Now to my thoughts. I often hear women applaud other women for being a “strong woman” when what they are is bossy and rude if not worse. The point here is that behavior that is unacceptable in men is not acceptable in women either.

I do not treat my wife like Kate has been seen treating her husband but if I did, nobody would be running here to make excuses for me.

Bottom line is, you don’t treat your partner that way. Men who treat their wives that way are not looked upon nicely by men or women. Words like “mentally and verbally abusive” are used to describe them.

I have a great wife and we treat each other as equals. That is not to say that we always agree, but that’s the point, we don’t belittle each other when the other person doesn’t agree with us. And we don’t boss each other around. There are times my wife wants me to do something and I can’t be bothered. Guess what…I’m not her employee and I’m not her slave. At the same time,, there are times I want something from her and she can’t be bothered. Guess what, she’s not my employee and she’s not my slave.

A wise man once told me of how he and his wife had an agreement, if the other person put the tree up, your responsibility was to take it down on January 2nd. One year it was January 9th and his wife still hadn’t taken the tree down. SO instead of berating her for it, he went ahead and took it down. Like he said, evidently it was more important for than it was for her so I just went ahead and took care of it.

I watched early episodes and one stuck out in my mind even then. Kate had totally treated Jon like a child on the show. Afterwords when they were sitting there and talking about it, he said that what was most important for him was that he didn’t want her acting that way on camera because he knew that wasn’t how she really is and he didn’t want other people thinking bad about her if the thought she was really like that.

It seems that Kate and the producers of the show liked the way she acted however as this became the norm. Now John could have gone old school and stood up for himself but I’m pretty sure that with the cameras rolling, he knew that almost anything he did to stand up for himself would have smeared his image and reputation. He would have been considered an abusive man. I say this because he did just about everything politically correct that could be done. He talked to her like a partner and let her know that she was wrong. Kate didn’t care. I watched that happen in the early part of the show.

I have no doubt that the show basically played into Kate’s personality. They do highly encourage that type of behavior because it gets them ratings. They have no long term investment in that family. When the ratings dry up, they will drop them like a hot potato. Kate on the other hand does have an interest. But it has been clear that her priorities were the show. Her tears are not coming from a lost feeling because her man is not available to her. he hasn’t been available for a long time. She has an agreement with him to show up for the show anyway. Her tears were tears of fear of the unknown. Fear of what is going to happen to the show. Will she be able to continue living the lifestyle she has grown accustomed to if the show fails? This is what’s on her mind. If she cared about her man being available to her, she would never have treated him the way she did, even if that is what the producers encouraged.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. My wife complained one day that I did not share the duties around the house 50-50. SO I started doing that but in turn, I stopped doing every single “manly” thing unless it was just for me.. She quickly got the picture. She suddenly realized that all of those other things I was doing also took time and were not recreational. Like fixing/washing the car, mowing the lawn, fixing things around the house, killing spiders (she has two hands and two feet). When things stopped getting fixed and things stopped getting down, she came to me and apologized. She admitted that she had been taking me for granted.

Recently, I have been doing far more of the household stuff than my wife does. I am going to be starting school full time but before I started part time, I took over all of the household my wife used to have and kept the ones I had. I am a better cook so I have always cooked more than she did. But while she is gone during the day, I take care of everything around the house. What she does is help out a little bit in the evening.

I can tell you that this is far easier than having a full time job. I take a break when I want to. Can’t so that at work. I eat when I want to, can’t do that at work. I get to organize my day as I see fir. At work the boss sets that schedule for you.

I get far more done at home than my wife did. Why? I treat it like a job. While I get to set the schedule, I still organize my day. I tried to help her with that once but she did not like that at all. She did not like the idea of her day at home even remotely feeling like a job. Oddly, now that she works, she prefers having somebody else set her schedule for her.

My point here is that I hear women always complain about how hard they have it at home. I wish my wife made enough money that I wouldn’t have to go to school or work and could be a stay at home dad. Talk about the easy life. And that’ with the cooking shopping, cleaning, laundry, etc…getting down every day. Beats having a boss breath down your neck every day. I feel more independent. I set the schedule and everything gets done.

Kids are no problem but then I don’t have 8. But I handle the kids differently than my wife. That also has a certain amount of organization to it. When I am in the middle fo getting something done, that is not the time for attention time for the kids. They have learned that they do not get attention right away at all, not even negative attention, but they will get negative attention later. This makes it easier to get things done. The kids learned quickly how this works and as a result are actually quite happy.

The thing is I do respect my wife. I do not judge her in any way. She did not have a good childhood like I did. Her parents were abusive and did not set good examples. My parents were not alcoholics nor were they abusive. Even when I know I do something better, I do not belittle my wife at all. I use my childhood experiences to talk to her about why I do things the way I do and explain why it works better. But I only do so when she asks. I am not here to belittle her. And don;t get me wrong, my wife has things about her that I greatly admire. She is very giving and charitable. She is a loving mother and wife. She is very intelligent and is actually finishing up school. She went full time for the last year and has been on the President’s list the entire time.

What makes it work for us is that we don’t belittle each other. Even when you think you have a right to, you don’t. Everything starts with respect. Without that, you have nothing. Respect doesn’t mean having that guy from a soap opera who can do no wrong that anyone can respect. Respect is harder than that. It is charitable. Respect is most important even when you don’t think the other person has earned it. Why? Because it works the other way around. The other person my not think you deserve it. Who is to say you do or don’t. But the foundation of any successful relationship, personal or professional is respect. Lose that and it will crumble.

I’m just not sure why people make family so hard. It doesn’t have to be. We often make it harder than it has to be. But it all starts with respect.

I’m so sorry that you can relate so much; that you are feeling / have felt disconnected from your husband.
(maybe home remodeling should wait til after counseling? Because I’ve heard plenty of stories of remodels hurting marriages…)

Best Wishes!

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I don’t want to be the “bitch” and I don’t want him to give up his power to me. I can’t respect him when he does. Raising a family, having a special needs son, going through IF treatment, and just the normal day to day parts of being a family has taken its toll on us. We lost our intimacy.

Thankfully we realized this in time and are getting help.

I’ve never actually watched the show, but I can’t help but be aware of all the media hype surrounding it. I can relate to the marriage you are describing. It’s a very lucky couple that can’t relate I think.

I wouldn’t want to go through that on TV, yet at the same time I share an awful lot on my blog….

Really…who are we to judge?

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I get it.

I couldn’t have survived it in my own life had cameras been following my every move – real or staged.

And you know I love ya.

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I didn’t watch this episode because I had no interest in seeing my life repeated.

However, I did watch a few episodes last year – ones when they were packing and moving from the original house to the new one. And even there…you could see it. She DID hen peck him. He DID retreat into a shell. They have equally contributed to this. My only critique is hearing her *complain* about the scrutiny because, well, she DID make that choice for her family.

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