Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Understanding & Forgiveness



How does this sound to you? Are you interested in getting Understanding from your wife? How about Forgiveness?

As a Husband you most assuredly want to be able to give as much or more of these two things than you get. Because that’s kind of in the Husband rulebook. We take care of our women as best we can, love and cherish them, understand them as much as possible and forgive them when they screw up, just like we’d like them to forgive us.

And face it guys, most likely, we’ll be doing a lot more messing up than they will, it’s in our nature. So you want to be strong like a bull on the Understanding and Forgiveness fronts. I will be the first one to admit that I sometime do not understand women in general and my wife in particular. It has gotten a little easier as I’ve aged, but I think our activities, our lifestyle and the general slowing down of things helps in our case.


You, average Husband, may have a household with 2 kids, 2 jobs (or more), 2 cars and a week that looks like a track race from start to finish. In these circumstances the understanding tends to go away. If you expect your wife to handle something and it doesn’t get done, or more often it’s not done like you would have done it; you might be tempted to criticize her. Resist the temptation oh unwary Husband.

Critical words do not make a good marriage

If you feel you must say something to correct (not criticize) any action of your wife’s it is best done in private and carefully. Failure to do this will end up with one or all of the following things happening:

  • She will cry
  • She will cry and scream at you

  • She will go to her Mom’s

  • She will tell you to go to your Mom’s

  • You’ll end up stuck at home with two kids while she goes to a bar

  • Whatever you complained or criticized about will be yours to do permanently

  • She will bring up something far worse that you’ve done and the fight will be on (Women never, ever forget anything you do wrong!)

Just so you get how important this is to both parties, its #2 on both lists of top ten things Husbands and Wives want from each other!


So make the effort to understand her actions and words from her point of view and expect her to do the same for you. And be understanding when stuff happens cause it always will. It will make it much easier on you when you’re the one who’s done something stupid.

For a couple of years my wife and I went through a very strange period. We would get tickets to an event, make plans and go. Only when we got there we found it was on a different night or the next week. It happened more than once. We both learned just to laugh it off and consider it a night out with an unplanned agenda. I believe we ended up having more fun on those nights we messed up the dates, than the actual planned ones.

Look to make something positive happen in those times when understanding and forgiveness is required, it’s sure to boost your stock in your marriage. How you handle the crummy stuff in life is the test of your character. Do your best and shoot for a 100%. No Husband was ever hurt by his wife having a good opinion of his character.

The Daily Husband