Ime, men who read marriage books and take classes or workshops are actually not the ones who need them. Rather, they already have a good thing and just want to make it better. OR they read books and attend classes in order to point out how the WIFE is the one doing all the wrong things...iow, it is to affirm their blame. Ime, there are very few men who really do self-examine and work on their own improvement rather than expect the wife to make all the adjustments and changes.
It sounds like you are stereotyping men? Do you think women are typically very open to change?
Blaming most of the problems on the other partner seems to be more a human nature thing than gender specific. I think both husbands and wives do that sort of thing.
For my wife and I, we had a conversation about how our marriage was good and how we were enjoying it before we took the class based on the book. We still feel like we learned a lot. I remember thinking my wife seemed to learn a lot from the course, but I didn't feel like I'd changed much, but when we shared our thoughts at the end of the class, my wife felt like I'd changed a lot more for the better. I wasn't aware of that. There were some things she said she liked to do, like talk alone together over tea or coffee. She'd mentioned it before, but said something about it during the course. So I started suggesting we sit down and talk over a hot drink from time to time and that apparently is important to her and meant a lot to her. She said it was like a 6 on a 1 out of 10 scale. I told her I'd drink two cups with her to get a 12.
Seriously? And men don't need to know how to do it right? Wow. If husbands want respect, they need to treat their wife respectfully - as she would perceive respect.
From my statement, it is not logical to conclude that I think that men don't need to know how to offer correction to their wives in a right way. I do recall reading several comments about a wife's correction being taken by a man as biting criticism in the book. A section on how to offer correction without it being perceived that way could be helpful. And yes I am serious about that.
That book pigeon-holes women as wanting love, but it is the author (a man) who defines what that love is to start with, and he separates it from respect. Don't kid yourself with that book. Women want respect too. Imho, both women and men want both love and respect.
During our class discussion, I know I mentioned how love and respect are intertwined. There is a lot of emphasis on feeling loved versus feeling respected as opposed to loving and respecting. Perception isn't always reality. But I agree with the author that the emphasis on respect is missing in a lot of marriages and can really help. As a man, I do believe that helps. But the parts on loving your wife in a way she feels it were helpful to me as well. I think my wife liked that part, based on her comments when we studied it together. So I don't feel the book was totally one-sided. Even if there were one-sided book that helped women respect their husbands, that's not a bad thing. The couple can read another book on the other topic.
The author didn't say women didn't want respect. I think he did an okay job of presenting it as a matter of degree. In his survey question, the majority of men would choose a life where no one loved them love over a life where no one respected them, and vice versa for the women. But there are still a large minority who did not go with the typical answer for their gender.
The big leap I felt he took was that if the Bible commands husbands to love their wives and women to respect their husbands that it is necessarily a special emotional need of the husband to be respected and the wife to be loved. Intuitively, that does make a bit of sense, though. But even if there is no emotional need or air hose like he says, we should still obey Biblical commands. I also see that focusing on respect is an easier sell than 'the s word', but the emphasis can still help many marriages function better.
That is an important thing. If going through a course like this or a book like this and buying in improves people's marriages, there is some merit to it. In our class, the people seemed to benefit from it.
So when you say that the book assumes goodwill, you are mistaken. It assumes that men do not adequately love their wives and women do not respect their husbands (otherwise they would not have to be taught to do this). And disrespect implies lack of goodwill.
One of the ideas early on in the book is that a husband can be goodwilled, but his statements could be misinterpreted as being unloving. The wife could be good-willed, but her comments which she considers to be helpful or a step toward reconciliation could be interpreted as disrespectful criticism by the man. Couples who are trying to have a good marriage (good willed in this sense) could enter the 'crazy cycle' if they don't understand their partner's perceptions and emotional needs. It's not an unreasonable hypothesis, and I could probably think of some examples in my relationship with my wife where we argued over something similar. Most people in the class could relate to it.
