When a woman says the above to a man, he scratches his head and thinks, “Do I need a shovel, do you want me to fix something in the house and when it comes to communication, I listen to you and then tell you what I think is a good solution… which you hate.”

What a woman needs to understand is that “working on a relationship” does not make sense to a man, is something he can’t understand and clearly from the tone of voice coming from that woman is obviously something he is incompetent at.

If you as the woman want the result of your little lecture/tutorial to be for him to be more caring, understanding, demonstrative and emotionally understanding and you think the above approach will produce that, with all due respect… you’re batty.

I realize I have about one more paragraph before you ladies tell me to take a hike or worse, so here goes my last shot with you.

Men don’t know how to work on a relationship or nearly anything intangible or something they can’t use cold (yes, guys… COLD) logic with. What men do know how to do is focus.

A couple that are two of my closest friends could have had the above exchange. When the wife said to her husband, “You need to listen better,” he smiled through clenched teeth and replied, “I do listen to you.”

He may have thought he was listening in his strategy to turn a conversation into a problem, come up with a solution, offer the solution and expect it to be greeted with opened arms and a, “Why thank you honey smile!” NOT A CHANCE!

Instead, she realized that he was great at focusing. And so she told him, with a kinder more patient and one glass of wine induced loving tone, “Just focus on what I am saying.”

Bingo! He was amazing at focusing on what his clients, customers and employees said and then drilling down even deeper until he understood and they felt understood. So now when his wife spoke, instead of pulling back and anticipating a “You’re clueless” look or those actual words, he leaned into what she was saying.

When she said something that had an emotional spin, a little hyperbole, or a word such as “never,” “always,” “awful” or “if only,” he would wait patiently for her to finish and then respond with, “Say more about that (repeating the word to her).”*

That would cause her to go even deeper and open up more and after she finished what she said next, he simply replied in an affirming and validating and encouraging her to talk even more tone, “Really!” After that she would go even deeper.

Following that he would say, “And the way that (situation) made you feel was __________ (and if she didn’t say, he would suggest words, such as: “Frustrated,” “Hurt,” “Angry,” “Ticked off,” “Betrayed”)” after which she would open up even further.

He then asked her: “What did you do next?” to which she told him. And then he asked her, “How did it work out?” to which she answered.

He then followed with, “I’m sorry that happened to you, what can I do to help?”

She just smiled, communicating that he already had.

And that night… he got lucky.

* The above dialogue is explained in greater detail under the concept of conversation deepeners in “Just Listen” Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone (Amacom, $24.95).

Also:

• Valentine’s Day – The 10 Habits of Happy Couples
• Six Steps to an Intimately Memorable Valentine’s Day

- Mark Goulston, M.D.

The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall in Love Again …and Stay There (Perigee, $15.95)

How often do you and your partner put a smile on each other’s face that touched each other’s heart? If that happens almost always, congratulations, go out in the world and serve as a role model and beacon of hope to other less happy couples.  If that doesn’t happen take the following quiz and then learn how to bring it back.

To find out what your scoring means and how to use this quiz with your partner to bring back liking (and adoring) each other that you once felt contact drgoulston@gmail.com.

And… if you like each other, but your sex life is kaput check out: Are You More Roommates than Lovers?

Yeller – someone who absolutely refuses to take, “No,” for an answer and woe be it to those who attempt to say it to them.

Why is it that a complainer will rarely complain to another complainer? First, complainers think that if they complain to another complainer that that other person will just complain or make an excuse about why they can’t help. Second, complainers perceive themselves as weak and perceive other complainers as weak and therefore don’t see that another complainer has anything to give them.

Instead complainers will usually complain to yellers. Why? Because complainers perceive yellers to be strong, powerful and having something to give them. They also believe that that strong person will either intervene on the complainer’s behalf, take care of something for them or let the complainer off the hook. The real problem that complainers don’t realize is that yellers are often not strong, they’re just angry.

What’s the solution for you in dealing with a complainer or yeller? First, don’t expect them not to react in a negative way (by complaining or yelling) if you want something from them that they don’t want to do or give. Second, after they complain or yell at you for something, calmly pause for at least ten seconds. That will drive them crazy, but rather than being frightened by them, see that as a temper tantrum at not being able to manipulate you.

If they do escalate and complain or yell louder about why you’re saying nothing respond by saying, “I’m just trying to figure out what you’re so frustrated about and what we and most likely you can do to make the situation better.”

There is a good chance they won’t like your saying “we” or “you” to them, when what they really wanted was for you to take care of the situation by yourself. If that is the case, they may become even more upset. But if you notice carefully, you will begin to see that they are more frustrated than angry, because they know you have caught them, refused to be manipulated and they don’t have a back up plan.

If they do throw the situation back at you to fix or say they can’t do anything to make their problem better, calmly respond, “Sorry to hear that, because I certainly don’t have any room on my plate to take care of this for you, so we’ll either have to figure out a way for you to handle it or you will have to figure that out by yourself and then handle it on your own.”

If they continue to dig their heels in or even attack you, calmly respond, “Look, I’m sorry you feel that way, but it doesn’t change anything. Either we figure out what you need to do to make it better or you will need to figure it out and handle it on your own.”

If they still refuse to cooperate with that (i.e. their last ditch effort to manipulate you) and even threaten to do something harmful to themselves, tell them, “Well I hope you won’t do that.” If they threaten to do something to someone or something else, say, “If that’s the case I’ll have to deal with that appropriately.” If they threaten to do nothing, say, “If you do nothing when it is your responsibility and it blows up or turns negative, you’ll have to deal with it or pay the consequences. I’m sorry if you don’t like that, but it’s what all of us have to do when we are responsible for something.”

By the way, you might wonder why yellers don’t yell at other yellers. It occasionally does happen as shown in the iconic movie, The War of the Roses, but as that film demonstrates, left unchecked yelling vs. yelling begets violence and sometimes murder.

Oprah: For all those couples out there who are having problems or going the first time around and want to avoid some of the disasters that we’ve heard about today, what’s the number one thing they can do today to turn things around in their relationship?

Dr. Mark: Be yourself as soon as possible in the relationship and get your spouse to be themselves, because why would you want to be with anyone who doesn’t like you for you?

Oprah: Yeah (surprised), and oy, we like that!

Watch video/audio clip for more

Why is that?  In the case of the reformed a-hole it’s because when you suddenly no longer have to fear and hate such people, the high is as powerful as pure grade heroine.

Also getting love and caring from a nice person doesn’t feel very special since they give it to everyone.  But getting love and caring from a dyed-in-the-wool b-itch or a-hole… that’s a real prize (especially since love and caring from such a person doesn’t exist).

But in addition to how special love and caring from such awful people can feel what else causes them to be treated better?

One of the things that b-tches and a-holes possess or more accurately don’t have is the neediness and whininess that emotionally needy people demonstrate.  And rightly or wrongly, emotional neediness is the kiss of death in both personal and professional life.

Why is it that emotional neediness so offends and even more so than the demanding behavior of b-tches and a-holes?

One reason is that you know where you stand with b-tches and a-holes and you know where their anger is.  I once heard someone say at a self-help meeting that you don’t really know someone until you’ve seen how angry they are capable of getting at its worst.  Until you see that, they are always holding back something.  In some way there is a relief to be able to see it so transparently in b-tches and a-holes, whereas with nice people the hurt has to reach a very high level before they will show their anger.

Perhaps the more powerful reason it offends is that you often have what is referred to as a transference reaction to whiny and emotionally needy people.  That reaction unconsciously conjures up the memory of an invasive, passive aggressive, guilt tripping parent who may have driven you crazy growing up and the kind of personality you always said you would steer clear of as an adult.

How offensive emotional neediness can be may explain why many financially independent, but emotionally needy people are treated so much worse than very financially dependent, but non emotionally needy and demanding b-tches and a-holes.

Now it gets a little more complicated as you grow up.  For as the title of this blog entry implied, often the b-tches and a-holes do better initially, but if you have a brain in your head you will do everything you can to get away from them after you realize that they’re just not that into you as much as they’re into dominating and controlling you.

A wonderful example of this played out in the finale in the hit sitcom Mad About You starring Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser.  In that long running show Helen Hunt’s character was always the b-tchy one to Paul Reiser’s ever consoling, ever calming and ever reassuring character.  She was always the one to suggest breaking up and the one threatening divorce.  He was always talking her out of it.  In the finale, the show focuses on the couple 22 years later when their daughter had grown up and when they had finally become divorced.

Interestingly, Helen Hunt’s character shared with her friends, “Can you believe it? After all those years of my threatening divorce, he divorced me.”  On the other hand Paul Reiser’s character shared with his friends essentially that after years of focusing on her being disappointed in him (a.k.a. a negative b-tch), he didn’t realize how disappointed he had become in her for being so critical, negative, unforgiving and unloving.  And in the end it corroded his loving feelings from the inside out.

What’s the takeaway?

Nice guys may finish last early on, but if they persevere, they will attract people that value them for their kindness and so in the end, they often get the chance to finish first.

Too bad it takes one or two marriages to get it straight.

Have you ever been lied to, stolen from, cheated or cheated on and wonder if there is a way back from betrayal?

If you’re the one who has done the betraying read and watch the video of the following airtight formula for earning back trust and follow it.

If you’re the one who has been betrayed, send this article and video to the one who has done it to you and tell them this is what you need in order to trust them again.

Once trust is broken by betrayal, can it be regained?

There is a road back, but it takes practicing the 4 R’s to respond to the 4 H’s you triggered in the other person by betraying their trust.

The 4 H’s and the 4 R’s:

1. To ease the HURT you need to demonstrate REMORSE to show that you know you damaged something in them, by looking them directly in the eye and admitting you’re truly sorry, with no excuses (this is the stumbling block for very narcissistic people and something Bill Clinton had trouble with during the Monica situation)

2. To respond to the HATE you need to show RESTITUTION and offer a payback for what you took away from them by giving up something that matters to you or letting them verbally punch themselves out at you for making them feel crazy
while you lied to them

3. To lower their HESITATION TO TRUST you need to REHABILITATE yourself to let them see a new way of dealing with those situations that caused you to stray and that you actually prefer to your old destructive behavior

4. To get them to stop HOLDING ONTO A GRUDGE, you need to REQUEST FORGIVENESS after practicing those 3 R’s for a minimum of 6 months so they can become a part of your personality.

If the other person is still unable to forgive you after that, you are no longer unforgivable (if you haven’t gone beyond betrayal into abuse), they are unforgiving.

It’s clear what is in it for you if they forgive you, but what’s in it for them? When you earnestly practice the 4 R’s above, you enable the person you injured to go from fear and loathing to feeling safe, trusting and even liking you again—and that feeling is called, “euphoria.”

*A full explanation of the 4 H’s and 4 R’s and how to use them to rebuild trust is available in The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall in Love Again…and Stay There (Perigee) by Mark Goulston with Philip Goldberg.

One final suggestion, confront, stop and cut your losses with evil people at the earliest opportunity. For everyone else who are merely flawed, find a way to forgive them, because if being unforgiving takes you over it will turn you bitter and turn you into that parent or relative that learned it from and you told yourself you would never want to become.

This may also be true for men, but it is especially true for women. Women are more in tune with their connectedness to other human beings than men. That may explain why many mothers can hear the sound of an infant toddler in another room and know what’s going on, whereas most fathers would need to go and check it out. It may also explain why more mothers than fathers can tell when their child has a temperature by pressing their cheek to their child’s forehead than is true for a father.

When a woman separates from her family of origin to attach to a man and to begin a marriage and then a family, she is much more in tune with and it is much more important to her that she feel she can trust the man in and with her life both explicitly and implicitly.

Not being able to do so shakes her to her core. That may explain why prenuptial agreements are so offensive and hurtful to so many women who feel pressured to sign them. What a prenup means to women if she is the less monied party, is that if he changes his mind about wanting to be in the marriage and decides he wants out, he gets to keep what was his before the marriage plus whatever is agreed to by virtue of the agreement. Makes sense from the man’s and their lawyer’s point of view, but it doesn’t exactly help the woman’s need to trust.

Since betrayal by cheating on a marriage is such a violent assault on the spirit of wedding vows, I think all prenups should have written into them that if either party has an affair that they forfeit something big. And while I’m on my soapbox that nobody will listen to, I would also add the stipulation, should either party ask for a divorce that both parties must agree to a minimum of six months of marriage counseling or marriage therapy, or else the person seeking the divorce also forfeit something big from the prenup (see: How Prenups Kill Romance).

What’s can be done to heal this wound?

If you have been betrayed, you need to decide whether you want to get over it.

If you decide that you would like to heal from it, you will need to tell the person who betrayed you to offer you the 4 R’s to respond to your 4 H’s (and then watch closely how earnestly they do it).

1. To ease your HURT they will need to demonstrate REMORSE to show that they know they damaged or even broke something in you, by looking you directly in the eye and admitting they’re truly sorry and that they were wrong, with no excuses or explanations (this is the stumbling block for very narcissistic people and something Bill Clinton and John Edwards couldn’t do to the satisfaction of their wives or the rest of us).

2. To respond to the HATE you feel at their taking away trust, they need to show RESTITUTION and offer a payback for what they took away from you by giving up something that matters to them or letting you verbally punch yourselves out at them  for making you feel crazy while they lied to you.

3. To lower your HESITATION TO TRUST they need to REHABILITATE themselves to let you see a new way of dealing with those situations that caused them  to stray and that they actually prefer to their old destructive behavior.

4. To get you to stop HOLDING ONTO A GRUDGE, they need to REQUEST FORGIVENESS after practicing those 3 R’s for a minimum of 6 months so these new mindsets and behaviors can become a part of their personality.

The level of resistance that the other person has to providing you those first 3 R’s is directly correlated to how justified they felt their behavior was. And since most interpersonal problems have two sides to the story, you should also own up to — with your 3 R’s — any and everything you may have done to trigger their behavior.

If you decide to not forgive, that of course is your choice. However, holding onto a grudge and dwelling on it can turn you into a bitter person (possibly like one of your parents who you swore you didn’t want to end up like).

What it comes down to is that if you’d rather be right, self-righteous and stay a victim, you really are damaged goods and not relationship material, because one false move from your next relationship and they will die for the sins of your past one.

Stay Tuned: Humiliation – The Wound that Won’t Heal for Men

- Dr. Mark Goulston appearing on Oprah
to discuss “Recoupling Therapy”
on a show about divorced couples that reconciled

When you buy a computer it comes preinstalled with software.  And when you get it out of the box, plug it in, you hear those wonderful chimes on a Mac or on PC Windows that signal you’re good to go.

Then your honeymoon starts and you are zooming through the Internet and using all your productivity software.  But then you hit a glitch.  A screen freezes, documents go unsaved, time to reboot.  Over time the glitches get worse.  Sometimes you have to reinstall the software and sometimes you even have to reinstall the operating system.  I’ve actually reinstalled software, but when it’s a matter of operating systems or even motherboards, I get a little sick to my stomach as I quickly feel in over my head.

When that happens you can rapidly begin to feel vulnerable and exposed (especially if you fear you have lost non-backed up information forever) and that vulnerability can cause you to hate the technology that just months ago you loved taking out of that box when you got home from Best Buy or the Apple Store.

When you fall in love, that comes preinstalled with “loveware” and an operating system called love.  I have used the mnemonic CREATE (as in CREATE love) to make each program easier to remember.

• C = Chemistry is about sex, romance, passion and excitement
• R = Respect and is about both feeling it towards and from each other and proud and lucky to have this other person as your spouse
• E = Enjoyment a.k.a. “fun” is pretty straightforward… you know that’s where you each put a smile on each other’s face
• A = Acceptance where you unconditionally accept and feel accepted for each other’s essence, based on who you each are, not what you each do (but feeling so loved causes you to want to do all sorts of loving thing to show your gratitude)
• T = Trust where you can not only rely on their doing what they say they’ll do, but you can entrust your fears and even your deep doubts about yourself regarding your competence, worthiness or even how good a human being you are.  It’s baring your neck and expecting them to respond emotionally with the reassuring touch of their hand instead of sticking a knife in it.
• E = Empathy where you understand and feel understood by each other.  This goes far beyond feeling figured out.  It’s walking in the other’s shoes and if when you’re there you see they need comfort or reassurance, giving it to them. At its best you feel “felt” and unalone in a world that seems to conspire daily to make you feel alone.

Yep.  When you fall in love, all of these feel present.  In fact it is the felt presence of all of these that often gives us the courage to finally break the ties of dependence or over dependence on our parents.  When we feel all of this loveware is in tact, we feel an emotional safety net that will catch us if we start to fall through the cracks when we finally making that break from our families of origin.  And feeling exuberant and safe is our honeymoon.

But alas.  Just as with our computers, each and sometimes all of the different loveware programs develop glitches.

He or she starts to relax their best behavior that they may have shown during the courtship and starts to burp or even fart, thinking it’s endearing (yougottabekidding).  Loving touch crosses over to groping.  Can’t wait to get into bed becomes, “I’ve got a headache.”  And voila.  Say goodbye to Chemistry.

He or she starts to interrupt, be curt, shut down or nit picky and poof, say so long to Respect.

And when Chemistry or Respect are on the way out, it becomes increasingly difficult to give or get a smile and so bye bye Enjoyment.

Pretty soon Accepting and giving each other the benefit of the doubt turns into being judgmental, offering advice when neither wants to hear it.  And when Acceptance feels most gone, a woman can often feel repulsive to her husband while her husband feels as if everything he does is wrong to his wife.

By now each spouse has probably started to act out passive aggressively so it becomes difficult to Trust them to do what they say they’ll do or if they do, to do it without resentment.  More insidiously is that the ability to bare your neck to the other goes away where each is afraid that if they did, they will be met with a cold, “What do you want me to do? You’re the one who messed up.”

As for Empathy and walking in each other shoes.  You can’t walk in their shoes if all you do is step on their toes.  And neither person has much of a chance of feeling felt when mostly what each feels is contempt.

The challenge is that when these inevitable glitches develop, couples do not have a way to reinstall their loveware.  And when the operating system falls apart and they not only stop loving each other, they barely tolerate each other and neither knows what to do to make it better.

The joke about where sex takes place in a marriage becomes all too true: anywhere when you first fall in love, in the bedroom after you’ve been married a few years (and certainly after children) and finally in the hall when you say, “F**k You! to each other” (and if not in reality, certainly in you mind) when you pass each other.

Sadly very often couples don’t repair those rifts early on before they become too entrenched, not because they lack the will.  It’s because they lack the way as the opening quote said: “to stop hating each other.”

Hatred is the result of hurt and disappointment not being addressed early enough to prevent it from turning into frustration, anger, hostility and in the end, bitterness.

I will address the steps to reinstalling the loveware program and love operating system in your relationship is subsequent blogs.  If you’re anxious to get started, check out The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall Back in Love … and Stay There (Perigee, $15.95). As it says on the back cover, “If you ever lain in bed beyond arm’s length of your partner and thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ or lain in bed by yourself, beyond the reach of anyone, and asked, ‘Will I always be alone?’ this is the book for you.”

And until you and I have a chance to visit again in subsequent blogs, try to be nice to each other.

Here’s the rap on the frequent rifts between emotionally based and logically based partners after the yelling and defensiveness have settled into a coldness that is like ice (and the emotional person is just as likely to be a man and the logical person is just as likely to be a woman).

Both partners are hesitant to enter into the nobody’s land between them that is a combination of both a no-man’s and no-woman’s land created by the animosity between them.  Neither wants to engage someone who is much more likely to bare their teeth or just shut down, than bare their neck regarding the hurt that each feels under the anger they show on the surface (that may be worth reading again and reacting to in your comments).

Before the logical/analytical partner steps into the gap, what the other person says needs to make sense.  Before the emotional/feeling partner enters it, what the other person says need to feel right.  And pure logic feels cold to an emotional person, just as pure emotionality feels “out of control” and crazy to the a logical person.

The truth is that each person is coming from a place of deep hurt and of self-protection much more than an assault on the other.  The proof of this is that at the height of the heated debate between the two, each frequently perceives that the other person is on the attack and saying, “I’m right and you’re wrong.”  More often than not, what each is actually feeling underneath that reaction is, “Damn it! I’m not always wrong!”

Understanding and identifying the hurt that lies within the hatefulness outside is the first step in bridging the gap and getting not just back to tolerating each other, but to liking each other.

The way to do that is calm yourself down and ask yourself, “What’s it like for the other person right now?”  You will usually realize that they don’t like the situation any more than you do and it’s unlikely that they really enjoy disliking you.  More likely is that they are reacting to feeling that you dislike them.

After you have become calmer and more centered, ask the other: “Do you hate this as much as I do and do you feel as powerless to turn it around as I do?”  Hopefully they will agree.

At that point say to them, “I’m not telling you that I’m right and you’re wrong and I’m not telling you that you’re crazy and stupid (to the emotional partner) or cold and clueless (to the logical partner).  What I’m saying is that when you react the way you just did (by becoming emotional or cold and shut down), I feel very hurt and before I let myself know it or show that to you, I turn it into anger and attack (or shut down).  What I am trying to say is that I really do hate it when we get into this place and that I don’t think you like it either.  But I don’t know how to stop it or even keep from making it worse and have no clue how to turn it around.  Do you have any idea what we can do when we get to this place?”

If you can say that in a calm, respectful and humble tone without even a hint of anger, blaming, whining or complaining (which is why you need to let go of your angry reactivity beforehand and take as many deep breaths as you need to become centered), you’re likely to get the response my patient received from his partner when he said the above.

She said, “I don’t know how to stop it or turn it around either, but you’re off to a good start.”

If the above scenario speaks to you, you can find additional resources by checking out: The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall in Love Again… and Stay There (Perigee, $14.95) with special pricing at amazon.com and “Just Listen” Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone (Amacom, $24.95) and catch some tips that Oprah seemed to like below:

If the above scenario doesn’t speak to you, there is a likelihood that: a) you’d rather be right than make it better (see someone just like that on Dr. Mark on Montel below); b) you have a pretty wide unforgiving streak that you learned from a parent who is even more unforgiving than you; c) if you don’t change, you are not relationship material.

Usable Insight: If you are angry at your spouse and can’t resist saying something hostile, start talking from the hate you feel on the surface, but don’t stop talking until you are talking from the hurt underneath.

How is it that the “hail the conquering (and hard working) hero!” reception turned into, “We got a big problem, that you need to take care of?” (a.k.a. “Nothing you do is as important as this!”)

Can this be the same couple that were rapturously in love just a few years back?

What happened?

I recently sat down with Elizabeth Danziger, author of Get To The Point. She casually offered an explanation that I wish I knew and appreciated three children ago.

Liz, eminently qualified as a mother of four, said: “Children on a daily basis stretch and use up their mom’s patience to its limit and beyond. And with each subsequent child that patience gets stretched thinner and thinner, until there is nothing left to enable them to be patient with their husband. So when he comes home and tentatively walks into the house, not knowing what he will be confronted with, that pushes his wife to be impatient. When he comes home the least bit preoccupied with something from work, that does the same. If he says something, he’s wrong; if he says nothing, he’s wrong.”

Viewing your wife as completely drained of patience (which you can experience when you are asked to watch your kids on a Sunday without the aid of a nanny or an activity you can just throw them into) can give you an understanding of what it’s like for her. And if you let it sink in, it may cause you to feel less upset and resentful of her.

Furthermore if you understand that your wife’s bond to the children is very deep emotionally, you might realize that she is very committed to protecting your children from hurt. So when she is losing patience with them and it is crossing over into frustration and then anger, she needs to manage than anger lest she be the one who will hurt them. And one of the quickest ways to manage it is to focus on something you’ve done wrong and displace it onto you.

In fact show me a wife and mother who always makes her husband feel he’s wrong and I’ll show you a woman who is constantly using up all of her energy – and patience – to not react angrily towards her children and needing to constantly deflect it onto her husband and away from them.

And the solution?

First if you as the husband can truly understand the joint phenomenon of your wife’s patience being used up and also her needing to deflect her anger at your kids at you, you may be able to let go some of your hurt and anger with her.

Second, if you say to your wife, “Our kids beat the hell out of you today and it’s all that you can do to keep from going off on them. Isn’t that true?” she may blurt out, “I’m a terrible mother” as she vents her own disappointment in herself. If that happens, you have an opportunity to be tender and tell her that she’s not a bad mother and that they are exhausting and that she’s a good mother. That may not only give her relief, you might get lucky tonight.

Third, it doesn’t just have to be the sole responsibility of the husband to deal with this situation. If you’re a mom who feels this way, you can reach out to your husband when he comes home or better yet on the phone before he comes home and say, “I hate to ask you this after you’ve had a long day at work, but I am at my wits end with the kids and I need a break. So when you get home could you please take over for an hour or two ?” You’d be surprised how many husbands would jump at the chance to help out.

Why would they do that? Because your reaching out to them for help, feels a lot better than telling them what they’ve done wrong.