Learn to Say No

Something any adult needs to thrive and to protect themselves is to learn to be comfortable saying "No."

You do not need to, nor is it healthy, to try to satisfy every request that anyone brings to you. Some religious people mistakenly think that if someone comes to them with a request, they are supposed to say yes, or at least find a solution for them. But that's not what the Lord does. The Lord often tells people "No." If you're ever going to parent, and most of you shouldn't, you'll have to say "NO!" quite a bit.

Do you ever find yourself agreeing to someone else's request or demand, only to regret it later or even immediately, or looking for ways to back out, or simply not showing up?

There are two relationships a man can have that make saying "No" extremely difficult:

1. His relationship with his wife

2. His relationship with his boss

Both have to do with his financial well-being. His wife can take away over half of everything he's earned (and his children!). His boss can fire him.

Men can avoid or mitigate this problem by saying no to marriage in the first place, and by being self-employed or at least having an Emergency Fund.

It should be easier to say "No" to anyone else, whether the person at your door, on your phone, or in your inbox claiming to be a salesperson, the panhandler on the street, the traffic cop who asks to check inside your vehicle with no probable cause or warrant, relatives, neighbors, someone you're dating, and just about everyone else.

People do need cooperation, so of course there are times you should say "Yes" even if it wasn't your idea, or isn't exactly what you want to do right now, because it is the right thing to do or because it will help you reach your other goals. But there we be times when you'll need to say "No" to avoid people walking all over you, or overextending yourself, or moving further away from your goals, or giving up your dreams, or any number of other reasons.

The more self-sufficient and independent you are, the easier it will be for you to say no. If you can walk away from something and be happy or at least content or satisfied, or more than you'd be if you'd said yes, that's a great place to be.

Two Types of No: No as in "absolutely not," and no as in "sweeten this deal and maybe I'll say yes." Let's look at both of those.

This Blog Helps Others and Me

[This post is being bumped up because it is still relevant.]

Someone left a comment after this post about how most men don't need a wife and explaining how men can manage life well without one:

I wonder if your therapist knows about this obsessive blog or your preoccupation with such negative views. I really don’t believe this blog is healthy for you or your peace of mind (or your children’s in the long run). I hope someday you will find peace and your way out of this cage you seem to be trapped in. I hope God gives you the tools you need to do this and you can be whole, happy and fulfilled again. I’m sorry if this seems presumptuous but you open your life to interpretation when you wrote a blog like this. 

It seems strange that comment was left on a post encouraging men to be responsible for themselves and manage life well.

I appreciate the well-wishes.

I probably mentioned that I do this to my therapist, perhaps years ago. At this point I go to him because it satisfies my wife. I wouldn't even call it therapy at this point. But, my insurer covers most of the cost and it is time I don't have to run around taking care of everyone else at home. I do find writing this blog helpful and therapeutic in and of itself.

The comment doesn't bother attempting to counter anything I've posted on this blog. Like many others I get here and on Twitter, it is pretty much just saying "You shouldn't say this."

Why not?

What am I primarily doing with this blog?

1. Warning, preparing, and encouraging men for dealing with the world as it is. (And the truth about the world is the truth regardless of my own personal experiences.)

2. Sharing my own personal experiences.

3. Letting women see how men think and experience life.

Why would someone be upset by any of those? They can argue about the first and third. They can present a different perspective, cite facts that might appear to go against what I've written, etc. They can't really argue with my personal experiences. They can say they don't think they should be shared. OK. Why not?

It's fine for people to share their experiences that have been very different from mine. It's done all of the time.

For all three of those things above, mostly the first two, my perspective has shifted over time, so I am persuadable. I used to be a marriage seller. And I use to be deluded about my own marriage. The shift can be seen on this very blog. So if I have something wrong, show me.

There seems to be a segment of society that doesn't want the truth about these things discussed. Everything is supposed to be hidden. It's somehow wrong, according to some, for a man to be honest about his experiences or to point out the realities of today's world.

I don't agree. While not all truths need to be spoken in every place, at every time, to every person, the truths I present in this blog need to be shared, especially for men who are contemplating something that is going to significantly and negatively impact them for the rest of their lives.

Know Thyself

Anyone can benefit from doing this, but this is especially for anyone who is one or more of the following:

• Young
• Considering further education or declaring a major
• Looking for a job or to change jobs
• Looking or a new place to live
• Getting out of a marriage or relationship or considering it
• Feeling like you're in a rut or making no progress in your life 
• Facing or considering retirement
  

Believe it or not, your time is limited. To figure out what you should be doing, you really need to understand yourself well. Know thyself.

You're going to need some peace and quiet to do this. No distractions. You'll need time to think, to ponder, to reflect. You'll need to be alone. No spouse, no girlfriend, no friends - alone. No movies, no television, no social media, no books, etc. You want to be alone with your thoughts.

You might need to get a hotel room or motel room. You can only do this at home if you're really, really disciplined in being able to ignore and avoid distractions, and nobody will reach you.

A New Attitude

I need to stop yelling at my wife and kids.

If for no other reason, my kids need one good parent who doesn't abuse or neglect them, and instead will protect them.

I think I know how I’ll be able to. In addition to all of the advice I have been gleaning from multiple sources, some personalized, I have decided that a significant problem has been my expectations. I've been frustrated because I expected my wife to be a functional, effective wife and mother. I expected this because she was eager to be a stay at home mother and I was glad she was eager to be, and that was the plan long before we married. I also expected it because she had been able live on her own and to work full time with children, and was educated in caring for children, child development, nutrition, etc.

But my expectations were not built on the whole truth, because I didn't know the whole truth. I'm not excusing my yelling, just explaining it. My expectations led to my frustrations which led to my yelling. Changing my expectations will be one the factors and that will allow me to stop the yelling. So far, I have restrained myself multiple times due to this shift in expectations.

Dealing With a Bratty Wife

Anyone have any advice of how to deal with a bratty (or bitchy, or whatever you want to call it) wife? It isn't so much that she's being a brat to me (she is, somewhat). It is that she's been bratty towards others, needlessly antagonizing them when they don't do what she wants, when she wants, how she wants. Example... she wanted her brother to babysit. He declined. She started ripping into him about what a loser she thinks he is, point out that she went to college, graduated, got her career going, and doesn't abuse alcohol or pot or illegal drugs (she just loads up on coffee, candy/sugar, and has multiple prescription pills she pops), while he is unemployed, has no college education, and has abused substances... but we still trust him to watch our kids for short amounts of time.

I gently asked if her treatment of her brother was going to make it more or less likely he will want to babysit for us in the future.

I'd like to apologize to her brother and others she's been acting this way towards lately, but I have a strong belief in marital unity and not going behind your spouse's back, and all of that. Besides, she should be the one apologizing, right? Do I encourage her to do so?

My wife has been especially stressed out because of a series of things, but currently it is about an impending surgery. But... dealing with stressful things is part of life and no excuse to antagonize people.

Any tips or suggestions about what to say/do towards her or the people she's antagonized?

Please don't say sex. I can't sleep with her brother. But seriously, sex doesn't relax her or put her in a better mood. It does relax me and put me in a better mood, though. And yes, I do realize I could have avoided dealing with a bratty wife by marrying someone else or not marrying at all. But here we are.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow II

The Best of Dr. Laura is airing, since Dr. Laura, like a lot of other radio hosts, is on vacation for the holidays. On Monday, in the third hour, about 20 minutes into the podcast, a woman called in to say her husband had stopped initiating sex with her a few weeks back and when asked why, he told her that he was turned off because she had her hair redone.

Dr. Laura blamed the man and called him unloving, citing another husband who was caring for his wife as she was losing her hair due to chemotherapy.

But this is likely apples and oranges. Now, I think Dr. Laura gets it right so often, and all you have to do is check out other things I’ve written here about her to know I’m no Dr. Laura hater. But sometimes, I disagree.

Losing your hair because you are being medically treated to save your life is not the same thing as deciding to go against your husband's desires and intentionally, unnecessarily change one of the things that attracted him to you. In doing so, the wife was telling her husband she didn't care what he wants.

Maybe Dr. Laura knew more about the situation than made it to the air during the call (due to screening), but the information that went out over the air was not enough to definitively decide if this was a case of a husband who is a jerk or has a problematic fixation or need for too much control – or if it was a matter of a wife choosing to make herself less attractive to her husband.

I've known women who have kept their hair long all through dating, and then immediately after marrying, they chop it off and start to butch up. I know at least one who did it literally the next day after the wedding. My wife pointed it out to me. You know what message that sends to a husband and other men? "I care about getting a man to sign on the dotted line. After that, I’m not going to care." An attitude like that is what is the big turn-off, not necessarily the actual hair style.

This is not to deny that there are men who would welcome the new hairstyle or even requested it. There are also men who don't care either way. But most men do have a preference and for most men, it was part of what attracted him to his wife in the first place. If a husband has a preference, it should be honored (as should his wife's preferences about his facial hair). Dr. Laura has told women who've called in wanting to cut their hair short over the objection of a husband not to do it. But in this case, the damage was already done.

Ah ha! I suspected I had previously written something like this before. I searched and found a posting with the same title.

Decide to Enjoy It More

A study indicates that women can think themselves into having a better sex life. Betty Klinck reports in USA Today.

Researchers at the Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of Texas-Austin found that women experienced improvements in symptoms such as low sex drive just from getting a placebo in a clinical trial.

A placebo is a control for the study. What that means is that a study might separate people into three groups. One will take the real pill being tested. The second group will take a sugar pill or some other substance that shouldn't have a a physical impact on what's being tested – that's a placebo. The third group will get nothing. If the second group shows significant positive changes, then the indication is that at least some of the problem is psychological and can be improved simply by changing one's thinking.

I am reminded of when I'd bought a brand new air filter and the girlfriend I was seeing back then borrowed it new out of the box because a friend of hers who supposedly had severe allergies, including an allery to cats, was going to be visiting my girlfriend, who had a cat. My girlfriend reported back to me that the air filter worked perfectly to keep her cat from triggering her friend's allergic reactions. And then I read the directions and realized there was some plastic I had yet to remove that actually made the filter functional.

So yes, a lot of our problems and pain can be dealt with by changing our thinking. We can remove self-defeating behaviors that way. The problem comes in when someone extrapolates that idea and thinks all problems – such as all diseases – can be cured by changing one's thinking. Every few years, someone repackages that false notion and makes a lot of money selling it to people. (If your religion is based on this notion, I don't mean to insult you. If my beliefs are true, than this notion must necessarily be false - and I do believe my beliefs, after all.)

But I digress.

Women may have experienced increased satisfaction simply because they decided to take action and experienced increased hope, says researcher Andrea Bradford. The study was published in September in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

There's something for your coffee table.

"It's not going to change if you just wait for it to happen," Bradford says. "Changing how you approach the problem might in itself make a big difference."

Ladies, if you decide to enjoy lovemaking more, then you just might.

Measuring female sexual dysfunction and satisfaction can be difficult sometimes, because it is very much based on the woman's own observations of her symptoms, says Meston.

"Sexual dysfunction is, in a way, what a woman says it is."

Yes, dear. Most women know on some level that their attitude can make a difference. Think of the women that claim they need to be romanced with gifts and dinners and all of these other things to get turned on, but if their favorite celebrity crush were to walk around the corner and take her in a closet for five minutes, she'd need almost no foreplay whatsoever, and certainly no romance.

She notes also that decreased sex drive in a long-term relationship is normal for women.

Testosterone levels in men also drop when they marry and have children. So if a higher sex drive is more important to a person than loving one person, this is something that supports their decision to avoid commitment to someone other than themselves.

But for marrieds, it is important to note that we have more reason to believe that attitude matters.