Heard a phrase today, “Happy Wife, Happy Life.” Every guy in the room nodded his head in agreement.
After thinking about this for a bit, here’s a simple yardstick for you, gents.
A “Wife” is not a possession. She is not a way to perpetuate “the family name” (which is an utterly meaningless concept, anyway). She is not a thing God is loth to look upon the head of, can’t stand the sight of (there are far too many misogynists behind modern, main-stream religion). She is not a thing that must be covered up at all times. She is not “temptation incarnate.” (That’s your problem, not hers.)
A Wife(1) is a Partner. A Wife is co-CEO. In a mature relationship, neither of your is Boss. (“Boss” is a nasty concept in any truly cooperative venture — it limits “cooperative” and so automatically limits the potential of the group(2).)
More importantly, a Wife is your first & best feedback. She happy? You’re doing it (at least partly) right.
She unhappy; find out why and what your part in that is. And you do have a part in it. You might not be the total problem, and you may not be able to supply the total solution, but you do have a part in the problem.
Happy Wife == Happy Life
(Read it in any gender-neutral / not-neutral way that makes you Happy. Read it as I mean it and not the way Mrs Grundy deliberately mis-reads everything, simply because there’s more Juice in mis-reading things.)
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(1) Specifically I mean WIFE, not Woman. Woman is power and reason and all things wonderful. She can also be all things mean and nasty. Oddly enough, just like Men. Go figure… It’s when emotionally mature people work in partnership that Magic happens. It’s not just an Old Saw that behind every Great Man was a Great Woman; it’s really (mostly) true. Nor do I mean necessarily a Man/Woman partnership, but any committed partnership where two (or more?) folks bond together to tackle life as a Unit. Rare concept in this truly strange 21st Century we’ve managed to craft.
(2) Exception: there is a thing called enlightened leadership, of course. But then, that’s leadership not boss-dom. Leadership that brings out the best in everyone. It’s very high level stuff, though, and contrary to just about everything the Number One Teacher — Television (the only teacher for far too many of us) — has ever taught. Television is about drama and failure and “adventure” and such; rarely about just getting it right the first time and moving on to Great Things simply because we chose to do so. As JRR Tolkien observed, things that are happy and successful and fun are quickly told and not all that interesting save to those involved; Things that are hard and difficult and dangerous are exciting (except to those involved) and take a deal of telling anyway. (paraphrased — that’s from Memory, but it’s from the Hobbit — the book, not the movies.)