- Their therapist
- Their Mommy
- Their Maid
Therapist role: The guy that does this generally is more anxious than the next guy. He’s an overthinker, struggles to be decisive, and inappropriately talks out his problems with his wife from a position of unhealthy vulnerability. At first the wife may assume this role and attempt to help him through his problems. After a while she gets burned out, frustrated, often loses trust, confidence, and attraction to him. In a traditional sense you’re not filling the role of being “strong” when she isn’t. Whether women want to acknowledge that or not, many/most deeply desire that rock of a man to go to when things get crazy. I’m in no way saying that you can’t have bad days but, when it’s to the point that she becomes your emotional and mental health caretaker you’ve got a big ass problem.
Practical Advice
Go to an actual therapist. Work through your issues with him/her. Stop putting this on your wife to fix or help you fix. You can vent sometimes, you can share frustration and hardships you are going through but, there should be some sort of plan of action attached to it.
The coaching staff at HFM dub this as “healthy vulnerability”.
EX: “Hey baby, I’m really struggling inside with my dad dying and a few other things. I’ve reached out to a therapist and I’m going to take some positive steps to address what I’m going through. I just wanted to let you know what’s going on, what I’m doing about it, and ask for your support as I make this right for me. I love you.”
That’s a healthy vulnerability statement. To recap you define the problem, state what you are doing about it, and let her know you are going to be okay.
Mommy Role: This isn’t some sexual kink (I was informed this is a sex kink the other day but it’s not what I’m referring to) It’s when your actions or lack thereof place you in the role of a child and your wife as your mother. It shares a bloodline with making your wife your maid but, I’ll get to that in a second. The lower end of this is you as the man being oblivious of how your conduct causes the same type of work that the conduct of your kids causes. She must plan for you, the family, supervise you to make sure you do things right, follow up more than she should due to your lack of engagement on things she asked you to help with (send that email to get Timmy registered for spring baseball). In my career in the Army I lost count of how many of my peers had their wives ironing their uniforms and making their lunches for the next day all while caring for multiple children and a host of other things. Your wife does not want to be your mom. She wants to be your adult wife. Don’t have her do things you should be doing for yourself. Make yourself as non-needy as humanly possible. Many of the modern men we see in T.V. shows are portrayed as an additional bumbling idiot adult child. I smell blood in the water every time I see it. Your wife cannot respect a man that acts like a child and can’t take care of himself, her, and the family.
Practical Advice
This one is easy. Wipe your own ass dude. Become self-reliant and appreciate everything she does for you. If you can hear your child asking the same thing you are asking her then you are wrong. It’s okay to ask for a favor if you are handling other things.
EX: Hey babe I know you are packing lunches for the kids; can you make me ____ while I start loading the car? Love you baby (wink).
That’s a very reasonable request as you are both engaged in the division of labor now.
The Maid: As I said, very closely related to making your wife your mommy. The man that makes his wife the maid is not respected. He’s sloppy and creates more work which again is very similar to what the children do. He leaves dirty clothes on the ground within an arm’s reach of the dirty laundry hamper, he cooks and doesn’t clean up his mess. The wife’s perception is that he creates more problems than he solves. Yes, I know he has this awesome job and he’s super talented and a total bad ass. Dude, I used to hunt down and kill bad guys for a living (aka a pretty cool ass job) and I was never above cleaning up after myself. I can say of mistakes I made; this was rarely one of them. The really shitty version of this is when the guy has a bit of arrogance or entitlement in his actions. In other words, he thinks his wife cleaning up after him is her job. In my view that’s disrespectful and a terrible way to treat your wife. This is not to say that you two can’t have some sort of agreement such as the husband cooks tonight’s meal, and the wife cleans up the dinner mess. Best form is both the husband, and the wife are working as a unified team to run the family through the evenings routine activities and then they unwind together after the little free loaders are in bed.
Practical Advice
Pretty straight forward here as well. Don’t be a slob. Clean up your own messes, pay attention, don’t compound or add to preexisting problems.
I’ll leave you with this: Imagine you snap your fingers, and you are now single living the bachelor life. Who’s going to do all the thankless routine household bullshit? Yeah, that would be you buddy. Operate like that for yourself and then look at what you can do to move your family forward and help that hard-working awesome wife of yours out because you love her so much. Try that one on my dude.