My wife is constantly frustrated with me, what should I do?
My name is Paul Friedman, I founded The Marriage Foundation and I think I can
help you with this quite a bit. Now, you may need to do more than just listen to
this video. You may need to get one of my books however, I'm going to open a door
for you. Everyone knows not everyone admits but
everyone knows that men and women are different. When I used to meet with
people, husbands would come to me and they would say, "Paul, you don't understand.
My wife is... I hate to say it but my wife is crazy," and I would say to them,
"Oh, wives are 'crazy' because men don't understand women." We know
they're different and we could point out some of their differences, how they're
more emotional, how they get together more with each other and are almost
never confrontational with each other yet when they're home they're
confrontational with us. What's going on here? The key is in understanding your
wife first as a woman, secondly as your intimate companion but the first step is
to understand your wife as a woman. They don't use reason the way men do, of
course they have reason just like of course we have emotions, but we express
ourselves when we're men very differently. So women don't understand us
either so they're very frustrated with us and it would be easy to
say to your wife, "You need to learn about men so you're not frustrated with me." You
could do that, try it. It's not going to have a great effect however, if you
strive to understand your wife you will start to understand that what she is
hearing from you, how she views your behavior is easily modified by you to
where that frustration with you can turn back into the love and appreciation for
you. When you know it's almost like flipping a switch. Does that mean it's
always easy and it comes natural? I don't know many men for whom that switch is
"natural." We have to think, they have to stop. We have to understand
where they're coming from and then even though it's not natural, it's still
sincere when we modify our speech, our receptivity to them, our understanding.
There are certain things we can do right off the bat. One thing I can tell you for
sure because it's a problem that almost all men have. We don't realize as
men that our power for them why they wanted us in the first place is because
we have this protective nature. It's built-in just as certain things are
built-in for a woman based on the gender. We have this natural tendency to protect.
Now, how can we protect if we are not armed to do so. That being armed comes
out in the form of anger, steadfastness, intensity. These
things are weapons. What men do for the most part is they use those same weapons
on their wife which totally undermines the connection that we want to have with
our wife. You cannot get away with being tough with your wife. You cannot get away
with giving her a look like that almost even in jest unless you are very
connected. You cannot get away with yelling at your wife -- that's for sure or
showing her in any way that you're willing to use your powers on her
instead of for her so that needs to be dealt with right off the bat. So here's
the thing, I'm just being honest with you. I'm not trying to sell you a book. The
Marriage Foundation, I created as a nonprofit because I feel that the
teachings that I've discovered for marriage are really needed. Read Breaking
the Cycle, get a hold of it and read it. If you don't like to read, get Lessons
for Happy Marriage -- it's easier to read. Get yourself educated about marriage.
Understand your wife, understand her from the plane of her gender and then you'll
be able to cut through and start understanding her as your soul mate. It's
not hard. There's a lot of complexity but you'll get it when you start reading.
Frankly, these are things we should have learned growing up but we don't. It's
just not taught to us so don't feel bad, guilt and shame
or not where it's at, and I'm sure that her frustration with you has turned into
you being frustrated so this is how you overcome this obstacle. You can also
review some of my other videos. You could subscribe, you could leave a comment -- I'll get
back with you and our only wish is to help you gain from your marriage. Why you
got married in the first place? To be happy and to feel unconditional love, so
that's what we're coming from. Blessings to you! Blessings to your wife!
Blessings to your family! I truly hope that this has been helpful for you. Okay.
God bless!