How can I become a better husband and father? My name is Paul Friedman, I
founded The Marriage Foundation and I'd like to help you get started moving in
the right direction on this one. I don't know whether this is something
that you became aware of on your own or whether your wife said to you that
you're not living up to her expectations but there's a lot that you can do so we
need to talk about let's first begin with husband and then we'll move into
father. When you got married, you got married with a promise to your wife that
you would love her, that you would be there for her, that you would care for
her, protect her for the rest of your lives.
Biologically speaking, man's role is as a protector and so you're not making it in
that arena even though you may think you are because you've probably crossed the
most typical usual line that men cross and that is the line of going from a
protector to a threat so I'm going to use this to illustrate what I'm talking
about.
Actually, a friend of mine back when I was doing divorce mediation it was
another divorce mediator and he heard it from another divorce mediator and
it's great. He said imagine going to a planet where you don't know what to
expect and you bring two bodyguards and the bodyguards
are fighting with each other. Woah, you're in trouble, right so that's what happens
to your children when you're not getting along with your wife so I took this a
little further. Imagine you hire a bodyguard and you're
walking down the street, a very loyal good bodyguard and then he says pulls
out his gun, he says, " I could shoot you in your head right now and I
would totally get away with it." Man, that guy is gone right then and there or
the next day by memo because you don't really want to get near him because he's
threatening. Well, with our wives what we tend to do if we're not educated about
this is we forget that our power is in all the areas. Our power to protect is in
all these areas that effectively protect like if someone's coming at you, you may
act sternly. You're not going to pull out a gun necessarily but you can act
sternly and says, "You better back off." So you use that tone of voice and the person
goes, "Okay." Now your wife who is the protectee when you use that tone of
voice on her, it has the same effect as if she were an enemy but worse it's a
betrayal. This is the number one mistake that men make. They raise their voice and
you could say, "Well, she screams at me," but it's not the same. Men raise their voice
they speak sternly, they take charge. They put themselves in a
position of commanding officer. All those things betray your marriage vows. You're
supposed to use your powers only for protection. Now, it's the same thing with
children especially girl children. If you behave in that manner, they will fear you
rather than feel loved and protected by you. This is subtle stuff but it really
is profound because it really does have the fit. Now, I'm not saying you don't
discipline your children. You could spank your children. Well, I shouldn't say that
because these days you can't spank your children. Even when I raise my children
two of my kids begged me to spank them so they would have that experience but
you can be diplomatically utilizing your strength with your children. They need to
understand and your wife needs to understand that your power is their
resource and not a threat so that's number one.
That's number one, you have to end any kind of behaviors that imply that you
may use your weapons of power on them. They just have to be gone. It doesn't do
any good to apologize for any past mistakes but you can say, "Wow, I didn't
know about this. I've learned this to your wife not to your kids." And now I'm going to
be aware of it so the second step -- so that's proactively reducing the negative
part. It's huge, it's probably 80% of it or more for most men. The other
thing is proactively expressing love, not in the form of but expressing love. How
do you express love? You express love with actions of appreciation that are
sincere acknowledgments, support, recognition for women especially.
Listening is a big way to express your love, to proactively listen, "How was your
day? What happened?" Wow, really get into it. Understand it and
really try to understand it from her point of view as a woman, a mother, a soul.
Women are much more connected to themselves as souls than men are so
that's really it. If you just do the first part big big changes. The second
part is icing on the cake. Now, I hope this was helpful and useful and I hope
your marriage is not sliding towards divorce. I hope that's not why you chose
to search for this video. If it is, please write into one of our counselors -- it's
a free service. They may direct you to take the course for men. It would be a
very useful thing for you to do other than that you can subscribe, you can like
this. You can leave a comment. You could share it with your wife so she knows
you're trying and blessings to you, blessings your wife
and blessings to your family. God bless!