[Lady Sidhe]

Reply to Hot Pastrami:

>>Everything is subjective. You are seeing most of this through your friend's eyes, an not her husband's. That doesn't mean you don't see what's happening, it just means that your perspective, like your friend's, is limited. For example, you say that your friend didn't nag her husband to get work when he was out of a job. Well, perhaps she asked him 1-2 times a day how the jubhunt was going... out of genuine curiosity, or just as conversation, trying to be supportive. But that kind of thing can be perceived as nagging, even if it's not intended to be... like asking someone on a diet how much weight they've lost so far. It frustrates the effort.


I'm sorry I missed this the first time...It's a lot of good advice. As far as the work, she made an effort to let him do it on his own, because she knows how men are about being the breadwinner. Every now and then she'd ask him about the jobhunt, but people in her family are naggy, and she didn't want to be that way, so she kept quiet. WE used to ask him if he'd found anything, but she rarely did. I think that's part of her problem: She's so scared of being seen as a nag that she doesn't push him to do anything. If she asks him to take out the trash and he doesn't, she does it herself. If she asks him to bathe the baby while she's at work, and he doesn't, she does it herself, that kind of thing, because she doesn't want to hurt his feelings.


>>Just remember that you only see what you see. Your friend will leave out details that seem trivial to her, but they could be huge to the husband. Like, maybe she said something innocently, and obliviously, that cut him to the bone, and this is his inappropriate, immature, but self-justified way of getting back at her. No matter what you think, you do not have all of the key information. Nobody does, not even the wife or the husband. And that is probably a big part of the problem here.


No doubt there is something that he perceives to be so aggravating that he's behaving like this. But he won't talk to her, so what can she do?



>>I'll wrap up by egotistically quoting myself from another thread:
[/b][/quote]


I agree completely with that sentiment. Matter of fact, most of those things she's already told him. She believes that a couple can be happy if they put the other first always. And I think that's actually caused her trouble, insofar as she never makes him take responsibility because she doesn't want to sound like a nag (and that's a direct quote from her), she doesn't want to make him feel like less of a man, and she doesn't want to hurt his feelings. If he'd reciprocate with that, I think there wouldn't be the problems there are now...She has the absolute love for him, believe me, and she had the absolute respect until he propositioned her best friend and started letting this girl hang all over him....

But I do think your advice is really good, and so does she. It reinforces the beliefs she already holds.

Sidhe