Podcast: Download
Subscribe RSS
I was at church in the park on Sunday. A couple near us had lost their shade and Lori invited them to move to our canopy. The wife got up, paper plate full of food in hand, and brought her camp chair over. But two of the leg sections fell out of the plastic feet, so when she set it down it didn’t work. She looked at her husband and said “I can’t get my chair to work.” He looked at her and kept eating. So she set her plate down, fixed her chair, and then sat down to eat.
It was a total husbanding failure and the guy had no clue.
Now you may be thinking he did nothing wrong. The problem is she asked for his help and didn’t get it. I know she didn’t actually ask for help with words, but what she said was a request for help that any woman would have heard.
When your wife says “The trash is full.” what she means is “Please take out the trash.” Likewise when she says “The car sure it dirty” or “We haven’t been out on a date in a while.” This is a common thing for many (most?) women.
Now you could argue that if she wants your help all she has to do is ask for it. You wouldn’t be wrong. But that’s a really bad plan that does nothing good for your marriage or your chances of having sex in the near future. So be the bigger person and learn to hear her hidden requests for help.
BTW, I do have your back on this. I told the women on The XY Code today that If You Didn’t Ask, Then You Didn’t Ask.
A post worth reading:
Seth’s Blog | 10 reps ◄ Build a habit.
Image Credit: © alfa27 | stock.adobe.com
Shop Amazon ♦ Shop to give links page
We’re donation supported Thanks for your help!
This post may contain affiliate links, see my disclosure for info.
I hear what you are saying but this is a case of darned if you do and darned if you don’t. The guy is supposed to dance this fine line of helping when she supposedly infers it. However, by in large, men are accused of trying to fix things and not just listening. We are told that they just are talking and we aren’t necessarily to fix anything. We are also told women are strong, don’t need a man to rescue them, etc. In this down is up culture you are screwed almost no matter what you do. If you have a mature relationship, I agree with your assessment but to judge that other guy…he may have been through that minefield and decided not to get blasted this time.
And if you want her to ask and speak plainly, don’t be a jerk when she does!!
Also, I read a lot of Christian marriage help books in my young adulthood and got from them that being direct with my husband was a sign of disrespect. Asking him point blank was nagging. It is more feminine and respectful to use my feminine wiles and allow him to swoop in and rescue me.
So, the power of suggestion was the role I was to play. And I was told that if I did it right and presented myself right he wouldn’t be able to help himself but be my knight in shining armour.
This is romance novel stuff passed off as christian marriage advice, but entire generations of women were taught this.
I’m now at a point where I just do it myself because the method I was taught doesn’t work, but I’ m part of the generation where men often feel disrespected to be directly asked by a woman. Another darned if I do or don’t situation.
It’s amazing. My brother-in-law is a younger millennial who grew up in a secular home. I can be direct and ask him anything, and he is very respectful back. His wife can as well. My husband (GenX evangelical upbringing) thinks he’s “whipped” and can’t believe my sister “talks to him like that.”
@Libl – Yeah, books like that just made things worse. I would bet they were written by women. I’ve never had a man say he wants clues and hints rather than a direct ask. Unless he wants a reason to say he didn’t know, but that’s another issue.
It was John Piper who said that women shouldn’t give men direct directions.
It was Emmerson Eggrichs who said his wife asking him not to leave wet towels on the bed was nagging him.
Otherwise, yeah, Shaunti Feldhan, Stormie O’Martian, Michelle Duggar, the ladies of Vision Forum, Above Rubies, and Debi Pearl come to mind, as well as most fiction books, especially Christian fiction for women.
@Libl – Piper was referring to a woman in the church having authority over a man in leadership. I disagree with him, but he didn’t say it about marriage.
Eggrichs was not saying she should hint, he was saying she should not ask in any way. And I don’t agree with that either.
I’d be very surprised to see that from Shaunti. Duggar and Pearl no doubt.
“You don’t speak my language!”
Boy, those words do burn,
but it’s in marriage- baggage
that I’m enjoined to learn
what my wife is saying
when it’s not what I hear;
it’s not a game she’s playing,
but a plea that I come near
to a very diff’rent way
of heart-communication,
and in the vows I chose to say
there’s implicit obligation
to learn a tongue that is not mine,
but yet will my rough soul refine.
Yeppers He is a thick one for sure. Wifey’s baseball bat is needed for some serious education. LOBO Probably the same one that will not open the door for his wife to get into the car.
Can we not, please?
Imagine if, on Lori’s blog, she told a story of a wife falling short in a similarly minor way to how this husband didn’t come up to the mark. And imagine someone commenting to say that her husband’s baseball bat is needed for some serious education.
If we find that grotesque, and we should, than can we please not have the double standard when the sexes are reversed?
It is a interesting world we live in and where we come from. Humor has been lost, common sense has been lost and reading between the lines is an art of the pass. Working in the gray areas. We all have our baseball bats in marriage. My wife’s, the way she looked at me when I had gone to the dark side. Literally tearing out your soul. Mine was more verbal. Did this work for us. 52 plus years. Yeppers it did. Yes, Lori should, in some instances, be more assertive and less PC. That is our take on that.