Escape the nagging trap
The classic complaints from mothers are, "I feel left all alone with the children. Everything depends on me. My partner isn't around enough. He never asks how we're all doing - it doesn't interest him at all." The classical complaints of fathers: "I give it my all every day for her and the children, bring home the bacon for everyone, but that doesn't count. She just nags me. I never have time to do anything fun." More and more, the solution to the dilemma seems to be, "We'll separate and then we'll both be free." The serious disadvantage to this is that life is even more complicated by divorce. There have to be other solutions. Here are some:
• Translate the accusation. The woman's sigh, "You're away from home too much," corresponds to her inner feeling, "I'm too tied to this home." A study at Harvard University showed that feelings of overwork and discontent are especially severe for women who have no or little activity outside of the household. Working mothers with household duties are just as exhausted, but don't blame their partners for it as much. Women who work primarily from home are just as discontented as full-time housewives, because the home becomes a demanding space that she is more at the mercy of than the man and which she never escapes - women still do 80 per cent of the housework, even when both partners work full time!
Page 1 of 3
Excerpted from How to Simplify Your Love, copyright 2008 by Marion Küstenmacher and Werner Tiki Küstenmacher. Used by permission of McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.
