Interesting article

I was at a family dinner on New Years Day and I was reminded of an article while listening to my Aunt. My aunt is a very unhappy woman. She's mentioned to me (and other family members) about the dismal state of her marriage, and talks non-stop about how she hates the whole mundane routine of working, taking care of her house, and her children (I would like to mention that her children are not "children", they are 23, 20 and 17). If you give her the chance she will go on and on about how horrible it is to have to work all day, come home, make dinner and clean after her family. On New Years day, she went on for at least a half an hour. So long in fact that my other "aunt" who is in her 70's got up and left the table because she was just so sick of listening to the ranting.


Now while listening to her tirade I was reminded of this article, talking about this book. I had read this article after it was posted on a forum I read. In it the "Superior Wife" is described. In the article they talk about how this over-achieving wife takes over all aspects of keeping the house and family running that eventually they are resentful, and miserable. This I think describes my aunt perfectly. Her house, always immaculate. She complains about having to do all the housework around the house, yet she she still makes the bed, does the laundry, and prepares lunches for her two adult, and one teen aged child. Hello! How about you take a step back and let them take care of themselves for a change?

As I've listened to other family members and friends describe situations with their husbands I am reminded of this article more and more. Hell, I hate to admit it, but I find myself doing the same thing occasionally.

I was at lunch with my friend Pam a couple months ago, and she was going on and on about how her husband "can't do this, can't do that". I looked her right in the eye, and told her that every task she was describing was indeed something that he could do, but she wouldn't let him do them. They were all simple things like putting her daughter to bed, cook dinner, pack a box when they were moving, etc. She was so adamant that he couldn't do these things she actually banged her fist on the table and yelled "no he can't do them!" I told her calmly that yes he could do these things, but she was a control freak, and he wouldn't do them her way, so she didn't want him to do these tasks. She just looked at me for a second and admitted that yes, this was the case.

Please note that only a fellow control freak could call a friend a control freak and get away with it!

I wonder quite often how many of us do this same thing. Just sit back complaining about our husbands, and how useless they are when in reality it is us that is creating this chain of events. Would we want to do a task when every time we go to complete it we are told we're not doing it right? I'm guessing no. So why do we do the same thing to our husbands?