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His friends called him a "wuss" and told him that he was allowing
himself to be henpecked, but his wife said it was the best month of
her life. I give the man credit for trying this experiment. He
said all the right things: "I didn't realize how much my wife has to
do." He did everything she asked of him, including foot massages.
The only thing he could have improved upon is doing these things
without being told what to do.
A man might ask how he could possibly know if she didn't tell
him. Well, let me ask a question of my own: After a man has lived
with a woman for so many years, why doesn't he know how much she
does? Even if he had a job that took him away from home every waking
hour of the day; even if he didn't actually see her cleaning out
toilets and scraping banana stickers off the fruit bowl, doesn't he
see the result of her labors?
Does he actually think the house stays reasonably clean and
cobweb-free all by itself? Does he think we have magic wands that we
wield at the site of coffee grounds that somehow missed the trash
can?
The truth is that most women have jobs outside the home as well.
So, it follows that in many households, the husband and the wife are
home the same number of hours. So... why doesn't he see the things
that she does? Why does he need to be told what to do?
The man in the article did write that his wife said it was the
best month of her life. Or maybe he just thought it should have been
so that's what he wrote.
The man clearly has to be given credit for actually doing what
she asked, but to my mind, having to tell my husband what to do 50
million times a day would be torture for me -- like having another
kid -- and that's why women do it themselves. We like to believe
that our husbands are not just another kid. Then we fume about
having to clean fingerprints off the sliding glass door while he
surfs YouTube videos.
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A woman cannot simply ask a man a question, because she can never
get a simple answer. I could ask my husband the simplest question --
"What time is it?" -- and invariably the answer I get is, "Time all
dawgs'r dead. Ain't ya glad yer jest a pup?" Which is something he
picked up from a hillbilly he knew 25 years ago and, incidentally,
has absolutely no relevance whatsoever to my question. Then he looks
at me and grins as if I should find that hilarious.
"Um, I have an idea: Why don't you look at your watch and tell me
where the big hand and the little hand are?"
If I ask, "Can you please mow the lawn today?" the answer is, "I
don't know, can I?" Which is clearly a reference to a grammatical
correction made by his second-grade teacher, yet, again, has no
relevance whatsoever to the question. Apparently, it is against some
masculine rule to actually answer a question put to him by his wife.
The man in the experiment said he had to bite back several
comments like these, so this rule must be universal, and now he may
very well be found in contempt of some unseen court.
Still, the man in the article needs his pat on the back for going
into uncharted waters -- even if those waters should have been
well-traveled by now.
However, I want to point out here that if the experiment was
reversed so that the woman was to do what the man asked... 90
percent of her time would be spent in a bed. It also should be said
that Experiment Man's wife was happy and that happy wives spend more
time in bed as well. Because the man didn't want to be seen as an
opportunist -- trying to determine whether his experiment would net
him sexual satisfaction -- the article didn't really spell out that
particular result, but... it was implied.
So, yes, the man in the article gets brownie points from women
everywhere for doing what his wife asked of him for a whole month,
but guys, we never wanted a male maid, we wanted a partner.
[By LAURA SNYDER]
Laura Snyder is a nationally syndicated columnist,
author and speaker. You can reach her at
lsnyder@lauraonlife.com
or visit www.lauraonlife.com
for more info. |
