When you have a husband who is doing something clearly wrong, you become a nag in his eyes when you threaten him in a yelling tone that condemns him.
Unfortunately, that does not get a woman what she wants.Â
When you marry a man whose childhood included a troubled father, a troubled mother or both, you are marrying a damaged human being with very negative instructions in his brain on how to be married.
Your marriage is not the results of what you do in your adult life.
The quality of your marriage is the result of the programs you are both given in childhood.
Despite what most people think, THIS is what determines the happiness level and length of your marriage.
Because a man does not respond at all to punishment, you’ll need to take on a question strategy that asks him questions in a most pleasant tone.
Picture yourself meeting your husband at a wedding and the two of you getting into a social conversation in a group. If you were interested in him, you would ask him lots of questions.Â
Good questions a wife could ask without judging her husband would sound like this:
- “As you look at your past and think about things that could hurt a marriage, in line with your value system, what kinds of regrets would you have that you would not do again if you had the choice?”
- “What do you think is the most important thing to you in being happy? Is it what you do or is it what someone else does for you?”
- “Let’s say there was a scale with 100% being a lot and zero being none, how would you rate my ability to understand and support your needs?”
- “What is one thing you could have done in our marriage to put us in a better place today, but you just didn’t realize it at the time but see it now as you look back?”
- “How did your father show you to treat a woman by the way he treated your mother?”
These are all thought provoking, non-threatening questions that can be asked in a calm conversation.
You can even present them as questions you found on the internet to help married couples communicate. A tense marriage is not a good way to live and these questions can begin to reduce that tension – IF your husband is not so far gone that he will still participate in answering.
However, if your husband is very defensive and unhappy in your marriage right now, you are past the stage in your marriage where the two of you feel safe enough to ask questions like this.
NOTE: It’s very important to make your husband feel safe from judgment before asking these questions and hopefully he will do the same for you.
My husband is coming out of his crisis I think. 3 months ago I found out he had an emotional affair whatcwas going in sinds half a year. I was feeling like dying till I listened to your course ‘ how to survive’ I stay calm, don’t talk about her etc. He is a chaoskid (twilightzone I think) but he is a bucker, lives his life the oppositie as his parents did. Is that positive in a crisis? I think so, he is always committed with our children. He works 60 ours a week but when he is home he is there 100% for them. So the children have no bad memories about their youth. I have read less information about Buckers in a midlife crisis. The way of treating him in his midlife is the same as others?