Double Standards in Marriage: When It Feels Like the Rules Are Different for You: Episode 401
EmPowered Couples with The Freemans
Aaron & Jocelyn Freeman
5.0 • 589 Ratings
🗓️ 24 June 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Few things create more frustration in a marriage than the feeling of a double standard—when it seems like the rules are different for you than for your partner. Whether it's around emotional regulation, how long you're "allowed" to feel upset, or what tone is acceptable from whom, these invisible imbalances quietly erode trust and connection over time. In this episode, we unpack the real-life double standards men and women often feel in marriage—and how those dynamics are deeply tied to core fears like unfairness, rejection, or not being heard.
We're not here to point fingers—we're here to name the patterns, give them language, and teach you how to break the cycle without turning on each other. You'll learn how to move beyond keeping score, how to express your needs without weaponizing them, and how to create emotional safety when things feel uneven. If you've ever thought, "Why is it okay when they do it, but not when I do?"—this one is for you.
👉 One way to prevent these double standard dynamics is by consistently building up your "Love Account" through small daily deposits of connection, appreciation, and presence. That's exactly what the Prioritizing Us 30-Day Couples Challenge is designed to help you do. Start today at MyCouplesChallenge.com.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Empowered Couples podcast. We're here you get modern, non-boring |
| 0:05.1 | relationship advice for you and your partner to communicate like pros, fight smarter, and stay on the |
| 0:10.3 | same team no matter the challenge that you face. I am one of your hosts, Erin Freeman. And today |
| 0:15.3 | I'll bring you this solo episode about double standards in marriage and when it feels like the rules are different for you |
| 0:22.9 | versus your partner. Now, I want to do this by myself because this is an experience that I'm having. |
| 0:29.7 | Now, I'm not going to be calling Jocelyn out here. We already talked about me doing this podcast, |
| 0:34.7 | but it is in particular a frustrating experience that I have at times |
| 0:38.9 | and that I've heard from men even a few times this week. So this double standard is frustrating |
| 0:45.9 | because especially for men, when we are being asked to make a change or keep to a certain agreement that when we do it and then the |
| 0:58.2 | rules are reversed, the standard is not the same. And I've personally had this experience. |
| 1:04.1 | And in the conflict cycle, which is a principle we teach in our private coaching, we know that |
| 1:10.6 | a subject is not always the source of the |
| 1:13.8 | conflict, that a conflict cycle happens because a core fear or emotion comes up and then we react |
| 1:22.5 | from that. And I've noticed for myself where we'll have, Jocelyn and I, that is, have a situation in which |
| 1:30.7 | she has asked me in particular to be or do something given that situation. |
| 1:39.0 | When the roles are then reversed and I perceive that she's not doing what she asked me to do, I feel this feeling |
| 1:48.6 | of, man, this is unfair and this is unbalanced. And it's that emotion that puts me into my |
| 1:55.2 | reactive actions, which would be like to coach her, to tell her this is what you aren't doing right, |
| 2:04.6 | you could have done this better, and all that kind of coaching then gets us into our conflict |
| 2:10.8 | cycle. She has her own side, but I've noticed that that comes up for me, but I've also again |
| 2:16.2 | heard from a few men this week that they feel |
| 2:18.6 | this same double standard. So I've got a couple examples here. So the double standard for men, |
... |
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