"My wife can't
take criticism." This is what someone just
wrote in
and you can write into
to one of our counselors at The Marriage
Foundation and I choose our topics from
those.
And someone wrote in and he said, "My wife
can't take criticism."
Well, I'm not one of the counselors. I'm
Paul Friedman, I founded The Marriage
Foundation and I'm going to help you
with this.
It isn't just wives who have difficulty
with criticism and there is a very
deep explanation for this. So
let's first not condemn your wife,
let's shift. Let's look at this
as something we want to resolve.
We don't want to get into a fighting
match over it.
We don't want to point fingers. What do
we want to do with this topic?
What you want to do is you want peace
and harmony in your home,
and I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm
going to be very candid with you.
Sometimes I get into trouble but
everything that I
share with you is based on principles,
rock solid.
So when I tell you that your expectation
is not realistic
we won't leave it there. I'm going to
help you with this
but let's start there. And the way we
understand that it's not realistic
is by taking a look at human beings in
general
and then we're going to take a look at
your wife as a woman
more specifically. So in general,
we are a composite of a trillion
cells and what we know
for sure scientifically
is that every cell, every living cell
is driven by the drive to survive.
Sometimes individually usually, sometimes
as a community
but that innate drive to survive exists.
It is a biological certainty.
It is a reality. So when
all of these cells come together to form
a plant for instance
or an animal or a human being,
you don't just have to deal with a one
cell
layer of the drive to survive. You have
to deal with the whole
organism. So what's going on here
is criticism, if you really want to be
real about it. Criticism
is an attack, flat out.
When you offer criticism, when you offer
a suggestion
if it's not couched properly,
when you offer direction,
when you offer instructions,
if it's not couched properly
a human being who hears it
will take it as an attack. Now
I would wager anything that it's true
for you as well.
But what's happening for you now is
you're on
the reciprocal end of this.
You're giving criticism and you're
getting flack back
usually. In some cases,
a wife will sulk
rarely. Well, I should say
rarely do we get a complaint
about a wife not taking criticism
if that's a wife's response because the
man
becomes a victor and he's okay with his
wife
sulking -- not a big deal.
But when she gives it back, "Oh, my
gosh!" Then what's happening
is your drive to survive
is jumping in. Your drive to survive,
your ego
which we'll talk about later
is reacting to her
not accommodating your suggestion so I'm
going to just hit this ego thing real
quick.
The ego is in this
context. You're a soul so in this context
it's the ego with the personality that
you've
developed. We call it the fake soul, the
pseudo soul.
It's not really you. You're not your mind.
She's not really her mind but we deal
with these egos
back and forth. And the whole idea of
marriage is to
transcend that
so that you can connect lovingly.
You could connect on the plane of the
soul
which is all love which is
by definition totally harmonious.
So here what's happening is
your wife's resentment towards you
is triggering you.
Now she's a woman, you're a man. I'm
assuming that's not always the case but
let's assume so.
We have roles that are defined by our
biology
to a great degree and there is a
subconscious effect
that comes into play along with our
drive to survive.
In a woman's case with a man, her
expectation
of you that is sub-subconscious, I'm
going to call it sub-subconscious.
Her expectation of you is that you're
protecting her.
Protecting her does not mean telling her
what to do or criticizing her, let's be
really clear.
Protecting her means protecting her
as she is. You don't get to change your
wife.
It's way too big of a job. It's
her job anyway. We're individuals.
You didn't marry her to control her. You
married her
to protect her and in return, again this
is very subconscious.
Because of our biologies, men
we men are not as connected to our
hearts
as we would like to be. We
live in a dimension
of constantly being ready for anything.
That's not a heart. Women are constantly
ready to embrace. We're constantly ready
to fend, to fight, to defend
very different. So as soon as you get
into the role
of criticizing her, you're going in the
opposite direction.
You're not paying attention
and I'm not going to go down the road to
her needs. You thought I was going to say
that, I'll
tell the truth. I'm not going to say you're
not paying attention to her needs.
You're not paying attention to her
treasure.
Her treasure is her heart.
When you put aside all the ego stuff
behind that
why you married her is this heart
and you're not paying attention to it. If
you are criticizing her
I never criticize my wife. Sometimes I do
accidentally
and I pay for it
just like you're paying for it because
we're not supposed to.
It's not how it works.
You didn't get married so that
you could be your wife's teacher
and I know in some particular churches
they preach
that but it isn't true.
Even in those churches, her teacher is
whoever the head of not the church
but the saint. Be a Jesus or Moses
or Allah, it doesn't make any difference
that's her teacher.
You're there as her protector
as the reflection of that for her.
She should be looking up to you
but she'll look up to you as a protector.
There's an old saying, who is the most
loved?
The most love is the one who has the
power
but only uses it to protect.
Okay. I think you get the idea
so don't criticize your wife because she
doesn't take criticism.
Honor your wife. Look past the ego.
Look to her heart. Give her reason to
open her heart to you.
Look there's a lot to learn about
marriage.
Obviously, you should be subscribing to
this channel.
You should learn and then apply. Learn
and apply, and that way you'll become
better and better at marriage
and enjoy the benefits of marriage. The
benefits of marriage
are easily stated although I'm the only
one who's going to state them for you at
least until
other experts so-called catch on then
they will too.
You got married to be happier every
single day,
ever-increasing happiness, didn't you?
And then you also got married and this
is even more important
to experience ever-increasing love.
That's what marriage is all about.
It's supposed to be about that
so she's not perfect. She makes mistakes.
You do too. I do too, we all do.
We don't get married in order to
watch over our spouse and correct their
mistakes.
Learn about marriage, learn and apply.
It's pretty simple but there are a lot
of moving parts.
I hope this has helped you.
Definitely leave a comment if you'd like.
You could be a wise guy if you want to.
It's always a challenge for me to
respond to wise guys
or you could be kind and say, "Hey, this
really helped me,"
but I'm here for you. I'm here to help
you.
All right, that's it. I hope this was as
helpful for you
as could be and I hope I didn't come
across
as critical of you. Blessings to you!
Thanks for spending time with me and
take care!