FamilyLife Forums

chaz345:

Then there's the problem that complex is so often considered to be better. We've got all sorts of things that are constantly telling us to try to understand women, to try to do it their way, and little to nothing telling women to do it our way. Sure their are "understand your man" types of things, but the huge majority of them talk about how to understand him enough to get him to communicate the way that women do.

I 've always attributed this to a widespread wrong understanding of scripture:  So often we hear I Peter 3:7 isolated with no context, and applied in a way that implies (sometimes even asserts)  that since it is talking to husbands and not wives, that only husbands have the obligation to do the understanding.  Sometimes it's used to say that no matter what the wife does, the husband is to understand--not in addition to confronting any sin, but instead of confronting the sin.

It really has mader sense to me that what is going on is that the enemy is trying to distort scripture, and get people to be loyal to their wishes, bending the scripture to them, rather than  being expected to bend their wishes to the scripture, being loyal to them.

Yes, Chaz, Wives can't understand how a man can forget about the argument they had at breakfast, and then in the evening carry on as if nothing had happened.
 But she does not need to understand that for the man to function O K as a husband. The reverse is a different story.
If he does not understand her take on life there will be hell to pay, because she can't function as a wife unless he does.

If you take that description of a man's brain being similar to a set of drawers, it indicates that in marriage he can move from concentrating on one thing to another thing  without having to retain an awareness of what he has just been thinking about.
A wife is not easily able to make that leap and forget what has been occupying her.

So when a couple have an argument or disagreement, he can shelve it for later attention. A wife is not able to dismiss a disagreement.
He can let it go unresolved and still be ready for bedtime cuddles. If it is not resolved to the wife' satisfaction she will still be gripped by a sense of discord.

The simplicity lies in the males ability to enjoy intimacy with his wife even though the issues are not settled. A wife, due to her constant awareness of the discord, cannot give herself to intimacy, and if she does it will be out of duty. That will not satisfy her.
The man will roll over and go to sleep thinking all is well with the world. Meanwhile, his wife lies awake, fretting, and blaming her husband for being so inconsiderate.
Repeat that scenario often enough and she will be ready to walk. And when she announces her intention to walk he is taken by surprise. He doesn't know why, he thought she could put things out of her mind just like he can.

Now this may not be "fair". It's not about fairness, it's about facts. There is no such thing as fairness. This is another area where husbands come unstuck. Men operate by this sense of fairness. It's how they do business. They think this is how marriage works. It don't. Marriage works by what works. And what works has little to do with fairness.
( By "fairness" in the male vocabulary, is meant the decision to shake hands, and part amicably, deal done,  even though you haven't sorted all the details.)
This is why a man can have a lengthy discussion with his wife, and at the end it appears that all is resolved. So he puts it all behind him. She may not. Not because she is being perverse, but because she is being female. He may have to woo her for weeks before she feels able to trust her feelings to him. This is right outside his ballpark of experience.

Does it work the other way? With a husband  all stewed up inside? It may do for the odd male emotional cross-dresser. Of course, when she takes that walk, he will be churning, but that is not what goes on while the marriage is intact, which is what we are looking at.
Bottom line is that if a man wants a happy marriage he has to have a happy wife. That means being aware of her need for daily nurture, to ensure she is not building a reservoir of resentment and unresolved marital pain.

Btw, in that interview on FotF, Barb Larimore said, " I realised that my need for conversation is as intense as his need for sexual intimacy."
That is what the brain research showed. A woman's brain is connected to everything at once. Conversation and sex go hand in hand. Not argumentative conversation. Not an hour discussing finances, or children, or...or. A man may think that qualifies as relevant conversation.  No. It has to be nurturing conversation, and she is the sole judge of that.

formerlyalpha:

Yes, Chaz, Wives can't understand how a man can forget about the argument they had at breakfast, and then in the evening carry on as if nothing had happened.
 But she does not need to understand that for the man to function O K as a husband. The reverse is a different story.
If he does not understand her take on life there will be hell to pay, because she can't function as a wife unless he does.

Guess I've never believed that; I had always thought that there was a refusal to function as a wife unless he understands the way she wants him to, a refusal justified by pointing out how "hard" doing it any other way is.

And I didn't experience that I can function well as a husband without my wife's understanding.  She would not cooperate, not follow, not listen, etc.  and would explain it away by saying "I don't understand why you have to ....."  Even if I explained "why", if she didn't agree, she would instead say "I don't understand", and continue to resist/deflect, etc.

HI, I'm not sure whether what you say is all that different to what I said above, providing I have grasped what you said.

 It may be that you are coming from the standpoint of having played ping pong with your wife a thousand or more times. When a tit-for-tat environment gets well established there are all kinds of contributing factors that come in. Like resentment over past things, and so on. Once that becomes the norm, it is very difficult to make any progress. In such a scene it is the desire, even the need to be right, that becomes a driving force. There are layers of hurts on both sides, and just where and how they started is lost in the dim distant past.

( As an example, I visit a christian family, who have 4 children in their teens and twentys. She has not attended church for maybe 10yrs. I don't know where she stands re the faith. They have slept in separate rooms for maybe 7yrs , at her instigation.The couple have been to some christian 2 day marriage seminars, one of which I invited them to about 2yrs ago. I was surprised that the wife seemed happy to go to both of them.. But little seems to have changed.

Although I know the family quite well, and the husband is one of my closer friends, I still can't work out what went wrong and how. He says it was her upbringing in an abusive family. Even if there is truth in that, it can be like a cop-out, meaning he does not have to change because he attributes the problems to his wife's upbringing.

Sometimes when I am there, I overhear them talking to each other in the kitchen. There can be a distinct change in their voice tones. There is a hard edginess that is quite apparent to me. It is not the normal way they talk to other people.  I wonder if they are oblivious to that change in tone.  Have they been functioning that way for so long it's become 2nd nature.
Who started it, and when?

It usually starts in the kitchen when one asks the other what  they  with something. The other seems to feel accused and immediately becomes defensive. And so it goes. No resolution. But it likely hides a raft of things that go back years and years.)

That brain research suggests that the wife's memory of past events brings those things right into her present consciousness. She is aware of everything wrong that he did since time immemorial. He, on the other hand, has forgotten that stuff, and looks for reasons in the present or recent past. That could explain why when they try to resolve things they make little headway. He has no recollection of those past events. He may even think it's unfair and irrelevant to raise them.
But because she remembers them like yesterday, she is stubborn and uncooperative. He has lost sight of the reasons why she is like that.

So at this point, he is in a position rather like the one you present. Your wife is opposing and refusing, and you don't know why. So you attribute it to her crabbiness.

That is why if a man fails to understand a woman, he will be on the losing side. But once she is happy that he is treating her right - and she is the sole  judge of what that "right" is - she will show that by being responsive to him. She does not need the same level of understanding of him because he is not now a problem. That said, women say they do understand their husbands, because men are easier to be understood.
Of course, you can't function without her understanding and willingness to give herself to you, but that is predicated upon your understanding of her.

formerlyalpha:

That is why if a man fails to understand a woman, he will be on the losing side. But once she is happy that he is treating her right - and she is the sole  judge of what that "right" is - she will show that by being responsive to him. She does not need the same level of understanding of him because he is not now a problem. That said, women say they do understand their husbands, because men are easier to be understood.
Of course, you can't function without her understanding and willingness to give herself to you, but that is predicated upon your understanding of her.

Two things.

One is that no,  woman will not always positively respond when she feels she is being understood.

Secondly, I absolutely agree that it SHOULD start with the man understanding her and then flows back to her responding positively to him, but I absolutely do not believe that that is the only way it can happen.  By saying that that is the only way it can happen we are, in effect, justifying or excusing or allowing the woman's poor(or even sinful) behavior as something that is not really her choice. We are also, and I'm surprised this fact is lost on so many of these supposedly empowered women, being incredibly demeaning to women. It, in effect says that women are incapable of acting in a way counter to their emotions. Are they not just as capable of men as acting in the way that they know is right versus acting in the way that feels right?

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Chaz345

chaz345:

formerlyalpha:

That is why if a man fails to understand a woman, he will be on the losing side. But once she is happy that he is treating her right - and she is the sole  judge of what that "right" is - she will show that by being responsive to him. She does not need the same level of understanding of him because he is not now a problem. That said, women say they do understand their husbands, because men are easier to be understood.
Of course, you can't function without her understanding and willingness to give herself to you, but that is predicated upon your understanding of her.

Two things.

One is that no,  woman will not always positively respond when she feels she is being understood.

Secondly, I absolutely agree that it SHOULD start with the man understanding her and then flows back to her responding positively to him, but I absolutely do not believe that that is the only way it can happen.  By saying that that is the only way it can happen we are, in effect, justifying or excusing or allowing the woman's poor(or even sinful) behavior as something that is not really her choice. We are also, and I'm surprised this fact is lost on so many of these supposedly empowered women, being incredibly demeaning to women. It, in effect says that women are incapable of acting in a way counter to their emotions. Are they not just as capable of men as acting in the way that they know is right versus acting in the way that feels right?

Let's look at the real world here. Most if not all of the women here(and on another forum I frequent) who are in this "it has to start with him" mindset are in pretty lousy marriages.  It seems to me that they are faced with a choice of either sitting there longing of how it SHOULD be, or doing what they know is right, being as positive toward him as possible and seeing if maybe that starts him on the path toward doing what HE should.  Which of those two choices fits better with what Christ directed for all people, men and women?

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Chaz345

The most likely reason a wife will not respond when the husband thinks he is understanding her can be due to 2 factors.

One, his presumed understanding of her falls short of being completely adequate.
Secondly, and more likely, the starting point for this exercise is after some years of marriage. If so, a lot has gone on in the marriage that has put husband and wife into conflicting positions.
Usually, the husband wants to tackle whatever is going on in his marriage by making the very recent and present events in the marriage  the starting place for any resolution.
His wife does not recognise that as the starting point. That is why his attempts can fall flat, fall on deaf ears. She is anchored in the past of the marriage, she can't help that; it's how she is wired.
He then concludes that she is stubborn and sinful. That may be the case, but does he know why?

In this thread, I am endeavouring to focus on those innate gender differences which spring from  the different ways the male and female brain's function in a marriage relationship. I include these observations:

** Several years ago, I explored a christian marriage ministry. What struck me was how  wives outnumbered husbands among those enlisting that ministry's help. About 85% were wives, and of those who had seen a successful reconciliation, about 93% were wives. It seems the representation of wives in the figures was in inverse proportion to the reality of the M/D/R landscape.
 Because around 2/3rds of separations are initiated by wives, one would expect that to be reflected in the reconciliation results; i.e. more wives returning to their husbands. In fact,  all things being equal, the figures should have reflected more men seeing their wives return.
My conclusions were not "scientifically verifiable", because there could have been skewing factors, such as more women enlisting in that ministry, due to the ministry being led by a woman. But even so, it was pitched to both women and men, so I can't be sure about just why women were overly represented.

But, in the light of what I have since learned, It can be due to the influence of those brain differences.

** In the christian marriage book "The Walk-out Woman", the authors explore, " how to stop this epidemic of walk-out women".
 "As little hurts and disappointments accumulate and her heart hardens, a woman’s loneliness and vulnerability take over,.....the woman believes it will be less painful to walk away than try to work on it. Many women mistakenly believe it is easier emotionally to leave the marriage than try to restore it."

There is no book about walk-out men. (I know men do leave their marriages, but I'm looking at overwhelming trends, not aberrations.)
And this trend is coming out of those brain differences. That is why it is so hard for a wife to return to work on a marriage once she has left. She is overwhelmed by her emotions that scream at her to get away from her husband, because she sees him as having given her the emotional pain.

** In his article on "Reconciling with a Hardened Wife", Reb Bradley writes,
 "When a woman first seriously considers divorce she usually isn’t thinking about the theological implications of her desires – all she knows is that she feels like she has to get away from her husband. She doesn't arrive at this state of desperation by a process of calm deduction. She is simply reacting to the feeling that she "can't take anymore."  Her departure is typically a sign that she has hardened her heart towards the man to whom she once entrusted it. Likely, she has been hurt over and over, and finally decided she will tolerate no more emotional pain. Her leaving may have been an attempt to coerce her husband to change, but more often it has been a desperate effort to survive. She sincerely believes that she cannot endure anymore heartache, so she has reached out and grabbed onto the separation like a drowning swimmer clings to a life ring."

The woman has an awareness of the accumulated hurts from the entire duration of the marriage. The man does not. So even if his wife has hurt him, he can get over it, he is prepared to start anew, letting the past be put to rest with out raking it over. He wants to shake hands and make a new beginning. She can't. And whatever he attempts, by way of being a better husband, it never is enough for her because she is still living in the past, at an emotional level.
I have seen examples of this all over these forums during the past 4yrs.

formerlyalpha:

The woman has an awareness of the accumulated hurts from the entire duration of the marriage. The man does not. So even if his wife has hurt him, he can get over it, he is prepared to start anew, letting the past be put to rest with out raking it over. He wants to shake hands and make a new beginning. She can't. And whatever he attempts, by way of being a better husband, it never is enough for her because she is still living in the past, at an emotional level.
I have seen examples of this all over these forums during the past 4yrs.

Let's say that everything that you've said here is complete and accurate.  Personally, I see no end but destruction of the marriage of a couple in such a situation.  I see every attempt to do hings espoused by some ministries as attempts to "win the heart of the wife back" as fruitless/hopeless. 

Do you see any other outcome?

Yes, I would have to agree with you. Not because I want to believe such an outcome, but the evidence certainly points in that direction. As I said, I used to wonder why so many wives refused to consider returning to work on their marriage once they had left.
But more recently, by putting 2 and 2 together, that seems to be the only answer that adds up.

Now I know there are marriages where the husband is a cad, yet the wife is desperately working to make her marriage better, in spite of her husbands wayward ways,and the hurt she has suffered. But in those cases the wife seems to display a continued love for her husband. It is that love for the "bad boy" that keeps her focused on getting him back. But note, it is not her that has left the marriage, it is him. That puts those cases in an entirely different category.

In the cases where the wife has left, she invariably has totally lost her love for her husband. Some wives will say they still love him, but can't or don't want to live with him. In some of those cases the love they profess is just friendship love, not wifely love.

So how does a wife with no love for her husband bring herself to want to go back to him? That's the emotional conundrum.

One of the reasons I thought this topic was important is that if ever there was case to be made for the cliche that "prevention is better than cure", this is it. Maybe that is reinforced by the realization that there is no cure. Prevention is not just better, it is the only way.
If so, it's a wake-up call for husbands. Don't assume all is well, take preemptive action to ensure your marriage is not drifting towards oblivion.

If it's love that holds a wife in a marriage, and not contract, covenant, or duty, then once that love goes, she will also be gone. I'm not just thinking of the husband's love for his wife, I'm referring to her love for him. Many a husband loves his wife, yet she still leaves, so it's not his love for her that determines whether she stays, but her love for him.
This is not to make a case for husbands failing to love their wives. Because the more a husband loves his wife, the more she will love him in return.

But, and it's a big but, there may be husbands who believe they are loving their wives, but who are hurting her, maybe without realising it. e.g. he may be ignoring her - except for sex - and think that he is loving her. He may seldom spend time affirming her, and rarely take her out for a romantic evening. He may stifle her opinions, and over-ride her wishes on various matters. Yet in his mind and emotions he loves her. That is why he goes to bed with her.
But in all of that he could be displaying an ignorance of what makes a woman tick in a marriage. It's all those little things that accumulate over time that bring a wife to a state of toxic emotions towards him. He may be completely unaware of all this process in her. It's the different way in which their brains work.

So husbands ought not to assume there should be equality in the way husband and wife see things in marriage. Accept that there isn't. Function on the assumption that she will opt out if you don't continually make sure she is emotionally O K.

I don't want to entirely be a doom merchant. There is always the possibility of a miracle. But it is miracle territory.

As far as fixing the divorce problem, prevention is better than cure, as you stated. Unfortunately, we all live behind the hindsight curve.

Until a man knows there is a problem, he has to run around and cover all of the bases. He's not likely to do this because he has no idea there is a problem and he won't fix what is not broken and in his pride, he already knows what his wife and family need because ...of the way he is wired.

 Then, if he does mess up, he has to cover that too, hoping that somehow his wife will forgive him. But she probably won't because of her pride and because ...of the way she is wired.

Lord, help us.

New International Version:

As far as fixing the divorce problem, prevention is better than cure, as you stated.

The thing is there's tons of prevention available. Look at how many resources there are targeted at people who have good or ok marriages that are designed to make them better. FL own weekend to remember and i still do conferences are great examples.  The problem is too few people  really apply   the  information until they get into needing a cure mode.  There will always be people who don't seek to improve their marriage until it's bad. It is my opinion that that group is where most of the divorces come from already so more or better prevention isn't going to help.

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Chaz345

chaz345:

The thing is there's tons of prevention available. Look at how many resources there are targeted at people who have good or ok marriages that are designed to make them better.

Targeting does not imply an accurate aim.  So many of those prevention efforts miss the mark and usually because they are predicated on both spouses being in a place which allows them to accept the message.  How realistic is it to treat a diseased marriage but expect both spouses to be healthy at least on an individual level?  That measure of health is mandated in order to properly respond to the message.  The truth is the marriage is critically ill because at least one spouse is wayward and not apt to accept the message of these preventative efforts. 

 

 

FL own weekend to remember and i still do conferences are great examples.  The problem is too few people  really apply   the  information until they get into needing a cure mode.  There will always be people who don't seek to improve their marriage until it's bad. It is my opinion that that group is where most of the divorces come from already so more or better prevention isn't going to help.

I'm uncertain what you are saying here.  It seems you are applying a general description (example is sentences in italics) to specific cases.  This is dangerous for it conveys and encourages only a vague understanding of the dynamics in a failing marriage.  Frankly, I've had it up to here with people who offer only marginalized help.  (This includes professional counselors, Pastors, etc)  The more I heard such ill advice the more I wondered what was the source; after all, why would even these trained professionals offer only minimum help?  My opinion is an improper understanding is the root cause.  So, I thank you for all the failing marraiges and distraught spouses to be careful in the words you use and the understanding you apply when the subject is the sick marriage.

(Snce you mention WTR, I'll share my experience since it is germaine to this discussion, and more imporantly, illustrates the unintended negative results of ill-contrived understanding of a sick marriage already on the precipice which is so precarious that the marriage likely cannot stand one more piece of bad advice.  It really is that critical.

The first time I had ever heard of WTR was on these forums.  Soon after, I had scheduled our attendance.  I was very deliberate in involving my wife in the process of scheduling, selecting dates and the city, our hotel room, etc.  It was encouraging to me to her the excitement in her voice.  A bit more than 7 months later and just a couple of weeks before the upcoming seminar, my wife informed me she would not be attending.  She gave no reason.  I attended the seminar alone.

A week after the seminar I was talking on the phone with my wife and she interrupted to ask about the seminar.  It warmed me that she had this interest.  I had already prayed about how I should present this to her and knew the answer was to simply start with a chronological format and then segue into the study materials.  I decided not to mention my notes in order to appear most impartial and objective.  I let her guide the conversation (how much she wanted to hear, interrupt when she wanted me to move onto the next subject, etc).

20 minutes into our conversation she expressed hostility to say she was "glad I didn't go!".  I was puzzled and dismayed.  I asked why she felt that way.  She answered, "Oh!, so it's all the woman's fault!".  I was mystified and tried to explain b-b-but the is FL, and the speakers are....  It was too late, she hung up.

I had discussed this with several brothers who I knew had attended a WTR seminar and who knew me and my wife.  I asked for clarity and understanding.  They said she was hurt and nothing, not a book, not a seminar, a CD, nothing would surmount the anger and bitterness of the hurt she carries.  And they were quick to add that she won't hear because she is afraid of hearing that there are two sides at fault, if fault must be found.

I found great value in the WTR seminar as opposed to many of the books I've read.  This plethora of preventative efforts is not the problem.  The problem isn't even that they may come too late (there is no such thing as "too late"--as long as one lives and breathes, it is never too late.) Nor is the problem of one hearing but not following through. 

The problem is any help from these preventions is predicated on both spouses ready and eager to hear.

The solution is not more prevention.  In this I agree with you but not for your reason.  Where you say a lack of follow through is the problem, I say a lack of being willing to hear is the problem.  No message can be said often enough or loud enough if a spouse is unwilling to hear. 

The real solution is how to bring the wayward, unhearing spouse to a readiness.  That the other spouse is suspect, I doubt the process will begin there.  My only other thought is it begins with the church.  To this I say "fat chance" for the church is in darkness.

Another name, you make a lot of interesting observations.

Chaz is pretty much on target when he says most divorces occur within a certain category of married individuals. The ones who lack self-knowledge.That knowledge is really another topic!
But it's a well known trait of wives that they are usually the first to be aware of some lack in the marriage. That is why the wife's side of the bed will sport a range of relationship books, while the husband's  side has none, unless she has given it to him, and then he's not likely to read it. Not unless she hammers away at him.

I agree that most marriage ministry in the church is below the radar for most couples. Even if the resources are there, it is done out of sight of the public. It is only in the past 5yrs that a lot of churches have woken up to the need to even run regular a marriage course. Ten yrs ago it was rare, except in a few often larger churches.
For the average Sunday morning attendee, there is very little said to alert him/her to the existence of marriage help. Most sermons are on the supposedly important issues that have nothing to do with the most pressing needs in the congregation - how to live and love in your human relationships. It could be due to having pastors who are fairly ignorant of what makes people tick, or at least what makes them itch!

Then there is the notion that "there must be something wrong with me" if I need marriage assistance. As one forum member wrote yesterday, his wife "did not want anyone else in the church to know" they needed marriage counseling from the pastor. It's like there is a stigma attached, that has to be avoided at all costs.

But few marrieds expect to get divorced. Like cancer, or a car accident, it always happens to other people. So no one prepares for divorce because of that mentality. Ideally, every church should have compulsory marriage tune-up classes for all marrieds in the congregation.

The prevention options may be there - somewhere, but it's always seen as for "others".

When your wife failed to go to that FL marriage seminar, and you later came to understand that she had this vast reservoir of hurt, you hit the jackpot. That is basically what is sinking many marriages. The husband is, until then, largely unaware of this that has been building in her for years. But maybe as Chaz said, it's not until things fall apart that he is able to see it, and then it could be too late.

Your friends describe a kind of catch22 type of mindset in your wife. She is in pain, you caused the pain, (that is her take) she wants to avoid more pain, so she has to avoid you. So how can you repair your relationship with her, when every time you approach her she backs away from you. It's like trying to grab a moving object. Could that explain why she opted out of that seminar?

That catch22 mentality comes into play again when she doesn't want to hear balanced marriage teaching because she may hear something she does not want to hear. In  such a mood she identifies you as the culprit, the villain, the ogre who has hurt her. That justifies her quitting. She can't afford to listen to any objective discourse on marriage for fear she may just have to admit that she was a contributor to the way the marriage is. If it was partly her fault, that could weaken her case for leaving and undermine her resolve. Wives who leave have to be single minded in their focus, and have to shut out anything that might mitigate against their carefully laid exit plans.
Is that why a husband  gets so perplexed when every attempt at restoration gets rebuffed without logical explanation?

P S. Here is what a catch22 is.
      "A situation in which a desired outcome or solution is impossible to attain because of a set of inherently illogical rules or conditions."
      "A situation or predicament characterized by absurdity or senselessness."
      "A tricky or disadvantageous condition."
Now, does that describe some marriage reconciliation scenarios?

another name:

Targeting does not imply an accurate aim.  So many of those prevention efforts miss the mark and usually because they are predicated on both spouses being in a place which allows them to accept the message.  How realistic is it to treat a diseased marriage but expect both spouses to be healthy at least on an individual level?  That measure of health is mandated in order to properly respond to the message.  The truth is the marriage is critically ill because at least one spouse is wayward and not apt to accept the message of these preventative efforts.

When I heard prevention rather than cure, I assumed that we were talking about marriages that were already or still basically healthy. Cure would apply to diseased marriages. Most of the programs of the type I mention focus mainly on the situation of looking at a good marriage and making it better. Sure they often have some portions on what to do if you are already in trouble but the focus is makng healthy marriages better or helping to make sure a healthy marriage stays that way.

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Chaz345

formerlyalpha:

But it's a well known trait of wives that they are usually the first to be aware of some lack in the marriage. That is why the wife's side of the bed will sport a range of relationship books, while the husband's  side has none, unless she has given it to him, and then he's not likely to read it. Not unless she hammers away at him.

A clear illustration of having bought into the "women are somehow inherently superior lie".

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Chaz345