The Marriage Podcast for Smart People
The Marriage Podcast for Smart People
Caleb & Verlynda Simonyi-Gindele
The Three Best Ways to Ruin Your Husband’s Day
19 minutes Posted Sep 16, 2015 at 4:00 am.
says “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” If you are an able-bodied, able-minded man, you need to be providing for your family.
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Ouch, these were painful for me, as a wife, to find out. I don’t even want to think of the times I’ve done these things… AND didn’t even know if it was painful to Caleb.
You know, I went through the 3 Best Ways to Ruin Your Wife’s Day and totally understood EVERY ONE of them. I could relate, and fully understand how any one of them would ruin my day.
But, when it came to the things that ruined my husband’s day I actually got defensive and figured that the things weren’t actually that bad. That’s when it helps to have the research the back things up.
So without further ado:
Number one: Insult his breadwinning ability.
You know, complain about how he doesn’t make enough money for you to live on comfortably, and then go out with your girlfriends for some “retail therapy”. That will crush him really good!
Despite the advances of feminism and the increasing entry of women into the workplace over the last half century or more, the fact is that men still have this legacy belief in our culture that they carry the breadwinner role. Men’s roles have changed more slowly than women’s in that women have moved into the workplace but men haven’t moved into the family in the same way.
We are not here to give a commentary on feminism or traditional versus contemporary gender roles, but we do want to point out, dear wife, that your husband’s self-concept as a breadwinner is quite possibly a much more significant construct in his mind than you might think.
In a 2006 study, Dyke & Murphy looked at gender based definitions of success. They found that a woman’s success focused on a personal notion of balance and high importance was placed on relationships. For men, material success still loomed large; first was material success, then relationships, then making a contribution, and finally, having freedom.
Before we’re too hard on the wives – dear husband, are you sincerely a hard working man and not blowing all the dough on yourself or your truck or toys or whatever? 1 Timothy
But back to the wives – if your hubby is doing his best, you need to build him up, not tear him down. The best way to ruin a hardworking man’s day is to insult him as a breadwinner when he gets home from work.
If your income is not where it needs to be, have that tough discussion. Ask yourselves the questions:
* Are your expectations realistic, or do they need to be adjusted?
* Are you wanting or trying to live beyond your means?
* Is he on board for income growth, or in a dead-end job?
There may be a genuine need for more income. In that case, make a plan. Does he need more training or a different job, and what kind of income are you, the wife, bringing to the table? We have a whole series on budgeting if you need some help in that direction. Start with Episode 1, and go on from there.
So there it is; the number one way to ruin your husband’s day is to insult his breadwinning ability.
Number two: Drown him with emotionality and then yell, “You just don’t understand me!”
For most of you, wives, your husband doesn’t understand you completely, and that’s not entirely his fault nor yours. It is just how it is.
If you unload on him and then emphasize the fact that he doesn’t understand, he’ll probably spend part of the night and most of the next day trying to figure out what happened and what was actually going on.