Not Your Mother!

I often hear women complain because they have to ask their husbands to do things. Women lament that they have to remind them—sometimes repeatedly—to put their laundry away or do the dishes or help with the kids. The list of transgressions they recite is then followed with a line similar to, “I should be his wife, not his mother!” or “I feel like I have two small kids and a big one!” You get the idea. What is really at the bottom of all this frustration is that these women expect their men to be like women.

Because another woman would see that the dishes need to be done, or the laundry needs to be put away and would do it without being asked. Their sisters, mothers, or girlfriends would automatically know that the kids need to be bathed and put to bed and they would jump right in and do it. But men are not women! Often, men literally don’t see these things; they aren’t big priorities to us and, as far as we know, the world won’t end if they aren’t tended to immediately.

That is not to say that men don’t care about their wives… which is the avenue most women will immediately drive down in a situation like this. We do care about our wives. Just because your husband doesn’t jump up from dinner, rush to clear the table, load the dishwasher, fold the towels in the dryer (the right way) and take on pajama patrol with the kids, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you. Not being aware of these things doesn’t make him evil – it just makes him a man.

Honestly, women can get their men to do things for them if they just treat men like men and stop expecting them to be women. Ladies, you need to do some things differently with a male than you do with a female.  The first thing you must understand is that you have to ask! And no, that doesn’t make you his mother!

This is a real challenge for women because they think, “But if he really loved me, I wouldn’t have to ask!” As if by some cosmic force men are supposed to automatically know what you want. Then for some strange reason that is known only to the female brain, a woman will make the leap and reason, “Well, if I have to ask, especially more than once, that makes me more like a mother than a wife!” Nonsense. Just because you have to ask (even if it’s several times) it doesn’t mean that you are his mother. Of course, women cry out, “Well, that’s what a mother does!”

Your husband is a man and men need to be asked and reminded. That doesn’t make us evil – it just makes us men. God made men this way. The Bible says right off the bat that it was not good for Adam to be alone. He needed a helper, so God created Eve to be his helper. That implies that he needed her help to do things. Maybe because Adam didn’t notice the fig leaves lying all over the ground that needed to be swept up or the fact that the peaches needed picking and the pantry was empty. What if it was God’s original intention that Eve was created to be the one to remind him, to ask him, to help him out, to guide and direct him? Would that change the way you see your role?

We need you wonderful women in our lives to help us with the things that don’t come naturally to us or we don’t see. But expecting us to intuitively be like you is going to lead to frustration because it just isn’t going to happen. Wives need to learn how to get their husbands to do things by askingfor what you want or need, asking more than once, and asking the right way. We love that stuff and you can get us to do most anything for you. That makes you our helpernot our mother.

By the way, we don’t want you to be our mothers either. We want you and need you to be our wives and our helpers, just like God intended.