Tuesday, March 03, 2015

My Thoughts On Recent Marriage Articles

There is no shortage of marriage and relationship articles online. I've only read a handful of them, but for the most part they have pretty good advice. The articles themselves speak to both husbands and wives, but I've noticed something that makes me wonder a bit....
Last week I saw an article titled "5 Ways You are Unknowingly Destroying Your Husband and Killing Your Marriage"
I really enjoyed the article and agreed with all of the points, which included things like "Constant Negativity", "Putting Everything Else First" and "With holding Physical Affection". It's not always easy to admit that we as wives do these things. We want to believe that we have a good balance going on, and we also want to believe that our husband is a "big boy" and should be able to take care of himself, while treating us well, despite what we do or say to him. That was no clearer than it was when I read the comments on that article.
"clearly this was written by a man" and many, many other similar disgusted comments filled the comment section.
The article was quickly counteracted with a similar one for husbands, and the comments for that one showed that it was much more happily accepted by the women of the internet.

Then today on my newsfeed, "Why Women Leave the Men They Love" popped up. Many people have shared it, and with good reason. It's a very well written article that touches on a woman's greatest need. It had women everywhere saying, "yes! That's all I want him to see...just a little bit of tenderness and love is what I'm looking for." The article encourages husbands to "touch her with your full attention" and " notice how she reacts when you make contact". It says to take just 5 minutes a day to really notice her, to give her your full attention. The article goes even deeper, saying that many women admit that when they don't feel that emotional connection with their husband, when they feel like he doesn't care, or doesn't see her, it would be easier than she would like to admit for another man to sweep her off her feet.

At last glance, the article had been shared 16020 times, many of which had women tagging their husbands in it.

It made me wonder. What if the opposite version of the article was out? "Why men leave their wives-what every woman needs to know." Women would immediately bristle. Then imagine if your husband shared the article and tagged you in it. If you started reading the article and it said something like this:
"While many situations are complex, there's one profoundly simple truth that women need to know- men leave the women they love. They feel terrible about it, but they do it. They rally their courage and they leave. Men leave women with whom they have children, homes and lives. Men leave for many reasons, but there's one reason in particular that haunts me, one I want women to understand:
Men leave because their woman is not present. She's taking care of the house, the kids, she's volunteering for PTA meetings and events, she's at coffee with other moms, and out for "mom's night out". These aren't bad women. They are good women and mothers. They take care of their family well. They are nice, likeable, and they take their husband for granted."

I won't write out the entire article from the opposite point of view, but you get the picture. If we as women saw that our husband's tagged us in the above article, how would we feel? What would our fellow girl friends comment on such a post?

This article has taken me a couple of weeks to write, just because I keep setting it aside to come back to. I'm still not 100% sure I'm confident enough to publish it! But in that two weeks I have seen more on Facebook.
I saw an article talking about "making the first move" when it comes to reconciling a marriage. It spoke to both parties and applied to the person reading it, not wives in particular, yet the comment section was still full of comments such as "here we go again. The WIFE is always expected to fix everything."
As people, both husband's and wives, we can really let our pride get in the way of seeing the underlying issues.
I know that so far in this article, I'm really risking sounding like I'm on my pedestal. That may be true, but it's something I feel like I need to say to my fellow wives and moms. I'm saying it because I have been humbled in the past. I have experienced my marriage going through some really tough spots, and I've experienced my marriage crumbling. It is only by the grace of God that it was rebuilt stronger than it had been before. And by that I don't mean that God came down and magically fixed the problems we were going through.
I mean that when things were at their worst in my marriage, when I thought that maybe Daniel just didn't love me anymore, God showed me some things. It was really hard to see those things, and harder to do them at the time. I've learned that all the bad days and the feelings I have....he probably has them too. We are both human and both broken in our own ways, and depending on the situation, we both need to "go first" when it comes to reconciling.
I'm not going to write out a bunch more...I've said what I came to say, but lots of what I learned can be summed up in this quote: "A person who feels appreciated will always do more than expected."
Whether you are a husband or a wife, making an effort to make your other half feel appreciated goes a loooooong way.
Everybody wants to feel loved, respected, cherished, and appreciated. When those things come from our spouse, it is a powerful medicine!
OK really. I'm done now, lol.



1 comment:

  1. Yes Jade! Well said. I heard about a group of therapists who got together to study successful marriages and they were shocked to find that the common ingredient in each marriage was that the husband and wife each insisted on seeing the good in their spouse. When I think about it in regard to myself...nine times out of ten, praise will push me to be a greater woman than criticism ever does.

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