Relationships –Intermission: Crap advice

I just had to mention this one.

My local paper has an Agony Aunt, a counselor, psychologist etc. So she should know better!
One question-answer item really made me see red.

The letter, condensed:
My husband is a great provider and loves me and the children. Yet, despite being able to repair a car engine in the dark during the evening, he will not do a thing around the house or help me out.

The Agony Aunt reply, condensed:
You say he is a good provider and loves you. Perhaps you should value this and not demand more. Maybe it’s also the way you ask him. Try a different approach. Welcome him home, make him a cup of tea and discuss his day. Show you care and he just might want to do something back.

OK, this IS Asia, but please...

1. What is he providing and who for? Himself, the children he chose to have and the little woman that should be happy to fulfill his needs! He’s certainly not providing something she feels that she needs. The marriage is all about what suits him.

2. Yes, she should try a different approach – like not accepting his selfish behavior. That was her mistake from the very beginning. She accepted his behavior and hence said it was OK.

3. Oh yes, I can see that working. He has no impetus to change, so pampering him even more is going to change that how?

Both the woman writing the letter and the Agony Aunt need to step into the 21st century.
Surely, the days of thinking a man’s occupation is work and a woman staying home looking after the children is leisure time should be long gone.
If he is working 8 – 6, so is she, even though the nature of the work is different.

I fully agree that the nature of his work should play a part, but they must still negotiate arrangements for who does what in the evening – and find a solution that BOTH are happy with.
That is what the marriage is currently lacking.

Negotiation tactics is something I will be covering later, but I will say that is the part of the Agony Aunt reply that I nearly agree with.
Negotiating by attack pushes the other party into a defensive corner, and an amicable settlement then becomes very hard to achieve.
Non attack negotiation, however, does not infer total submissiveness.

This little question answer item illustrates something I have been discussing.
Tolerating leads to resentments and resentments start to undermine a relationship.
That is amply proven by the fact that the letter writer felt the need to write to an Agony Aunt about this.

The Agony Aunt is so saturated by her culture and peer pressure that she forgets everything that she should have learned as a counsellor. Going against a culture IS hard, but that is the only way a positive change can be achieved.