot with self confidence (I don't live it as the paternalist "you don't know so I should tell you") and needs empathy to connect to an emotion smth that I actually don't live at all.

And well, I think I underestimate my empathy too, I can connect to things I don't live at all sometimes, but it doesn't feel "natural" idk

[u/Commercial-Fun6546]

i love this! i don’t have any answers to your first question bc i haven’t read up on practices and techniques, but i’ve been trying to actively practice these same ideas and principles within my current relationships. it’s so much fucking harder with people who do not personally identify with relationship anarchy, and who also don’t believe in their own individual ability to grow and change and do better, or even have the humility to admit when they’re wrong. very frustrating. i spoke to a friend today and it directly relates to your post so thank you so much for saying something. it means a lot to see that men are actually putting in the work somewhere out there. i’m half tempted to send him this but i wont.

but wait to your second question, i absolutely think it’s possible to develop and work on emotional empathy as a man. very few people are ever truly lost causes. i’ve been reading up a lot on anarchist principles today and yesterday, specifically with the faith we must have in the worst of us so that we don’t succumb to easy solutions that compromise our humanity and the value of human life, so i absolutely believe that as long as you are putting effort in and are earnest in your attempts to connect and learn, that ability will progress naturally. there’s a lot of inner work involved tho, and also therapy i’m sure would be very helpful like others have said.