My ex-husband would never admit this, but it did bother him. He literally never ‘let’ me drive, unless he was too drunk to drive. To him, driving is a man thing. I really like to drive, and am a better driver than he is, but he wouldn’t hear of it. I could’ve put my foot down, but decided early on that it just wasn’t worth it. Nearly every time we tackled some sort of home improvement project, we had a fight. Even if I was the designer of the entire project, once it came time to actually do it, he insisted on taking the lead, and would argue with me every step of the way about how to do it. I’m the one who took woodworking classes, but power tools were ‘for him’. So frustrating. To be fair, it wasn’t just ‘male things’ that he’d nitpick about, though. If I was stirring whatever I was cooking for dinner, he would literally take the spoon out of my hand and take over. Grrr.
The man I’m married to now is the very epitome of ‘manliness’ in many, many ways. Including being secure enough about his manliness that he doesn’t mind a bit that I own all the power tools, and drive us everywhere we go. :)