I often get emails from wives telling me that their husbands treat them badly. These cards and descriptions include uncaring and unsupportive husbands, selfish husbands, and abusive husbands. They run the challenge because each wife’s definition of “bad treatment” is going to be different.
Some women find it unacceptable that their husband does not treat them in the same compassionate way that he is treated, while others are concerned about a relationship in which the wife is being hurt verbally or physically. In the following article, I’ll take a look at varying degrees of wives who feel they deserve to be treated better and offer various reasons men will often give me for their actions. Then I will tell you how to deal with this situation, hoping to change it.
The verbally and physically belittling or abusive husband: These are the letters or emails that concern me the most. There is no situation I can think of that would make this okay. I understand that most men who are abusive were abused as children. This makes the situation tragic, to be sure, but it does not excuse it.
The first step in this situation is to say it out loud and let your husband know that today is a new day and that you are not going to let them hurt you one more time. Unfortunately, these habits are often difficult to break because the husband was often not taught another way to communicate or express her point of view. So, to rehabilitate herself, she will first have to admit the problem and then learn new coping mechanisms and ways to communicate or negotiate. And, since she didn’t learn any other way, this will often take time and help.
However, the fact that this is a long road does not mean that you should give up or try to accept it. You must not. The statistics show us that the chances that it will simply stop doing this without any intervention are not very good. He knows no other way and will need to be taught without hurting yourself in the process.
The selfish husband who shows no affection: On the other end of the spectrum, I often get emails about the husband being lazy, self-centered, and not reciprocating in the relationship. I often hear things like:
“He lets me do all the work on the marriage”;
“He doesn’t love me like I love him”;
“He treats me like a brother or a roommate”;
“If he is sick or injured, I take care of him, but if I am sick or injured, he acts if I am bothering him and he does not support me or take care of me”;
“He never says thank you, spontaneously shows me affection, gives me gifts or does anything to show me he cares. He bought me a vacuum cleaner for my birthday this year;” Y
“He acts like I bother him as much as the kids.”
These emails often come from wives who have been married for a while. Many admit that the husband hounded them and hounded them with flowers and gifts when they were dating, but now they are lucky if they get a card that is only signed with her name and nothing else.
And yet often if you talk to the husband, you will get a different story. Now, the husband will not usually deny that he has become lukewarm. He usually won’t have a problem telling you that he’s acting a little differently today. But, he will downplay the fact that things are as serious as the wife claims. And often he will tell me that the wife has become so demanding and needy that she has closed off a bit, because there is just no way to please her. I often hear comments like, “My wife wants my constant attention. No matter what I say or do, she always wants more. I’m married to her and living with her, right? I wouldn’t.” she would still be here if he didn’t love her.”
As you can see, wives and husbands see this quite differently. And, most of us know that many men are not as emotional and show off as women. But that doesn’t stop us from wanting to know that we matter, that we are noticed, that we are appreciated and loved. This is definitely not too much to ask. And you know what? If they obeyed, even a little bit, we could stop bothering.
Look, what’s happening now is that there’s a negative cycle going on. We as women are not getting what we need. But when we scold or seem needy to our husbands, they withdraw. He perceives that we are going to make him work or leave his comfort zone. So we have to find a way to get more of what we want without making him take so much risk that he doesn’t want to repeat his actions.
We want to set it up to make it easy and intuitive for him to give us what we want and need and then easy for us to reciprocate and give positive feedback so he starts repeating this behavior on his own. To that end, any request you make should be made with a positive slant. In fact, I have very good friends who have become very good in this cycle: they just ask very directly what they need and when they get it (even if it’s not perfect) they gushing and giving all kinds of positive feedback so that the husband doesn’t need be produced in the future.
Sure, you might feel resentful at first about having to explain it to them. But, over time, as you start to see improvements, you may find that it really doesn’t matter how you got the results you wanted, as long as you get them. One of my friends will literally say things like, “Honey, you know my birthday is coming up. Now, you might have this covered, but I’ve been looking at this necklace I want. Should I buy it or should I leave this one up?” Believe it or not, sometimes he will tell you to buy it. But you know what? He will often buy something else on his account. And he no longer forgets his birthday. And, at the end of the day, she has the necklace she wanted, a husband she remembered, and something else he threw away because she wanted to.
And she continues to shower him with affection and praise so that next year he will do even better. Both people leave feeling positive and no one’s signals are crossed or feelings are hurt. I have another friend who, when she had strep throat, she just told her husband. “I really need you to do better. I feel bad and I need you to take care of the kids. I would do the same for you because I love you and I know you love me and want to help.”
This works every time. What husband is going to say “well no, I’ve decided I don’t want to help my sick wife?” She delivered the message in a cheerful manner that still left her husband with some respect and she didn’t feel like scolding him. He took care of her, she bragged about him to her mother, and the next time she was sick, she didn’t have to ask.
