Читать книгу The Rules for Marriage - Ellen Fein - Страница 7

Some women make their husbands their whole life when they get married, and drop many of the things that made them interesting in the first place. Some lose interest in their careers or stop working altogether, some see less of their family and friends, and others cut back on interests and activities, including exercise. This is a mistake that we would like to help you avoid. We spoke to several women who became half a person in their marriage, only to regret it.

For example, Amy quit her job as an estate agent straight after she married Phil to concentrate on getting pregnant, learning how to cook and decorating their house. She also dropped some of her single friends. For years, she had met five friends every Wednesday night for a girls’ night out, but once she was married she decided to skip it so she could eat dinner and watch telly with her husband. Phil didn’t discourage it. In fact, he seemed flattered that she preferred his company and was happy when Amy told him she couldn’t relate to her single friends anymore.

After a few months, though, Phil started to tire of so much togetherness. When he came home he wanted to read a book (alone) instead of watch telly with Amy. He started making plans with his mates once a week to go out for drinks.

Amy was hurt and angry. She had dropped her friends to spend every evening with Phil, and now he was bored with her. Realizing the mistake she’d made, she went back to her girls’ nights out and took on a part-time job. Amy learned an important but painful lesson.

Many men will be flattered or even encourage their wives to drop friends or activities for them, only to lose interest in them when they do. Despite what they say, men like women the most when they’re busy. They love coming home to women who lead exciting lives, who are chatting on the phone, exercising or writing a novel on their computer, who will tell them an interesting story about some friends or co-workers, or who actually can’t talk because they don’t want to miss their yoga class… They like it when you’ve got other things going on besides them and have to fight a little for your attention.

Have you ever noticed that your husband wants to talk to you the most when you’re on the phone or in the middle of something? Have you noticed that he rarely wants to talk to you when you’re eager to talk or just sitting around doing nothing or waiting for him to come home? If you listen to what a man thinks he wants, and make him your whole life, he will get bored and pull back and you will feel hurt and regret it.

‘Husbands get bored when women only concentrate on them,’ says Nancy, who made this very mistake in her first year of marriage. She got busy in the second year by getting a job and taking ballet classes twice a week. ‘The more things I do, the more interested he is in me. I feel better about myself and my personality is more interesting, so he’s more attracted to me and now when we’re together he really appreciates me,’ she says. ‘You need to have a life apart from your husband.’

Andrea, a former book editor and now stay-at-home mum, who has been happily married for five years, concurs. ‘I have activities and friends apart from my husband. I have been on a tennis team for four years and we practise and play twice a week all year round. I also belong to a monthly book club. I have taken classes at a local college and I have participated in different church functions. I think married women must have outlets away from their home or else there’s too much strain on the husband – wife relationship. And I must say it is nice to see how much my husband misses me when I’m away spending a Sunday afternoon playing tennis. Sometimes he even comes to watch me play without my asking him to. He says he doesn’t want to be away from me too long …’

Of course, another reason to have a life when you are married is that you will be less likely to break rules. Women who are bored and restless are most likely to call their husbands a lot at work, nag, complain, find fault with them, or try to change them because they have too much time on their hands or are not happy with themselves. When you are involved in something, be it an interesting career, meeting friends for dinner or the pictures, exercising, taking night classes or doing charity work, you are busy, focused on yourself and less likely to bother your husband.

Maybe you can’t relate to Amy because her case is so extreme, but here is a more common scenario.

While Joan didn’t make Tom her whole life, she found it hard to put herself first at times and got hurt. When she was single, she loved to take exercise classes early Sunday mornings, her only day off from her retail clothing business. Tom thought it would be nice to spend Sunday mornings in bed together, eating breakfast and reading the newspaper. She agreed that it would be romantic too, so she stopped going to her favourite 9 a.m. class. After a few months, Tom started to sleep late on Sundays – sometimes until noon. An early riser, Joan would potter around the house for hours waiting for Tom to wake up. She finally asked him one Sunday, ‘What happened to breakfast in bed? I’ve been up for hours.’ Tom said work was exhausting and he needed to catch up on his sleep. ‘Why don’t you go to the gym?’ he asked.

Joan was furious. When she was running off to the gym, he wanted to do things together. Now that she was around, he wanted to sleep late!

When a man turns the tables on you like that, it’s easy to feel like a victim and make a big issue out of it. Don’t! He’s just human. We don’t always know what we want either! You’re better off resuming your activities and dropping the subject. Just realize that men are used to taking care of themselves, they don’t have to read books on co-dependence, they naturally put themselves first. Women, on the other hand, tend to be caretakers, wanting to please everyone else and putting themselves last, and then feeling like victims when they’re not appreciated.

It’s important to find a happy medium. You should not be so busy that you have no time for your husband, but there is no reason you can’t pursue your career, see your girlfriends once a week or take exercise classes and still have time for him. Your husband should be the most important person in your life, but he should not be everything or nothing. Strive for balance.

Regardless of what he thinks or says, he will be happier when you are fulfilled and busy. But the main reason you need to keep interesting is for you, not him. Why stop growing as a person just because you are married? We know women who used to keep up with the news religiously and followed politics with fascination when they were single, but now that they are married they don’t even know who is Deputy Prime Minister. You should not become brain-dead just because you are married.

Miranda’s problem was a little different, but you can probably relate to it. She didn’t want to take a decision without her husband’s input. When she was single she was very decisive. She ran an executive-recruitment firm, decorated her own flat by herself and travelled the world alone. But after being married a few months, she lost her initiative. She didn’t want to think for herself.

When she felt the kitchen floor needed re-tiling, she wanted Andy, an accountant, to help her pick the colours. When she had to choose curtains for the sitting room, she wanted Andy to go to with her to look at fabrics, during the middle of his busiest time.

‘I just can’t take off any time. Figure it out yourself or go with your mother. Whatever you decide is fine with me. Really!’ Andy told her. Miranda was so afraid to make a mistake that she wanted to put off decorating until after the end of the financial year. She would rather sit in a half-furnished house for six months than take a decision. It wasn’t bad for Miranda to ask her husband’s opinion, but once it was clear he wasn’t interested, she should have persevered on her own.

This kind of fear and co-dependence is quite common among married women. If you’re anything like Miranda, you need to be told that being married doesn’t mean being joined at the hip, that all decisions don’t have to be made with your husband especially if he shows no interest, that if you keep doing nothing while waiting for your husband’s approval you will have no backbone or self-esteem, and that it’s OK to make mistakes. Women like Miranda sometimes need to ‘act single’ – just go out and buy the tiles etc. – or nothing will ever get done.

Being happily married means finding a balance of togetherness and independence. Women who stop living their lives or depend too much on their husbands for companionship or decision-making end up feeling unhappy and unfulfilled, and their husbands know it. Don’t let this happen to you!