Be Mindful of What You Ask!!!!

Louise and Henry considered their marriage very modern. First and foremost, they love genuinely each other.   He had a good job that paid fairly well.  She had a great job with lots of travel that paid very well.  They have two great kids who respect their elders and seem to have fun in life. 

As you could imagine, with two very successful careers, a loving marriage and healthy family outcomes,  a large well kept home made for a good life.  Louise was not only a great career woman, she also was able to manage the appearance of their home. 

While Louise loved the “Super Mom” magnets that stuck to the fridge, her job was daily demanding more from her.  She was growing tired of leaving the house for a three day business trip and arriving home to a mess.  Henry was doing very little to keep up with keeping the house clean.  And, so were the kids.

“Lou” was beginning to resent the messy situations developing in her home. She was feeling no body, especially her husband,  seemed to pay much attention to what she’d wanted, a clean home.   Henry, when asked why he was not helping out had become somewhat retiscent to her persistent calls for help.  Eventually, the couple would find their way into counseling.  If that would not work, sadly divorce was close to becoming an option. 

Hello again….Welcome back to another opportunity to illuminate Five Habits Women Want from Their Men.  This blog I recently found, written by a guy, is another point of view on how Perfect Women and Men can love each other by knowing how love works.

Three days ago, we explored the value of showing some appreciation for a woman through genuine signs of acceptance through compliments.  We revealed how giving a compliment means being attentive to the woman (or man) who just may be making efforts to listen how the other is expressing their love.  

A couple of days ago, we explored the meaning and purpose of always remaining in contact with your loved one through special love notes or acts of recognition and intentions for the relationship’s becoming. We expressed how the weight of the “I love you!” sticky note on the mirror may be less than an ounce but the weight of saying “you are listening” to how he or she is loving you weighs heavy and thoughtful in a loved one’s heart. 

Yesterday, we discussed another aspect of the communication process calling for one another to be more present to each other; making each other a priority….Becoming, in essence One with one another.  You can read the text of each days entries by clicking on the above related previous day post. 

So, with that said , according to the blog in question,  the #4 Habit Women Want from Their Men is….

      4.  Getting Constant Attention

“Remember the old cliché”  the author of the blog starts with #4,  ”Women like a good listener?  Here’s a tip: Most clichés come from a truth. Always keep an ear on what she’s saying and try to replay back, ask questions, and remember what she is saying because who knows when that conversation will pop up again.” 

I will start by asking if you can remember a cliche “Be mindful of what you ask, it may just come true.”

In the above story, Louise and Henry have some pretty good things going for each other; they love each other, they have been blessed with great kids, a home, and successful careers in which they love as well.  So, why is their marriage on the brink of disaster?

Well, I have come to understand (as I have been married for close to 30 years) that both men and women listen far better to what each want better than they think.  The outcomes for what we THINK we are asking get to be pretty strange at times.  We hardly can believe we are actually asking for those weird happenings to take place in our homes.  BUT, we do!

When Louise and Henry sat down in counseling, they began to talk out some of the issues as I have described above.  Louise was simply beside herself in her explanation for how the home began to look each and everytime she would arrive back at home from her trips.  Henry, throughout her explanation offered various looks of disbelief and confusion when she said, “I love Henry more than anything in this world…BUT, I simply can not handle his lack of consideration for me and our home.  I will not live in a house like this.”

After several back and forth sessions of head banging discussions, Henry was eventually asked to respond to Louise’s feelings about housecleaning. He says something very curious.  “I grew up in a house, “ He started out by saying,  “where my mother always cleaned house.”  When he was asked, “Had he EVER participated in cleaning the house as a kid?”  He had answered quickly, “Yes…sometimes!”  But,  Henry for the most part, had a mother who would even iron the socks into the dresser drawers before they were worn.  “But, she never would leave the house to be more than JUST a mother.  And, that bothered me.”  Henry would conclude.

Louise, in the next couple of sessions, describes a family of origin home life so very different from the one she presently possessed.  She described several verbally abusive experiences with her demanding father who could never hold a job for the life of him.  It seemed there was very little Louise could do right.  The faster she worked to do the dishes, her parents and siblings dirtied them.  As fast as she would pick up the living room from all the shoes, clothes, toys, and bottles of beer the mess bloomed ever quicker.  She explained she had made a commitment to herself “My home will never be this way!”

Herein this story lies two people committed to finding an answer to a major item on their list for a significant other.  He would be looking for a career woman mother to clean the house.  She would look for a career man to build her a home she would work hard to maintain while striving to ALWAYS keep it clean.  He, on the other hand,  would follow her lead to keep the house clean by letting her do it, the way his family would let his mom do the same.  She would communicate to her husband and children “mom will follow behind you to keep the house clean.  So don’t worry my home will never be like the one I grew up in.”

So after all was said and done, Henry and the kids were giving to Louise exactly that for which she had been asking.  She was teaching them not to worry about keeping the house clean.  Inadvertantly, she was saying, “stay away from cleaning the house…I will do it!”  And so, they did.  After Henry realized he’d married, somewhat a version of his mother, the illusion of not having the permission to clean the house was lifted. 

As the author of this week’s featured blogger said, “Women like a good listener….Always keep an ear on what she’s saying and try to replay back, ask questions, and remember what she is saying because who knows when that conversation will pop up again.”  

The more you seek to learn about the one you love and the reasons for why you choose to live the life you want to love with her, the better off you will be…..And, the more you will come to understand how it is…..

“You are loved….and Loved RIGHT NOW!”