Frustration: Society Related

As you may know, last year I embarked on a 30 day challenge to be a better wife to my husband.

Well, a while back, FireMan actually seemed open to discussing our issues civilly, and seemed receptive to ideas, and I came up with the idea that what if we each simultaneously did challenges? I would re-do my challenge to be a better wife, while at the same time he did a challenge to be a better husband.

You know what?

I couldn't find any such challenges for husbands.

Anywhere.

Bookstores. Online. Christian or not. None.

There are plenty of references, guides, self-help books, websites, articles, and "challenges" to help women be better wives, but I could not find one such thing to help men be better husbands. Not one.

There were also quite a few "couples" references, where the information and tasks were aimed at both of you, which I suppose would have sufficed for my original purposes.

But it became a separate challenge for me: find the husband challenge.

I could not.

Since that time, I've paid attention to websites, magazines, books, even radio talk shows. It's always the same: tools to help women become better wives, but not one mention of such a tool for men.

This is frustrating to me on several levels.

First of all, well, it's just frustrating that I couldn't find what I wanted.

Secondly, it seems to send the message that marital problems are wholly (or at least primarily) the fault of the wife.
Why else would she need so much help, while he does not?

Thirdly, an expansion of the second, it gives the impression that the responsibility for maintaining a happy marriage falls squarely on the shoulders of the wife, instead of being a shared burden between the two.
This is an unfair, and impossible, responsibility to bear.

Next, it makes no logical sense. Why would the same writers or publishers that produced the wifely challenges not also produce husbandly challenges? In many cases they are produced by husband/wife teams. Yet these challenges only exist for the wife? This does not make sense.

Unless they are assuming that men have no interest in maintaining a happy marriage or sharing responsibility for marital problems. Which is a callous and unfair way to view men. Or a sad commentary on a real statistic.

And lastly, (meant to be said in a really whiny voice): it's just not fair.

So that is my frustration. Now, I'm not saying these sorts of challenges don't exist at all for husbands. Surely (right?) someone along the way has created one. But if they exist, they are certainly far fewer in number, and much more difficult to find than the ones for wives. Which just doesn't seem right.

Things have been good

The past month, things have been good between us. Not just existing, just just "okay", but actually good. Sometimes, really good.

At the same time, I feel that we need to make sure we don't get lazy. Don't let our guard down. Marriage takes work. All the time. Not just in the bad times to fix the problems, but in the good times to prevent them. Time to strengthen the foundation.

We had a fight

A couple of weeks ago.

It was a big one, although now it seems really stupid.

But it was a doozy.

Quite possibly the only time we've fought in front of FireGirl. Not good, I know.

But somehow we ended with a "we love each other, and don't want to do this, but..."

Which was a start.

And later that night we went to a friend's wedding.

And sometime during the ceremony, I had a thought.

Maybe... just maybe... this fighting... what we were fighting about... because it really was something relatively little & stupid... maybe we've finally settled into the normal-stuff-that-every-married-couple fights about.

Maybe.

But maybe we just have a hard time seeing it, because we went from honeymoon bliss straight into wedded nightmare.

So neither of us knows what it's like to just fight like normal.

So we both still see each little arguement as part of the wedded nightmare, when maybe... just maybe... we've finally just settled into a dysfunctional kind of normal.

Maybe.