When a man turns the tables on you like that, it’s easy to feel like a victim and make a big issue out of it. Don’t! He’s just human. We don’t always know what we want either! You’re better off resuming your activities and dropping the subject. Just realize that men are used to taking care of themselves, they don’t have to read books on co-dependence, they naturally put themselves first. Women, on the other hand, tend to be caretakers, wanting to please everyone else and putting themselves last, and then feeling like victims when they’re not appreciated.
It’s important to find a happy medium. You should not be so busy that you have no time for your husband, but there is no reason you can’t pursue your career, see your girlfriends once a week or take exercise classes and still have time for him. Your husband should be the most important person in your life, but he should not be everything or nothing. Strive for balance.
Regardless of what he thinks or says, he will be happier when you are fulfilled and busy. But the main reason you need to keep interesting is for you, not him. Why stop growing as a person just because you are married? We know women who used to keep up with the news religiously and followed politics with fascination when they were single, but now that they are married they don’t even know who is Deputy Prime Minister. You should not become brain-dead just because you are married.
Miranda’s problem was a little different, but you can probably relate to it. She didn’t want to take a decision without her husband’s input. When she was single she was very decisive. She ran an executive-recruitment firm, decorated her own flat by herself and travelled the world alone. But after being married a few months, she lost her initiative. She didn’t want to think for herself.
When she felt the kitchen floor needed re-tiling, she wanted Andy, an accountant, to help her pick the colours. When she had to choose curtains for the sitting room, she wanted Andy to go to with her to look at fabrics, during the middle of his busiest time.
‘I just can’t take off any time. Figure it out yourself or go with your mother. Whatever you decide is fine with me. Really!’ Andy told her. Miranda was so afraid to make a mistake that she wanted to put off decorating until after the end of the financial year. She would rather sit in a half-furnished house for six months than take a decision. It wasn’t bad for Miranda to ask her husband’s opinion, but once it was clear he wasn’t interested, she should have persevered on her own.
This kind of fear and co-dependence is quite common among married women. If you’re anything like Miranda, you need to be told that being married doesn’t mean being joined at the hip, that all decisions don’t have to be made with your husband especially if he shows no interest, that if you keep doing nothing while waiting for your husband’s approval you will have no backbone or self-esteem, and that it’s OK to make mistakes. Women like Miranda sometimes need to ‘act single’ – just go out and buy the tiles etc. – or nothing will ever get done.
Being happily married means finding a balance of togetherness and independence. Women who stop living their lives or depend too much on their husbands for companionship or decision-making end up feeling unhappy and unfulfilled, and their husbands know it. Don’t let this happen to you!
Lower Your Expectations in the First Year
For some couples, the first year of marriage is a continuation of the honeymoon. For others it can be quite an adjustment period. He wants things his way, you want things your way, and you can’t believe he won’t change for you. If he really loved you, he would change, right?
Welcome to the first year of marriage, where arguments about where to live, what kind of furniture to buy, how to spend money, how high or low the thermostat should be, how his snoring keeps you up half the night and so on can take their toll on a relationship.
Unfortunately, sometimes there is just no answer to your differences, no right or wrong. For example, you want the heating off, he likes it on all the time and tells you on a mild day, ‘Why don’t you take your jumper off if you’re too warm?’ Meanwhile, you think he should see an asthma specialist about his snoring. He thinks you’re over-reacting and accuses you of being a light sleeper. You like to watch films in utter silence as if you were all by yourself. He likes to watch them as a couple, explaining the plot as it unfolds and commenting on the actors (‘She looks familiar … wasn’t she in …?’), causing you to miss bits and pieces of dialogue. You tell him to be quiet, he gets offended and you feel guilty, and now this little friction makes you miss bits and pieces of the film.
You envision your flat with a minimalist look – black leather sofas, white shelving units and coffee table, a couple of nice modern paintings and silver art work on the mantel above the fireplace. He wants to put his 15-year-old tartan armchair with the stuffing coming out of it in the sitting room, a gaudy bronze trophy he won in secondary school on the mantelpiece and antique family heirlooms on the coffee table. You can’t believe you married someone with such bad taste, and tell him so. He gets angry and sulks in his broken armchair. In your wildest dreams, you never imagined that your first year of marriage would be about this!
Relax. Most first-year marriage differences can be simply solved by lowering your expectations. Don’t expect to see eye to eye on everything. Just because you love each other it doesn’t mean you’re going to think and feel the same way about everything. Some of the most happily married couples don’t! So don’t compare your marriage to films or fairy tales showing wedded bliss, or to your friend’s ‘perfect’ marriage. The stories are not real and your friend’s marriage is not perfect. In some cases, just agreeing to disagree can take the edge off; in others, somebody has to adjust and see the other person’s point of view. In those cases, why not give it a try?
Here are some true first-year marriage stories and the advice we gave the wives. Perhaps you can relate and apply the answers to your own situation.
‘Bait and switch’ is a very common first-year problem. Your husband behaved one way when you were dating and now he behaves another way.
For example, Don was incredibly generous with money when he was dating Peggy. Fine restaurants, flowers, expensive gifts and lavish holidays were commonplace. When they got married, Father Christmas turned into Ebenezer Scrooge. Don only wanted to eat Chinese take-aways, scrutinized Peggy’s credit card bills, and talked constantly about investments. Most of their rows had to do with Peggy’s spending. One of the worst was when she came home one cold Saturday afternoon in January and took off her socks and shoes to relax. Don noticed that she had got a pedicure and blurted out: ‘Why do you need a pedicure in the winter? Who’s going to see your toes? You’re wasting money. Why can’t you do it yourself?’ A two-hour argument ensued.
‘The pedicure cost £15 and I’m going to see my toes in the winter. You spent £15 on appetizers when we were dating. Why are you making this a big deal?’ Peggy then launched into a 20-minute speech about how she worked just as hard as Don and was entitled to some pampering. Don wanted to know how they were going to save for a house and kids if Peggy was throwing money away in salons, on long phone calls to friends around the country and endless pairs of shoes. Peggy said ‘You’re over-reacting; £15 isn’t going to make or break us,’ to which Don replied, ‘It adds up. Besides, you can’t spend money like you’re single any more. We have to build a nest egg.’
When Peggy contacted us, we explained that Don’s behaviour was not so unusual. When a man is dating, he’s trying to impress you, but when he’s married he’s thinking of other things like paying the mortgage and saving for school fees. Peggy needed to lower her expectations – to not expect Don to be oblivious to finances and not to feel offended if he questioned her spending. We suggested she even appreciate that Don cared so much about their future security. We did not tell Peggy to cut back on her spending – that is her business – but to see Don’s point of view and allow him to worry and make comments about money without