Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage

We were blessed this week with tickets to this marriage conference. We will be seeing this guy on Friday and Saturday. Here are some snippets from his message regarding marriage. It had Matt & I rolling last night. Especially the concept of the man's mental "nothing" box.

If your local to Kirkland/Seattle, here's the website for this Friday/Sat conference at The City Church:

http://www.strongerfamilies.org/

Here's the snippet Videos:

Men & Women's Brains:

http://www.laughyourway.com/events/2010/05/Kirkland-WA/

Men's Sex Drive:

"A man's sex drive peaks at the age of 18. And declines from there" (I thought "What!?" - see the diagram & don't fall off your chair laughing.

http://www.strongerfamilies.org/index.php?nid=79393&s=ms&grpid=5851&grpDetails=true

To see the following videos, click on the link above for "Men's Sex Drive" and when that video is finished playing, there will be a row of other topic videos you can watch him speak on.

How to Train A Man?:

Men are a long term project. They are not a quick fix. (crud...)

Love Marriage & Stinking Thinking (has Late Night w/Carson feel):

"There isn't a Christian station in the world that will put me on. Because I talk about any adult issue"

Can the effects of Porn be reversed?

"These idiots that are telling our kids that great sex can be had by porn - it is such a lie. It is destroying these young people's lives. It has the potential of ruining their sex lives forever. We need to warn our kids. There's a reason to stay away from this stuff. It is poisonous, destructive, not helpful."


Hope this blesses you today and brings a tear of laughter to your eye ;P
http://www.strongerfamilies.org/index.php?nid=79393&s=ms&grpid=5851&grpDetails=true

Stay Connected w/your spouse

The minute you or your spouse returns home from work is the most important 60 seconds of the day. It is the moment, say Les and Leslie Parrott, when you and your spouse reconnect, and the quality of that connection sets the emotional tone for the rest of your time together. If general busyness and the demands of daily living are eating away at your marriage, then don't miss today's broadcast as the Parrotts offer encouragement and advice from their book Your Time-Starved Marriage: How to Stay Connected at the Speed of Life.

"Rather than coming in and saying, 'Hey, what's for dinner?' or 'Did you get the mail?' ... just take 60 seconds for tender touch, to caress and say, 'How was your day? How are you feeling?' Just get a little read on that. That sets the tone for the evening together."
— Les Parrott

http://listen.family.org/daily/A000002552.cfm

The First 5 Years of Marriage

I love these two. I've heard them a few times and just real good down home advice.

Focus on the Family - Marriage

http://fotf.cdnetworks.net/fotf/mp3/james_dobson_on_marriage/jdom_2010/1_jan_feb_march/jdom_20100302_276.mp3

Blah Blah Blah...Why Can't He Hear You Part 2

I'm continuing the story but not sure if it's ALL accurate ;) -R


Blah, blah, blah!
For years, researchers have claimed that women talk way more than men — one oft-cited stat is that women use 20,000 words a day while men use only 7,000. But it turns out that women and men both use an average of 16,000 words per day, according to a recent study from the University of Texas at Austin.

Lost in translation: What he really hears when your lips are moving.

You say: "Ugh, my boss is horrible. I had the worst day."
You mean: "I really need to vent about my day."
He hears: "Tell me how to fix my relationship with my boss."

You say: "Hey, can we talk?"
You mean: "I have something important to tell you."
He hears: "You screwed up, buddy."

You say: "Oh, those shoes don't go with that belt. Why don't you wear the brown ones?"
You mean: "I just want to help you look good."
He hears: "Aw, the widdle baby can't dwess himself!"

You say: "Let's straighten up in here."
You mean: "Let's straighten up in here."
He hears: "I resent that you're a pig."

You say: "I'm so sorry you had such a rough day. You must feel terrible."
You mean: "I want you to know I empathize with you."
He hears: "I feel sorry for you, you sad sack of a man."

You say: "Do you think that woman's hot?"
You mean: "Tell me that I'm hot."
He hears: "DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! DO NOT ANSWER!"

Huh?!
Men's ability to process language and understand what's being said to them begins to diminish starting in their 30s. Women retain this ability until menopause.
Source: Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget by Marianne J. Legato, M.D.

Why doesn't he see what I need?
The love expert says ... he takes everything personally.

"If I call a friend and say, 'I'm having a terrible day,' she'll drop everything and ask, 'Are you okay?' A woman hears complaints as an invitation to move closer. But a man hears complaints as an indication that he's failed. He measures his very worth by his ability to provide and protect, so in his mind, if he were doing his job, she wouldn't be unhappy.

"Does this mean a woman can never complain to a man? Of course not! Men really want to please women. All you have to say is, 'Would you help me with ...' or 'I would love it if ...' Go beyond the complaint or criticism and get at the desire. High-maintenance women don't scare men. Men actually like it because it gives them a clear set of rules for how to improve, and they can tell when they're succeeding."

—Pat Love, coauthor of How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It

Why doesn't he understand me?
The linguist says ... he assumes you're trying to be the boss of him.

"In general, men focus on hierarchy and women on connection. I always find it fascinating to go back to studies of how kids talk: Boys use talk to negotiate their status within a group, while girls use talk to negotiate closeness. This difference can cause misunderstandings with apologies, for example.

"When a man makes some small transgression, his wife might feel that if he'd just say, 'I'm sorry,' it would be over. But he won't, and then you end up arguing about why he won't apologize. For many women, an apology means, 'I care that I let you down; I care about you.' If he doesn't apologize, it's like he doesn't care. But for men, asking for an apology is a demand that he publicly humiliate himself. He thinks apologizing is a sign of weakness, and that you'll use it against him, because that's what another man would do. So when you say, 'Why won't you apologize?' he hears, 'I caught you in an error and I'm going to rub your nose in it.'"

—Deborah Tannen, Ph.D., professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and author of You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation

Why doesn't he really listen?
The psychologist says ... he's too busy trying to fix the problem.

"There's a difference between how men and women process stress. In a woman, stress produces a reaction in the emotional center of the brain. Talking stimulates the production of serotonin to relax the brain, so she'll instinctively talk in order to feel better.

"For a man, stress triggers a reaction in the action center of the brain. So when you talk to him about a problem, he's so intent on taking action to fix it that there's no way he can actually hear your point of view. But if you tell him that the solution is just to listen, he can relax. He doesn't have to hunt for a solution, so he can listen, and maybe even empathize."

— John Gray, Ph.D., REDBOOK Love Network expert and author of the upcoming Why Mars and Venus Collide

Why can't he figure out what I'm really saying?
The psychiatrist says ... he's hardwired differently from you.

"In brain-imaging studies, women have more blood flow to the parts of their brains that produce and interpret language, and there are more interconnections between the emotional center and the verbal center. Men have less well-defined connections between the verbal and emotional parts of their brains. Early-childhood studies show that girls have a greater capacity for verbal communication than boys — they're more skilled at using words as a way of sharing their experience.

"The big problem between husbands and wives is that they don't realize how the other functions. A woman expects that since she is able to freely talk about her emotions, her husband is equally able to do so. Meanwhile, a man tends to view his wife's efforts to communicate as simply sharing information, not as sharing an emotional experience. So if she says, 'I'm upset that our son hasn't called to tell us he got to his friend's house,' he might say, 'I'm sure he's all right,' focusing on the 'Is he safe?' question. What she's really saying is, 'I'm anxious, I'm scared.' But he's not focusing on her emotional experience."

— Scott Haltzman, M.D., REDBOOK Love Network expert and author of the upcoming Secrets of Happily Married Women

"Our wires get crossed when ..."

"... the TV is on. I have to pause it and force my husband to make eye contact before I say anything. Otherwise, he will literally not hear me, much less retain any of what I said. The worst part is, there are still times when he doesn't remember what I said — and then he'll get mad at me when he doesn't remember!"
— Laura Kukucka, 30, Columbus, OH

"... something I say reminds him of something his ex-wife did or said and he thinks I'm taking him down the same path. I have to remind him that I'm not her."
— Katherine Miller, 29, Memphis

"... I criticize him, especially if I start with 'You never do ... ' or 'Why can't you ... ' I think it's because as soon as I say anything negative about him, all he hears is that negative statement. Everything after it just sounds like blah, blah, blah."
— Nature Lewis, 31, Staten Island, NY

"... there is any game on TV. It's like my husband's brain shifts and everything around him turns to babble. I think it's a hormonal change that happens to men during sporting events. So I'll tell him things I don't really want his opinion on — like expensive things I've bought — because he doesn't hear, and yet I haven't hidden anything!"
— Colleen Hoffman, 35, Washington Township, NJ

Told you so!
If you and he disagree about who said what when, chances are you're right (you knew it!): Studies have shown that women are better at recalling the spoken word than men.

Why Can't He Hear What You're Saying? Part 1

Part 1:

Your lips are moving. Sounds are coming out, and you swear you're speaking English. But he's Just. Not. Getting it. What to do? Read on for insight into why men misinterpret what women say — and how you can make yourself heard.
By Bryan Stipe

It was a novice mistake, I admit — the kind of dumb thing you do two months into a relationship, not four years. My wife and I were having dinner with friends and I was telling a story about how her brother crashed his car. Yes, maybe I hyperbolized a little bit, played it for laughs at his expense. So when Kristen shot me her death-ray look across the table — the one that means: You have committed some gaffe, said something offensive, revealed something private, etc., and should cease and desist — I ceased and desisted.

But afterward, on the car ride home, she was still mad. "I mean, at this point you shouldn't even apologize," she said. So I didn't apologize. I said I understood. I held her hand a little in the car, and when we got home I made a bowl of ice cream and watched Big Love. Later, Kristen came into the den, all dressed for bed, and stood silently watching Bill Paxton and wife number two in flagrante. "Well," she finally snapped, "you could have at least apologized!" When I protested that she'd told me I shouldn't apologize, she said, "It would have been a good place to start."

At that moment, I became a walking marriage cliché. You know the cliché I'm talking about. It goes: My wife speaks a strange alien tongue that I, no matter how hard I try, am too dumb to learn. It was one of those moments when you identify with that line from Knocked Up: "Marriage is an unfunny version of Everybody Loves Raymond."

But there's a reason the cliché exists: A lot of the time we guys do need help in the "What the heck are you talking about?" department. The Everybody Loves Raymond way of explaining this phenomenon is that we men are too thick to read between the lines. And, okay, this is kind of true. Kristen will try to tell me in every possible way about presents she'd like me to get for her. She might say, "Hey, those earrings are nice!" And nine times out of 10, I do not copy. I might think, Wow, she really likes to talk about jewelry a lot or Wow, does she not realize that I'm not a woman and that I don't care about earrings? Maybe if I'm quiet for long enough she'll change the subject.

The less Raymond-y way of explaining why we don't understand you is to say that we simply have different ways of talking. Men have two modes of communication: saying what we mean and repressing what we mean. We either say, "What you said the other night really pissed me off" or we say, "Hey, wanna go see Knocked Up?" Women, on the other hand, use a little more nuance. You imply things more than men do; you depend more on subtext. I remember in the beginning of our marriage, Kristen kept telling me that I looked sexy in black underwear. It took me about two months to translate that into "Your old white underpants are graying and disgusting. Please get rid of them and replace them with something that ages better."

The problem with subtext is that too often we men just don't catch it — and then we completely misinterpret you. I hate to say this, because yes, it's yet another "Men are so dumb" cliché, but it's kind of like when you pretend to throw a ball for a dog but really put the ball behind your back. The dog (man) is too stupid to keep his eye on the ball (the hidden meaning) and goes running after nothing.

This falls under my Grand Unified Theory of Male-Female Miscommunication: We misunderstand you most often when you want something but are afraid to (or don't think you should have to) ask for it, whether that thing is compassion or a back rub. Part of the problem is that you all are a lot nicer than we are — demure in some cases, and, it must be said, passive-aggressive in others. Kristen wanted me to "get" that she wanted those earrings without her having to ask for them. But when a man misses his cue, both parties can end up pissed. You feel like you're not being treated very well, and blurt out what it is you wanted all along (but are probably too annoyed to want anymore anyway). We feel like we've been ambushed. I'd say that's the dynamic driving fully half of the fights I have with my wife.

There is a way out. And that is: Show us some mercy. We really do want to understand you. And we are often a little intimidated in the communications department, partly because we know we have a reputation for being so bad at it. But look at us. We're trying so hard! Doesn't that count for something?

And we are not entirely untrainable: Over the course of a relationship, we'll (hopefully) pick up a few things. Recently, my friend Scott had a fight with his girlfriend about whether or not they were going to have dinner with his mother the following week. He'd been in this relationship long enough to know that what his girlfriend was really complaining about was not whether they'd see his mother, but his inability to plan anything more than five hours beforehand. So he said, "Let's plan right now for next week's dinner." That made everyone happy.

Even when your rules don't seem logical to us, we'll learn them by rote if necessary. The snafu about my wife and her brother, for example, taught me to apologize even when she tells me not to. Another rule I recently committed to memory: When the woman in your life has a crappy day, just listen and sympathize and express venomous contempt for those who have wronged her rather than trying to explain why it wasn't so bad.

Of course, that brings up a caveat. A man is not above gaming the system — that is, pretending not to understand what he doesn't really want to understand. "I didn't know you wanted those earrings!" he'll protest, instead of admitting, "I didn't want to spend that much money." After all, just because we're dumb doesn't mean we're stupid.

NEXT: Blah, Blah, Blah

Mad at Dad: Parenting.com

I've found myself in a snitty mood lately... and today trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with me. For the most part, I realize I am EXTREMELY lucky to have a husband like Matt. He is incredibly involved in caring for the kids and aspects of our lives most men could care less about. But, like this lady, sometimes I'm plain mad and feel like as a woman, I'm still expected to get it all done, to think for my entire family and sometimes, would like my own assistant to remind ME what I need to get done ;) and figure stuff out when the train falls apart - so this article was well times this week and I thought I'd pass it on. I'll include the rebuttal in the following days blog.

*******************************************

http://www.parenting.com/article/Baby/Relationships/Mad-at-Dad/1

My husband and I just celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. I'd say we have a great marriage. There's no one I trust more, no one else I'd rather talk to, and no one who makes me laugh harder.

But that doesn't mean I don't get furious at him from time to time.

Once, when I was dangling at the end of my rope, I insisted he go to the doctor for a hearing test. I was quite certain the man was deaf. How else, for instance, could he have taken my grandma's books to Goodwill instead of the antique-book dealer, as I'd asked when he was cleaning out the basement?

Just as I'd gotten used to the idea of the man I love with hearing aids, the news came in from the doctor. My husband's ears work fine. Better than mine, actually.

I know I'm not the only one who gets Mad at Dad. Whenever I see the phone number of a certain close friend on the caller ID, I know she needs my understanding ear because her husband has dropped a wad of cash on electronics while telling her she can't have someone in every other week to help clean, or because he let the kids eat junk food and play video games while she was running errands, and now they're glassy-eyed and glued to the ceiling. Meanwhile, his whiskers are in the sink and his boxers are on the floor, making her feel like she's married to nothing more than a hairy man-child.

These are the kinds of things we see parodied on TV sitcoms, where bumbling husbands get laughs for feeding the kids frosting sandwiches and sending them to school in scuba gear. These are the kinds of things we moan and groan about when we get together with our other mom friends, often playing our irritations for laughs. Honestly, though, it's not that funny. None of us signed up to live in a sitcom.

Life for women may be better in many ways than it's ever been, but we're far from whistling show tunes. According to Parenting's nationally representative survey of more than 1,000 mothers on MomConnection, an online panel of moms, the majority of us confess to feeling anger at surprising levels. We love our husbands -- but we're mad that we spend more mental energy on the details of parenting. We're mad that having children has turned our lives upside down much more than theirs. We're mad that these guys, who can manage businesses or keep track of thousands of pieces of sports trivia, can be clueless when it comes to what our kids are eating and what supplies they need for school. And more than anything else, we're mad that they get more time to themselves than we do.

HOW ANGRY ARE WE?

46% of moms get irate with their husbands once a week or more. Those with kids younger than 1 are even more likely to be mad that often (54 percent). About half of the moms describe their anger as intense but passing; 1 in 10 say it's "deep and long-lasting."

Bridget Malbrough, who lives in Houma, LA, says she feels angry "the majority of the time." She and her husband have been married for four years, though they separated temporarily after the birth of their daughter, who's now 1.

Her husband doesn't seem to pay attention to or understand his daughter's basic needs, says Malbrough -- for instance, that babies need a lot of sleep. He recently came home from a shift at work at 8:00 in the morning, when Malbrough and her daughter were still snoozing. They'd been up late the night before, and both mom and baby were zonked.

"He just decides he's going to wake everyone in the house up," Malbrough says. "He doesn't think she needs to sleep as much as she does." And, she adds, not only does he violate the universal "never wake a sleeping baby" rule, but once their daughter's awake, she's the one who has to tend to her.

Many moms -- 44 percent -- are peeved that dads often don't notice what needs to be done around the house or with the kids (it jumps to 54 percent for moms with three-plus children). We hate that we have to tell them what needs to be done, that they can step over a basket of laundry on their way to find the remote control.

Erin Niumata, a New Yorker and a mother of one, has a husband who's handy with a vacuum because he hates to see debris on the carpet. But he's oblivious to other things -- he never remembers to clean the bathtub, for example, even though she's asked countless times and can't do it herself because of a back injury.

"I hate nagging," she says. "If he asks me to do something, it's done. But if something doesn't matter to him, why should he bother? He'd never forget to TiVo something he wanted to watch, mind you."

Terry, another New York mom with three kids and a full-time job, gets irate every morning during the mad rush to get the family out the door to daycare, school, and work. "I'm making breakfast, getting dressed, and screaming at everyone to get ready -- while he's at the computer," she says. "He always hops-to when I ask him, but it bugs me that he doesn't just pitch in and help on his own. I have to ask every damn day."

Lots of moms -- 40 percent -- are also angry that their husbands seem clueless about the best way to take care of kids. We know we didn't marry buffoons. We married smart men who can fix cars and garbage disposals, men who empty mousetraps without getting the heebie-jeebies, men who can keep track of their fantasy football trades. So why can't they remember to put kids in coats and mittens before sending them off to school? Why do they give the baby a bottle right before we come home, all bursting and ready to nurse?

"My husband is sometimes lax when it comes to keeping an eye on the kids," says Sarah, the mom of a toddler and preschooler in New Jersey. "No one's ever gotten hurt, but once I came home and found that my toddler's brand-new -- expensive! -- rug was covered in marker. It was clear he'd left them on their own for a while, with markers. I was furious. I'm still furious."

ONLY ONE THING AT A TIME

40% of moms are mad that Dad can't multitask. And the more kids they have, the madder they are: 46 percent of moms with three-plus kids are irked by this.

As mothers, we think nothing of stirring a pot of noodles while setting up a refrigerator-repair appointment, sorting mail, and helping a child with his weekly spelling words. And it annoys us when our husbands act put-upon or overwhelmed when we want them to handle a couple of things at once. The dinner hour tends to be especially trying. Randi Maerz, a stay-at-home mom who lives in Keokuk, IA, says she's repeatedly asked her husband to watch their daughters, 4 and 2, while she's cooking, if only to keep them safe.

Instead, he comes home with a list of things he plans to do around the house. He gets to focus on one thing at a time, whether it's changing his clothes or doing touch-up painting on the house. Meanwhile, she's trying to cook with human leg warmers clinging to her shins.

"His priorities always come first," Maerz says. "He's got to accomplish them before he can focus on helping me with the kids." She likes how he takes on house projects, but his inability to acknowledge her needs and his unwillingness to multitask irritate her every day.

Lisa, a mom of two who lives in the suburbs of New York, knows the feeling.

After a full day at work, she can be cooking dinner, helping with homework, and taking notes for a PTA meeting while her husband is in the family room with their preschooler. She'll ask him to sort through magazines to be recycled while he's there, and he'll claim he can't because he's watching their kid.

OUT-OF-WHACK WORKLOAD

31% of moms say their husbands don't help with the chores -- in fact, they generate more.

Lucy King is a former executive turned stay-at-home mom in Franklin, TN. Her much-loved husband leaves his dirty dishes in the sink, even though the dishwasher is empty, and can walk right by a basket of laundry without thinking to take it to the washing machine.

"It's like being pecked to death by a chicken," she says. "I call these silly little things the pecks that are nothing, but when they keep happening, they drive you crazy. I think, 'I shouldn't have to tell you I need this.' "

Malbrough, who also stays home with her daughter, says her husband leaves all the housework to her -- even though he works two weeks on and two weeks off as a cementer's assistant. "He said that's my job," she says. "Since we've been married, he has cooked twice that I can remember. He doesn't know how to operate the dishwasher. He's never vacuumed."

Many moms complain they do more family work outside the house, too. One in five moms says her husband finds time for his own errands, like taking his shirts to the dry cleaner, but doesn't manage to fit in such family ones as going to the supermarket.

Traci Magee of Oak Ridge, TN, has a 6-year-old daughter and a job as a school librarian. Her husband assumes that because her workday ends earlier, she can do all the errands -- even though he has no idea of the sort of maneuvering that takes, especially with a kid in tow.

"Right now, his car needs to go into the shop," she says. "Somehow, I'm supposed to be the person who figures out how to get that done. I don't think he understands the logistics of getting a child somewhere, taking her to daycare, planning ahead for all the things that come up." Often, she says, she isn't home until 6 P.M. -- and he's already there. "A woman's expected to be able to wear fifteen hats," she says. "And it's very time-consuming and tiring."

IT'S NOT JUST THE HAT: IT'S WHAT'S INSIDE THE HAT

33% of moms say their husbands aren't shouldering equal responsibility and are less concerned than they are about their children's basic needs, like nutrition and clothing -- a number that rises to 41 percent for those with three or more kids. What these moms wish: that their husbands acted more like partners -- especially when it comes to the nitty-gritty.

Andrea, a mom of three who lives on Long Island, NY, comes home from work to find her husband has let the kids snack at 5 P.M. instead of giving them a real dinner, though she's repeatedly asked him to just go ahead and feed them. Or he has tried to feed them but has served something they won't eat, like a "bloody wedge of meat on a plate" with no side dishes. Then, after the kids have brushed their teeth for bedtime, they complain of hunger ("Of course they're hungry!"), so he gives them more snacks. "And then who has to oversee the rebrushing of teeth while my husband is off watching TV? I do."

Terry's husband, she says, never thinks about what the kids should be eating when he does the grocery shopping. "I cannot remember once -- not once -- that my husband bought fresh fruit or vegetables, let alone prepared them, for our three children. Now that I think of it, I don't think he's ever spontaneously bought any frozen vegetables, either."

Nearly one third of moms complain that parenthood has changed their lives more than their husbands'. We carry so much of this life-altering responsibility in our heads: the doctors' appointments, the shoe sizes, the details about the kids' friends. Many dads wouldn't even think to buy valentines for the class, for example, or know when it's time to sign kids up for the pre–camp physical, or that curriculum night is next Thursday at 7:30 and you need to hire a sitter and bring a nut-free vegetarian appetizer that can be eaten without a fork. Even moms who work full-time take it upon themselves to store all this data in our already overstuffed heads. We're the walking, talking encyclopedias of family life, while dads tend to be more like brochures.

It's no wonder that more than one in four moms feels like she spends more mental energy on parenting than dads do. Meanwhile, the thing that would help -- some time off -- seems like it disproportionately goes to dads.

NEEDED: A BREATHER

50% of moms tell us their husbands get more time for themselves. Brandi Morgan, a mother of two boys in Bandera, TX, feels her anger spike "when I've had sleepless nights staying up nursing the baby, and I'm up early cleaning after last night's dinner and trying to have a moment to breathe by myself, and my husband, by his own choice, gets up early and spends a lot of time at the gym," she says.

Jessica, a stay-at-home mom of two who lives in New Jersey, is angry that her husband, a mortgage broker who works 11-hour days, manages to carve out one weekend day for his passion -- his work as an independent music producer. The other day is "family day." If Jessica is lucky, she gets an hour or two off a week. "I sometimes want to get in the car and just drive and not have to worry about the kids," she says.

The lack of time off is a huge issue for the moms carrying the most anger. Over 60 percent of the moms who get mad weekly -- and almost three-quarters of those who are angry every day -- feel this way.

One thing that can complicate it is the different ways some moms and dads choose to spend their time. Moms tend not to let themselves slack off when there are chores to be done.

Erin Martin of Seattle remembers the Saturday morning she spent rushing making football-shaped sandwiches for her son's sixth-birthday party. Her husband, meanwhile, was goofing around on the computer, oblivious that he could be pitching in.

This sort of thing happens all the time -- she's taking care of the kids or the house or something else for the family, and he's taking care of himself. "I used to think he did it on purpose and it would make me much angrier," she says. "Now, I think it doesn't dawn on him. Guys are just better at compartmentalizing."

Over time, all these feelings -- from annoyance to outright rage -- can be hard on a marriage.

"Anger is corrosive," says Pepper Schwartz, Ph.D., the mother of two grown children and a University of Washington sociologist who's studied couples' dynamics for decades. "It's like a termite that starts to reproduce more termites. If you never get rid of the termites, one day you're going to lean on a wall and it's going to crumble underneath your weight."

Anger can also erupt in unexpected ways, Schwartz says. A mom might blow her stack because her husband forgot to turn off the light switch. He'll think she's crazy because it's just a light switch. But it means so much more.

Lucy King, the former executive who gave it up to be a full-time mom, was so mad she couldn't even talk to her husband because of...a coffeepot.

"I said something might be wrong with the coffeepot. He gave me this funny look like, 'You're crazy.' " What set her off was the look, which felt like a failure of her husband to support her.

"I used to manage 400 employees," she says. "I have a master's degree. I was a pretty high-ranking executive. And he questions me about this little stuff! It's hard."

Anger is worth paying attention to.

If you're chronically at the boiling point, it could be damaging to your health.

When you're mad, your body floods with adrenaline. If you're often angry, you might lose your ability to produce a hormone that blunts adrenaline's worst effects. You can also weaken your heart, harden your arteries, raise your cholesterol, damage your kidneys and liver, and put yourself at risk for depression or anxiety. It's no wonder that some scientists consider chronic anger more likely to kill you prematurely than smoking or obesity.

Redford Williams, M.D., director of the Behavioral Medicine Research Center at Duke University, is blunt about it. "Anger kills," he says. "It's not just that it can damage your heart -- which it does -- but it's also been found in epidemiological studies to identify people who are more likely to have a heart attack or drop dead from any cause." Great. We're not only mad because we're carrying our family's weight, it's going to kill us.

SO NOW WHAT?

60% of moms don't tell their friends what they're going through, or they make light of it.

This is particularly surprising, since our mom friends -- who'd understand better than anyone -- could be a great source of support. "When we make jokes about it, it's one way of talking about it without admitting to ourselves that it's really bad," Schwartz says.

We should talk to each other -- and be more honest about the depth of our feelings. There's great comfort in knowing you're not alone, you're not unreasonable, you're not crazy. If it's uncomfortable to do that with a friend face-to-face -- whether you're worried about being judged or feel it's disloyal to your husband -- then, hey, find some online friends to commiserate with.

The ones we also really need to talk to, however, are our husbands. The fact that so many moms are mad, and that so many of the complaints are similar, is significant. And maybe that can give all of us moms -- who love our husbands but wish they'd just be...more like us -- the push to make some changes, to delegate more and demand more for ourselves. Anger can be debilitating -- but it can also be motivating.

Plus: Mad at Dad Part 2: a response to this controversial article

Martha Brockenbrough is the author of Things That Make Us [Sic], a funny, snarky guide to avoiding bad grammar

Mad At Dad Part Two: How to Get Past the Anger

This was actually better than the original post, so I'm placing it on first before the original. I liked the suggestions of how to work it out. I am one of the lucky ones and I often think why is it that we have such low expectations of our men and such high expectations of ourselves? Crap - I'm sure Marshmallow filling is in our future.... should I have deleted that part of the story?

9pm, here I come! :)

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A response to the controversial Mad at Dad, and what to do about too-laid-back dads

By Martha Brockenbrough, Parenting

http://www.parenting.com/Common/printArticle.jsp?articleID=1000076138

"It actually brought tears to my eyes," wrote one mom, who called herself Mamaford, after reading Parenting's February article "Mad at Dad." "I know I'm not alone, but to see some of my exact feelings on the page allowed me to let go of some of the anger."

Another mother, who called herself BNA's mom, wrote, "I'm so grateful for the 'Mad at Dad' article. I felt like the worst person in the world. My husband is one who can sit and watch TV but can't hear his son asking him to play with him while standing at his dad's feet... Thanks for letting me know I'm not the only one."

We struck a nerve with our "Mad at Dad" story, which talked about the surprising and regular anger many women feel toward their husbands for not sharing the family-life load. Based on a nationally representative survey of 1,000 moms, the story lit up the blogosphere and also got picked up by The New York Times, Salon, The Huffington Post, and the Associated Press, among many other places. And hundreds of parents -- moms and dads alike -- vented and shared their opinions and frustrations on Parenting.com. (A note to those involved pops out there, like Sportswriter Dad, who chimed in that "I can braid hair and wipe butts with the best of them... I can do the chores and stay in tune to my kids' wants": We're not mad at you.)

It's a tough world out there for moms. We're surrounded by Judgy McJudgersons who jump down our throats if our kids have a meltdown in the cereal aisle, and if the thank-you notes don't get written, we're the ones who are viewed as disorganized -- not our husbands. Many of us are trying to keep it all together while holding down outside jobs, as well.

Is it really any wonder, then, that we sometimes feel crushed by the expectations, both our own and others'? When we don't get equal partners in the domestic trenches, the anger that results can sink our once-thriving relationships. It's one of the most common problems that Bonnie Eaker Weil, Ph.D., a New York family therapist and author of Make Up, Don't Break Up, sees in her practice.

"I'm finding a lot more women burned out," she says. "Two thirds of all women work outside the home and usually spend an additional thirty hours per week on childcare and housekeeping…and that's lowballing it. That's why they're so angry."

It can be a real danger to a marriage. You've seen the wear and tear kids put on a couch. They can do the same thing to your relationship. In fact, as many as 70 percent of partnerships start to nose-dive when kids enter the picture, Weil says. So how do we make things better? While you can't make a guy wake up and notice that the bathroom lightbulb's been burned out for three weeks, there is hope. We've got a five-step program that can help defuse a variety of flash points and make your marriage a happier partnership.

Step One: Raise Your Expectations

Even if you didn't negotiate an ironclad prenuptial agreement that he, too, shall scrub the gooey remains of dinner out of the kitchen sink, you can rewrite the rules of your marriage. Experts say it comes down, in part, to expectations.

First, recognize that equality is an attainable goal, says Francine M. Deutsch, a professor of psychology at Mount Holyoke College and author of Halving It All: How Equally Shared Parenting Works. "As much as you see written about how the norm is that women do more," she says, "there is a significant number of couples who truly share the work of the home."

Women need to expect (and demand) an equal partnership. There's a message that fathers who pitch in are somehow special. Isn't she such a lucky woman to have a guy like that? we say.

While it's important to respect the pressure that men are under to provide for their families (even though most moms also work outside the home and many are the main breadwinners, too), we need to view a fifty-fifty partnership as a choice a couple makes together.

Regardless of whether you both hold jobs outside the home or one partner stays at home, you need to "establish the principle that the work at home is just as valuable, just as hard, and just as worthy of time off as the work outside the home," Deutsch says.

Step Two: Get Him On The Same Page

If Dad isn't quite acknowledging that managing a family and a home is actual work, you might take a page from Freaky Friday and swap roles, says Weil. For stay-at-home moms, "the man doesn't get it most of the time," she says. "He really thinks that you're taking naps and relaxing all day." And for working moms who, say, handle daycare dropoffs, dads often just see shorter work hours. Weil asks the moms she treats to leave the kids with their dad the whole day -- and leave everything to him, including meals. Erin Martin, a Seattle mom interviewed for our February story, tried this on two different weekends, with amusing, if not amazing, results.

Both times that she went out of town, her husband either hired a sitter to "give him a break" or called in her mom for backup. Afterward, when the whole family was together for a week on vacation, he told her he had a much better idea of what her life was like. "He was much more appreciative of me," she says. And now he understands why she's so tired when he comes home from work, and why she's likely to snap at what seems like a trivial thing.

Once he's walked in your shoes, you can come up with a plan for managing your life together.

Step Three: Divide and Conquer

The best way for both partners to correct the unequal division of labor (and understand it, if the Freaky Friday switcheroo didn't drive home the point) is to put it in writing. Start by each making a list of everything you're doing on behalf of the family and the time it takes to do it. This includes bill paying, cleaning, shopping, organizing, taking the kids to the doctor's office, filling out their permission slips, helping with homework, RSVPing to birthday parties, wrapping gifts... it's going to be a long list.

And it will be eye-opening. Both of you will see, in black and white, just how much you're managing. You might also realize he's doing some things you hadn't recognized. Just as likely, though, he's going to see that there's more he can contribute.

Ask yourself, too, whether you're doing some things that don't need to be done, like striving for a House Beautiful standard when House Adequate is fine. Liesel Anderson, a Santa Cruz, CA, mom, settled for that when her daughter was a preschooler and her son was a colicky infant. Her husband was working 12-hour days, and she felt like she was shoveling a mountain with a spatula. "It hit me, as I was rubbing fingerprints off the fridge handle at eleven o'clock on a Tuesday night, that I had to let some things go."

A word of advice: Seeing the hideous imbalance on paper will likely reignite your anger and frustration. As you work together to even out the division of labor, try to stay positive, even though it may be challenging. You want to feel like you're solving things together instead of having dump-on-Dad time, says Pepper Schwartz, Ph.D., author of Peer Marriage and dozens of other books on relationships.

Once you've completed your lists, start discussing who should do what and when. As you reallocate responsibilities, keep in mind each other's strengths and weaknesses, but don't be limited by them, advises Weil. Just because he's never been great at planning a week's worth of meals for the grocery-store run doesn't mean he can't learn.

Then convert those responsibilities into a weekly schedule. Need help? Consider using a free online calendar like the ones at Google, Windows Live, or Cozi.com to manage tasks, activities, and shopping lists. Agree that you will both look at the schedule every night to see what needs to be done the next day.

For best results, all the experts stress the importance of affection and positive reinforcement. Weil is a big fan of combining talks about the daily schedule with a hug or a kiss. Not only does this remind both of you that you're sharing these responsibilities as a team, but the physical contact also gets the endorphins flowing, which will help you associate family-care tasks with a pleasurable dopamine high!

Having a formalized plan hopefully will mean that one partner (okay, you) doesn't need to nag the other to do his share of the workload, which is, of course, a common source of stress. "The more you can build the sharing into your schedule, the less it becomes a contentious issue," says Amy Vachon, who with her husband, Marc, wrote the forthcoming Equally Shared Parenting: Rewriting the Rules for a New Generation of Parents. She and Marc alternate chores like picking up their two kids from school and making dinner on weeknights.

Another tip: When it comes to housework, keep an eye out for the chores that are hot spots. Most couples end up arguing about the same few trouble areas, says Amy Vachon. If you can isolate and tackle these problems -- like how frequently the bathroom needs to be cleaned, or who is going to buy the dog food -- both of you will make huge gains.

Step Four: Lower Your Standards

If you've been in charge of many aspects of your home and your child's life, you're naturally going to be more competent at things like the schedule,says Amy Vachon. You'll need to let go of some of that turf.

This can be the hardest part for a mom who's been in the driver's seat for a while. Your husband isn't going to do everything to your exact specifications. Just because we're fanatics about dust-free baseboards doesn't mean our husbands have to be. And just because we never feed a baby pureed spinach for breakfast doesn't mean it's wrong.

Anderson, the Santa Cruz mom, had to let go of her "control freak" ways when her husband took the sugar-free peanut butter she'd purchased and used it to make sandwiches -- with marshmallow fluff.

"It was something the kids called a 'daddy sandwich,'" she says. "It's become one of those 'legend in our family' things, and it's a treat -- not an everyday thing -- but a Fluffernutter sandwich is not going to ruin my kids."

As you work with your new schedule, try to appreciate the small steps forward when you can, like when he does the laundry without being asked. "If he didn't fold the clothes, try to be happy that he washed the clothes," says Weil. Yes, it's frustrating when everything isn't done the way you would do it. But is your relationship really worth less than neatly folded laundry?

Sometimes, experts say, being happy with the effort leads to greater feelings of happiness overall. "Fighting can leave you feeling really worn out," Weil says.

And if your partner does something mind-numbingly stupid, like forgetting to feed the kids, resist the urge to blow up and seize control. When you do this, you make your husband feel incompetent, says Schwartz. You also train him to expect that you'll cover for him.

"You really have to stand back and talk about it in a calm way, not necessarily when it's happening in the heat of anger," adds Deutsch.

The bottom line: Involve your husband as your partner, not your employee. Ultimately, this is a gift to your children, says Marc Vachon. "Moms and dads are different, but they both need to be equally valued," he says.

Step Five: See What You Can Learn From Him

Moms are mighty machines of awesomeness in the ways we multitask: We can fill out school forms, stir pasta, and keep the baby's fingers out of the cat's eyes all at the same time. Many men, however, seem unable -- or unwilling -- to do more than one thing at once. Ask him to watch the kids after breakfast and he will. But the dirty dishes may still be sitting on the kitchen table when you return.

Fact is, though, that doing ten things at once may be overrated at home. "It can mean that you're not in the moment with your kids as much," says Marc Vachon. "It's useful to multitask, but it's also useful not to multitask."

Another lesson we can take from Dad's playbook: Find time not to do any "tasking" at all. In our original survey, 50 percent of moms reported that their husbands got more time for themselves than they did. Given free time when, say, the baby is napping, many moms are more likely to use that time to load the dishwasher, while dads might use it to surf the web or check the score of the game.

At the advice of her marriage counselor, Martin, the Seattle mom, started designating a quitting time each day. Even if it's as late as 9 p.m., having a stopping point to her workday has done wonders for her happiness and her relationship. She can pick up a book, chat with her husband, watch a movie with him, or do whatever she wants without feeling guilty -- almost.

"It's been really great," she says, "even if it's hard not to feel guilty. But my husband doesn't feel guilty when he wants to read and there's laundry to do, so I'm trying to enjoy myself."

Another mom from our February story, Lucy King of Franklin, TN, has started taking walks by herself after dinner while her husband tidies up the kitchen and watches the kids. "This is really helpful," she says, "especially when I have both boys home all day and they fight constantly."

It's critical to have time to do things that make you happy. You can't leave your needs out of the equation, and it's difficult to take care of yourself if all of your time is spent taking care of your home and family.

In the long run, everyone is happier when dads contribute more -- even dads. In her interviews with 150 couples for her book, Deutsch found that the men who'd made the compromises required for a fifty-fifty parenting split were more satisfied at home.

"Every single one of them felt there had been this incredible payoff," she says. "There were huge benefits for the parents and the kids." Not the least of which is a mom who isn't angry all the time.

Martha Brockenbrough is the author of Things That Make Us [Sic], a snarky guide to avoiding bad grammar. She lives in Seattle.

FOTF Women & Mid-Life Crisis

This is a radio broadcast from Focus on the Family. This was a fascinating and informative broadcast, for both men & women. This is part 5 of a 6 part series. Very quick, 5 minute segments. I will try & publish the rest but if you want the link to the broadcast (and numerous others on ALL topics of life) let me know.

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John Fuller (JF) & James Dobson (JD) interview Jim Conway (JC) and his wife Sally Conway (SC). They are experts on the middle years and they are discussing ways to help women manage that mid life crisis.

"There’s a common understanding that men go through a mid life crisis sometime in mid 30’s early 40’s. But women also go through a mid life crisis."

JD: Let’s get specific – how do you head off a mid-life crisis?

JC: If we can get husbands first of all to realize his wife, as well as he a little later on, are both going to go through a transition where they are going to be rethinking who they are, what they want to do with their life and what their values will be. It’s not a bad thing, it’s not an unspiritual thing but it’s a normal rethinking process. He needs to be prepared to have time enough to allow that to happen in her life so that he is not just using her to make his career successful. See that is what I was doing with Sally, I was using her to keep my church ministry going - now don’t demand any time of your own because you’ll take that away from my ministry.

JD: I think one of the most difficult realities that a young man has to face is that he is brought up to see his career as an all consuming effort and he marries this helpmate, who is going to stand side by side with him and together, they will conquer the world. He buys in to that and he sets himself to go out to do it, pours himself in to it and he thinks in his little mind “I’m doing this for her – this is for you babe! Together, we’re gonna buy a house because I’m working hard and we’re going to raise our kids – because I’m working hard – and I’m going to provide for you” – and he thinks of that as his mission. Then it dawns on him she not only doesn’t appreciate that, she considers his job a competitor. She resents that work - instead of feeling like “well I appreciate what you're doing for us” – she sees the job as another woman, practically and that’s a blow to him when that comes.

JC: And if the man is reflective enough, he’ll see that he wasn’t doing it for her at all. He was doing it for himself. And he never faced that. That’s devastating. She’s faced it – “you're out doing that for you, it’s not for me”.

SC: Well a lot of time she’d be more willing to trade some of those things he’s providing, for time that she’d like to have from him.

JD: I’ve watched medical students go in to their post graduate education with great zeal – this is something we’re going to do together!” but by the junior year, the third year of school, the wife realizes “hey, I’ve been replaced. This guys’ married to medicine. This isn’t something we’re doing together, this is something he’s doing for himself. And furthermore, I’m a has been”. And divorces occur right there.

SC: And it happens to the seminary students we work with too. They realize their husband likes Hebrew & Greek and Theology more then he does with a relationship with them. Or he feels like he must put it first in order to get A’s at school.

JD: I hate to really bomb the men because I didn’t get the PHD without some sweat and you’ve got to work hard to make it in life. So what’s the answer? How do men take this challenge that they feel God has called them to, whether it’s the ministry or something else, without sacrificing what their wives need?

SC: It would be better if a seminary student took B’s and had one of his majors in personal relationships. Especially with his wife. Even if it took longer to finish school.

JD: I had to do that. There was a point in my doctorate program in USC that I felt the obligations in classwork had eroded my relationship with Shirley. We came to a point where I didn’t know her as well as I wanted to and I knew she needed me. I took a semester off in order to make contact with her again and cooled down my outside responsibilities because I wanted my family to be higher on my list of priorities. So we can do both.

JC: I think we need to point out to men that quite often the younger men is not focused on his direction. When he gets into his mid 40’s he’s going to throw a lot of junk away because he’s going to say “that’s a dumb thing, I wish I’d never started that”. If we can get them to focus in their mid 20’s then their not going to take on every job. i.e. working on doctoral program. If a professor says “I need someone to take on this project”, quite often a doctoral student will accept that project because politically it is an advantage for him. It may not be his interest, it may not be where he want to spend his time but he does it for a political end. If we can get people to focus away from their political ends and focus on their gifts & abilities and narrow, then they can take lesser amount of energy to accomplish without taking on the world.

SC: Some other things to help the woman get through it quicker – besides her husband being the right kind of guy. She too needs to look at her own gifts and abilities are. Yes, if she’s a mother right now & the children are still home, she’s got her priorities right in front of her. She too may have taken on an awful lot she doesn’t need, such as PTA, teaching or several things at church, to where she’s a fragmented person too. And she may be ready to throw it all over. Or she could be the other way to where she’s grown stale and doesn’t have any outside interests, kind of sogging away in front of the soaps every day. In any case, she needs to be evaluating what God intends for her to do with her time & abilities.

JD: Just as a husband has a responsibility to reserve some time effort & energy for his wife, no woman should depend on any man, including her husband, to meet her emotional needs. That was another very important milestone in my relationship with Shirley. No matter how loving I was, how attentive I was, how involved I was with the children, I was gone throughout the day and she needed more than that. And it was when she started to develop a ministry in the community, a whole network of friends and her conversation was not totally with me but with a lot of other people, then her world began to to open up. It’s a dual thing, staying alive emotionally.

SC: That’s right! Another thing you can be doing to help this time go smoother, is getting some guidance in helping her relationship with her children. They may be going through a traumatic time as teenagers, having their own identity & independence problems. If she can be understanding what they are going through so the relationship with them goes as smooth as possible, it will be helping her own time.