2023-10-13 04:30:09
MARINE LOGNONé
Sandrine (first name has been changed) works in public health and, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, was continually on deck. At the time of the first confinement of 2020, it was her partner who took care of their children, until he broke down. “He said he was bloodless”, she remembers. This period exacerbated a malaise he had been suffering from for a long time. “The birth of our eldest, ten years ago, awakened in him an anguish, the fragility of life. His slumped posture showed his suffering. In the past, we could talk about it, I supported him for a long time, but with family life it became more difficult. »
Throughout the health crisis, Sandrine can no longer stand the endless discussions, the reproaches addressed to her by a man she still loves. During an argument, Alexandre (first name has been changed) becomes particularly vehement. “I could no longer be his outlet, says Sandrine. I didn’t give him a choice: I told him he needed to see a therapist. »
Alexandre accepted, but quickly the sessions became less frequent. “He doesn’t see the point”, says Sandrine, who has distanced herself and recognizes that it is up to her companion to decide whether he needs help or not. She nevertheless believes that she has been a form of psychological support for too long. “I don’t have the skills”she simply decides.
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Despite current developments, the heterosexual couple – but not only – is still often based on a strict definition of roles. “Everything that ensures the well-being, the maintenance of the family and the home generally falls to women”observes the philosopher Sandra Laugier, who spread in France the concept of “care”, care, attention paid to others, in the hope of recognizing this solicitude practiced on a daily basis, so often taken for granted.
A matter of education
Sometimes, faced with men’s difficulty in expressing their discomfort, women carry a psychological burden, have to play therapist and, behind closed doors of the couple, be the receptacle of the man’s discomfort. In terms of mental health and acceptance of care, an imbalance persists between the genders, which various studies attest. In France, men suffering from mental disorders seek care twice as often than women.
In addition, women admit their discomfort more easily: 23% of them, compared to 13% of men, reported having “felt the need to be helped[s] for psychological difficulties or because[elles] didn’t have[en]not in good spirits » since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, according to a study on mental health published in 2022 by the Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics of the Ministry of Health (Drees). And depressive episodes affect more women: 13% of respondents to the 2017 health barometer, compared to 6% for men. But this is declarative, the embarrassment experienced in talking about one’s suffering can lead to not admitting one’s difficulties during such a survey.
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