Science has just discovered something you already know.
Wives are the glue that hold marriages together. Wives are
the cornerstones, the foundations of good marriages.
That means: wives, not husbands. This study accepts that the
roles of husband and wife are not interchangeable.
The tone of a happy marriage is set by a wife who is
even-tempered, who does not anger easily, who does not hold grudges, who does
not take it personally, who does not display contempt and who quickly gets over
negative emotions.
The quicker a wife cools off after a fight, the better the
marriage will be. This is true even if her hot-headed husband continues to be
angry.
The Daily Mail reports on the study, performed by researchers at Berkeley
and Stanford:
Scientists
said that women are better at starting those difficult conversations that will
solve the problem and allow both parties to move on – but only if they have
regained their composure first.
And
ironically, they found that if the husband attempts to start those
conversations himself, his spouse will criticise him for trying to resolve
things too quickly.
Call it female empowerment if you like, but the key to a
good marriage, the researchers say, is a woman’s ability to temper her
emotions. Some will call it repression, but the truth is, doing what it takes
to get along is better for your emotional well-being than seething with anger and contempt.
Inverse relationship. The bigger the anger the less the ability to solve problems. Really pretty simple idea if one stops and thinks about it.
ReplyDeleteAmazing how science now tells us information that we all knew, but wanted not to believe. Not sure why this keeps happening.
I wonder if most people have noticed that most arguments in a marriage are about things that have no real lasting value.
The fact that women hold marriages together should have been intuitively obvious. Happy wife good life, unhappy wife a life filled with strife.
Too many people trying to change the dynamics that make a marriage work and that creates the best survival unit for humanity.
I grew up w/a Borderline mother. The atmosphere was so toxic, you could chew it. Dad & Sis stayed away from home much as possible. I stood by my beloved Ma, but knew something was wrong w/her.
ReplyDeleteWith gaps, I stood w/Ma to the end, in 2004. Only me. She was v troubled & sad, incapable of joy or intimacy.
I have scars, but it taught me an irrefutable truism. Dad can be bad, and it's miserable. If Ma is, even thru no fault of her own - it's a bloody tragedy. -- Rich Lara
Pretty sure my wife would agree with Rich.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/24/science/science-watch-men-say-i-do-then-obey.html
ReplyDeleteMen who want their marriages to succeed should just do what their wives suggest, a group of psychologists has reported.
Dr. John Gottman, a psychologist at the University of Washington, and a team of colleagues studied 130 newlyweds for six years, tracking how they handled disagreement. Many tried ''active listening,'' which calls in part for each to rephrase what the other has said and to indicate that he or she is listening with responses like, ''I hear what you are saying.''
The couples were compared with those in an older study in which successful marriages were followed for 13 years. Dr. Gottman's study found that the people who stayed together almost never used such listening techniques, which he described as unnatural.
The marriages that seemed to work had one thing in common: the husband was willing to be influenced by his wife.
''We found that only those newlywed men who are accepting of influence from their wives are winding up in happy, stable marriages,'' Dr. Gottman said.
Men. Obey and be happy. Your Mistress smiles and your day is joyous and light. She angers, and you will suffer. Learn. Obey. Enjoy.
I would suggest that some one took the wrong lesson from the cited study. Your spouse is supposed to be your partner and being influenced by her can be a good thing. The vice is also true. It happens both ways in a good marriage. I suspect that that was an outcome as well, but not emphasized if the study was linked. A big stretch for a study done with so small a sample and is at least 15 years old.
ReplyDeleteWhy get married if you think your partner does not have your best interests at heart. It becomes a WIN/WIN situation for both.
In the long run nobody obeys anyone else. Marriage is a shared experience. Accepting influence is NOT obeying. My wife is very good at the things that I am not and I am very good at the things she is not. That 90 percent drivel is just that. It can only be derived by discount everything a male does and conflating what women do.
I know the word obey, especially taken out of the context in which it was stated and meant, is a "red flag" for those who think they know more than they actually do. Understand the translations from Aramaic to Greek, et al might be a useful place to start.
My shrink sees many upper-middle class ("middle" should be dropped now) young women. Married & not, w/compliant feminist male "partners", who follow current strictures on male behavior.
ReplyDeleteThe women are angry, scornful, & sexually frustrated. Their compliant men don't sexually arouse them.
Same phenom. in Europe. But worse. Young women there often Melt into the arms of brutish Muslims.
I gave up dating 20+ yrs ago. The angry lectures full of Rules for me, & Prerogatives for them, were just too much.
I love women. I'm in awe of what GBS called their "Life Force". But living alone is easier. -- Rich Lara
I think it's true, a woman who is calm, forgiving, & has her emotions under control will make a better wife. But do guys actually choose "nice girls" like this when choosing who to marry? What I've seen & experienced is that they often fall hard for and pick for marriage the exciting drama queen over the calm & maybe boring nice girl.
ReplyDeleteGuys talk a lot about women loving jerks; maybe guys are also attracted to jerkettes. To their later sorrow, in both cases.
--Laurel
While I certainly dated a lot of hot drama queens I never considered any of those as prospective wives. I actually stopped dating when I met a good woman who was also very attractive. She came from a good family, good values with low drama. We're still married 20 years later.
ReplyDeleteGood job of posting the problem and solution backwards. It seems to be that what you are saying is wives can be a problem to the marriage if they refuse to get over their anger. So much so that even if the man trys to smooth out the problem it only makes them angrier.
ReplyDelete