Quiz: Can You Tell the Good Relationship Advice from the Bad Advice?
Can you spot the myths about marriage? Mark each statement “true” or “false.”
1. Marriage is hard work.
2. Husbands and wives have to give and take equally for a marriage to succeed.
3. Men tend to be less mature than women, which is one reason women end up taking on more housework and child-rearing responsibilities.
4. Women have more influence than men on whether a relationship will be connected and fun or distant and miserable.
5. Wives who are always saying what they want are more likely to get divorced.
6. A happy wife is often willing to have sex with her husband even if she is not in the mood.
7. When you’ve been married for a while, you can pretty much predict what your partner is going to say in a given situation.
8. A husband wants his wife to be happy and will go to great lengths to make sure she is.
9. If something your husband is doing is bothering you, it’s best to be honest and say so directly.
10. Happy wives tell their husbands when they want more attention or affection.
11. Diagnosis and medication for conditions like ADD, OCD, Asperger’s, borderline personality disorder, or narcissistic personality disorder provide insights that can dramatically improve a marriage.
12. If your husband grew up in a dysfunctional family, it may take him years to learn to be emotionally supportive, take initiative, or respond to your needs.
13. Marriages where the wife is feminine and the husband is masculine are highly successful.
14. Once your marriage is in crisis—you’re separated, divorcing, or there’s been an infidelity—it’s probably too late to save it.
15. Couples with happy marriages have learned how to fight fair.
16. If you’re in an unhappy marriage, that probably means one of you has changed since you got married, and you may not be right for each other anymore.
17. Most people who get divorced are happier a few years later than they were when they were unhappily married.
18. Happy couples tend to make peace at the end of the day, even if it means staying up late to talk it through.
19. For a marriage to improve, both people have to work on it.
20. Happy marriages are the result of two people being lucky enough to find and marry the right person for them.
Answers:
1. False. I’ve been married twenty-five years, and my marriage is a soft place to land. Waitressing is hard work. Writing a book is hard work. Marriage is a piece of cake now that I have the right skills.
2. False. The more women receive graciously from their husbands and focus on their own happiness, the more successful the marriage will be.
3. False. Women take on more responsibility because they’re afraid it won’t be done the right way—their way.
4. True. Women are the keepers of the relationship and have much more power over the culture in the home.
5. False. The more you express your desires, the more your husband knows how to make you happy, which in turn makes him feel more successful as a husband.
6. True. Why would you want to pass up the opportunity to feel desired, to feel pleasure, and to connect with your husband physically, emotionally, and spiritually? Just because you don’t start out in the mood doesn’t mean you won’t end up there.
7. False. We’d like to think we can read our husbands’ minds, but it’s simply not so.
8. True. Ask a married man and he’ll tell you.
9. False. You don’t have to suffer indefinitely, but criticism has a chilling effect on intimacy, and there’s always a better way to get what you want.
10. False. Happy wives are irresistible and don’t need to ask for attention or affection because their husbands are drawn to them. Feeling that you need to ask is a sign you’ve forgotten that, as a woman, you are a magnet for men, especially your husband.
11. False. Those diagnoses may give you insights—or they may be a giant distraction from your own feelings and desires—but they don’t get you any closer to feeling desired, cherished, and adored, which is about practicing the right skills.
12. False. With the Six Intimacy Skills, you’ll notice an improvement in two weeks. You wouldn’t have married him if he didn’t have qualities you admire. Those will come back when you begin treating him respectfully again.
13. True. Yin and yang go together beautifully.
14. False. No matter what kind of crisis your marriage is in, it can likely be completely revitalized, becoming the best it’s ever been.
15. False. There’s no such thing as fighting fair. It’s called “fighting” because it’s about hurting another person. Couples with happy marriages don’t fight very much.
16. False. If your marriage is very strained, you may have forgotten what you were attracted to about him, but he’s still the same great guy. It’s fun to rediscover those wonderful qualities as you repair the relationship.
17. False. Studies show that people are just as unhappy after they divorce as they were in a difficult marriage.
18. False. Go to sleep. Things will look better in the morning. In fact, there might not even be a problem; you could just be overtired. Sleep first, talk later.
19. False. Women have far more power in a relationship, and therefore have the ability to revitalize the intimacy of a marriage singlehandedly. Men rise to the occasion, but women set the tone.
20. False. A happy marriage is the result of a woman learning certain skills that, when practiced, result in her feeling desired, cherished, and adored by her husband every day, for the rest of their lives.