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Matt at Must Be This Tall to Ride, continues his on going discussion on marriage with a blog post called, Cracking the Code: 7 Ideas That Would Have Saved My Marriage
I really appreciate the way he has dug into these issues and his willingness to delve in and consider them from a wife’s perspective. He has indeed, “cracked the code” on how many of us feel and it is well worth the read.
I wish to elaborate on just one part of what he said,
“In conclusion, you should assume when your partner tells you something that she/he is telling you the truth. Denying the validity of your spouse’s claims will ensure your divorce close to 100-percent of the time.”
This fits in well with what has recently been my on going theme, always listen to your wife. But don’t just listen, hear what she is saying to you. Just the act of listening is acknowledging that she is an actual human being, someone who is smart and sane and not just crazy and emotionally driven.
Recently I clashed with a few bloggers who were suggesting the precise opposite, never listen to your wife, she’s just attention seeking, being manipulative, having un-godly tantrums, do not ever be moved by your wife’s feelings etc, etc. Sorry, but that’s just appalling, abusive, and also a recipe for disaster. And divorce.
I actually adore men, flaws and all, and seldom focus on their weaknesses, but that is one I often observe, even in my hubby. There can be a kind of arrogance, a sense of entitlement, that does not respect women’s feelings, that assumes we are just being irrational and therefore probably crazy and not worth listening to.
I remember being emotionally overburdened when the kids were small. I also remember how hard it was to make hubby understand. I was left sputtering about how the house was a mess, as if what I wanted was for him to help me with the dishes. It wasn’t about the dishes at all, it’s never really about the dishes, it’s about the mental and emotional weight women often bear. Especially moms with small children. It is the mental real estate our brains must traverse and conquer each and every day, and how men often just sit there, their brains happily parked in their empty box, watching TV or playing video games.
Do women envy the empty box men seem able to park their brains in? Yes, I suspect we do. To never have to know exactly where someone’s favorite socks are hiding, to not be pre-emptively concerned about a million future disaster scenarios that haven’t even occurred yet, that is the stuff of our dreams.
Again, it is not really about the dishes, he could jump up and do the dishes, it is really about the fact that he does not have to think about the dishes. When this happens, women wind up sounding like mothers, nagging little boys, trying to remind him about all the things that need to be thought about. That totally kills desire and romance because men are not attracted to their mothers anymore than women are attracted to their children.
There’s no gentle way to say it, but when women become emotionally over burdened, 95 % of the time it is because a husband has not stepped up and taken responsibility. Power loves a void, a vacuum, and what he doesn’t handle, she will pick up. If she has to pick up too many of these emotional things and he just sits back and lets her, she’ll begin to feel alone, abandoned, resentful, disrespected. Erased. He doesn’t listen to me. I don’t really exist. Why am I even with him?
Women are notorious for picking up things that don’t or shouldn’t belong to us. We can make it look really crazy too, as in, “I just wish you’d help me mop the floors,” and the moment someone tries to help, we’ll jump back in “nevermind, you don’t even know what you’re doing.”
I don’t wish to imply that men are exclusively to blame here or that women never act crazy. I talk a lot about symbiosis, about the cause and effect often going on between men and women in relationships. Our culture has also done a grave disservice to us all by not teaching men how to be men and women how to be women, but to instead reject all the things that make us unique.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
In an ideal world things are black and white. This world is more grey. I’ve been through the crazy, really crazy and mostly psychotic phases. Nothing is better than making an attempt at helping only to be told of every thing you are incapable of doing. Maybe the self destruction code can’t be retracted. But once in awhile BOTH sides need to remember the point isn’t to “win” an argument but resolve the problem. When blame is most important, the other person is marginialized
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That’s a really good point. That blame/shame thing is really toxic, and attached to the idea that one must win and the other must lose, and we just have war. The concept of being one flesh, really means we have to lift each other up, encourage one another.
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Darling, I wish it happened on a regular basis. We are involved in a dispute about weather cancelling flights. The airline is pushing us by the major storm, somehow it should be different. I have tried serenity prayer thing, the cat petting with multiple ones (in case only one cat is effective), and drinking is not in my morning routine.
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Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
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Thank you for the reblog 😉
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You’re very welcome my friend!
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Yes, the empty box we park our minds in. Well said, and so very true. Never really thought of it that way, but I can see it. Chaos can be swirling all around and I can hum a little tune and read a book.
My wife laughs(sort of). I can get really irritated about some really small things and create a crisis where one didn’t exist. But, on the other end of the scale, a true crisis can appear and I am calm and reasoned completely.
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Yep Wally! That is what makes men so charming…. and sometimes so maddening. 😉
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I would take your advice, One smart cookie!
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Great post IB!
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Emotional labour, is a very real thing. Its extremely exhausting to be thinking all perspectives at all time. Its exhausting asking for help and being dismissed or put on the back burner. Its draining to HAVE to put your problems on the back burner because the other person expects it. Its genuinely a thing to spend so much time trying to be helpful you forget yourself a little. If anything you should be worried when someone stops asking you for things, stop talking in a real way, stop trying.
And the change, it doesn’t happen all at once, at first they stop picking up your calls, and then they start making all the decisions, and then they make you relive a hurtful thing for fun, and then they ignore your calls for help and then they make your time about them, and then you quit.
All the manospere teaches me is that men are incompetent and can’t take advice or criticism or intitative and have to literally bully and abuse their lovers to get their way. If you suck h so hard you have to bully and trick and rewrite the rules and ignore the person that you love when she’s hurting, you are a loser.
And yes, not only men do it, sometimes women can be as openly emotionally unavaible and unable to put in emotional labour.
Another amazing article!
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Thank you for reading and for your kind words.
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Elizabethan, please don’t assume that all of them are that way. They are not. But it is a truth that the majority of the time they prefer to tune us out because they cannot fathom how or why we cannot simply shut our brains off, so to speak. My husband cannot understand that I would say, “I’m exhausted” and yet not go to bed, rest, sit down, etc. He makes the snap judgment that I am simply whining or being a martyr. He does not understand that if I did go to bed, rest, sit down, etc., that something isn’t going to get done which is interconnected to several other things that come after it. For example, if you are bone exhausted to the point that you really cannot put one foot in front of the other, and you decide you are going to go to bed right after dinner.
You do this. But in the morning, what awaits you? The food from dinner is not put away, the dishes are unwashed with all the food glued to them, and because of this there are no dishes for breakfast, breakfast ends up being eaten out, the children are not ready on time, they are either late to school or — if you homeschool — your kitchen table still has to be cleaned up from dinner the night before, then the breakfast dishes must be cleared and table cleaned, then dried, until you can finally start school, and because it is late you will be behind because you have to stop at a certain time in order to start dinner and get other chores done.
The men cannot see any of this, unless they make the effort to look at things from another perspective. And it is very rare that a traditionally-minded men will take the effort to think outside this box. This is not to down them or denigrate them into “losers” and this is CRUCIAL to point out — it is simply that for generations life was very different from the way it is now. Our men work and they work very hard to support us financially, they are facing a wildly swinging economy and if you dealt with the recession in ’08, you can relate very well to what I mean by that. There’s also the constant worry that their jobs could be replaced by automation, something our fathers’ generation actually faced. So we have to keep that in mind, as this is where they’re coming from.
But, in traditional families, typically large families, with a stay-home mother and a working away from home father, the mothers have added roles, while the fathers’ roles have remained the same. We have added the role of full-time educator of both elementary and secondary school. And it is a full-time job if it is to be done well. This means that other areas of life have to be modified, or we cannot make it for long. We start to burn out. And by the time we have burned out, it can come in many forms, most often in extreme resentment and anger, before it manifests itself in physical exhaustion and illness.
If you are faced with a traditionally-minded man who simply doesn’t get it, there’s not much you can do to change it. But you do have to change your perspective on what you can expect. First of all, don’t expect him to get it. He isn’t going to, ever. You can tell him very plainly and bluntly where your limits are, but don’t expect him to be very understanding about it. Chances are high that he won’t be. But outline for yourself one thing — just one thing — you will do each day to recharge your own batteries, and be sure it doesn’t involve him or require anything of him. Organize things the way you need them — one thing that happened was that when we were first married our furniture was arranged the way he wanted it to be and we possessed any number of knickknacks and Lord knows what. As our children grew and I started homeschooling, I got frustrated with it. I tried to discuss it with him, but my preferences and needs regarding how our furniture was arranged didn’t appear sufficiently logical for him, and he dismissed the concerns, refusing to move the furniture or eliminate knickknacks. There finally came a time when enough was enough and we couldn’t function day to day the way things were……so I just started gathering up things we didn’t need and that I was simply dusting and dodging to take to a local charity. And I moved furniture around myself until it worked for me. Nothing was said and I didn’t even involve him or ask for help. I just did it. Life got a lot better for me after that.
Sorry for the long comment. 🙂
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Amen, Anonymous. Those are words of wisdom there. I have been there and done that too, although perhaps not quite as heavily. That advice to recharge your own batteries is absolutely critical.
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If a man can’t make the effort to see the house and their life and the kids from his wives perspective is he really a good husband? You wouldn’t put up with that from a friend?
Maybe I am just a quitter, but I can’t stand people who work me till I am bone tired and never consider my perspective because “that’s not how its done”. That’d how my abusers abused me. It just doesn’t fly.
I will never be convinced men can’t learn to consider others perspectives, especially their loved ones, that’s how you earn a loved one anyway, and yes I know over time that can devolve but its not like you can’t at least try to consider your loved ones perspective again. Its a habit, and you can practise it.
Emotional labour is real, and maybe if some more traditionally minded men practised it, just a little they would get more from their marriages, more from their wives, a more amazing life.
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“I will never be convinced men can’t learn to consider others perspectives….”
Oh, they can learn, indeed! This post is a reference to Matt, a blogger who has dived into this very issue. He gets it.
I’m not sure my hubby will ever fully understand 100%, but he did learn to be kind and loving and to listen to me. He also taught me how to not pick up things that weren’t important, that were more than I could handle, to let go. It’s not perfect, but my marriage actually got a whole lot better over time.
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Yes, yes, yes. I’m so emotionally drained because I feel 100% responsible for 3 children, 2 dogs, myself, and a home. I also feel responsibility for my husband and including him while encouraging him to be a more attentive parent. I’m burnt out and underappreciated but what I say goes in one ear and out the other. I’m floundering but it’s nice to hear I’m not the only one.
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I’m sorry. You’re really not the only one, so many women struggle with this, myself included. We survived it, my husband started listening, and I learned to let go of things, but it was rough.
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I’m not so sure this isn’t just the way it is when the children are young and both parents are exhausted and stretched thinner than either can imagine they’d ever be. It’s a common theme among married couples that the crucible of raising young children involves not feeling heard (both spouses, because men feel this way too), not getting enough attention, not getting needs met, etc. But in later years, for those people who stick it out, there’s that understanding and connection that comes from weathering a years-long storm together. The wife learns to let things go and the husband starts listening and the golden years begin. It is very difficult to be the mother of young children, but few other things you could do will make you wise, compassionate, patient, kind, and loving than being a faithful wife and mother in spite of the frustrations. God uses these sufferings to create gold, if we ask Him to and if we cooperate by being attentive to our responsibilities. Giving when we get nothing back is one of the requirements of being Christian. If we embrace what God asks of us, He will sanctify us. It is sometimes way beyond what we feel capable of, but it is a great grace to be so enlarged. Becoming muscular always involves pain.
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This is a 100% awesome comment!
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Amen! Great blog! It is a crippling failure today that men are not taught to be men and women are not taught to be women and the media would attempt to sway the entire population to forget that: “In the beginning God created them male and female.” I love the part about men parking their minds in an empty box. I have a great husband and marriage, and I know we are blessed by God…yet sometimes that empty box syndrome crops up threatening to scuttle us. Simple things like him continuing to play on social network sites when the dog is whining for a walk and can’t wait.The fact that my time is so tightly regulated and his seems as free as dandelion fluff caught by a breeze.
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Oh, amen to your words! I loved this, “The fact that my time is so tightly regulated and his seems as free as dandelion fluff caught by a breeze.”
Yep, that can be frustrating indeed! God is good however, He designed a perfect system and the closer we can align ourselves with it, the more joyous and peaceful things become.
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“Recently I clashed with a few bloggers who were suggesting the precise opposite, never listen to your wife, she’s just attention seeking, being manipulative, having un-godly tantrums, do not ever be moved by your wife’s feelings etc, etc. Sorry, but that’s just appalling, abusive, and also a recipe for disaster. And divorce.”
This paragraph inspired my (quickly put together) post today. So thanks for that.
In business it’s called a smart, shrewd deal; in foreign affairs it’s called diplomacy, in marriage it’s called manipulation – and God calls that nonsense.
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“…and God calls that nonsense”
Amen! That’s one of my favorite lines to hear in sermons, by the way. I do so love having the Lord of all common sense in our lives. 😉
I’ll check out your post.
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Loved it.!!!!
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OK, now that I have made it through all the previous comments, my 3 cents is: I am fortunate that my husband has never been one of those that just veg on the couch and check out watching sports or playing video games(I’m the video gamer 😜). But, being accused of doing nothing all day…uh, an at home mom of four, we have pets (at one time we had a small zoo with reptiles & fish along with the usual cats & dogs), I cleaned up after all those animals, dishes, laundry, parent/teacher conferences, doctor appts, grocery shopping, cooking, etc..
I made a list one day of everything I did that day, as I did them. Which included having to spent 15-20 mins. in the bathroom several times, because gosh darn it, things weren’t happening the way they should, because who has time to eat properly and consume the best amount of fiber to keep things going? And sometimes, I would sit in there longer than I had to, just to be around no one for 20 mins (ladies, I know you know what I’m talking about.) But, that hardly happened because someone always came knocking on the door, including the pets. And, if I talk about drinking the proper amount of water we are suppose to, again, in the bathroom a bunch of times because my bladder was doing its job.
About three years into our marriage, my husband came home from work and was trying to get husband/father type things done. I was trying to make a plan with him to get together and “get chummy”, as I knew he was busy and needed to get these things done. But, I also wanted to spend time with my husband. His response was getting angry and listing the things he was needing to get done and added, “AND I’m also suppose to do my wife too.” He may not exactly said it that way, but that’s how it came across. Sooo, I’m just a item on your to-do list?, I thought. Things have never been the same for me since. We will be married 27 years in September. There are other issues I won’t go into here, but, if it weren’t for me taking my marriage vows seriously and me not wanting to make my situation worse by being a single mother, I would have pursued divorce long ago.
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