“I don't want to get too dark and depressing but she was emotionally difficult. She was a tyrant.” In an extract of his new autobiography, So, Anyway, published in the magazine, he wrote: “It cannot be a coincidence that I spent such a large part of my life in some form of therapy and that the vast majority of the problems I was dealing with involved relationships with women.Notice the connection between "ingrained habit of walking on eggshells" and his multiple failed marriages. The lesson: never be conflict-avoidant with a woman. If she's looking for a fight, then give her one. Better yet, give her one that will make her conflict-avoidant in the future. The old martial arts rule applies: start nothing, finish everything.
"My ingrained habit of walking on eggshells when dealing with my mother dominated my romantic liaisons for many years."
Cleese married his first wife, Fawlty Towers co-star Connie Booth in 1968. The marriage lasted ten years and the couple divorced in 1978. He married his second wife, American actress Barbara Trentham in 1981; and his third wife, American psychotherapist Alyce Eichelberger in 1992. The comedian married his fourth wife, Jennifer Wade – who is 31 years his junior – in 2012.
I've noticed over the years that many women repeatedly test a man's willingness to put up with her bad behavior. They will ratchet it up slowly, almost undetectably, until one day the man's friends suddenly notice that she never speaks to him without her voice either raised in anger or dripping with contempt.
The solution for nipping this in the bud is pretty simple. Up the ante every time. She resorts to contempt, you reply with contempt and vulgarity. (This is especially effective in public; women seem to find it humiliating when men openly swear at them in front of other women.) A calm "I don't give a fuck what you think" or ominous "watch your fucking tone now" will usually deflate the assumed Queen Bee attitude with alacrity. If she decides to raise her voice, you raise yours right back; most women instinctively cower before a man who is addressing them at volume with some bass in his voice. This is basic Skinnerian programming, which means it is also advisable to be sure that she's being positively incentivized when she brings things to your attention in an appropriate manner.
In other words, if she asks you to do something politely, then do it right away, don't put it off until she's irritated and nagging. Make the effort, don't be lazy.
Another option is to simply end the evening if you're out in public and she gets obnoxious. Refuse to be seen with a woman who is openly disrespectful. If she can't be civil, then you're simply not going to take her out into civilization. Women are PERFECTLY capable of controlling themselves, the primary reason so many of them don't is because the men in their lives don't expect them to do so or hold them accountable for their behavior.
