A dear friend kindly allowed me access to a webinar she had attended/accessed. It is actually a Jewish workshop called "Becoming a Kesher Wife". Now as you know, I love to poach the good stuff from religions and this definitely falls into this category.
I am going to use this blog to capture some of my takeaways from this workshop. It was four hours worth. I have started implementing a few of the tips already - wow what a difference. I am much happier - and you know what, I didn't have to change husbands to achieve it! I am not using any of her lecture notes to write this - I am simply going to write what has stuck with me - what I found the most useful.
Firstly, the only person you can change is yourself. Why waste your energy lamenting what your husband is not, or how he frustrates you, etc? The only person you can change is yourself. Yes we have all heard this - but I think I need reminding OFTEN.
On this point, a powerful message about our inflow pipeline (all the things that happen to us, external to us) and our outflow pipeline (our thoughts, actions, behaviours that we choose in reaction to these external events). We have NO control over the inflow pipeline and 100% control over the outflow pipeline.
Oh this one resonated. And not just about D. More to do with how I am, day in day out, with the children. You know, I can have one day a "good" day and the next a "bad" day and yet the two days, in terms of how the children behaved, what happened - were NO different. The difference is in how I manage/cope/handle the situations. Sometimes the most dreadful stuff can be going down (springs to mind leaving the airport with four children in tow, two screaming, one bowling and the other sleeping) and I am really cool and calm. And then the next day, really nothing out of the ordinary, I am screaming like a banshee, completely overwhelmed and ready to kick the cat.
In order to be a happier wife one needs a happy husband. And if you contribute to making him unhappy, you in turn make yourself unhappy. And the three ways to make your husband dislike you are to a) be critical, b) be commanding and c) be controlling.
And how easy it is to be like that a lot of the time. Oh my. And it is not big stuff I am talking about but let's use an example .... putting the garbage out of an evening. So this is D's job right. It has been since the day we met - it is the one thing I just don't want to have to do. Yet the bin is always overflowing and still D will work right past it. It does my head in. So what do I say, "Please can you take the bin out, it is overflowing and still you walk past it! Don't you see it needs doing? What is wrong with you?" (BEING CRITICAL). Then "I see you are going down the stairs to get your phone, why don't you take the bin down with you" (BEING COMMANDING - that is, I know a better way of doing what you need to do than you do). And finally, I end up starting to tie the bin liner up and take it downstairs (BEING CONTROLLING - that is, do it myself), when it hasn't been done in the timeframe I would like (very huffily and noisily mind you) so that D then comes over (also now huffily and grumpily) and takes over and takes the bin downstairs.
So how was that working for you? As Dr Phil would say.
Many wives will relate to this story. I imagine many husbands too. The thing is, and more on this later - it is NOT about right and wrong and who was in the right or wrong. It is looking at the whole interaction above, enacted out daily or weekly and asking - is this bringing us closer together? Does me being critical, commanding and controlling make me feel good about my marriage and my husband? No way, never. So for god's sake girl, don't do it!!!!!!
The lecturer says that in many instances, you have the right to feel aggrieved - to stew, to feel hardly done by. However do those feelings make you feel good, happy, connected to your husband? Agh no. It is like you have won an all expenses paid holiday in Gaza! Woo hoo! Would you take it? You won it, you can go - but do you want to? If you go, you can decide how long you stay there. But realise that is the choice YOU make.
It is about choosing to look through the glasses not of right/wrong or win/lose but rather connection/disconnection. What behaviours of mine will lead to more or less connection with my husband. Being critical, controlling, commanding is not a way to foster connection with anyone (even children).
Who can you think of stereotypically, that is critical, commanding and controlling? Our Mothers. So I ask you, as the lecturer asked us - would you want to have sex with your mother?! Yep, that one hit home - the more critical, commanding and controlling we are as wives - the more we completely TURN OFF our husbands.
Apparently studies have shown that men have affairs to increase (not physical) intimacy. That is, they find a woman who is a better, more attentive, more interested listener than their wife. This conversational intimacy leads to physical intimacy. I so get that. Yet many wives will relate to their skills at multi-tasking such that they can listen to what their husband is saying AND make dinner, do kids homework, write an email, etc. It just doesn't appear to our husbands that we are listening. So another piece of advice was:
1) Greet our husbands when they get home (that is, stop what we are doing and go and give them a kiss, say hello etc). (This one is so blindingly obvious a way of telling our husbands that they are important to us - but you know what, I NEVER DO IT. Fail on my part)
2) No interrupting them when they are talking. Yeah, like we value what they are saying and are interested and that we respect them ..... like we do our girlfriends ... but not our husbands!
3) No contradicting him. Oh god. I do this. I have seen my mother do it so many times as well. Especially when he is telling a story and I keep adding bits he is missing. Or even just talking the two us about his work . I start giving him advice. About his work. Can you see the error of my ways yet?! I can. Just shut up Jane, listen, nod - he just wants to vent/air his thoughts. No help required.
So why do those things above? So that we have real conversations not one sided ones. Men (generalisation) are not good communicators - so why do we make it so hard for them and then wonder why they don't open up? I have already tried to implement above and D and I have had such better, longer, cosier conversations. Yes it is unnatural for me to NOT multitask, but I'll get the hang of it. (Just one special thing ... normally we sit side by side in our two arm chairs - the other night , after a bit of attentive listening on my part - D came and sat in the SAME armchair as me as he talked about his day and massaged my feet ....... holy moly)
As Aretha Franklin says it is all about 'respect'. To be a happy wife, you need to respect your husband. Love ebbs and flows. Respect is the most important thing. I so concur with this.
If you met Nelson Mandela, or another person you really respect - tell me - when they came in the door would you keep chopping the onions? Would you multi task through their conversations and interrupt them to ask them to please put the garbage out? Would you contradict them? ("No Nelson I am sure it was 1992 you were released from prison, not 1993 - you always get this story wrong!") No - so we need to be more diligent not to do so with our husbands - they are meant to be the MOST special person in the world to us.
HOWEVER, before you all keep screaming at me, what on earth do you do about the things your husband does that you do not respect? In fact, things that completely turn you off?
The idea around the solution to this is great and so powerful. Firstly, during the workshop, we had to remember and visualise situations where we really respected and loved our husbands. For me, it was D being with the kids, us being away together sharing our dreams together, his approach to healthy eating and exercise, his kindness and generosity to me and to others, his ability to manage my parents - there was lots to choose from.
Then she made us look out an imaginary window to see our husband doing something we did not like, that turned us off. For me, it was when D is on the phone for work and the children are melting down and it is like he cannot see it (drives me crazy). What she got us to do was, simply, walk away from that window, and go to another window and visualise a scene from our list of situations above where we really respected our husband.
So the tip - if our husbands do something we disdain, are turned off by - turn away, stop looking. Think and remember the times and situations where they did something you respected.
Okay - that may sound so basic but it is great! If D does something I don't like, I immediately remember all the times he has been wonderful and my heart remains joyful not cranky pants. Most of the things that turn us off, we can just simply - walk away from. D leaves clothes on the floor. Step over and remember how good he looks without clothes on anyway! D gets cranky because he can't find something he left somewhere which he needs and he is running late because he is a notoriously bad time manager. Walk away and remember how he never ever complains about having to put all the kids to bed on his own when I go to pilates two times a week, no matter how bad his day at work. You get the gist.
The workshop leader went onto discuss the times when you cannot simply walk away. For example the behaviour you disdain impacts others like your children, or your financial security etc. What do you do then? Similarly, how THE HELL do I get D to take the garbage out each night?
Firstly GIVE INFORMATION rather than an instruction. I am going to try these out for the bin example - might not fit but I'll give it a go.
"Oh darling, that silly bin is overflowing again! We go through so much garbage, don't we?"
Secondly ASK QUESTIONS. Hmm, how to do this without being patronising?
"When do you think you might have time to take the bin out, sweetie? Before the baby's bath or after?" (Hmm not sure about this - might be a bit controlling?)
Thirdly STATE HOW I FEEL starting with "I feel...." as distinct from "You make me feel ...."
"I am so grateful when you take out the bin, I feel like I have some sense of order in the kitchen when the bin is empty" (Hmm once again maybe overkill given it is just a garbage bag)
Anyway - you get the picture. Well guess what - I have really really tried to give information versus tell what to do. The idea of give information is that the husband then feels like he has the choice over what to actually do with that information. As opposed to us spoon feeding him. And it works! Really works.
The instructor spoke about leaving informative books about parenting in the bathroom which he may pick up. Oh. My. Goodness. Why didn't I think of this? D spends hours (if permitted) in the bathroom reading whatever piece of reading material is lying around (junk mail?!) - I am so doing this. Will start with Bidulph's Raising Boys I think!
There was some other stuff about turning challenges into gifts from god. Yeah, wasn't into that. But otherwise this was a wonderful workshop. I highly recommend the ideas. If you like the sound of it too, please contact me and we can discuss - I would be interested in your thoughts.
Here's to Happy Marriages!
Labels: marriage, self help
