As a corollary to my previous post on The Biological Step-Mother mentality, I should address the issue of wives who are constantly stressed out.

DEVELOPING THE PROBLEM

In my previous post I made this assertion as a core principle:

Women don't want to feel like wives; they want to feel like the hot girl who's dating the bachelor who has it all together.

How do "wives" feel? By cultural context, wives are always stressed out. This is true even if they're not stressed out. AWALT - they share what's stressing them and it becomes a comparison game. When they realize they're not stressed, they see another woman on Facebook or at the mall with a better life claiming to be stressed and have to hamster their way into believing they are more stressed so they can justify why their life isn't as good as the other woman's. This self-comparison game in and of itself creates stress and discontentment. There's some hypergamy behind this too, but I won't get into that now.

Wives will always blame their husbands for their stress, but won't always tell them they're doing so. The hot babe a guy dates will rarely blame him for her stress. He is her salvation from stress. Again, there's some hypergamy to this as well (he'll pull her up out of the muck), but I'll skip straight to this: Your wife wants to be the hot babe, not the wife. With her words she wants all of the technicalities of wifedom, but she doesn't want to feel like a wife. Why? Because wives are stressed and you were supposed to save her from that. The fact is, stress is unavoidable and inevitable; but the prospect of a savior at least gives her hope, which is the strongest force fighting against stress.

If she's still stressed, you weren't the savior she was looking for, so she either (1) looks for another savior, letting her hamster justify it, or (2) she lets the hamster spin even further into the realm of developing mental disorders to cope with the decision to stay with her husband. This is why all husbands think their wives are at least a little crazy. If she chooses 1, he's not her husband; if she chooses 2, he is her husband and she actually is crazy.

No. 2 most often comes in the form of depression, sometimes developing histrionic tendencies (i.e. addiction to drama, most often creating it through angry outbursts). When her mental state plummets, she can once again justify staying with her husband. "I really did marry up. Look how much of a mess I am! I'm lucky to have him to take care of me. Those other girls don't have to deal with this stuff; that's why their lives are so much better. I guess I should give my hubby some obligation sex to thank him for sticking it out with me through all this." The husband then gets the obligation sex and is totally dissatisfied, yet somehow jumping up and down at the fact that he actually got sex.


UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM

I've learned this lesson a million times over: Women are stressed by thinking about what they have to do, not actually doing it.

Most stress for women comes from comparing themselves to other women. When they make these comparisons, they begin formulating ways to make their lives more like the other women's lives. Unfortunately, these other women only reveal the best aspects of their lives, always talking about their stress, but never showing it, creating cognitive dissonance (the explanation on how is too long to get into here). Because it's impossible to live up to the displayed standard, this creates a never-ending list of things that needs to be done for your wife to accomplish her goal. At first, she deals with the minor stress because it is rationalized by the verbalized stress these other women say they experience. Unfortunately, because hamsters can't run infinitely (even the brain can't compute infinity) and she can never compute a list long enough to satisfy the cognitive dissonance, the system overheats, the hamster passes out, and she can no longer justify how she's living her life. She is stressed to the max.

Interestingly, most husbands will notice that when their wives actually finish a project, they feel good about themselves. There is a sense of accomplishment. That is because the work itself is not as stressful as thinking about the work. The list is what burns out her brain, not checking things off of it.


SOLVING THE PROBLEM

Women need to have someone else think about the work for them, then allocate them actual work to do. Some guys (especially rich ones) take all the burden off her shoulders altogether by hiring everything out. Get a cleaning lady, hire a live-in nanny, get the boy down the street to mow your yard, etc. Some of these things actually increase her stress because it denies her the sense of accomplishment and her hamster has to justify doing nothing. Contrary to popular belief, women don't want to go shopping and lay on the beach all day. They want that in periodic bursts, but they need to feel like they're nurturing their husbands and children in some way. This is a God-given biological imperative for them.

The best way a husband can help his stressed wife is by taking the burden of thinking about the work away from her. Incidentally, we're actually very, very good at this because we're not trying to compute infinity. How do you do this? I said in my last post: take over. How do you do that?

OYS is one way, but here's a more practical solution that (1) gives immediate relief, (2) kick-starts a new tone for the relationship, (3) develop your wife's ability to trust your lead and (4) confuses the heck out of her, making her more susceptible to noticing the changes you're making without you bragging about them to her. Ready? Here it is:

Honey, for the next 3 days let's agree that you'll do absolutely nothing productive except what I ask you to do.

My wife laughed at first. "That's ridiculous. How will things get done?" "I'll be responsible for everything." "You can't do it all yourself." "You're right, I'll delegate tasks to you to help out." "So you're going to tell me what to do?" "Yes" [don't explain this away, just say "yes"]. "You don't even know what all needs to be done. You'll forget very important things." "Then I'll be responsible when it doesn't get done, not you" [she's going to eat that up!] "But it still won't get done, and we can't have that. These things are important." "When it doesn't get done, if it's important I'll find out it didn't get done, take responsibility, and will remember next time." "Well, what am I supposed to do when I run out of things you've told me to do?" "Whatever makes you happy." "What if being productive makes me happy?" "Then ask me and I'll find more productive things." "What if I just want to do the things that I think need to get done?" "Don't do it. Go for a walk, head to the mall, or watch some Netflix instead." "Okay!"

When you leave for work the next morning, "Today I need you to do the dishes, run a load of laundry, vacuum the living room, pick the kids up from school, and make spaghetti for dinner." "What about ___?" "I've got that covered. You just do those things I told you to do." It doesn't matter what it is - if she asks about it, you have to take responsibility for it or else you've just proven you can't keep your end of the deal. She won't give you slack because you're "new to this." Your newness is exactly why she'll be uncomfortable accepting this proposal. If you need to, allocate it to her the next day.

If your wife also works, assign her "go to work" as one of your things on the list and adjust your list to be realistic in light of the time she has at home.

If she has something on her list that hasn't gotten done in a long time, she'll eventually ask about it. Just say, "I'm responsible for that. I'll get it done in my time. If it's not done, you keep enjoying yourself and blame me if it becomes a problem." Inviting your wife to blame you does two key things: (1) it proves she can rely on you because you're making yourself extremely vulnerable in an area where most guys won't be (they usually pass blame away), and (2) it takes the impact out of blaming you, so there's no point in bringing it up when she actually gets around to trying; eventually she'll just give up trying, seeing that throwing blame that you willingly accept doesn't do anything for her histrionic tendencies.

POTENTIAL PIT-FALL - She might still keep computing a list just in case you fail. Be ready for this. Ask her: "What else needs to get done today that I didn't do?" If she tries to answer, you stop her, make a buzzing noise and say, "I'm sorry, but the judges would accept 'nothing' or 'you already did everything.' Seriously, though, I made a judgment about what needed to be done today and those things didn't make the cut. You don't need to worry about those things, I do. Let me decide what needs to get done, you help me do it. Got it?" Then secretly run to another room and make a note in your phone not to forget those things next time because you're an idiot and you forget things too. The difference is: you can handle forgetting things and doing better next time; she can't.


CONCLUSION - Women are stressed not by doing things, but by thinking about what needs to be done. Do that thinking for her so she doesn't have to. Get her to agree to this up-front so she doesn't stress herself out thinking about how to handle it when you fail. Let her cast the blame on you for things that don't get done, diffusing her ability to get to you in the first place. Test her periodically to make sure she's not secretly creating lists behind your back and learns that the correct answer is: "It's your responsibility."