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chevalier
Guest
Some men want a woman who won’t even try. Will those men die single?
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Groo
Guest
Yeah, I hear a number of stories of wives who leave because their husband works too much. And I think it is ****. My grandfather worked all the time because he had many kids, and my grandmother understood that. Many women today don’t seem to get it.
As the Godfather says I don’t apologize for doing what I have to to take care of my family. If she can’t accept that it’s her problem, not his.
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Hoosier_Daddy
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St_Francis
Guest
I find it extremely irritating when I see women complaining about their husbands doing their jobs… esp when he was a (whatever he does) before they married.
As to the rest of your posts, you remind me of Petruchio in the Taming of the Shrew
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chevalier
Guest
Truth be told, apart from the woman’s then-tunnel vision, probably also the man is more accommodating when trying to win the woman’s attention and ultimate acceptance. Or perhaps she fills some blanks with guesses that prove wrong later, e.g. expects to spend more time with him as a wife than she did as a fiancée, expects him to become involved with children and cut the hours down but they never really talk about it etc. Especially the constant communication that feels so normal in a budding romance may become tedious to one person but not the other when the initial infatuation passes and less thrilling reality kicks in. Plus, a bride doesn’t yet know how she will feel as a new mother, what her emotional and other needs will be then.
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St_Francis
Guest
Your wife thinks it is dishonest when you compliment her? Every time?
Well, she seems to have unilaterally decided to take charge and make things go her way… so maybe Groo has the right idea
Seriously, if she has been this affected by her upbringing, maybe counseling with a good counselor would help her. I think that other spouses should always be involved at least somewhat.
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St_Francis
Guest
I see what you are saying, but as a wife who has had to adjust, complaining about her husband’s *making a living *seems like the wrong thing to complain about. To complain about some of the other things you mention or realizing that one had some expectations with no foundation in reality makes a lot more sense. Complaining about a husband’s working seems to me to be a way to really drive him around the bend; what can he do about that?
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ClearWater
Guest
Okay, then would she be willing to go to go to counseling?
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Xantippe
Guest
Groo said:
“Yeah, I hear a number of stories of wives who leave because their husband works too much. And I think it is ****. My grandfather worked all the time because he had many kids, and my grandmother understood that. Many women today don’t seem to get it.”
Some people work all the time because they have to. Some people work all the time because they find their spouse and children boring and/or because they don’t see value in anything besides money. (I once had a conversation with a close relative, an empty nester, who lived in an absolutely filthy borderline hoarder home, and as far as I can tell, the main reason that the couple had for not cleaning was that they weren’t getting paid to take care of their own home.)
Also, there’s work, and then there’s “work.” There’s often a grey area between work and socializing. If my husband spent an extra hour at the office when we were new parents chatting with a colleague about his subject, was that work or was it leisure? It certainly wasn’t nice for me to get a phone call for him at the time I expected him home, saying he’d be another hour and fifteen minutes (the length of his commute) before he’d be able to be home for dinner because he’d gotten talking to somebody. Boy, was that fun when I’d already spent the whole day alone with the baby, pumping milk every few hours while the baby wailed in her crib.
Unfortunately, the way things are these days, it’s possible for white collar jobs to follow you home and on vacation and never leave you a moment’s peace, ever. There’s always another person to talk to, another email to answer, and the more you write, the more you get and the more you do, the more you need to do. It’s quite Sisyphean.
“Yeah, I hear a number of stories of wives who leave because their husband works too much. And I think it is ****. My grandfather worked all the time because he had many kids, and my grandmother understood that. Many women today don’t seem to get it.”
Some people work all the time because they have to. Some people work all the time because they find their spouse and children boring and/or because they don’t see value in anything besides money. (I once had a conversation with a close relative, an empty nester, who lived in an absolutely filthy borderline hoarder home, and as far as I can tell, the main reason that the couple had for not cleaning was that they weren’t getting paid to take care of their own home.)
Also, there’s work, and then there’s “work.” There’s often a grey area between work and socializing. If my husband spent an extra hour at the office when we were new parents chatting with a colleague about his subject, was that work or was it leisure? It certainly wasn’t nice for me to get a phone call for him at the time I expected him home, saying he’d be another hour and fifteen minutes (the length of his commute) before he’d be able to be home for dinner because he’d gotten talking to somebody. Boy, was that fun when I’d already spent the whole day alone with the baby, pumping milk every few hours while the baby wailed in her crib.
Unfortunately, the way things are these days, it’s possible for white collar jobs to follow you home and on vacation and never leave you a moment’s peace, ever. There’s always another person to talk to, another email to answer, and the more you write, the more you get and the more you do, the more you need to do. It’s quite Sisyphean.
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Adamski
Guest
I really think you are very right, I just had a close Christian friend say the same thing and said he deals with it with his wife.
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Origen52
Guest
Only a man would believe that.
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Xantippe
Guest
Origen52 said:
“Only a man would believe that.”
…and then wonder why she left.
“Only a man would believe that.”
…and then wonder why she left.
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ClearWater
Guest
If you want things to change, you will need to address this differently in some way or other, or I predict this problem will remain, unchanged. Even if you try some kind of intervention, counseling, it could fail, but at least you would have the consolation of having attempted …something.
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Groo
Guest
That is the second time you mentioned leaving the husband. I find that interesting, though not surprising.
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Prodigal_Son
Guest
I don’t understand this series of posts. Either women want men they can’t control, or women are fools – because a relationship with a person you can control is no relationship at all.
I don’t agree, by a longshot, with everything Groo has said, but he’s right about this. Women aren’t fools.
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Lin123
Guest
Not easy being married understand God Bless
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Xantippe
Guest
Groo said:
“That is the second time you mentioned leaving the husband. I find that interesting, though not surprising.”
Here’s a problem–you keep advocating for walking out in the middle of a conversation or just heading out to golf (that’s a whole day activity, right?). That is so incredibly rude, and nobody would accept that kind of behavior even just from a friend. In fact, doing that kind of stuff more than once would quite likely kill the friendship.
If one does that stuff to a spouse over and over again, would it be so surprising to come home from a day of golf and find nobody home? If you have little kids and leave your spouse at home with them on the weekend without mutual agreement for that to happen, what you may be teaching the spouse is that they don’t need you all that much. Consider also how you’d feel if the shoe were on the other foot, if your wife stormed out, leaving you alone with the kids for the next 10 hours while she did lord knows what all day. Would it make you more loving and sweet, or would you have a huge argument on her return? I imagine that there are people who would be loving and sweet after their spouse treats them terribly, but in my opinion, that suggestions that they are victims of abuse and have been trained by years of bad treatment to be docile in the face of abusive behavior.
See, for example Lundy Bancroft’s “Why Does He Do That: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men.”
I’m not advocating for automatically leaving a spouse who walks out during conversations and heads out for non-spousally approved free play days, but I am saying that there is natural cause and effect, and that kind of behavior does in fact lead fairly directly to divorce.
Pro-tip: if you don’t want to continue pointless arguing or if you want free time, there are much more acceptable ways to do it:
“I think we’ll both feel better after lunch/dinner/the kids go to bed. Let’s talk about it then.”
“Come up with a list of pros and cons and we’ll talk about it after the kids go to bed.”
“How about I take off Saturday morning 9-12, we have lunch together, and then you can take off until 5 and we’ll have pizza at home”?
There is such a thing as win-win, and smart negotiators try to figure one out. The methods you’ve been talking about are violations of the golden rule, as well as borderline abusive.
“That is the second time you mentioned leaving the husband. I find that interesting, though not surprising.”
Here’s a problem–you keep advocating for walking out in the middle of a conversation or just heading out to golf (that’s a whole day activity, right?). That is so incredibly rude, and nobody would accept that kind of behavior even just from a friend. In fact, doing that kind of stuff more than once would quite likely kill the friendship.
If one does that stuff to a spouse over and over again, would it be so surprising to come home from a day of golf and find nobody home? If you have little kids and leave your spouse at home with them on the weekend without mutual agreement for that to happen, what you may be teaching the spouse is that they don’t need you all that much. Consider also how you’d feel if the shoe were on the other foot, if your wife stormed out, leaving you alone with the kids for the next 10 hours while she did lord knows what all day. Would it make you more loving and sweet, or would you have a huge argument on her return? I imagine that there are people who would be loving and sweet after their spouse treats them terribly, but in my opinion, that suggestions that they are victims of abuse and have been trained by years of bad treatment to be docile in the face of abusive behavior.
See, for example Lundy Bancroft’s “Why Does He Do That: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men.”
I’m not advocating for automatically leaving a spouse who walks out during conversations and heads out for non-spousally approved free play days, but I am saying that there is natural cause and effect, and that kind of behavior does in fact lead fairly directly to divorce.
Pro-tip: if you don’t want to continue pointless arguing or if you want free time, there are much more acceptable ways to do it:
“I think we’ll both feel better after lunch/dinner/the kids go to bed. Let’s talk about it then.”
“Come up with a list of pros and cons and we’ll talk about it after the kids go to bed.”
“How about I take off Saturday morning 9-12, we have lunch together, and then you can take off until 5 and we’ll have pizza at home”?
There is such a thing as win-win, and smart negotiators try to figure one out. The methods you’ve been talking about are violations of the golden rule, as well as borderline abusive.
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Xantippe
Guest
Groo,
Aside from the just hanging up and just walking away from nagging advice, you’ve had a lot of destructive advice elsewhere in the thread.
Here are some examples:
“It has to be rough living with a nagging harpy like that. I’m sure you never saw it coming.”
“Her nagging is obviously killing your love for her, as it would any sane person.”
“You may need to spend most of your time away from home. Play a lot of golf, find some volunteer work, or get a job where you are always on the road and can get away from her toxicity.”
“Since she is going to be mad at you all of the time anyway, you might as well do things you enjoy. Then she’ll be mad, but so what. Let her be mad. There isn’t anything you can do to change that. So let her be how she is and do what you want.”
If you do this stuff in real life, I suspect that neither you nor your wife is very happy.
Aside from the just hanging up and just walking away from nagging advice, you’ve had a lot of destructive advice elsewhere in the thread.
Here are some examples:
“It has to be rough living with a nagging harpy like that. I’m sure you never saw it coming.”
“Her nagging is obviously killing your love for her, as it would any sane person.”
“You may need to spend most of your time away from home. Play a lot of golf, find some volunteer work, or get a job where you are always on the road and can get away from her toxicity.”
“Since she is going to be mad at you all of the time anyway, you might as well do things you enjoy. Then she’ll be mad, but so what. Let her be mad. There isn’t anything you can do to change that. So let her be how she is and do what you want.”
If you do this stuff in real life, I suspect that neither you nor your wife is very happy.
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TK421
Guest
Ideally, a charitable rebuke should be all that is necessary for her to stop, but obviously that isn’t working, which means it’s time for Plan B.
Nagging wives have been a struggle since Eve. I’m not married but my standard tactic towards controlling/nagging people is to default to a posture of serenity and let everything they throw my way pass through me. If she’s a hammer, then be water. She can’t do anything to you. It’s kryptonite for them.
She is afflicted with blindness on this matter. You cannot convict her of her behavior by a simple retort. You have to shame her into improvement with your holiness (which means you have to be holy). If there is anything where you think you need to improve, try hard to improve. It doesn’t matter if she isn’t improving with you or if she has a plank in her eye. Don’t concern yourself with what is “fair” in the childish sense of the word. Just do what is holy. This is how it works for anything related to morality. It’s not just a matter of intellectual correction. If it was, the world would already be a paradise.
Nagging wives have been a struggle since Eve. I’m not married but my standard tactic towards controlling/nagging people is to default to a posture of serenity and let everything they throw my way pass through me. If she’s a hammer, then be water. She can’t do anything to you. It’s kryptonite for them.
She is afflicted with blindness on this matter. You cannot convict her of her behavior by a simple retort. You have to shame her into improvement with your holiness (which means you have to be holy). If there is anything where you think you need to improve, try hard to improve. It doesn’t matter if she isn’t improving with you or if she has a plank in her eye. Don’t concern yourself with what is “fair” in the childish sense of the word. Just do what is holy. This is how it works for anything related to morality. It’s not just a matter of intellectual correction. If it was, the world would already be a paradise.
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Xantippe
Guest
There’s a parallel discussion going on over here on the subject of where nagging begins and how to manage the honey do list that may be helpful to the OP:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=876289
With regard to the confusion over “control,” it is true that women don’t like weak men, and that in that respect we are kind of like dogs with regard to fear. We can smell weakness, and it can make us nippy. However, bear in mind that we also smell weakness when men don’t follow through and don’t live up to their commitments. It’s no good just stalking off to the golf course (who can afford it, anyway?) when the grass is unmown, the garage is a disaster, the kids’ toys are unrepaired and a multitude of important home projects are being neglected. If you are neglecting your responsibilities, your wife speaks up about it, and you stalk off to goof off all day, that’s not actually a display of strength, but rather the reverse.
I think something to bear in mind is that vices come with their companion virtues, and virtues come with their companion vices. For instance, a generous person might be careless with money, or a person who is careless with money might be generous, while the reverse might be true of somebody who is good with money–their temptation might be toward tightfistedness. In this instance, the OP’s wife’s vice is being controlling. However, the flip side of that is that she probably has some corresponding virtues. She’s probably detail-oriented, future-oriented and conscientious and she probably works pretty hard. There are probably virtues in her personality, that if appropriately harnessed, will be very valuable to your family. (As I recall, you’re in a mixed marriage, which adds to the difficulty of the situation.)
I’m a spirited woman, and when my husband and I were newlyweds, my grandpa (who is also married to a spirited woman) told my husband, whatever you do, don’t break her spirit. I’m not sure exactly what he meant, but my grandpa came from a horse-loving family, and when you deal with horses, the fast, high-performing ones are also the most headstrong and difficult to control. It’s the lazy plodders that are easy to manage. Bear that in mind.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=876289
With regard to the confusion over “control,” it is true that women don’t like weak men, and that in that respect we are kind of like dogs with regard to fear. We can smell weakness, and it can make us nippy. However, bear in mind that we also smell weakness when men don’t follow through and don’t live up to their commitments. It’s no good just stalking off to the golf course (who can afford it, anyway?) when the grass is unmown, the garage is a disaster, the kids’ toys are unrepaired and a multitude of important home projects are being neglected. If you are neglecting your responsibilities, your wife speaks up about it, and you stalk off to goof off all day, that’s not actually a display of strength, but rather the reverse.
I think something to bear in mind is that vices come with their companion virtues, and virtues come with their companion vices. For instance, a generous person might be careless with money, or a person who is careless with money might be generous, while the reverse might be true of somebody who is good with money–their temptation might be toward tightfistedness. In this instance, the OP’s wife’s vice is being controlling. However, the flip side of that is that she probably has some corresponding virtues. She’s probably detail-oriented, future-oriented and conscientious and she probably works pretty hard. There are probably virtues in her personality, that if appropriately harnessed, will be very valuable to your family. (As I recall, you’re in a mixed marriage, which adds to the difficulty of the situation.)
I’m a spirited woman, and when my husband and I were newlyweds, my grandpa (who is also married to a spirited woman) told my husband, whatever you do, don’t break her spirit. I’m not sure exactly what he meant, but my grandpa came from a horse-loving family, and when you deal with horses, the fast, high-performing ones are also the most headstrong and difficult to control. It’s the lazy plodders that are easy to manage. Bear that in mind.
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