The Surrendered Wife (19 page)

“You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.”

—HENRY DRUMMOND

Y
ou may find yourself exasperated when your husband invites you to advise him over and over again. You may resist the bait the first eight times, only to give in the ninth time he asks the same question. Fortunately, as with practicing any of the principles of a surrendered wife, you don't have to be perfect. Soon your husband will learn not to ask you about things that he can figure out for himself. Continue to exercise your “surrendering muscles,” and you too will learn not to engage.

Now that you recognize bait and know when he's inviting you to engage, you will be able to resist taking it and falling back into those old, controlling habits. You may get irritated when you spot bait. You might think, “If he would just stop baiting me, I would stop telling him what to do!”

The bad news is, it doesn't seem to work that way. You have to change your habits first. The good news is that as you stop responding to his bait, he will stop using it. After all, if he finds it doesn't do him any good, he'll eventually stop wasting his time. He'll do his own thinking, and take initiative, just like you've always wished he would.

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”

—GOETHE

Consider your words carefully before you speak to make sure you are not setting up a negative expectation for your husband. Remember that how you see him influences how he sees himself. Treat him as though he is punctual, patient, tidy or successful and he will rise to meet your expectations.

The more you act like things are going to turn out well, the more often they do. You manifest what you focus on, so when your husband's actions (or lack thereof) make you nervous, act carefree, as if you believe the outcome will be good.

B
y constantly controlling my husband, I often unwittingly set up negative expectations for him. I subtly but clearly let him know that I expected him to screw up, drop the ball, let me down, and make a mess. I call these spouse-fulfilling prophecies. Not surprisingly, he lived up to my expectations. Unfortunately, my behavior is not that uncommon. Many wives do the same thing.

Interestingly, men take a great deal of their self-perception from their wives. If a wife tells her husband he is always late, bad with money, or a lousy dresser, he tends to believe it on some level. He might reason that because she is the person who knows him best in the world, she's probably right.

My friend Nathan told me a story that illustrates this point. While he was making smoothies in the blender, his wife recalled a single incident from a few years ago. She turned to her friend and said, “Watch out! He always breaks the wooden spoon in the blender and puts splinters in the smoothies.” Sure enough, Nathan did get the spoon too close to the blade and make splinter smoothies. He even had a sense that she “made” him do it. Of course she didn't, but he felt that his mistake was already a
fait accompli
.

If you tell him he's not good with money, or doesn't know how to take care of children properly, or can't change careers at his age, you are helping to reinforce that belief for him.

I criticized and corrected John because I saw him as I was
afraid
he was, not as he really is. And it was not until I stopped giving my doubts a voice that my opinion changed dramatically. He seems so much stronger, more confident and accomplished now. Is that because I let go of my negative perspective, or because he started to see a better picture when he looked in his wife-mirror? I may never know, but I do know this: This change is very real to both of us.

I
F
Y
OU
T
ELL
H
IM
H
E'S
G
OING TO
S
CREW
U
P
, H
E
P
ROBABLY
W
ILL

“If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet.”

—ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER

H
ere are the kinds of things we frequently say that have negative expectations attached to them:

“Don't you think we should slow down a little?” (Expectation: You're going to crash the car.)

“You have to rinse the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher.” (Expectation: You're not going to do a good job.)

“Why don't you just call a plumber?” (Expectation: You can't fix it yourself)

“If I were you, I wouldn't put up with that from my boss for one minute!” (Expectation: You're not going to stand up for yourself.)

All your husband hears is, “I don't expect you to do very well in this situation.” In each of these statements is the strong suggestion that we expect our husbands to screw up. All that's left is for him to do is prove us right.

Advertisers recognize the power of suggestion and use it to their advantage every day, as in “How about an ice-cold refreshing Coca-Cola?” If you were a billboard that your husband saw on his way to work, would you read, “You forgot to go to the post office again, didn't you?” or “You're as reliable as ever—thanks for going to the post office!”?

Expressing negative expectations to your husband is not only potentially harmful, it's also a huge waste of breath. If you take an honest look at your relationship, you will realize that you have never really accomplished anything with negative comments. Chances are he doesn't spend any more time with the kids, go to the doctor any more frequently, or eat any better than he did before you started pointing out his shortcomings. People don't tend to improve because you've revealed their obnoxious behavior to them. At best, they make a half-hearted attempt; at worst, they rebel and do the opposite. After all, when you behave like the negative mom, he's likely to show up as a rebel without a cause.

Most people tend to respond to positive reinforcement, trust, and respect.

A
CT
A
S
I
F
Y
OU
H
AVE
F
AITH
, E
SPECIALLY
W
HEN
Y
OU
D
ON'T

“Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.”

—MICHAEL O'BRIEN

W
hat if I just don't believe it?” some women ask me. “What if I'm really afraid that he's screwing up?”

When we're in the thick of our marital loneliness, the future does seem bleak, and you may not be truly optimistic about it. But you do have to
act
like you have faith that your marriage will improve. Therefore, one of the keys to success in surrendering is to
pretend you have faith—or, as the old expression goes, to “fake it 'till you make it.”

You may feel like an actress at times, putting on a cool pose when you're terrified and thanking him for things that don't seem to be enough. But I promise, there's no better time to do an acting job worthy of an Oscar nomination than when you're surrendering.

The more you act like you respect, trust and appreciate him, the more you'll start to believe that he deserves that treatment, and the less you'll worry about trying to run his life. When you have faith in your husband, even when you're stretching it, you will bring out his very best efforts and awaken his tenderness. You'll begin to remember why you wanted to marry this man in the first place, and he'll go to new lengths to please and pamper you.

Acting in faith is the flip side of setting up negative expectations. He will not want to disappoint you when he sees that you trust him to succeed in his work, feed the children something nutritious, and invest the savings wisely. Acting in faith means that while you might have the fleeting thought, on a bad day, that you should call a divorce lawyer, you don't dwell there. If you have faith that you can have a happy, satisfying marriage, you don't think about divorce lawyers for long.

I
F
Y
OU
C
AN'T
S
AY
S
OMETHING
N
ICE
…

“Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights, and see possibilities—always see them, for they're always there.”

—NORMAN VINCENT PEALE

A
cting in faith and being gracious doesn't mean that you lie or betray yourself. It does mean finding the goodness in the situation even when the bad seems ten times as prominent.

My husband was going to make a presentation for a job interview where he knew his qualifications were weak, but his enthusiasm was high. Although he'd had days to prepare, he started writing the presentation just a few hours before his interview. I agreed to watch him rehearse and was horrified when my articulate husband started stuttering and contradicting himself. When he looked to me to for feedback, I pretended that I had every faith that he would do a terrific job by saying, “You've done this sort of thing so many times, John. Of course you'll be great.” I didn't say, “Gee that was a terrific presentation!” or “I can see you've really prepared for this,” because those comments wouldn't have been true.

As soon as he left for the interview, I called a friend and told her that I was afraid my husband might have a disastrous presentation. It turned out, however, that my faith, and not my fear, was correct. He came home all smiles. The presentation had gone so well, they offered him the position on the spot.

Again, you're not necessarily going to
feel
this faith. You're going to have to muster it. In
The King and I
, the English school-teacher
is nervous about being in a new country with new students. She admits that the way she summons her courage when she's afraid is by whistling a happy tune. In the song, she talks about how she not only fools everyone around her into thinking she's confident, she even tricks herself into feeling it!