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Most double standards are rubbish, but there is one I strongly advocate. I have higher expectations of myself than you do of others and I’m tougher on myself than I am on Lori.
Being harder on yourself than your wife about things such as being late, failing to do what is promised, mild dishonesty, rudeness, and grumpiness shows her that you want to be the best husband you can be. It also shows her that you’re all about grace and second chances. The upside is this behaviour puts you in a good place to lovingly ask more from her. If you expect her to meet a slightly lower standard than the one you keep, she can’t say you’re unfair or asking too much. You’ve shown it can be done and you’re asking her to do almost as much.
This kind of double standard is a great way to show your love. For example, if “the rule” is the one who cooks doesn’t have to do the dishes, be sure to always do all the dishes when she cooks. And sometimes when you cook, do some or all of the dishes even though you don’t have to.
There are, of course, places where this breaks down, especially when you try to apply it to things other than behaviour. Don’t apply this where your abilities vary. For example, I have moderate face blindness and Lori doesn’t remember numbers well. It would be wrong for me to expect her to remember numbers as well as I can or for her to gripe at me for not remembering someone. We can also get in trouble in areas where we care too much about something that’s not a big deal to our wife. For example, if you consider using your dinner fork for a salad to be wrong, that’s fine; if you get upset at your wife for doing this after having tried to “educate her”, that’s going too far.
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