Bessie Lou's Blog

Use reverse psychology: What are priorities for us women are not necessarily priorities for the men. Ask your mate what in the realm of house chores does he consider important. Stop doing the chores he considers insignificant. When he complains about them, then remind him he considered them insignificant and that if he nows consider this significant, you are going to need help because you can't do it all yourself. You had been trying to attend to his top significant choices.

I'll be married 16 years in October 2008 and we have counseled other couples in our church preparing for marriage. "Training" your husband or wife is just a fun humor. You have to be able to have humor in your marriage. It is an important part. However, if you have a habit that is annoying to your partner and your partner asks you to please try to curb that, that isn't trying to change you. You do it willingly because you love the other person. Marriage is about compromise. It is only on the moral issues where you have no right to try to change another's position. Those are the ones you just have to accept in a person and if you get premarital counseling, those moral issues will be easily identifiable before you get married and it's before you make that lifelong commitment in the Holy Sacrament of marriage that you can decide if their point of view is something you morally can live with.

It is a humorous article though we all influence each other through the very behaviors we exhibit. When a person "feels" like doing for another it more often than not has to do with the "stroking" that is received, the example set or criticism. I think most agree the least appealing manner of influence is criticism which usually leads to resentment.

This follows the idiom that “you catch more flies with honey.” It is simply appreciating a job done rather than taking for granted or even discounting the effort. Love is caring enough to be patient, kind and seek what serves another.

My wife and I only have 27 years of marriage and I hope we never cease to learn from and serve each other..

PBMom – Thanks for helping prepare others for marriage. You likely know that too many have misconceptions. I would assume you use some of these common techniques as you coach these couples.

My husband actually washed his own clothes the other day! They were the clothes he was wearing when he worked on the yard and he just threw the rest of his stuff in. If I'm not feeling well, he will clean. If he cooks, he does his own dishes. I consider myself very lucky.

Yeah, well..training is one thing, basic consideration is another. You would think that considering the other person, the one you supposedly love, goes to the effort of doing the laundry, you would make it as easy on him/her as possible.
My hubs will NOT put his laundry in the hamper. He will throw it on the floor in FRONT of the hamper, BESIDE the hamper, or just drop them where he removes them..inches away from the hamper. I tried nagging, pleading, b****ing, he STILL wouldn't do it. So I did this..
If it isn't in the hamper, it didn't get washed.
There's been a few times he's been out of clean uniform shirts, clean jeans, and at 5:30 in the morning, he's woken (is that even a word) me up "WHERES MY SHIRTS/JEANS?" I just look down on the ground, point, and say, "there, there, and there, and I think there's some on the living room floor, too."

He's gotten the message, but not after some noisy fights, and even a rebuke on HIM from his MOTHER.