1717. Incompatibility: Red Flag Reaction and Recovery

Following two companion articles — 1715  and 1716 — this post describes how wives can uncover the causes, react, and hopefully ‘doctor’ relationship ailments.

Spotting a red flag, a wife’s first and most persistent urge is to talk about it, discuss, bring it into the open. I caution against doing that. A better way exists; wives can exploit female abilities that are foreign to the male nature.

If wives knew men better, they would avoid the female impulse to talk about what’s wrong with their man. Invariably, they accuse husband, and it’s the worst start up to alleviate or relieve wifely concerns. It initiates competition and divides them and pushes them away from cooperation and unity. The masculine urge to prove her wrong overpowers husbandly responsibility to pay strict attention, please her, respect her, admit that she may be right, promise to change himself, or do better next time.

Her attempts to discuss will be met by his feeling accused, which puts him on defense. Even if he isn’t guilty of an offense being discussed, it re-activates previous or reminds of disconnected feelings of guilt, which put him on defense and make her wrong from the get-go. When she wants to force a talk, he wants to take a walk. That’s not a friendly starting point.

Her accusations inflict guilt, and men won’t tolerate their woman inflicting guilt upon them. It starts all of a man’s defensive guns blazing, whether she’s able to detect it or not. Too much guilt inflicted by wife makes her expendable, and he relieves guilt by dumping her and forgetting his role. So, how much is too much? Who knows? Wife is better off to never start it. (Of course it’s tough for her to live without spotlighting things that he does wrong, but she has better ways than through discussion and inflicting guilt.)

I know counselors suggest addressing an issue directly, because they’re employed to referee. And women like to consult them and pastors to help confirm husband’s fault. Husbands mightily resist seeing outsiders.

However, women are sensitive to nuances and red flags don’t carry hopelessness. If they do, wife was remiss in not recognizing the symptoms or not doing something about it. If the situation isn’t hopeless, wife is the person best endowed with the diagnostic and recuperative skills to restore rips or pieces of compatibility torn from the marital fabric. She needs no outside referee and does better by herself with self-encouragement, self-confidence, and dedication to preserve her marriage. (It all becomes much easier when husband isn’t invited to think that he’s wrong, accused, or expected to change.)

Any wife can spot potential threats to her marriage. How she handles any situation determines the outcome. If she starts by blaming him (even if he cheats) or tries to induce guilt, she gets off on the wrong foot. Many WWNH blog articles describe better ways to resolve tough issues. (You’ll find help in daily posts by searching the CONTENTS page for these terms: red flag, cheater, and divorce.)

Proceed carefully from this point on. Study twice or thrice before disregarding it.

Let’s suppose a wife detects a red flag. The cause isn’t evident. So, she identifies the cause by using her natural female diagnostic skills, rather than listening to husband’s explanations likely marred by alibis, fear, anger at being suspected or caught, and distaste for discussing his problems with females.

A simple weakness follows wives that seek outside help from family and girlfriends. She can’t stop complaining or explaining until someone tells her what to do, someone else tells her what course of action will likely solve her problem. The more she exposes about him and discloses her own incompetence, the more she expects and relies on what other people say. Factually, the outsider doesn’t know nearly enough about either wife or husband. Individuals are too complex for outsiders to know more than ‘insiders’. Why should a wife trust someone else’s opinion about the likely effect of wife doing so and so?

No one knows husband and wife as a team better than wife does. Therefore, without consulting others, especially girlfriends, wife’s patience can enable her to stay focused, plant seeds, and use feminine guile to flush out the source of her problems. Making him discuss and admit mistakes makes her feel good about herself, and so women do it to a fault (WADWMUFGAO).

While direct discussion makes her feel good about herself, confronting or trying to get husband involved works against her best interest. Men have great resistance to change, and they at least avoid the appearance of changing either character or personal behavior. Consequently, getting husband involved or to admit red flag causes actually compounds the issue with other husbandly interests, such as competitiveness, urge to win, and natural drive to dominate any discussion about who or what he is. By disregarding outside opinions, she’s much freer and judgmentally able to make female-friendly, wife-protective, and cooperation-enhanced decisions to help restore her marital harmony.

Whatever the cause of a red flag, she’s best endowed and ideally equipped to ‘fix’ it. She’s also the better decision-maker, relationship maintenance expert, and change agent when she can do it all by herself. In the final analysis, God designed us to age through experience, from which we learn we can live with anything. The less outside influence wife seeks or pressure she feels, the freer she is to resolve or live with it.

I suggest that wives keep a closer than accustomed watch on their relationship. Good intentions can too easily deceive oneself about how others receive intended benefits. Don’t look for mistakes or problems, but look for changes that signal one mate getting out of touch with the other. A wife’s first realization should be this: She is probably the cause of changes that appear in her marriage. Not to blame her, but to spotlight this fact: She is more interested and flexible than he is and likely to change her behavior in order to improve her marriage. However, quite often the best of intentions register as sour on the target audience, such as husbands that aren’t all that eager to see wife instigate marital changes.

This hasn’t been a grading sheet. Neither is it a condemnation of husbandly behavior. Perhaps hard to see it this way, but it’s a salute to the overwhelming ability of women to figure out and produce what’s best for them, home, kids, husband, marriage, and relationship. Unfortunately, wives get far too little feedback that what they do is right. If she gets dropped or divorced, she didn’t do a good job and everybody knows it. If her marriage survives, she did an excellent job. However, nobody but she and God know how marvelous her efforts, how conscientious her spirit, how broad and deep that responsibilities took her, how solid her defense of home, and how energetic the pursuit of her hopes and dreams.

In the final analysis, the quality of a woman’s life always depends on her figuring out what she faces and concocting a counterbalancing force against it. God designs, Nature endows, and hormones equip her to do it even alone.

1715. Compatibility: Wifely Initiatives 01 through 17

Commenting at post 1713, Her Highness Princess inspired thoughts about a compatibility index. This and soon-to-follow ‘Incompatibility’ are the result.

Wives can smooth wavelets of incompatibility before they build into breakers and tsunamis. A wife needs to have and depend on something specific, because showing or expecting affection, proving her love repeatedly, or yielding her self-respect to please her husband isn’t always enough. The little negatives and persistent irritants of living together can easily compound and eventually outweigh positive and broader subjects such as love, companionship, togetherness, respect, affection, vows, et al.

Being the relationship experts, women are particularly endowed with abilities to determine the ‘health’ of their marriage. Unfortunately, much of what modern wives know about men and keeping their man is wrong. This post provides wives with initiatives that discourage thoughts that breed incompatibility.

Many specific wifely behaviors soothe angry spirits, smooth turbulent waters, and prevent marital breakup. We all do what makes us feel good about ourselves, aka WADWMUFGAO. Wives apply marital glue when they behave as described below and feel good about themselves for doing it.

1. She shows respect for who he is, what he has to do, and how he fulfills his need for self-admiration. She regularly reminds him of his admirable traits and effective habits and specifically admires those characteristics most needful of more self-confidence.
2. Her sense of self-importance comes primarily from supporting and encouraging husband to fulfill his duties and responsibilities. She understands that husband’s self-respect comes from liking his picture of who he is, what he does, and how successful he is at balancing the competing venues of family and employment.
3. Except for emergencies, when push comes to shove between the interests of husband and kids, husband comes first. She energetically promotes among their children the spirit of respect for their father and loyalty, gratitude, and admiration for her husband. In the process, she primarily leads by example. Husband mostly sees the fruit of her leadership, and it causes him to take her for granted as a mother.
4. She lets this top-to-bottom rank structure guide all her decision making: husband, wife, mother, father, children. She continually looks for ways to reinforce it rather than try to ‘beat the system’.
5. She finds joy in the ways husband displays his dependability, his sense of responsibility, his focus on duty as he determines that duty.
6. She avoids laying guilt upon husband. She understands that men respond arbitrarily against any attempt to lay guilt on them. Whatever guilt husband may impose upon himself, he will forget or relieve it with actions that require no change in him.
7. Trust being the ultimate sign of respect, she routinely confirms his trustworthiness by trusting him completely, respecting his decisions, and displaying publically her dependence on him.
8. Remembering the fun she and he initiated during courtship, she tries to re-embody it in their marriage without putting pressure on him.
9. As much as she dislikes having to live with it, she understands that most of husband’s expressions of frustration are caused by conditions, others, him, but not her. Rather than feeling hurt, she finds a reliable way to treat and make him feel good about himself. She finds it amazing that such silent and gentle ‘uplifts’ over time result in his changing such that he’s not so easily frustrated.
10. Never trying directly or overtly to change him, she plants seeds that promise happier times and indirectly influence his decisions without pressuring him to live up to her expectations.
11. She yields on all squabbles and fights, waits for a better time, and figures out how to win him to her side. He respects her ability to outwit him with feminine guile. He expects her to win some battles as long as it doesn’t look like he lost. It’s an example of masculine recognition of feminine dominance that men refuse to let show.
12. Tempted as she frequently is, she never stoops to manipulative tactics. She feels good about herself for having aborted manipulative thoughts in favor of respectable ones.
13. Recognizing that men prefer action-to-fix rather than discussing problems, wife surrounds the problem with hints and planted seeds until he brings on discussion. She recognizes that a man can’t stand for his wife to have an unresolved problem, but that he expects to resolve it himself—which normally involves some time but little or no discussion or help on how to do it.
14. She indirectly shows her gratitude for his highly valued assets, such as masculine character, dependability, integrity, sense of duty, personal responsibility, setting admirable examples, entertaining nature, pleasantness, sound decisions, financial expertise, warm heart, and the list goes on.
15. She takes husbandly complaints with a dose of feminine understanding. She knows that problem-solving men always have a simplified solution too complex for female implementation or understanding. She exploits her ability to outwit men with much better results than disagreeing or fighting back.
16. She recognizes and strictly adheres to the principle that his business is none of her business, except as it directly affects the home or unless he invites her thoughts.
17. Recognizing that men are present oriented in thought and action, she defers to settling present-day pressures according to his wishes. She takes her reward by more assertively but indirectly shaping future pressures to brighten both hers and the family’s future.

Actually, performing those initiatives regularly is not as important as never doing the opposite or never citing his shortcomings. By wife doing those things regularly, however, other benefits accrue.

Those initiatives program her mind to overlook or forget his shortcomings. By feeling good in the process, she reduces her desire to change him. By reducing that desire, she reduces the normal pressure that her female nature generates to improve her man whose nature resists change. Less pressure on her means less on him, which means compatibility is helped more than threatened.

Also, a natural phenomenon causes two benefits even when husband doesn’t deserve wifely efforts. First, she becomes convinced more easily that Mr. GoodEnough is growing into Mr. Right. She can’t long act as if he’s turning into Mr. Right but not come to think it true. Second, he slowly morphs into where he actually deserves the marital blessings she so diligently bestows. Both benefits result from the self-fulfilling prophecy working for rather than against their relationship.

For the husband, lifetime compatibility depends more on her likeability than his appreciation of her love. He takes for granted those numbered efforts cited above, and it converts her loving actions into her likeability. Treating her as likeable (his way) more than loveable (her way) makes him feel good about himself.

For the wife, lifetime compatibility depends more on her ability for shaping his heart into goodness than his willingness to please her. As she perceives him responding favorably to her initiatives, she feels good about herself and her ambitions grow beyond just having him please her.

So much for compatibility. The upcoming article, ‘Incompatibility’, describes husbandly behavior that should wave red flags before observant wives.

1706. Dumped Wife: To Recover Before It Happens—II

Yesterday’s post 1705 painted a bleary picture for two-income wives. Describing the male nature, I reported husbands’ likely behavior if emotions, values, beliefs, and expectations don’t override their primal nature.

‘Two-income’ and ‘one-income’ husbands differ. When husbands determine that wives are not quite good enough for them, two-income husbands find it easier to justify departure and easier on the conscience than that of husbands dumping stay-at-home wives. Otherwise, the wives are equally vulnerable.

Wives employed outside the home are somewhat handicapped but they can overcome. As with life, everything is relative and recovery is possible. The recovery strategy lies here: Gently, silently, and indirectly plant seeds of greater dependence on him. But to help that effort along you should go through some single-minded self-analysis.

First, quit worrying unless you detect red flags. Don’t invent problems you don’t have. Don’t presume that you need to do anything. Be quick to presume that your marriage is sound and moving along just great.

Second, analyze the likelihood of you having contributed to a problem you don’t yet see. Do it the same way as described for ‘one-income’ wives in post 1704. If you don’t pass that self-analysis, proceed as described there.

Third, if your marriage looks solid in view of post 1704, review your husband’s behavior in the recent past. See any red flags? Has he changed recently regarding work habits? Attention-to-you habits? Reliability habits? Hobby habits? Attitude change? Happiness change? Withdrawal from you? Satisfaction diminished with you and what you do?

If you see a red flag or two, don’t blame him. DO NOT get it in your mind that he’s cheating or even pulling away from you mentally if not physically. Your effort and attitude should be that of self-analyzing your marriage in which you both participate but only you can fix.

Don’t get husband involved, as men are neither relationship experts nor willing to do relationship maintenance. If you do get him involved, he’ll likely turn against you probably visibly but perhaps silently. You will lose more than you can gain.

So, you get red flags. What do you do? You have to figure it out from what you’ve learned about the male nature in this series bounced against the personal and interactive qualities of you and husband.

I close with vital pointers. Don’t try to change him. Identify and tailor whatever changes you hope to make so that he doesn’t become aware. Follow this strategy: Gently, silently, and indirectly plant seeds of your greater dependence on him.

1704. Dumped Wife: To Prevent It

In both the previous and this article, my statements flow out of convictions about the primal nature of men and women. I don’t alibi for men, condemn women, or vice versa. As the relationship expert, each woman has to figure out what she needs to do to achieve whatever she wishes to pursue. I simply highlight likely causes of men drifting away from home.

Her Highness Anne at post 1703 inquired how to ‘recover’ if wife is already helping her husband pursue new job, education, career change, or just to express himself. She worries that he may already feel less vital to his family. Other ladies show similar interest, so I shall describe what’s best for them and others already committed to helping husband change his life.

First, determine if you have a problem. Forget that you think love and affection will always overcome and that vows seal the deal. They won’t and never have. Men pay little attention anyway to woman-talk.

Examine yourself for the little irritants that displease him such as nagging, glances or words that show he disappoints you, and daily appearance that disappoints his eyes. Are you the pretty lady he married or unkempt reminder that his taste for attractiveness won’t be satisfied in his supposed castle? If before marriage he didn’t see you as you are today, you now work against yourself and probably need to recover from something.

However, go further. Measure yourself against your motivation and ways of conducting home affairs. How much of how you treat husband happens because you think you deserve whatever it is you seek, suggest, or demand? What is in your heart most of the time? Pleasing yourself or him? Criticizing or accepting him? Trying to improve what he doesn’t want improved? Are you queen to his king or ironclad and determined mistress caring most for your nest or kids?

Do you see evidence of his resentment, resistance, or retaliation to your behavior or your efforts to improve the marriage? How does he react to your constructive criticism, when criticism always outweighs good intentions? How often and how deep does he fall into depressed moments after you talk seriously or argue about something of great significance to you? Figure out in your mind how his resentment, resistance, or retaliation shows up. Allow for this: Retaliation will be more common if he’s young, alpha male, and especially if both. Resistance will be more common if he’s middle age, beta male, and especially if both. Resentment will be more common if he’s older, gamma male, and especially if both.

Second, evaluate how you may have made him question your dependence on him. Where, how, and when did he receive any kind of message that he’s anything less than vital to you and yours? However, the absence of such messages in your mind doesn’t mean that he sees it your way. So, if you think you haven’t sent such messages, I suggest you find ways to convey how eagerly and pleasingly you depend on him. But do it gently, unsurprisingly, and as indirectly as possible.

Third, how truly willing are you to accept cutbacks in spending and togetherness while he pursues whatever he seeks? Is your spirit one of sacrificing to help him? Or, is your concern oriented around what price you or the kids have to pay for him to pursue what he’s after? I don’t suggest that you cave in to whatever he wants, don’t give him his head so to speak. The more he perceives rather than being told how sacrifices hurt you and the kids, the better for you.

Fourth, figure out what if anything you need to do to ease yourself back, whether from the edge of being abandoned or back into the game of being a better wife. Good luck and God bless you.

1702. If He Talks Sex, She Talks Marriage

I know women are fearful they will drive a man away, and so they avoid what I am about to say. If he can talk about sex, she can talk about marriage. As he explores her views about sex, she explores his about marriage. If he won’t talk about marriage, why should she talk about sex? When they deal with a man, women should start early to tie sex and marriage together. If it scares him off, he’s not a good candidate for marriage, not good enough for her, or both.

When he mentions sex generally, she mentions marriage generally. When he gets specific, she gets specific. When he tries to point them toward bedtime together, she points their thinking toward her marital hopes and dreams. In principle, she’s as worthy of marriage as he is worthy of sex. Not worthy as a matter of equality but of fairness.

Women expect marriage someday, so why should they not seek to talk about it early. What are each man’s views of marriage? Not marriage with her but as subject of his life. Marriage as way of life, as something to shoot for, as vehicle in which to raise kids, as determinant of family values, as foundation for a woman taking care of a man’s castle, as environment to enjoy each other’s company, as him as provider/protector, as obligation to entertain each other, as foundation for his job and hobby, as way to father children, as way to live out one’s latter years. In short, what are his views and philosophy that could affect any woman’s hopes and dreams? Who will he be in the grand scheme of family life some years in the future? What promise does he hold for any woman?

Get his thoughts out in the open, and they make his future endeavors more reliable. His words program his subconscious mind for how he will perform in the husbanding role, e.g., promises to her. Or, he lies and guilt sears his conscience and disqualifies him for good husbanding.

Women think the subject of marriage to single men is like sunlight to Count Dracula, but it’s not entirely so. Male curiosity and imagination are easily fired up by discussion of challenges, so long as threats to a man are impersonal—as long as he perceives the escape hatch remains open. Both dating and courtship provide endless opportunity to match wits, and both subjects can be highlighted by a woman’s competitive effort to change the subject off sex.

Precisely because single men don’t want to talk about marriage, single women should force the issue and do it early and often. The more that women talk about it with a man, the more they acknowledge to themselves that marriage is important. The more easily they stay focused on their hopes and dreams, the more easily they defeat male pressure for premature sex.

Imagine for a moment that she faces a date or boyfriend that repeatedly puts pressure on her to talk about sex. She wants it to stop. She reminds herself of the following and finds a way to convey the spirit of it to him. Her ultimate asset is first time sex with him. Just once and it is gone. His ultimate asset is his sexual independence, which never goes away in his mind and must be tamed for his heart to devote himself to her or someone else. How and when does he envision a mutually compatible swap of ultimate assets? Who should yield first to the other? Better yet, how can both of them win? When he has a good answer, she can return to talking about sex, or so she tells him.

Even with men who don’t highly pressure a woman for sex, sooner or later hard-to-get women will face a man’s wanting to talk about sex. Countering with thoughts about marriage keeps her in charge until he changes the subject away from sex, or he changes her mind about what’s immediately more important.

1686. “I’m terrified of life.” — II

Her Highness Catalinarea at post 1684 also claimed to be terrified of life. I offer the following for her and others similarly inclined. Recovery is a mind game. Hopefully, I will make it easy if not simple to win.

First, however, Catalinarea asked me to define these terms.

• Internalizing: It means to think selfishly, mostly of yourself, of threats to you, of your fears, of your worries, of your conclusions about your incompetence, insignificance, and lack of worth in your world. (As expected, it brings a person to their knees, but so many don’t believe or don’t know to look up for help. They continue to melt in their misery.)
• Externalizing: It means to bypass your selfishness and tackle the world you live in, to think in ways that enable you to learn more and better, generate beneficial effects, and more assertively please yourself with achievements and others with your presence and actions.

You know it, but you’re frozen with fear sustained by inaction. It’s a self-induced helplessness. It takes on its own persona and intensifies if not dealt with directly.

Certain changes in action and thought can turn the game to your advantage. Each new belief and habit of thought devours the pressures of fear. Winning comes from making progress in a determined fashion more than it comes from trying to conquer fears. Action cures fear that even well-intentioned thoughts can’t overcome.

Most fears are comparative. People think they don’t deserve what others have, because they can’t do what others do. They compare and come out short. More comparisons lead to more shortcomings. Frozen with fear, whatever they manage to achieve is devalued in order to sustain the certainty of previous beliefs, aka self-induced misery.

Failure symbolizes the end of something; you walk away from it. Everything else is a mistake, and it enables recovery to revitalize life and displace fears. The only thing wrong with failure is not getting up again to start something else. Successful people come from a long line of failures and even more mistakes. Figure yourself out: Do you fear failure, success, mistakes, or just doing things differently than before?

Watch closely: Failure often comes from fear of success. Success means you deserve self-praise, but beliefs about your unworthiness prevent it. You’re not worthy of praise, which makes you fearful of doing more. After all, you think, I was lucky this time. Unable to believe yourself worthy, you avoid success by not trying and you rationalize threat of failure as the excuse. It’s a mind game you play with yourself.

Success comes from failures and mistakes supressed by one’s devotion to their ambitions, goals, and dreams. Trying to develop the electric light bulb, Edison claimed that he didn’t fail thousands of times, but he found thousands of ways that didn’t work. He didn’t call each attempt a failure, and so he neither quit nor melted into self-inflicted misery. You should drop the word failure from your vocabulary and thoughts. You can defeat your fears by finding something else to do, putting your endless abilities to work, and believing more clearly and deliberately in yourself.

Action cures fear. Get rid of failure and success from your vocabulary and thoughts. You do it by repeatedly taking actions that may lead to either failure or success but you don’t give a hoot which. You’re bound to do something, anything, to escape the miserable frozen wasteland of fear.

Actions overpower thoughts. To change your thoughts, change your actions. To change your actions, take other actions. Your subconscious mind, from which both good and bad habits flow, is programmed by repeated actions. Conscious thoughts matter little in changing habits. You’ll find more in articles that begin with the term “Self-“ in the CONTENTS page at blog top. They cite many ways to figure yourself out in order to help yourself.

1684. “I’m terrified of life.” — I

Her Highness Meer, a newbie, commented at post 1635 as follows: “I am 22, and am very immature emotionally. but I find it hard to respect most men. I’ve only respected 2 guys before. I’m terrified of life.” My response follows.

Your Highness Meer,

What a huge blessing you have. You know who and what you are. Your worth to yourself and others has been disguised by wrongful beliefs and discouraging habits of thought. Someone in your upbringing loaded you with a fright wig and mask. You can just rip them off, if you muster the courage to think differently and change in response.

Age 22 is fantastic but prone to emotional immaturity. So what? You moved out of adolescence physically, so why not mentally? It requires that you change your habits of thought. Avoid such thinking as “very immature emotionally” and “I find it hard” and “I’m terrified.” Unfortunately you can’t just NOT think about those things. You have to replace them with new and better thoughts, those easier to accept and live with.

First, I suggest you start by following the daily ‘pretty time’ schedule proposed in articles 1440 and 1441 and the articles mention therein. Make ‘pretty time’ the dominant HABIT in your life, the thing with an importance above everything else. If you do it, you will set the stage to decorate your life with the blessings that most women enjoy.

Second, decorate your life with adages and principles that you study each day. Post the following near your mirror and take five minutes immediately after ‘pretty time’ for daily review and consideration. Make them habitual to your daily thoughts:

• Many people prefer the misery of certainty to the uncertainty of change. Do I?
• I can respect no one more than I respect myself. What can I do today to elevate my self-respect?
• God provides me with self-love. Why not claim it myself?
• Dislike of myself can’t be changed, but it can be suppressed and eventually conquered by helping others get what they want out of life.
• At various times and reasons, every woman dislikes herself. (Men too) The good life comes not from avoiding it (impossible) but from finding ways to minimize it.
• When my thoughts turn internally to focus on me, I find a way to externalize. It’s only a habit, and I can change it.

Third, study the articles listed in the CONTENTS page at blog top that begin with these titles: Respect, Respectable, Adolescent, and Adolescence.

Fourth, if you don’t already, dream a lot about what you want out of life. Adopt the ‘dream accomplished’ plan described in the VICTORY page at blog top.

Fifth, don’t worry about not trusting men. Show each of them unconditional respect for who they are and gratitude for what they do. Eventually, a respectable man will rise out of the passing parade, one whom you can trust. (Patience is a blessing that women glorify when they use it.)

Sixth, start and post daily to a journal about all the successes you had that day. Don’t post and forget all the losses, mistakes, and fears you encounter each day.

Being terrified of life is the result of your upbringing. God designed, Nature endows, and hormones energize you with hardheadedness and softheartedness to face the world with countless blessings. You only need to find those blessings. You can start by recognizing the power of self-confidence, self-respect, modesty, dignity, feminine mystery, and many other traits and characteristics that you already have in abundance. You only need to act as if you have them in order to find and appreciate them.

If many more of your blessings don’t soon become obvious, drop us a comment with details.

Guy

1668. Hubby Isn’t Grateful?

Her Highness Anne at post 1662 inquired this way: “This is small point, but you mention that men do not consider gratitude necessary for “duty” performed. … Is there a way to repackage one’s “duties” as not duties so that the man will express more gratitude?”

Sure! Appeal to his softer side. It’s not easy, because he’s lived some period with you and his natural hardheartedness and hardheadedness have been okay so far.

Develop stimulants to appeal to and hopefully soften his heart. Quit using the term love and loving each other, as they mean different things to men and women. Inquire specifically but patiently on some little things. Such as smilingly planting gentle seeds like these while serving him a beer, refilling his coffee cup, or sitting quietly on a drive:

• Honey, are you glad that I do special things for you?
• Honey, do I keep the kids quiet enough when you’re studying?
• Honey, does my laundry schedule keep your clothes replaced fast enough for your use?
• Honey, do I keep your castle clean and organized well enough?
• Honey, I know I’m full of little irritants for you, but do my blessings really bless you?
• Honey, do I show you enough respect?
• Honey, do I show enough appreciation for the little things that you do?
• Honey, do I show you enough gratitude for the little things you add to our family life? Do we even have enough gratefulness expressed throughout our family? Do we recognize or appreciate each other enough for just being family members with responsibilities for pleasing other members?
• Honey, when you hear me preaching to the kids that they must show more respect for each other, do you agree? Do you have any ideas that would help me generate greater respect and gratefulness among family members?

Presented casually and non-accusingly, such questions introduced innocently amidst everyday encounters should stir some changes in a husband. Don’t blame or induce guilt in him. In fact, reflect your own guilt for PERHAPS not living up to his expectations. You always want to do better, right? Don’t expect miracles but learn to fish with ideas that prompt favorable responses that temporarily satisfy your wants.

Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody wants to change themself. You can start the process in your world.