If you were in the Olympics, would you have your spouse as your coach?
I didn’t do a scientific study on this, but I know what would get me to respond. I am also sure there are other’s like me. You might be wondering what I am talking about? I am talking about wives’ wanting their husband to do projects that is long overdue.
Case in point..my wife, PG was telling me a story of a friend of hers that asked her husband to do a major “guy” project. Take care of the car maintenance. That project remains undone, and has no signs of being completed anytime soon. PG, nodded in agreement with her like she understood what she was talking about. Of course my forehead wrinkled up on that as I began to wonder what projects she was talking about.
I began to ponder when wives’ ask their husband to do a project that make take a little time and effort, why does it take forever to get it done? The reason, they don’t ask in “GUY” language. You may ask, “What is guy language?”
Most men usually fall in three categories. They either play or watch sports, play video games, watch action movies or some combination of the three. Why are men so fascinated with these things. Let’s look at the common denominator of these activities. There is a prize at the end. You win something. In sports, you win the championship; in video games, you kill the bad guys, get the most points; in action movies, you kill the bad guy and get THE GIRL.
You know when you have seen your husband in one of these scenarios, he is like a different person. Till this day, PG still doesn’t understand how my behavior transformed from a laid-back, happy guy, to the HULK while I was playing a friendly game of pickup basketball.
As men, we are wired as youth to compete, win at all costs no matter what it takes. We spend most of our childhoods racing the boys on the playground, playing football and competing with our boys trying to get her number. Everything is a competition. We love to win and be a winner. You will see the most mild-mannered man turn into a beast if you put a game in front of their face and start talking “smack.”
When it comes time to doing projects, you as our wife expect us to just do it because you asked us to. Because you know if it was the other way around, you would certainly do it. Well as we know that doesn’t always work. You may say, he didn’t get away with that when lived with his parents. Of course not because we still believed it was a competition. We would either lose something; money, fringe benefits, or a sore behind. Either way we were losing.
So if you have a project you want your husband to do this weekend, try something new. Make it a competition.
Hey..We don’t make the Rules..We just like to play games.
Have a Good Weekend.
Coach Keith