Young people are good at dating. Some are good at hooking
up. Some have even mastered the skills required to conduct a relationship.
Yet, many young people do not have the skills required to sustain a good marriage.
Laura Doyle is addressing women, and we will
maintain her rhetorical posture. She sums up the problem:
Unfortunately
most women didn't have good relationship role-models. We are largely the
product of single parents, broken homes or marriages that we wouldn't wish on
our worst enemy -- the equivalent of learning oral care from parents with false
teeth.
Surely, Doyle is correct.
But, let’s not overlook the role that the culture plays.
As a culture we are much more interested in marital
dysfunction than we are in marital success. The former is dramatic; the latter
is boring.
We have been that the right way to improve things is to
identify problems and obsess over them.
The more we focus on problems, the more we are blind to what
is right about marriages.
The culture also tells women, in particular, that true love
and good sex will solve all marital difficulties.
Many women have also been led to believe that in a good
marriage all tasks are shared equally. Yet, as a recent study has pointed out, marriages where men and
women share chores equally are 50% more likely to end in divorce.
If your goal is to make your marriage work, you do best to
ignore much of what the culture is telling you. You do better to take a close
look at the skills that Doyle defines.
Doyle begins by telling women to be good to themselves by
spending some time every day making themselves happy.
That sounds innocuous enough.
She explains that if a wife does not do this, she will be
placing the burden of making her happy entirely on her husband.
If a man comes home to a wife who is in a good mood, then he
is more likely to want to make her happy. If she is always in a foul mood he is
going to feel like she is seeing him as medicine.
Second, Doyle advises wives not to try to control their
husbands. That entails not criticizing, not complaining and not trying to make
him over into something that he is not.
Criticism is corrosive because, Doyle explains, a wife who
finds fault with her husband is telling him that she believes him to be
incompetent.
Imagine how your put-upon husband is going to react when he
runs into a woman who tells him that he looks great, is clever and should be
running the company.
Doyle’s third skill involves the expression of gratitude. When
a husband offers his wife a gift or when he offers to help her, she should
accept the gift or the help graciously even when it is not exactly what she
wants.
In Doyle’s words:
When
your husband gives you something that's not what you had in mind, receive it
anyway by saying, "You're so thoughtful. Thank you." Deflecting a
gift or a compliment is rejecting the giver and the emotional connection you
could have had. When your husband offers to bathe the kids, accept his help
graciously no matter how imperfectly he does it.
Gift-giving is at the basis of good relationships. If a wife
is happy to receive a gift she will receive more. If she criticizes the gift she
will receive less.
Doyle states correctly that rejecting a gift is rejecting
the giver. Rejecting your husband will not make him want to be a better
husband. It might make him look for acceptance elsewhere.
Doyle’s fourth skill is a variation on the themes she has
been developing: respect your man, see the best in him. After all, you married
him, so he must have many good qualities.
Too often women have been taught to see the worst and to
believe that they are doing men a favor by trying to correct them.
Unfortunately, if you see the worst in your husband—or in
any other human being—he will unconsciously try to fulfill your expectations by
doing poorly.
Doyle explains:
You're
too smart to have married a dumb guy, so if he seems dumb now, it's because
you're focused on his shortcomings. It's not that you made a mistake in
marrying him, it's that you've been focused on
his mistakes since you
married him. A man who feels respected by the woman who knows him best also
feels self-respect, which is far more attractive than cowering and hostility.
Lack of
respect causes more divorces than cheating does because for men, respect is
like oxygen. They need it more than sex. Respect means that you don't dismiss,
criticize, contradict or try to teach him anything. Of course he won't do
things the same way you do; for that, you could have just married yourself. But
with your respect, he will once again do the things that amazed and delighted
you to begin with -- so much so that you married him.
When wives criticize, complain, contradict or try to teach
their husbands something, they are showing disrespect.
Next, in time for Thanksgiving, Doyle restates her thought
about gift-receiving. She advises wives to express gratitude three times a
day.
Make a habit, she is saying, of thanking your husband. A man
who feels appreciated will do more for you than a man who is being
attacked for not doing enough.
Doyle describes her own experience:
Today I
thank him for washing dishes, replacing light bulbs and working hard at his
business. The more grateful I am for what he does, the more inspired he is to
do things I appreciate, which makes me feel cherished and adored.
Her last skill involves vulnerability.
Many women will recoil from the suggestion to show
vulnerability. Isn’t it just another sexual stereotype? Hasn’t the culture
taught young women to be fiercely independent and autonomous?
Doyle disagrees. Allow her to express her thought:
When
you're vulnerable you don't care about being right, you're just open and
trusting enough to say "I miss you" instead of "you never spend
time with me." It means you simply say, "ouch!" when he's
insensitive instead of retaliating. That vulnerability completely changes the
way he responds to you.
Vulnerability
is not only attractive, it's the only way to get to that incredible feeling of
being loved just the way you are by someone who knows you well. There's nothing
like the joy of intimacy that results from vulnerability. It really is worth
dropping the burden of being an efficient, overscheduled superwoman to have it.
It sounds simple, but there is a world of difference between
“I miss you” and “You never spend time with me.”
The latter is an accusation and a criticism; it is whiny and
complainy.
Would you want to spend more time with someone who
criticizes you and complains about you? You would probably be thinking that you
are right not to spend too much time with her.
Finally, Doyle suggests that wives drop the façade or the
burden of being a superwoman. If a woman is constantly on the move, constantly
in action, and never has a minute for herself she will have nothing left to give
her husband.
Doyle is addressing herself to women, but surely husbands
would do well to work on their own marriage skills. These need not be identical
to those that Doyle prescribes for wives, but they ought to manifest
good character, a generous nature and a willingness to see the best, not the
worst in one’s wife.
11 comments:
I love this article.
Very sound advice.
It is hard for young people to make a successful marriage nowadays because there is nowhere to learn the skills.
Feminists have had too much input. Husband and wife became political enemies.
Women and their naturally important qualities have been degraded.
This is a must read for anyone interested in building a strong marriage and family.
The comments on the Laura Doyle piece are interesting.
A subset of this advice is applicable to people generally. It not only applies to intimate relationships, but also friendships, neighbors, coworkers, strangers, and political arbitration. The advice has traditional roots, because the human condition has not fundamentally changed.
Respect individual dignity. It's not that complicated.
As for marriage, I think a direct cause of the progressive dysfunction is that the role of dating has been compromised. It is not supposed to be about friendship with benefits. It is principally an opportunity to learn about each other, which is not primarily about physical assets. That, and an unreasonable dream of instant gratification, which is a prevailing cause of misery throughout our society.
n.n,
You stole my "thunder." I would add if people spent more time trying to see the good in people and in their lives they would be far better off in almost every aspect of their lives. One gets what they are spending most of their time looking for.
Hard to remember when the vast majority of what we see, hear or are involved in is overwhelmingly negative.
Tomorrow being Turkey Day, I am thankful for/to my wife's ex; it's soooo much easier to be a better husband than he.
It's true not many people can pull off a marriage without it having some issues. The only problem with that is how can you stop that disagreement with each other? I feel like like alone is going to end my marriage. Would you suggest therapy? http://valuethevows.com/category/build-your-relationship/
One of the best blog i have read about how to save a marriage. There are many couple who failed to save their beautiful relationship because of lack of guidance, so this will be the best place for those couple.
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