“The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.”
—RUSSELL LYNES
Make a point of graciously receiving everything your husband offers you, whether it’s help with the children, a necklace or a spontaneous shoulder massage. Accept your husband’s thoughtfulness good-naturedly and recognize that receiving graciously is the ultimate act of giving up control.
Even if you’re not sure you want the gift or think he can’t afford it, receive it with open arms and good humor. Be on the lookout for gifts you might not have noticed before.
Make “Receive, receive, receive” your mantra.
Once your husband takes responsibility for the finances, you’ll probably notice more gifts are coming your way. You’ll want to brush up on your receiving skills so as not to dampen his enthusiasm.
Receiving sounds deceptively easy, but a lot of us have a hard time simply accepting gifts from our husbands. A gift can be either something material that comes in a box (like a new sweater or a necklace), devoting time and effort to unburdening you (like making dinner or washing your car), or a simple sign of his affection and adoration (like a compliment or a back rub).
There are two reasons we sometimes do a poor job of receiving. The first is that we have a hard time believing that we deserve the gift, and that it doesn’t leave us owing a debt. The second reason is that we often dismiss or reject gifts—especially compliments—in an effort to appear modest.
I struggled for years with feeling undeserving of my husband’s gifts. Once when we were dating, the vendors at a street fair got excited when John announced that he would buy me any piece of jewelry I wanted. I thanked him but refused his offer. In my mind, I was calculating what he’d spent on lunch, the boat ride and the movie and thinking I didn’t deserve such generosity. At that time, I had little understanding that I was depriving us both of an enjoyable experience because I didn’t think I deserved any more special treatment that day.
I had also learned to dismiss compliments as a way of letting everyone know I wasn’t arrogant. If someone said I had gorgeous hair, I complained that it was unruly. If they said I was well spoken, I’d argue that I had stuttered and stammered. If they said they were impressed by something I’d done, I’d warn them that it wasn’t as hard as it looked, to be sure they knew I wasn’t too full of myself. Sometimes I would even react to a compliment with suspicion, in case the kind words were insincere and meant to manipulate me. In reality, I didn’t want to be so vulnerable as to accept those compliments.
Receiving gifts of any kind makes you feel vulnerable because you are not controlling the situation. You are not telling your husband how he can help you, nor are you choosing what you specifically want or deciding where and when to go. Rather, receiving—accepting what is put before you—might take you beyond your comfort zone. By its very definition, receiving is a passive act.
This feeling of undeserving becomes evident very quickly in my workshops when I ask everyone to think of an authentic compliment for the woman to her right. Many women struggle to receive the compliment, or feel the urge to make a joke and dismiss it. Often they have a very hard time keeping eye contact, letting the kind words in and saying “thank you.”
NO ONE CAN STEAL YOUR INDEPENDENCE
Another reason I sometimes rebuffed either a material gift or the gift of help is because on some level, I believed it threatened my independence. For instance, if a coworker paid for my lunch, I might think, “I can take care of myself.” I took feminism and twisted it into the belief that I had to do everything myself.
I believe in offering women as many choices as possible: education, a satisfying career, full-time motherhood, marriage, or any combination of these. To me, the goal of feminism is giving more women more choices. I chose to go to college and have a career. I felt so strongly about my identity as a feminist that when I married in my early twenties, I chose not to take my husband’s name. I knew my opinion counted, and that I was smart. In fact, I was so independent and capable, I believed I could do anything on my own. I would have been hard-pressed to admit that I needed help from anyone. So, when others generously tried to assist me, I felt that my independence was threatened, but that simply isn’t true.
Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t learned much about the fine art of receiving.
SMILE AND SAY “THANK YOU!”
“Welcome anything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.”
—ANDRÉ GIDE
You deserve to have sweet, beautiful, luxurious things in your life, and your man deserves the pleasure of giving them to you. Start receiving graciously and the gifts will multiply and come with greater enthusiasm almost immediately. If you weren’t expecting a gift, if it seems extravagant, or if it’s something you don’t need, you might be tempted to say, “Oh, I didn’t need that.” Or, “really, you shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble.” When you respond with anything but a big, “Thank you,” you are rejecting the giver. You are also saying “I don’t value my special place in your life.” That’s a hurtful message. Instead, recognize that receiving a gift graciously is sometimes the greatest gift of all.
Even if the gift is not quite what you had in mind, accept it graciously and appreciate that someone was thinking of you.
UNCOVERING HIDDEN AGENDAS
Receiving graciously means understanding and acknowledging that others feel pleasure when you allow them to give you something. It means that you are open to having presents bestowed on you. Graciousness requires softness and vulnerability—both key ingredients of intimacy. Rejecting a gift, or subtly criticizing it is a hard, cold response that fosters distance—not closeness.
In a practical sense, receiving graciously means that when your husband offers to put the baby to bed, take you to a show, or get you a chair at a party, you smile sweetly and say thank you.
Sounds simple, right? Many women have an agenda that keeps them from being able to accept the things their husbands want to give them. The agendas go something like this:
“If he puts the baby to bed, he will put the pajamas on backwards again.”
“He needs to relax after a long day at work, so I’ll put the baby to bed.”
“We can’t afford to go to a show.”
“If he picks the movie, I probably won’t like it.”
“It would be rude to take the only chair, so I’ll stand too.”
“I don’t want to sit next to that awful woman from the PTA, so I won’t take the chair he’s offering.”
These are all valid points, but they interfere with receiving, and therefore with intimacy. When you reject his offers, for whatever reason, you close the door to the pleasurable connection that results from letting him take care of you. You also deny him the pride of providing generously and gallantly. Every time you pass up a gift from your husband, you miss the opportunity to connect with the part of him that wants to please, cherish, and adore you.
RECEIVE, RECEIVE, RECEIVE!
Your opinion does count, and you have every right to express it, but before you do, consider the price. The kids won’t die if their nightclothes are on backwards. Criticizing your husband for putting the pajamas on the wrong way, however, will belittle him. Going to the theater probably won’t bankrupt the family. Refusing to go out with your husband for the evening or implying that he’s being fiscally irresponsible will call his judgment into question and make him less enthusiastic about taking you out in the future. Refusing to sit when he offers you a chair because he’s still standing might make you feel more equal, but you’ll be denying him the joy of giving and you the pleasure of receiving. Recognize when you do this that you are making a choice to sacrifice intimacy to have things your way.
Imagine that at the end of a date instead of standing there ready to receive a kiss, you stood with your arms crossed and glared at your date. It would take a pretty brave or very inconsiderate man to kiss you under those circumstances. If you’ve ever uttered the words, “Never mind! I’ll do it myself!” or even worse, taken action that screamed out that sentiment, you have metaphorically stood there with your fists up when it was time for the goodnight kiss. You have deterred gifts that might have come your way.
When your husband offers to help you, compliment you, or give you something, it’s in your best interest to accept graciously and without critical comment. This will not make you appear incapable or undo what women have gained politically and socially, but it will make your marriage more intimate and fulfilling.
I’ve come to see that receiving gifts graciously requires much more courage and maturity than clinging to a false sense of independence or modesty by rejecting them. Today I have a new mantra that I use to remind myself to take what I’m offered politely. I tell myself, “Receive, receive, receive!”
THE UNEXPECTED GIFT
“I praise loudly, I blame softly.”
—CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA
If you’re thinking you would be happy to receive gifts from your husband, if only he would offer them, chances are you’ve been overlooking his gifts. A woman will often dismiss her husband’s offerings if they aren’t what she has in mind, and therefore miss receiving them entirely. She then feels deprived, as though she’s not getting anything at all.
Feelings of deprivation sometimes lead wives to attempt to manipulate their husbands into giving them things. We write notes with lists of chores, set boundaries, or say how hurt we feel if he doesn’t get us a birthday present or bring us flowers once in a while. Usually, he responds poorly, dragging his feet and making it clear that he feels burdened. By this time, we are convinced that he is inconsiderate and lazy. Even if he does what we wanted, we are still unhappy because we don’t just want him to give us gifts; we want him to want to give us gifts.
Take Roxanne and Rich. She complains that he never lifts a finger to do anything for her. It’s an ongoing struggle to get him to bathe the kids at night or hand her a diaper, she claims, saying that Rich groans with unwillingness at the smallest request. When I talked to Roxanne at length, however, she mentioned the two bathing suits Rich had gotten her for Mother’s Day. Later, she told me he had also offered to put her up at a hotel for the weekend so she could catch up on her sleep. By the time she started complaining about how he had left some spots on the windows when he washed her car, I was on to her. She was completely overlooking her husband’s gifts because they weren’t the gifts she thought he should be giving her!
In reality, Rich is a generous man who wants to please his wife. When he didn’t do what Roxanne asked or told him to do (in other words, didn’t respond well to her control), she overlooked all of his gifts and acted as if he never did anything thoughtful. From his point of view, he was doing everything he could to make her happy, and from her point of view he wasn’t doing anything that counted. What a mess!
As Roxanne focused on thanking Rich for the gifts she was getting and stopped telling him what to do, she found he seemed much more generous and willing to help her in other ways. Rich was happy to lend a hand with the kids and pamper his wife, as long as he knew she appreciated him.
To better understand how your husband feels when you reject his gifts, imagine yourself preparing a present for a close friend. You’ve made sure this gift is just what your friend will like. You lovingly wrap the gift and with great anticipation, you present it to your friend. But instead of smiling happily and thanking you, she rolls her eyes. When you ask her what’s wrong, she says it just wasn’t the kind of gift she wanted, or that you should have gotten her something else altogether. Naturally, you feel rejected. You would certainly think twice before getting a present for this friend again, and you might stop giving her things altogether. An incident like that could seriously dampen your friendship.
If you recognize that you have rebuffed your husband in a similar way—whining when he presents you with a gift or surprises you by doing something extra around the house—don’t beat yourself up. You can start receiving from your husband and reverse the damage right now. Most husbands continue to give their wives at least small offerings even after years of being rebuffed. Generally speaking, this is part of your husband’s nature—his drive and determination to please his wife will never die completely as long as you’re still married. The minute he sees an opportunity to succeed with pleasing you (without being controlled), he’ll seize it.
Think hard about things your husband has done for you recently. Write a list of the things he does that you are grateful for to shift your perspective. Just like the optimist who sees the glass half full instead of half empty, you have the option of looking at your husband’s gifts instead of his deficits. Don’t overlook the things he’s giving because you take them for granted—all gifts are precious opportunities to receive.
When I ask women to change their perspective by listing their husband’s recent gifts, some wives will insist that their husband really hasn’t done anything in the longest time. After some prompting, usually they’ll admit that he does make dinner sometimes, or that he mows the lawn without fail, or runs out to the store when the milk is gone. In particular, working to support the family (whether he is sole breadwinner or part of a dual-income family) is a contribution that many women overlook when counting the reasons to be grateful for their husbands. Of course, you may keep the household running or work to earn a living as well. However, just because you are doing your share (or more), doesn’t mean you should take for granted the fact that your husband also does his part.
OPENING BOXES WITH BOWS
“The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.”
—VICTOR HUGO
So what about receiving graciously when your husband gives you something material that you really just don’t like? Since this is your lifelong partner and mate we’re talking about, you’ve got to tell him the truth, right? He’s going to see how you truly feel by your response anyway, right?
That depends on you. There are two parts to receiving a gift: one is that you receive the gesture of love and thoughtfulness, and the other is that you also accept the giver’s choice of gifts. Yes, the material gift is just a symbol of affection, but the two are so inter-twined it’s hard to accept one and not the other.
I learned the value of the symbolism within a material object when a woman showed me the rings on her fingers. On her right hand, she wore two expensive rings with gorgeous stones, and on her left, only a modest gold band that was pretty banged up. She explained to me that although they could afford better now, the inexpensive band was the ring that meant the most to her because it was the one that represented her beloved husband’s desire to marry her all those years ago.
For this woman, the object that represented her husband’s love was precious because of what it symbolized, not because it was the most stunning ring in her jewelry box. Think long and hard before you reject a material object because it doesn’t meet your usual standards of beauty or style. In reality, you are rejecting much more.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t exchange a bathrobe to get the right size, or that you should wear a scarf you hate every day to make sure he thinks you like it. I’m just saying to consider it carefully before you reject it out of hand. This is what he picked out for you because he thought you would like it, and he knows you well, so give it a chance. Of course it’s not what you would have picked out yourself. For that, you can go shopping any time.
Often our first reaction to something we wouldn’t have bought for ourselves is plain rejection and to criticize (if only to ourselves) that our husband doesn’t understand or know us, after all. Corrin told Ray she was very appreciative of the gorgeous handbag he gave her for Christmas, but that it wouldn’t hold all of her things. She promptly returned it for another that was more practical. The practical purse was never a source of compliments, she told me, and in retrospect she realized that the sleek one her husband had purchased would have surely made her feel more beautiful. Eventually she told him that she regretted returning the attractive handbag, and that she appreciated his good taste. This opened the door for him to try again without fearing another rejection—a big plus for their intimacy.
Unfortunately, Robin cut her husband Paul absolutely no slack when he gave her a copy of a ring she had admired for their anniversary. He had copied the wrong ring—the one she disliked—and she told him so right then and there. Naturally, the anniversary celebration was not as romantic as Paul had planned. She completely missed the opportunity to receive the love and affection that went into his present. Instead of pride, he probably felt embarrassed and rejected, which crowds out intimacy every time.
Receiving graciously has the pleasant side effect of shifting your focus away from everyday annoyances like finding your husband’s socks on the floor. Again. Somehow, noticing gifts makes room for gratitude in space that was once filled with concern for overdue bills, holey underwear and correcting him when he’s singing the wrong lyrics to a song. Naturally, you’ll feel a greater sense of happiness as a result.