Dear Dr. Yael:
I am so stuck. No matter what I say or do, my husband is never satisfied. He is always looking to find fault with the way I act and the way in which I run our home. I long for a calm marriage where husband and wife communicate well and give each other the benefit of the doubt.
I know that I can’t “make” my husband happy. I know that he has to work to become a happy person. I also know that he has a lot of goodness inside him. He just has a temper and is very impatient.
Dr. Respler, to me it feels as if he wants me to prove myself to him. How do I make him understand that I care for him, but am a person as well, and that I need to be loved and cared for?
A Reader
Dear A Reader,
As we have mentioned many times, it’s hard to respond to all the details you share, as we haven’t heard your husband’s side of the story.
So, for the purposes of this column, let’s work on what you can do for yourself.
Ask yourself this: how do you react when your husband gets upset? Do you cry? Do you yell at him? Whatever your reaction is, you are going to work on changing it. This will be very hard, but it is usually very effective. When your husband starts yelling at you, try to remain calm and just continue doing what you were doing. If your husband is a good man as you say, he will likely realize that he is acting terribly and feel very stupid. We call this changing your countermove.
In John Gray’s book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are from Venus, he notes that men and women operate very differently.
A woman will complain that her spouse doesn’t listen, is inattentive, no longer romantic and less centered. A man, on the other hand, will say that his spouse overreacts, makes a big deal out of nothing, is unreasonable and that no matter what he does she is never happy.
Men are “Mr. Fix It.” When their wives talk to them about their feelings they look to come up with solutions, while the women just want to be heard and validated. Men care about abilities and women care about feelings.
I am not sure if these ideas will be helpful to you, but I want you to consider what I said. I also want you to think about your love languages. It may be that you need “words of affirmation” to feel appreciated, while your husband looks for “acts of service.” That could be why you want to hear the words and he seems to want you to do things.
From your description, I do believe that your husband would benefit from learning how to manage his anger. However, I don’t know if he would be willing to go for professional help.
Years ago, Rav Moshe Meir Weiss shared this story with me.
Before his talmidim would get married, a rebbe would tell them about a rav who went to a poor town where there was no mikvah. In response to the rav’s asking if there was anyone who could build one, the townspeople told him about a miser who would not give any money to tzedakah. The rav decided to pay him a visit. At the door the miser says, “Please do not even bother coming in. I will not give you any money.”
The rav responded, “I only want to come in to give you a brocha. You do not have to give me any money”
The miser welcomed the rav into his home. “What brocha do you want?” the rav asked.
The miser said, “I want a brocha that my wife should die.”
The rav said, “I can’t give you such a brocha, but I will give you an idea. Go to shul tomorrow, promise that you will build a mikvah and then don’t build one. The punishment for making a promise in public and not keeping it is what you want – your spouse will die.
The next day the man went to shul and did exactly what the rav said. However, on Motzaei Shabbos when they came to collect the money, he said he wasn’t giving any.
Two weeks later the miser comes to the rav complaining that his wife is still alive.
The rav asked him, “How do you treat your wife?” The miser said, “I yell at her in public and she yells back at me in public!” The rav responded, “If this is true than your wife is already dead since ‘He who humiliates someone in public is considered as if he killed the person.’ Go home and treat your wife with the utmost respect and then come back to me.”
Two weeks later the miser comes back crying, “My wife is sick and I really love her. I don’t want to lose her.” The rav asked him what happened. The miser said, “Well, I started treating my wife with respect and she did the same to me. Now our marriage is great.”
The rav looked at him and said, “So build the mikvah. If you keep your promise your wife will be fine.”
The takeaway, the rebbe tells his talmidim, is to always treat your wife with respect and to always keep your word.
I wish you hatzlocha in your marriage. Treat your husband in a positive way and hopefully he will do the same.