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Perhaps the knowledge that certain behaviors are in some sense hardwired in your spouse—rather than a conscious choice to stick it to you—will help dial down the frustration.
The writer Alan Richman put it best: “Men don’t want to be alone, they just want to be left alone.”
men under stress are apt to withdraw.
In some cases, mothers are not even consciously aware that they are doing this—but even nonverbal cues of disapproval such as eye-rolling or heavy sighing can put off a hesitant father. The result is a self-reinforcing loop: as she criticizes or takes over, he grows more and more uncertain of his abilities.
“Fathers have less confidence in their parenting than mothers do at the time of the child’s birth,” she tells me, “and this often sets up an ‘expert-apprentice’ dynamic in which fathers are looking to mothers for validation of their parenting.”
Delving further, Lyonette and her colleagues uncovered an intriguing twist in the research: the men they studied who had lower incomes were more likely to help their partners with housework than the higher earners.
“Research shows that men tend to retreat from what feels like conflict to them, because they tend to physiologically get much more negatively aroused,” she said, “so conflict feels way more intense for them.”
“If he goes away on a trip, don’t give it to him and then piss on it on the way out the door. I call that ‘peeing on the gift’! Either let him do it and be okay about it, or don’t!”
“I will say this,” says Real. “Volatile women generally don’t feel heard. So you get into: Can you hear me now? WHAT ABOUT NOW?
“It’s not a craving to be away from her—it’s a craving to be alone with him! What do you do to cherish each other as a couple?”
it is in your interest to move beyond your knee-jerk selfishness and entitlement and to take good care of your wife, so she isn’t such a raving lunatic all the time.”
“The inertia, the laziness. But it’s also entitlement. And it’s dumb. Because it’s short-term success and long-term resentment. It’s in your interest to give!
He lists three reasons why men tend to stonewall: They feel that they need to fix the woman’s negative experience, and when they can’t, they’re caught in a “frustrated freak-out.” They feel entitled (“like, ‘I don’t need this shit’”). And no one educated them on how to handle feelings. “Boys are taught to dampen emotions at the age of three or four,” he says.
The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans.
“There is a very small group of people who truly can’t control themselves—and, by and large, they’re in mental institutions, or in jail.”
There’s a world of difference between assertively standing up for yourself and aggressively putting him down. As crazy at it might seem, arguing or complaining can actually feel safer to most of us than simply and directly making a request. So, starting today, you have to tell him what he could do to make you feel better by using the phrase ‘What I’d like you to do now is…’ Okay? Rather than just pounding him into the ground.”
don’t allow the specific issue that’s prompted the conflict to overflow into digging up dirt from ten years ago.
“No one can listen and think about what they want to say at the same time,” Voss tells me. “It truly is an either/or.
When you say, ‘I can see you’re very, very angry over what happened,’ they say, ‘Yes! I am!’” This exchange takes the wind out of their sails, he says, because “it reduces their need to continue to demonstrate what you have already acknowledged clearly.”
I explain, as calmly as I can, that mothers have a particular pet peeve about feeling judged and inadequate, especially when the hundred things they do with smooth efficiency pass without comment.
I show Tom the calendar I have ordered from the Hendrix-Hunt “Couplehood Store”—complete
In study after study, research indicates that—surprise!—when men take on their fair share of household responsibilities, their partners are happier and less prone to depression, disputes are fewer, and divorce rates are lower.
But as Sylvie started to walk and talk, and our family life grew busier and more complicated, it was as if I suddenly woke up and noticed that I was doing all the donkeywork. Even Tom’s small transgressions began to grate on my nerves, such as his near-daily habit of asking me to help find his keys,
We began to quarrel, and never stopped. But Tom was still, understandably, reluctant to change his habits. Why alter the status quo that works decidedly in his favor?
as the author James Baldwin once wrote, “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”
Joshua Coleman, author of The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework, is to change my language.
(Or, as Oprah Winfrey says, “You teach people how to treat you.”)
As Winch puts it, “Each spouse has his or her own needs, and the marriage has its own needs. The relationship is a third entity. So you’re thinking not ‘What would be good for her?’ or ‘What would be good for him?’ but ‘What would be good for the marriage?’ And this invites a more cooperative, teamwork kind of attempt at resolution.”
Every one of our jobs is well defined, which eliminates our usual debate on who is working more hours per week and thus deserves fewer chores.
“So my question to you is, if he waits that long, what does it cost you, other than your obsessive need to not have it pile up? What’s it actually costing you?”
Keeping score to prove a point is a silly waste of energy.
Leaving the house for a night is unnerving; my daughter cries oceans of tears. Because I can usually be found approximately three feet away from her at all times, I have unwittingly engineered my departure to be a catastrophic event.
The Gottmans categorize couples as masters and disasters. Masters look purposefully for things they can appreciate and respect about their partner; disasters monitor their mates for what they are doing wrong so they can criticize them.
John Gottman identified four behaviors lethal to relationships, which he calls “the four horsemen of the apocalypse.” One is criticism (hurling insults such as “dickbag,” using phrases like “You never…” or “You always…”). The next is defensiveness: counterattacking, whining, denying responsibility. During arguments, we are so busy forming a rebuttal, the Gottmans found, that we’re not listening, so we tend to repeat ourselves in what they call the “summarizing yourself syndrome.” (Although my sister Heather disputes this as a syndrome: “I summarize myself because Rob is not listening the first
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The fourth and worst behavior, and the Gottmans’ strongest predictor of divorce, is contempt, which they term “sulfuric acid for love”: cynicism, attacking your mate’s character (“You’re selfish”) rather than the problems your mate has caused, eye-rolling, mockery, and—uh-oh—sarcasm.
My friend Michael says that when he and his wife clash over an issue, they have learned to ask a simple question: Why is this important to you?
Half an hour, the Gottmans found, is also about how long it takes for the chemicals released during “fight or flight” to exit the body.
This means voicing what the Gottmans call the “three As”: affection, appreciation, and admiration.
It’s not enough just to think good things, says Helen Fisher, the biological anthropologist. She tells me that giving your mate affectionate comments daily is beneficial for them, but also helps you by reducing cortisol, lowering blood pressure, boosting your immune system, and even reducing cholesterol levels.
what distinguishes marriages that last from those that don’t is not necessarily how often couples argue, but how they treat each other on a daily basis when they are not bickering.
Ben Franklin wrote in Poor Richard’s Almanack, “Keep
I explain that we’ve almost stopped expressing affection for each other, because we’re having trouble getting past our mutual resentment.
Psychologists from Emory University’s Family Narratives Lab found that teens with a solid knowledge of their family history have lower rates of depression and anxiety, greater coping skills, and higher levels of self-esteem.
You’ve been working a lot the past few weeks, and I’ve had a lot of solo-parenting time. I’m feeling burnt out and impatient with the kids. It’d be great if I could recharge my batteries with some alone time. You know what, I miss my fun side. What are some ways you can help me rekindle that? I’ve made a list of the kids’ weekend activities. Do you think you could handle X, Y, and/or Z?
When delegating, consider which child-related duties play to your husband’s strong suits, she says, and which jobs you are happy to truly hand over—tasks that aren’t going to summon your inner micromanager.
She uses the acronym PEP: Physical activity, Escape (hobbies and activities that instantly transport you), and People (those who relax or energize you, not drain you).
As she says, “You shouldn’t ask, ‘How much can I fit in?’ but ‘What’s going to fuel us? What is going to energize or relax us?’”
“Raise your child to be a helper and live with a little imperfection in their ‘product.’ Your kid matters more than your laundry does.”
A study by the educational children’s magazine Highlights found that 73 percent of girls reported that they had chores to do, while only 65 percent of boys did.
Not only are girls more likely to be asked to help out at home, they are less likely to get paid:
