Easiest way to improve your relationship with your wife and children
Sometimes it seems that when men get together, they feel that they are free to tell jokes about their wives and tell stories about the negative aspects of their wives. All of the “guys” around you laugh when this happens and, yet, if you had to tell the same exact jokes in front of your wife , nothing would seem funny about these stories at all.
Changing this one aspect of your behavior will easily improve your relationship happiness and joy more easily and effectively than almost any other change you might make in your relationships.
Why Do We Do This?
Maybe we don't think there are going to be consequences because the conversation does not include the person being criticized. However, we are fooling ourselves if we don’t recognize that it affects your mental attitude about them. You also know that you have “cheated” on your wife behind her back with these negative guys-only comments. (Warning: In today’s world, one of your “good friends” might be recording everything and posting it to social media. There it will be, on your “permanent Internet record”, making fun of someone your love for a cheap laugh.)
Many people have a tendency to put others down because they need to build themselves up. If this is you, you need to examine where your sense of worth is coming from and make some changes immediately! Men may feel the need to do this, especially, when they aren’t successful in their careers, sports, possessions, etc. – and not even notice that they are doing it. A family cannot flourish if the man-of-the-house depends on feeling superior by putting his wife or children down
Possibly we just don't understand how hurtful some comments might be from somebody who is supposed to be the number one supporter of that other person – their supposed number one supporter on the entire Earth, by the way (now that’s sad).
Maybe you just see “everyone is doing it” and have become convinced that it is the norm in society. It's very difficult in a situation where the vast majority of people think that these jokes are funny. There are so many sitcoms, for example, where the husband and wife are always at odds with each other. Rather than sending a constant message of valuing the other person, helping them out, and giving them a break when they make mistakes -- basically the partner is portrayed as probably the most judgmental of any of the characters in the sitcoms. Now, you and I know that sitcoms are not real. At the same time, this behavior is portrayed so often and relentlessly in media that we have saturated ourselves with it as normal. We start to think that it is normal or OK.
Retaliation anyone? None of the above is meant to claim that you are always treated fairly. You're going to have to be smart enough to experience the criticism yourself but not retaliate. One of the most valuable things that Jesus brought to our society are the ideas of forgiveness and peacemaking. The person who retaliates is not forgiving or a peacemaker. You are basically getting sucked into the value system of the material world where might-makes-right. As males we need to be especially careful of this because we are generally physically stronger and can be very physically intimidating if the “discussion” escalates from put-downs to temper. There are things that we might do from a temper standpoint that don't seem to be a big deal to us but are certainly very frightening to a weaker physically weaker person -- namely your wife or children. So, we must have a higher standard in the retaliation area than you might expect. Your wife or child can say certain things about you, but they aren’t going to easily be able to do anything truly physically threatening about it (generally). Don’t get sucked in to a retaliation battle and be the peacemaker.
Society’s Example for Us – Be Aware!
Many of the sitcoms that we have been familiar with over the years, like “Everybody Loves Raymond”, are very critical of the dad and father in the family. The wife, mother-in-law, father, father-in-law, and brother in most sitcoms can be quite discouraging to the character of the dad or the father (you). So many sitcoms constantly put husbands and dads in a bad position, and they are criticized relentlessly in many of these and various popular movies. Just think about the media you are exposing yourself to for a second while you're watching them. See if the dad and father is portrayed in a positive light. This doesn't mean that we can't have a sense of humor, but you should be aware that this is going on. I don't know if this is on purpose, but it certainly is very hard to find a good role model in today's video and film environment. Superior achievements, on the other hand, are written off as patriarchy or privilege. Maybe this contributes to the male “need” to strike back through jokes and put-downs? Regardless, what you're going to have to do is be man enough to take it when it's on television or in the movies.
In comedy, they have something called punching up and punching down. My daughter-in-law told me about this. I had never heard the terms before, but the idea makes sense. Simply, you can generally always tell a joke about yourself – which, I guess, is punching sideways. You can usually tell a joke about somebody who is superior to you in terms of wealth, power, and position. That is punching up and seems to be acceptable in general -- although it is dangerous if your boss happens to run across you while you're mimicking him to your peers. Punching down is when you are aiming the joke at somebody who is at a status in the social, economic, physical, race, and/or intellectual hierarchy below you. Criticizing your wife, put-downs, wife jokes, and sarcasm about your wife that makes her look weak, mean, evil, stupid, uncaring, or sloppy are all examples of punching down if you're in a relationship.
Although I didn't start this article to talk about children in-particular, punching down at your children is also highly discouraged. it's very important that you are not a person who, as the father or dad, punches down at your children.
You may have some friends possibly who regularly make their wives the butt of jokes. They are put-down artists. I was recently in a taxi cab and the driver could not say enough negative stuff about his wife. It was all done in good humor, I suppose, but it certainly didn't cast a positive light on their relationship. If this conversation had been recorded and played back to the taxi driver's wife, it would have been very difficult to reestablish their relationship on a positive basis.
Sometimes it's very difficult when you know somebody very well and they do some of the same "dumb" things repeatedly. If you just saw a stranger do some of these things you might think it was a “one of“ as opposed to a standard operating procedure for that individual. Shouldn’t we at least be as forgiving toward our spouse as we are a total stranger? This is part of the issue regarding the put downs, criticism, and sarcasm that husbands level at their wives -- frustration from lack of self-correction. Give your spouse a break!
The same goes for the put downs, criticism, and sarcasm leveled at your children. I can tell you from personal experience that a child can recall some of the things that you said about them that were negative many years later even though you might not have been focused on what you said at all. They play the tape back repeatedly in their heads – ‘ they're not too sociable’, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not tall like your brother, not well behaved, etc. Although children are more obvious in this regard, your wife also has the same tape running in her head. She may be a lot smarter about never really telling you. Your negativity is what they call a withdrawal from the bank account of good relationships.
Solutions and Advice
So, my major point here is that, if telling wife-jokes has become a habit , you need to forgo the fake support and jolly laughter of your male friends. You don't need to be the person telling these jokes – or even laughing along for that matter. It may be funny, but you are definitely going to pay for this later because your conscience won’t be clear, someone may “report or record you”, and the seeds of negativity for your most important relationship are being planted (by you).
You need to make sure that you are always encouraging, up-lifting, supporting, and helping -- if at all possible. Hopefully you can be more of an encourager and supporter and best friend and peacemaker and love for those people who are closest to you
The Challenge
You are generally not going to hear from your friends that your jokes and sarcasm and put downs are out of line. They're generally going to laugh and go along.
You're not going to hear from the media that all of these put downs and jokes and sarcasm are out of line because they can get a cheap laugh from the kinds of things that they write and produce. So you are going to have to demonstrate a great deal of character in order to recognize when you are engaged in this kind of behavior.
This is a very difficult situation because there aren't very many people out there in social media right now pointing these kinds of things out to you. It seems like everybody is just fine with very nasty and critical responses to many situations and many comments. You're going to have to be a better man and you're going to have to stay close to your moral compass.
You're going to have to be the better man when it comes to avoiding retaliation. You're going to have to forgive some people when they are hurting you. You're going to have to let some things go when you have an opportunity to say something cutting and funny that would hurt your wife or your children.
Specific Helps
· Constantly be reading positive things from leaders and authors who have your best interest in mind.
· Read James in the Bible over and over again.
· Pray on a regular basis -- especially before you get ready to retaliate, say something, or find yourself in one of these “it's just us men” negative anti-woman joke environments.
· Ask yourself if you would say the same things or tell them same jokes about your boss at work if you knew they were listening.
· Although there is a lot of criticism in the mainstream media about AI these days, you also might want to run the dialog back through AI to ask your chat what the best way to handle certain situations might happen to be. I know that there are some negative outcomes relative to this kind of getting help with an AI chat but, in my experience, AI almost always comes back with some great ideas relative to what you might have said or tried if you are just out there on your own. It can be very creative in regard to how it says you could word responses to handle various situations.
· Also you can talk to the AI and may not have another friend out there who allows you to be honest and straightforward with regard to exactly how you feel and what you might be thinking about doing.
· Eliminate sarcasm. Take it out of your repertoire if it involves any people you care about.
Summary
Again, if you think you can get away with punching down, put-downs, criticism, sarcasm, negative feedback, and a variety of other behaviors and words -- you are just fooling yourself. These things all detract from your key relationships -- the relationships that are supposed to be the most important things in your life.
The people that you're criticizing and hurting are possibly the people that you have sworn to support in thick-and-thin and the ones you have the major responsibility for encouraging.
So I hope this helps and I hope that this will go well for you. Don’t get upset if you aren’t perfect, but I know you will be pleasantly surprised by how your relationship immediately improves if you try even a little bit of this. As always, I hope that this was helpful and wish you all the best.