The Proper Care and Feeding of Marriage Written by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, is one that touches on a rarely explored avenue of why many marriages or relationships fail. She has been on television many times, you may recall her as the one who says that many women are simply bad wives or girlfriends.She has previously said that women should stay home, take care of things, and love their husbands, and that men should appreciate their wives.
She writes that women do way too much nagging at their men. And that men don't spend enough time making women feel like a lady and women don't try and make their men feel like a man.
Here is an excerpt from her book:
"I believe that men yearn for their spiritual and psychological counterbalance to humanize and beautify life. I don't think it matters much to a man if his woman chooses to be an accountant or physician—as long as she is "his woman" and "a woman" to him. That understanding is lost to too many women today. Sadly it is all too typical for women to want to be seen by their men as the high-powered position they have at work, instead of as a woman, with those special attributes that are natural to her and yearned for by her man.
But the reality is that women today do not think of themselves in the context of helping "their man." Women today have been brainwashed into thinking that efforts in that direction are in the category of oppression, subservience, and catering to frail male egos. It is sad that this is the prevalent point of view, because interdependence is what ultimately feeds both the man and the woman what they truly need to be happy."
What do you think about her opinions? Do YOU think that women are on a power trip with their careers as she seems to frequently suggest? And that they are too preoccupied with this to "properly care for their husbands and relationships with them"? Do you think this 'powerful woman era' is responsible for the mean age of a mother in Canada being in the 30s?
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53 comments:
I think that ever since women's rights came a long women have been getting meaner and meaner to their husbands. Not to mention thats when divorce rates started spiking.
Whoa! That has got to be the most ignorant statement I've ever heard! Way to get things off to a positive start!
So you're saying that because women now have rights, the sanctity of marriage has gone down the crapper?
Well, I agree with this woman, I think woman today treat their men like crap.
That's fine...but do you think that they do so simply because they've been empowered with being recognized as people and given rights? Do we still live in the caveman era?
I mean, I'm not saying that women should not be allowed to vote, I think everyone should be equal, don't get me wrong, but I think that women are bitchy to their men, and I think today's attitude has a lot to do with that.
Marriage is a 2-way street of give and take and it's easy to get tangled up in going from "You & Me" to "Us" and a lot of the time I think one or the other spouse tends to lose a little bit of themselves in a marriage. I think that the key to a happy marriage is to be an "Us" but still keep the "You & Me" aspects in healthy balance too. Just because you are married doesn't mean that you should be automatically 100% involved in every aspect of your spouse's life. Having seperate careers and goals and friends and hobbies is healthy. When you spend TOO much time together, you lose that sense of yourself and can start to resent your partner and I think that is where the nagging and such can come from.
I also have a beef with how marriage is portrayed these days. What was once viewed as a union of two people deeply in love "for better or for worse" has now become a glorified dating scene. People are getting married for convenience and for the "fad" of it all more and more and not really nurturing their relationship and evaluating WHY they want to be married in the first place. It is so common to see people (celebrities especially) get married and divorced within months and to do so within the first few weeks of a relationship. Were they married for the right reasons? No, probably not. It looks good and it's "the new thing to do" and I think that is a lot of why marriages fall apart. People don't marry for the right reason anymore and when push comes to shove, they realize it and end it.
I agree that having separate lives is healthy.
When you met, you likely had some of your own friends that weren't shared right? So why not continue this? I don't understand why some women don't 'allow' their man to go out.
We have separate social lives, yet we also have mutual friends that we spend time together with. When Dan goes out, he comes home with some funny story to tell me.
He goes out once or twice a week, and some people find this unacceptable. I find that strange, he's not my prisoner. LOL.
Also if he goes out I will either invite a friend over for a few drinks, or get a babysitter after the kids go to bed, and go out with my friends. Or I will enjoy a quite night solo, and stay up late till he gets home. :)
That's what makes a marriage work. You need to give your spouse some space and have some space of your own...even if it's still in the same house! We don't usually go out without one another but we will occasionally or we hang out with other couples. It can even be something simple like me soaking in the tub or reading or doing something while he's outside fiddling in the yard.
I agree
I think some people get mad at husbands when they go out, because they clearly don't trust them, so if that is the case. they should't get married at all. it takes more than a year with someone to decide you know them enough to get married, you don't even have a chance to enjoy being just a couple!!!
I also think that women today have too much expected of them and that this in itself can be really overwhelming...and we all know that we take our bad moods out on the ones closest to us! It's hard to juggle a career, a marriage, motherhood, family, friends, and keep up with the housework and still (somehow) find times for ourselves. From talking to other married women I know, I know I'm not alone in feeling like my husband has given up some of his domestic duties since we were married and has given up a little bit more since becomming a parent and who has picked up the slack? The wives! Husbands need to remember that even though we are fantastic wives and mothers, we are not superwomen and need a little help around the house and with the kids and if they just did that on their own accord, I'm sure there would be less nagging!
Yeah but that goes back it going both ways. is there nothing that you slack on??? Since getting married?
Exactly, I know that when I am home during the day, I don't work all out the exact same hours my man does, i take breaks when I want..
Maybe having the same sex life we had before we got married...but honestly, with all that I do in the run of a day sleep comes before sex on the priority list! And if I am slacking, it's certainly not him picking up that slack.
well why should he have to pick up your slack? do you go to his work and pick up his slack?
We both work full time so we should share in the household responsibilities...but it doesn't work that way and hasn't since we got married. I pick up the slack at home while he vegs on the couch.
Have you ever tried to talk to him about it? Without bitching? (in all honesty)
Oh yeah...on many occassions. He tries but just doesn't view a clean house as the same priority as I do and his mantra has been "I'll do it later". That's just the way he is and there isn't any changing him. I just find it funny that before we got married (we lived together for several years) he was totally opposite and would do a lot around the house. I guess once he "got me" (LOL) he figured he didn't need to put the extra effort in anymore. There are things that he routinely does though...like he takes out the garbage and takes care of the cat litter and he's usually the one to mop the floors because I hate it but the nitty gritty and the tidying and the vaccuming and laundry are all mine because he could care less.
well i for one don't think all women are mean to men..that is such a broad statement lol. there are many men w ho are 'mean' to women..and goes the same for women i guess. i dont think this statement that women have careers so they are mean is anywheres near the truth. the fact is that women are more assertive and independant then they used to be it has nothing to do with anything. and i do not think that assertiveness and independence is only for women who have careers.
as for a happy marriage i agree with one of the posters you have to maintain yourself it is when people lose themselves in a marriage or relationship that they become unhappy as they do not relaly know themselves anymore. my parents did their own activities, crafts, fishing etc and were happily married for 20 years. i believe it is important. as for people not treating marriage as something serious well perhaps some people don't but i don't think that you can stereotype that if someone got divorced they didn't value the idea of marriage... again...you have to know the whole story in peoples lives..
and..thats my two cents today :P
Oh I definitely agree, Heather. My point was that people jump tend to jump straight into marriage without really knowing why they are getting married that person in the first place...celebrities being a prime example. I know that not all divorces are because of those reasons, but I believe that a lot of them are.
mostly its those men who are just messed in the head and divorce as much as they change their underwear lol
Some of the stuff that woman says drives me insane! She is basically sayng what men want is a housewife, who is only soft and sweet.
“They enjoy our softness and our sweetness. And how we take the rough edges off things. They look forward to us taking a house and making it a home, all the soft gentle things.”
If your husband really loves you then he will love you for who you are. But constantly being soft and sweet when you are infact mad with your husband is not good. You are being fake. I would rather express how and feel and have him do the same then live with built up frustrations. No matter how much this women talks about how men should treat their woman like a lady, she always puts more blame on the wife. Where is the accountablity of the husband? Most wives are not going around looking for trouble or stuff to nag about. Men need to be accountable for their actions just as much as women are.
Furthmore, I should state I am a stay-at-home mother and a student. Right now I am off for the summer again. However, running a home and childcare is a 24/7 job. Many days I do not have time to stop for lunch or anything else. My husband has breaks at his work, and he has time to relax when he comes home from work. My relaxing is when I sleep and even then I am on call as my son wakes up a lot in the night still. My job is just as important as my husbands if not more so because I am raising OUR children. My work as a housewife and stay at home mom is physically and mentally demanding. I love it thats why I choose to stay home BUT that does not mean my husband should not carry his load. He does dishes, vacums, cleans the bathroom and other chores. It is also not my responsiblity to make sure he does it because he is a grown man who also lives in the home and dirties it therefore he should clean it.
My father has a great job and works a lot of hours. Yet he cooks supper, cleans the house, does laundry, and anything else my mom does. A woman should not be the one to do most of the household work just because she is a woman. It has been shown that even as women's involvement in the workforce increased the role of the male in the home did not increase significantly in the area of domestic chores. Women are expected to do these things because they are WOMEN. Men are not expected to do them because they are MEN.
If you (not specificallt speaking to anyone is general) doing all the household work is good for you then that is fine. But it does not mean you are any nicer to your husband then a women whose husband does his share and does not mean that your marriage will be better. If it is important for you to have your husband do more work in the home they you should make that known. When we got married my husband knew how to do NOTHING around the house because his mother babied him. But I told him way before we got married my expectations from a husband. I taught him how to do housework (no it was not easy), and it is constantly a learning process, but if it is what we want it is worth it.
Heather, you are contradicting yourself hun, you just stereotyped men.
Robyn, I don't think she said to hold things in at all, she just said look at how you approach things, and not be bitchy..
So can you honestly say that you work just as hard for an equal ammount of minutes in the home, as your husband does out? Not attacking you just a question.
She probably works harder, Jill. Like she said...her husband gets breaks but she doesn't really. And on top of all the household stuff she's a student too.
i think stay at home moms work just as hard if not more. it is a 24/7 job you go from morning till the kids go to bed with housework added in. not to say people with careers don't work just as hard but keeping up a house on your own with a child is a hard job and deserves just as much credit as antything else. in my opinion.
Not only is the physical work involved in maintaining a home and children a lot, but I find it also takes a toll on your head..
by physical i mean housework, diapers, cooking, etc.
I think the mental aspect of it all is much harder than the physical!!!
I find staying at home pretty boring, after I clean up in the morning. My husband works all day, and I know for a fact he doesn't get to relax all afternoon. I think he works way harder than me. I don't know how SAHM can say otherwise really. Don't get me wring my house is clean and my kids are fed, but I feel guilty sometimes that I am feeling bored while making no money at home, and he is out working hard for our family. Don't get me wrong I love staying home with the kids, and I wouldnt have it any other way, but that's just how I feel
I must agree that I think my boyfrind works more than me....
I am not saying I work as many hours as him I am saying I work MORE! Nor do I get weekends off. People do not value the work women do in the home because nothing in society is valued unless it has a price or earns some sort of income. I know the value of my work and take pride in it.
One should not feel bad because they stay at home and don't make money. Society is based upon the upaid work of wives and mothers. People are payed everyday to do the things women do in the home. I am a teacher to my child, provide childcare, do maid work, handle our finances, I stay up to date on accurate infomation by going to programs and reading books, and etc. If I was not home to do those things we would be paying someone else to do the work. Therefore, the money my husband makes is just as much mine as it is his because I work as well for our family.
I don't get "Mad" if my husband goes out, it's whether or not we can afford it. should all of our extra money go to alcohol. It would be great if he had the time to join a sport or hobby, but to go out a few times a week to have beer , well we wouldn't be able to save for our house. I've gone out once since we moved to Calgary, which is almost two years. It's not enough no, but I would feel so restenful towards him if he spent the extra cash on beer to go out instead of getting beer to come home. I married him because he's my best friend. I want to spend relaxing times with him, and maybe we'll have a funny story to talk about. Again i'm not saying he can't have friends, In fact I cannot wait until we move back home where he will be able to go golfing for the day, and I too shopping with the girls, but at the end of the day we are still raising a family together and sometimes the sacrifice to starting a family is to spend lots of time home cuddling on the couch.
I am a stay at home mom, and I too believe it's a postive choice, because women are so over worked, and if we are working out of the house to only come home a work some more I can see where the tension would come from.
amanda, i dont think anyone said that you should not spend time together, i think the point was, its healthy to have seperate lives. and going out solo is as good for a couple as staying in is.
amanda b
I have this woman's book, about husbands, and I thikn she is great! I bought it after i saw her on tv about a year ago. Everything she says in it makes perfect sence, and I hate to say it but i used to nag at my husband as soon as he walked in the door, becuase i was definately tired and resentful, and now, i just greet him with a smile and a hug instead, and we have hour conversations and discuss issues over supper. our relationship is much healthier and i attribute it to her advice. if anyone is having rough times i recomend this book.
as far as people saying that women are worse off since they all go careers, id say it depends on the woman. and if your child is being watched out of the home, no one is there to make a mess, until everyone comes home for the day.
I agree with you Trisha.. I like this Dr. Laura, I went to YouTube and watched some more vids of hers..a lot of what she says makes sense. I think I may go look for this book!
I don't know...I think she talks out of her ass a bit but there are some things she says that do make sense. I don't like how she puts forth that a woman's place is in the home because for a lot of women, that's just not true nor is it financially possible. In today's world, a 2 income family is almost a necessity so for her to suggest that the man comes home and finds the woman has added all these "soft touches" to his life is crazy. But, I do like that she suggests that the man has to start making his appreciation to what his wife does around the house known. A little appreciation goes a long way! I know I feel a lot better about things when my husband says "dinner was really good" or "thank you for washing my socks" and I make sure that when he does something around the house without me asking (and even if I do have to ask) that I thank him too.
i agree, a lot of men don't know how much more women appreciate him doing the dishes and saying thanks for supper, rather than bringing home chocolates, etc.
I dont think she rules out that some women work out of the home, she even mentions that..
Robyn, unless you are scrubbing your house from top to bottom every single day, which is unnecessary, i don't possibly see how you could be exhausted at the end of everyday, just from looking after your kids.
I am a huge fan of this lady so maybe i am biased, but i don't think she means women should be always sweet, i thikn she is refering to the fact that most men instinctively look for a motherly type of women. and her statement is just refering to that fact.
i am in agreeance with whoever said people rush in to marriage now a days. my husband and i were together for 5 years before we got married, whats the rush people? 1 year.. even two seems to fast if you ask me.
Dr. Laura Schlesinger is seen as a cultural and political talk host because she — sin of sins — judgmentally asserts that some politically correct behaviors are wrong. Schlesinger is an anchor of firm values in a society morally adrift, and millions tune to her for personal moral rearmament. NewsMax Top 25 Radio Hosts rates Dr. Laura Schlesinger as America’s eighth most influential in America.
whats your point...... i missed it
I, myself, think that abuse goes both ways...men just don't talk about it as much if they are being abused.
What are you saying then? ... that women abuse men? ... I jsut dont get what you are trying to say thats all
Jamie,
I don't recall ever saying that I am exhasted by the end of everday, but then again neither is my husband. I didn't know it was only considered work if it was exhusting at the end of everyday. That would mean a lot of occupations would not be considered jobs. There are days I am exhausted yes, many days tired. however not from "just" taking care of my son. But from that and house work combined, expecially when I am in school, but not just them. I do clean my house everyday and put a lot of effort in to raising my son ... teaching him things, learning things myself so that I can teach him, and the actual physical and mental job it takes in raising a child. I know I would just as hard as my husband and a lot of other people who work outside the home.
Actutally, Mothering for Schooling is a really good book pertaining to this topic. It's by Dorothy Smith and Alison Griffith if anyone it interested. It really puts in perspective how much mothering makes a difference and it actual WORK and activities.
I love being a mother and wife; however, I know that the things I do with my son and in the home is actual work, expecially when there are people being paid to do it all the time (maids, caregivers, daycares, teachers, preschools, etc.) I guess it all depends on what you view as work. The tasks that mothers do in the home whether working outside the home or staying home, from MY view, are actual activies and jobs, much of which take time and effort to coordinate (such as preparing a child for school).
I didn't mean to insult you and I take it that I have. All I mean is that I agree with whoever said that they do thier housework in the morning (thats what i do) and then in the afternoon, its a free for all, i get to play, or watch tv, and what ever with the kids. All i was saying is that i think "most men" work harder/more than women...
I don't agree, I think aSAHM works much more than a man!!! and youre right robyn no weekends!!!!! lol
That's one thing that really gets to me too. If we both work full time jobs, me at home, he at work, then who gets to take the weekend off?? I find that Dan does help me sometimes on the weekends, and he does a great job entertaining the kids, and does get up with them early too, so I guess maybe that's his way of helping out... But I'm still usually the one who does the dishes lol. (not always)
Jamie,
I am nowheres near insulted. That is your opinion and thats fine. If you don't work as hard as your partner then thats fine I am not saying that you do. I am not insulted by your experience in the least bit. All I am saying is that I do and many other moms do as much work if not more. My husband is a plumber and was once a construction worker. He has been layed off from work about a month through my busiest time of the school year so he has been a stay-at-home dad while I have been going to school (only till noon and he does his next block on the 30th, so he will not be home much longer) and writing papers and studying for exams. He is not home alone with our child as much I am when he is working, yet when I asked him which is harder staying at home or working, he said it was about even. Taking into consideration he does not do the amount of housework I do when I am home. My father said the same thing, that many stay at home mothers work is just as hard as many who work.
If yours isn't more power to you, but I know the standards I have in my home and the stuff I do with my son. I do my main cleaning in the morning but I like the house to be tidy by the time we eat supper too, and with a son who is into everything it makes it difficult so I pick up all day and right before my husband gets home. We all have different standards and activities we do with our children, so our experiences will be different; however, I prefer to acknowledge that house work and child care IS work and should be valued.
Do YOU think that women are on a power trip with their careers as she seems to frequently suggest? And that they are too preoccupied with this to "properly care for their husbands and relationships with them"? Do you think this 'powerful woman era' is responsible for the mean age of a mother in Canada being in the 30s?
I copied and pasted the closing statement cus i think a lot of you are getting way off track..
Anywho, here is what i think :
I think that women who have careers look down on SAH moms.
I think that this COULD have some reason as to why some marriages fail.
And I DO think that the reason moms are getting older is because they chose to put jobs before family a lot in todays society.
Yes, I am saying that some woman abuse men like some men abuse women. Therefore, it goes both ways...
I think that if a husband has a full time job outside of the home, and the wife doesn't, then the childraising and house keeping becomes the wife's job. I'm a SAHM to 2 children under 5. And After cleaning the house, cooking the meals and raising the children, I AM exhausted at the end of the day; wether or not I scrubbed the whole house, or just did the dishes. It's not necessarily about physical work, but much more psycological. Raising children consists of much more than just watching them all day. I play with, teach and nurture my children, and unlike my husband, I don't get a quitting time at the end of the day. My job will never end, and that's fine. I chose to be a mother, and I love my decision, but I still get tired and need some me time, away from the kids, and on occasion, away from my hubbie.
I beleive that keeping my husband happy is my job as a wife, and vice virsa. I chose to be his wife, and with that comes responsability. But his decision came with the same responsability. Oh, and as for wives being meaner to their hubbies, I think that women today are so caught up in not being that steriotypical 'housewife' that they try too hard not to be. Men and women both need to stop worrying about what their 'image' is, and start worrying about their relationships, and do what works for them. Maybe then there would be less meaningless marriages and painful divorces. But that's just my opinion. ;)
I agree Ashley, when people ask me if I work (I have 2 babies under 2) I just say, "from home" because I strongly agree with what you're saying, in that, I also feel that this (being a SAHM) is my job, my career, and I too love it.
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