Wannago
Maybe instead you should buy your DH the book reviewed here for Fathers Day:
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/can-the-husband-whisperer-improve-my-marriage-s75jqd5mt
If you can't get past the paywall - here is the first paragraph of the piece:
"Matthew Fray’s burgeoning status as a relationship guru, a so-called “husband whisperer”, is accidental. He got divorced nine years ago after a nine-year marriage. The break-up traumatised him. Having been a journalist, his response was to write about his feelings in a blog, rejoicing in the ambiguous title She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes by the Sink. “Initially as a trickle,” he explains from his home just outside Cleveland, Ohio, “and to begin with as catharsis, it touched a nerve and became wildly popular.” Four million-plus views led to a profile in The New York Times. “It was my first taste of people treating me like a thought leader in the relationship space. Which was very uncomfortable, because I didn’t feel like one. I still don’t really, but I’m easing my way there.”
And here is what seems to be the nub of it:
"Here we approach the heart of Fray’s argument. “Our tendency to invalidate our partners when we disagree with them is what starts this slow paper-cut bleed-out of trust in our marriages. ‘I feel invalidated’ was a common refrain of my wife [at this point I form a vivid mental image of my own wife saying precisely the same] and I resented it and thought invalidated was a bullshit namby-pamby word [cut to me nodding enthusiastically]. But I get it so much now.” (Back to me looking anxious and betrayed.)
Fray goes on to elaborate what he calls his invalidation triple threat. “Your partner says, ‘Something bad happened; I feel bad about it.’ In version one, you disagree with what she says happened. In version two, you agree with her intellectual experience but disagree with her emotional experience: why are you making such a big deal out of it? Version three, you accept the facts and her feelings but defend your behaviour: if our wives only knew what we felt, they wouldn’t be mad at us any more.
“These three response patterns,” Fray argues, “invalidate our marriages. Every time my wife came to me [with a problem], if I didn’t agree with what she thought or felt, I chose me over her. Every. Single. Time. She never got to win. She never got to be heard. She never got to feel cared for. She felt abandoned. She felt unloved. She only felt loved when I agreed.”
This is brilliant , thank you for posting it! The love is in the details, it's not one big gesture. It's always the details that make the difference in any relationship. If the little things kept being ignored, than it's going to keep chipping and chipping until one day you wake up and wonder what's the point anymore . Making an effort especially on days like today is what's keeping it alive. Its called Mothers day for a reason, Father's day for a reason, Christmas for a reason.
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