Obviously from the title of this chapter you can see where this is going. I have a hunch that quite a fee of us women fall into the pit.
According to Dr. Laura the #1 complaint of men was that their wives criticize, complain, nag, rarely compliment or express appreciation, are difficult to satisfy, and basically are not as nice to them as they'd be to a stranger ringing their doorbell at 3am.
(I know that I fallen into this category from time to time and have actually thought about this before reading this book, why am I nicer to a friend than my husband at times? Why is he nicer to his friends than me? My opinion is that men / husbands fall into this particular piece as well as us woman, but I'm sure Dr. Laura's comment would be it's because I treat him this way).
Dr. Laura goes on to discuss that we are making an unhappy home for our husbands and are dwindling their egos and those husbands who don't have happy homes may turn to other ventures whether it's alcohol, drugs, or someone who will make them feel worthwhile. One husband writes about how at work he gets evaluated and always comes out with excellent performance, but feels at home he can't do anything right?!
This chapter goes on to different pieces of different marriages and scenarios at home, some examples of us woman behaving badly:
Man comes home and we start complaining about the kids, the house, this and that and do not offer a hug/kiss, how was your day dear, just straight to complaining about the day "can you believe this happened and so and so did this;
When a man tries to help do something around the house (this I assume applies to us wives who usually "do it all") If you do the dishes, can't you do all the dishes, what did you put that there for, I can't believe you did it that way now I have more work to do fixing it than getting help from you, these last comments will eventually lead the husband to do nothing in which return we yell "You never do anything around here!"
Here are 2 scenarios that Dr. Laura wrote and we are to decide which will get the desired result, also I believe we are supposed to figure out which one we fall into as a wife.
The garbage needs to be taken out.
Scenario 1: Yell at him every five minutes to remind him that the garbage has to be taken out. Then berate him for not having done it yet in spite of your reminders and in spite of whatever else he may be doing. Then start escalating things by bringing up everything else he's done to annoy you in the past decade. Then, once he's finally taken the garbage out, tell him, "it's about time"! Then storm off to your room, pout and turn your back in bed.
Scenario 2: Let him know you've wrapped up the trash and that it's sitting by the back door, and ask him if, when he has time, he would please dump it in the trash bin. Don't bring it up again (why bother, because the trash man isn't coming till morning anyway?) Catch him just as he's coming back from tossing the bag in the can. Give him a big kiss and tell him that it was a big help because it's hard for you to hold the can lid with one arm and pitch a very heavy bag with the other hand.
Okay ladies, I have tried this second scenario after reading this chapter, minus the I'm not strong enough crap, and my husband looked at me like I was crazy for thanking him for taking out the garbage after he did it, guys care to comment on this one? It did however save grace from a fight about things that need to get done, so my suggestion would be to mend this to your own however you need to to keep the piece.
The rest of this chapter talks about how men like to be "Our Hero's" and be rewarded for their good deeds. Our job as wives is to let no good dead go unappreciated. It also discusses that we do not build our men's ego's enough, again we criticize and complain and do not tell them the goods and the reasons that we love them. Dr. Laura also discusses how we try to micromanage and if we do this our husbands will eventually give up trying to please us. We need to learn how to speak and be more positive and our marriage will be more joyous all around.
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