7
Jeremy was considering buying a used Honda coupe. The car seemed like a great deal since the seller, Phil, had only bought it a month ago and was offering a large discount because he was being transferred overseas. Jeremy loved the car’s handling and power, not to mention the state-of-the-art sound system. But before doing a deal, he wanted a mechanic to check the car. “Why?” said Phil. “It’s really brand-new. It only has three hundred miles, and you get the manufacturer’s warranty.”
“True,” said Jeremy, “but I promised my wife I wouldn’t buy a car without having it inspected first.”
Phil gave Jeremy a withering look. “You let your wife tell you what to do about cars?” he asked.
“Sure,” said Jeremy. “Don’t you?”
“Well, no. I don’t—didn’t. I’m divorced,” said Phil.
“Well,” Jeremy chuckled. “Maybe that’s why.”
Jeremy had the car checked by his mechanic, and it turned out that the suspension system needed a costly repair, so he never bought Phil’s car. But more important, he never bought Phil’s attitude toward women. Jeremy has made his wife a partner in his
decision making. He respects and honors his wife and her opinions and feelings. He understands that for his marriage to thrive, he has to share the driver’s seat.
There was a time when Phil’s macho attitude wasn’t necessarily a liability for a husband. But our data suggest that this is no longer the case. In our long-term study of 130 newlywed couples, whom we followed for nine years, we found that, even in the first few months of marriage, men who allowed their wives to influence them had happier relationships and were less likely to eventually divorce than men who resisted their wives’ influence. Statistically speaking, when a man is not willing to share power with his partner there is an 81 percent chance that his marriage will self-destruct.
Obviously, it takes two to make or break a marriage, so we’re not singling out men here. The point of this chapter is not to scold, bash, or insult either gender. It’s certainly just as important for wives to treat their husbands with honor and respect. But my data indicate that the vast majority of wives—even in unstable marriages—already do that. This doesn’t mean that they don’t get angry and even
contemptuous of their husbands. It just means that they let their husbands influence their decision making by taking their opinions and feelings into account. But too often, men do not return the favor.
That was the sound bite that some members of the media used, erroneously, to sum up my study on accepting influence. It was parodied on Saturday Night Live, pilloried by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, and picked on by political pundit Bill Maher.
Our study didn’t really find that men should give up all of their personal power and let their wives rule their lives. But we did find that the happiest, most stable marriages in the long run were those in which the husband did not resist sharing power and decision making with the wife. When the couple disagreed, these husbands
actively searched for common ground rather than insisting on getting their way.
To arrive at these findings, we looked intently at what happened when these newlyweds discussed an area of conflict and also when they talked about the history of their romance. When we analyzed the data, we were struck by a significant gender difference. Although a wife would sometimes express
anger or other negative emotion toward her husband, she rarely responded to him by
increasing the negativity. Usually she either tried to tone it down or matched it. So if a husband said, “You’re not listening to me!” the wife would usually say something like, “Sorry, I’m listening now” (a repair that ratchets down the negativity) or “I’m finding it hard to listen to you!” which matched her husband’s anger but didn’t go beyond it.
But 65 percent of the men did not take either of these approaches. Instead, their response escalated their wives’ negativity. They did this in a very specific way: by trotting out one of the
four horsemen. If the wife of one of these men said, “You’re not listening to me!” the husband would either ignore her (stonewall), become defensive (“Yes, I am!”), criticize (“I don’t listen because what you say never makes any sense”), or express
contempt (“Why waste my time?”). Using one of the four horsemen to escalate a conflict is a telltale sign that a man is resisting his wife’s influence.
Rather than acknowledging his wife’s feelings, this kind of husband is using the four horsemen to drown her out, to obliterate her point of view. One way or another, this approach leads to instability in the marriage. Even if the husband doesn’t react this way very often, there’s still an 81 percent chance that he’s damaging the relationship.
Although it is important for both husband and wife to try to keep the four horsemen from taking over in times of conflict, it is especially important that men be aware of the danger to their marriage when they escalate the negativity this way. For some reason, when a wife uses the four horsemen in the same manner, the marriage does not usually become more unstable. At this point, I believe this asymmetry may have sociological causes. An overly
compliant wife who doesn’t feel empowered to ever
reject her spouse’s influence would likely become depressed, which is detrimental to both her health and the relationship. So perhaps it is a lesser evil for a wife to escalate conflict somewhat rather than fully comply. This may explain why it doesn’t harm the marriage when a wife occasionally harnesses one of the
four horsemen (with the exception of contempt) to emphasize what she needs from her husband. Perhaps this show of strength balances the power between spouses, particularly if the husband is able to focus on his wife’s expressed needs rather than her delivery.
Whatever the reason for the gender disparity, the data indicate that husbands are far more likely than their wives to use the four horsemen to escalate a marital disagreement. And when they do, they are also more likely to put their marriage at risk. So although it certainly makes sense for both partners to avoid intensifying conflicts in this way, the bottom line is that husbands need to be particularly vigilant about accepting their wives’ influence.
I’ve met enough angry husbands and sparred with enough irate radio talk show hosts to know that some men are quite up front in their refusal to share power with their wives. Even in these days of gender equity, there are still husbands who simply refuse to consider any opinions their wives air and never take their feelings or ideas into account when making decisions.
Some men claim that religious conviction requires them to be in control of their marriages and, by extension, their wives. But no religion I know of says that a man should be a bully. I am not advocating a particular spiritual belief system about the roles of men and women. Our research has included couples who believe the man should be the head of the family as well as couples who hold egalitarian viewpoints. In both kinds of marriages, emotionally intelligent husbands have figured out the one big thing:
how to convey honor and respect. All spiritual views of life are consistent with loving and esteeming your spouse. And that’s what accepting influence
is all about. After all, do you really want to make decisions that leave your wife feeling disrespected? Is that really consistent with religious beliefs? It is not.
This was brought home to me by a colleague who follows a religious doctrine that exalts
patriarchy. He believes that the husband should make all decisions for the family. But he and his wife have an emotionally intelligent marriage. He sees no conflict between his beliefs and accepting influence from his wife. He told me, “I wouldn’t think about making a decision she disagreed with. That would be very disrespectful. We talk and talk about it till we both agree, and then I make the decision.” This man intuitively realizes that a marriage can’t work unless both partners honor and respect each other. That’s true whatever your belief system.
In many cases, I suspect that men who resist letting their wives influence them are not even aware of this tendency. There are men who consider themselves feminists who interact with their wives in ways that belie that label. Case in point: a hardworking lab technician named Chad. If you asked him whether he believed in an egalitarian marriage, he’d nod his head vigorously. But that’s not what was playing out in the new home he shared with his wife, Martha. One night he announced that he would have to work late the following Thursday. Martha reminded him that her mother was coming to visit Friday morning and that she was counting on him being available Thursday night to clean the house with her and get the guest room ready. “I’m really upset with you,” Martha said bluntly. “Didn’t you remember that my mother is coming? Why can’t you change your shift?”
“Why didn’t
you remember I have this big project due? There’s no way I can change my schedule. I have to work—maybe even the entire weekend,” said Chad. His response upped the ante. First he was defensive—instead of responding to Martha’s complaint, he volleyed back a complaint of his own: Why didn’t she remember
his schedule? Then he threatened her by suggesting that he would have to work even more than he had initially indicated. This was really a kind of
belligerence.
Martha became furious. She called him a lot of unfortunate names and stormed out of the room. Chad felt mistreated. After
all, he had to work! As usual, her fury seemed to have come out of nowhere. His heart started racing, and his head pounded. He became flooded, which made it difficult to think about the problem clearly or come up with a solution. All he wanted was to escape from his wife’s unfair, irrational attitude. He certainly wasn’t in the mood to find a compromise. So, feeling victimized, he poured himself a beer and turned on the TV. When Martha came back into the room wanting to talk, he simply ignored her. When she started to cry, he left the room and announced he was going to bed early.
The wives of men who accept their influence are far less likely to be harsh with their husbands when broaching a difficult marital topic. This increases the odds their marriage will thrive.
When a couple have an argument like this, there are so many accusations and counteraccusations that sometimes it can be hard to determine the underlying cause. In the case of Martha and Chad, though, there’s a glaring clue that the fundamental problem is his unwillingness to accept her influence: When she becomes negative (“I’m really upset with you”—a straightforward complaint), he responds by
escalating the conflict. He injects
belligerence and the third horseman,
defensiveness, into their conversation. Martha becomes furious and Chad becomes flooded, which leads him to stonewall—the fourth horseman. Their marriage has just taken a nasty tumble.
Accepting influence doesn’t mean never expressing negative emotions toward your partner. Marriages can survive plenty of flashes of anger, complaints, even criticisms. Trying to suppress negative feelings in your spouse’s presence wouldn’t be good for your marriage or your blood pressure. The problem comes when even mild dissatisfaction on the wife’s part is met by a barrage from her husband that, instead of toning down or at the most matching her degree of negativity (yelling back, complaining, etc.), goes beyond it.
When a husband accepts his wife’s influence, he also strengthens their friendship. This occurs not just because the absence of frequent power struggles makes the marriage more pleasurable, but because such a husband is open to learning from his wife. And there’s no doubt that women have plenty to teach men about friendship. In his book
The Complete Book of Guys, humorist
Dave Barry writes about the huge gap between men and women in this regard. He recounts that every year he and his wife get together with some old friends. The wives immediately begin an intense catching-up conversation about their inner feelings. He and the other husband watch the playoffs. The men do get emotional at times—usually when deciding which kind of pizza to order. Later, when the couples have parted company, Barry’s wife will say something like, “Isn’t it amazing how well George has adjusted to having his leg amputated?” And Barry will pretend that of course he had noticed George was missing a leg. Barry is exaggerating, but the story is funny because it reveals a basic truth: women tend to be more oriented toward discussing and understanding feelings than are men.
I’m not suggesting that all women are savvier about emotions and have better “people skills” than all men. There are plenty of women who are tone deaf to social nuances and men who are deeply sensitive to others. But usually women are more emotionally intelligent than their husbands for one simple reason: they’ve had an enormous head start in acquiring these skills. Observe children at any playground and you’ll see this head start in action. When young boys play (usually run-and-chase games), their priority tends to be the game itself—not their relationship with each other or their emotions. But for little girls, feelings are usually paramount. A cry of “I’m not your friend anymore” will stop a game cold. Whether it starts up again will depend on whether the girls make up.
Even when a boy and girl play with the same toy, the gender difference is often apparent. When four-year-old best friends
Naomi and Eric shared her baby doll, she wanted to pretend that the doll was their baby and they were going to show it off to their friends (relationship-based play). He went along with this for about ten minutes, and then the game roller-coastered into boy territory: “Hey, Naomi, this baby is dead!” he announced. “We have to get it to the hospital right away!” He climbed into an imaginary ambulance, and away he went, “Brrrrrrrrr.” Naomi urged him not to drive too fast. Suddenly they both became surgeons and saved the baby’s life. (Eric wanted Naomi to be the nurse, but she objected that girls can be surgeons, too, so some things have changed!) After the baby’s life was saved, they went back to playing Naomi’s way—showing off the baby to friends. The play styles of Naomi and Eric are equally charming and delightful. But the plain truth is that “girlish” games offer far better preparation for marriage and family life because they focus on relationships. Boys don’t often include games with relationship and domestic themes in their repertoire.
Where does this difference in play styles between boys and girls originate? Because it occurs in virtually every culture, I suspect that biology rather than socialization is the cause. But whether nature or nurture is at the heart of these differences, their effect is undeniable. Because their play emphasizes social interactions and feelings, girls undergo an extensive education in emotions by childhood’s end. Boys learn how to pitch overhand. A boy’s experience at playing cooperatively and quickly getting past conflict will be an asset later in the boardroom or on the construction site, but it will be a liability in marriage if it comes at the expense of understanding the emotions behind his wife’s perspectives.
This disparity in training is heightened by the fact that as they get older, boys rarely play with girls, so they miss the chance to learn from them. In landmark research,
Eleanor Maccoby at Stanford University found that while about 35 percent of preschool best friendships are between boys and girls, like Naomi and Eric, by age seven that percentage plummets to virtually zero. From then till puberty, the sexes will have little or nothing to do with each other. This is a worldwide phenomenon. Many explanations have been given for this voluntary segregation. Maccoby offers an intriguing theory that dovetails with my findings on accepting
influence. She has found that even at very young ages (one and a half years), boys will accept influence only from other boys when they play, whereas girls accept influence equally from girls or boys. At around ages five to seven, girls become fed up with this state of affairs and stop wanting to play with boys. From that age until puberty, our culture (and virtually all others) offers no formal structure for ensuring that boys and girls continue to interact.
By the time Naomi and Eric are grown, the difference in their knowledge of homemaking will be apparent. Once a couple move in together or get engaged, the groom-to-be is suddenly immersed in what is probably an alien world. In the Broadway play
Defending the Caveman, a man says that when he was first married, he saw his wife cleaning the bathroom and asked, “Are we moving?” In his bachelor days, that was the only time he and his roommates bothered to clean the bathroom. Many young husbands discover they have a lot to learn from their wives about maintaining a home. You can see the shell-shocked look on the face of the young fiancé in any home furnishings store. He neither knows nor cares about the difference between suede and microfiber. All of the dishes look remarkably alike to him. Most of all, he’s thinking that this is taking an awfully long time, and if he turns around suddenly he will do about $10,000 worth of damage since all of the shelves are made of glass and placed about two feet apart, probably just to intimidate guys like him. How will he react? If pretty soon he hears himself saying, “Hey, that’s a great pattern,” another
emotionally intelligent husband has been born.
My data on newlywed couples indicate that more husbands are being transformed in this way. About 35 percent of the men we’ve studied are emotionally intelligent. Research from previous decades suggests the number used to be much lower. Because this type
of husband honors and respects his wife, he will be open to learning more about emotions from her. He will come to understand her world and those of his children and friends. He may
not emote in the same way that his wife does, but he will learn how to better connect with her emotionally. As he does so, he’ll make choices that show he esteems her. When she needs to talk, he’ll turn off the basketball game and listen. He will choose “us” over “me.”
I believe the emotionally intelligent husband is the next step in social evolution. This doesn’t mean that he is superior to other men in personality, upbringing, or moral fiber. He has simply figured out something very important about being married that the others haven’t—yet. And that is how to honor his wife and convey his respect for her. It is really that elementary.
The new husband is likely to make his career less of a priority than his family life because he has revised his definition of success. Unlike husbands of earlier generations, he naturally incorporates the first three principles into his daily life. He makes a detailed map of his wife’s world. He keeps in touch with his admiration and fondness for her. And he communicates it by turning toward her in his daily actions. This benefits not only his marriage but his children as well. Research shows that a husband who can accept influence from his wife also tends to be an outstanding father. He is familiar with his children’s world, including their friends and their fears. Because he is not afraid of emotions, he teaches his children to respect their own feelings—and themselves. He turns off the basketball game for them, too, because he wants them to remember him as having had time for them.
One great trend among fathers is that more of them are passing on to their children an understanding and respect for one’s own emotions and those of others. We call this approach to parenting “
emotion coaching.” Children benefit when mothers
and fathers follow this parenting style.
1 This new type of husband and father leads a meaningful and rich life. Having a happy family base makes it possible for him to create and work effectively. Because he is so connected to his wife, she will come to him not only when she is troubled but also when she is delighted. When the city awakens
to a beautiful fresh snowstorm, his children will come running for him to see it. The people who matter most to him will care about him when he lives and lament his demise.
The other kind of husband and father is a very sad story. He responds to the loss of male entitlement with righteous indignation or a sense of victimization. He may become more authoritarian or withdraw into a lonely shell, protecting what little he has left. He does not give others very much honor and respect because he is engaged in a search for the honor and respect he thinks is his due. He will not accept his wife’s influence because he fears any further loss of power. And because he will not accept influence, he will not have very much influence. The consequence is that no one will much care about him while he lives nor mourn him when he dies.
It’s understandable that some men have problems with the shift in the husband’s role. For centuries men were expected to be in charge of their families. That sense of responsibility and entitlement gets passed down from father to son in so many subtle ways that revising the husband’s role can be a challenge for many men, even in these days when 60 percent of married women work outside the home and often derive both economic power and self-esteem from their jobs. A significant number of the core issues we see between couples today have to do with this change in gender roles. Often, wives complain that men still aren’t doing their fair share of domestic chores and child care. This is not just an issue for young couples. We have observed the same pattern among partners in their forties and sixties. Men who are willing to accept influence are happily married. Those who are unwilling see their marriages become unstable.
Perhaps the fundamental difference between husbands who accept influence and those who don’t is that the former have learned that often in life you need to yield in order to win. When you drive through any busy city, you encounter frustrating bottlenecks and unexpected barricades that block your rightful passage.
You can take one of two approaches to these impossible situations. One is to stop, become righteously indignant, and insist that the offending obstacle move. The other is to drive around it. The first approach will eventually earn you a heart attack. The second approach—which I call yielding to win—will get you home.
The classic example of a husband yielding to win concerns the ubiquitous
toilet seat issue. It’s common for a woman to get irritated when her husband always leaves the toilet seat up, even though it only takes her a millisecond to put it down herself. For many women, a raised toilet seat is symbolic of the male’s sense of entitlement. So a man can score major points with his wife just by putting the seat down. The wise husband smiles at how smart he is as he drops the lid.
Accepting influence is an attitude, but it’s also a skill that you can hone if you pay attention to how you relate to your spouse. In your day-to-day life, this means working on the first three principles by following the advice and exercises in
chapters 4,
5, and
6. And when you have a conflict, the key is to be willing to
compromise. You do this by searching through your partner’s request for something you can agree to. For example, Chad might not be able to work fewer hours in deference to his mother-in-law’s visit, but perhaps he could shift the timing. He could, for example, postpone the late night until Friday so that he could help Martha get the house ready for her mother’s visit. Perhaps Martha, Grandma, and little brother could take the daughter to soccer practice on Saturday (traditionally his task) so that he could get some work done then.
If despite plenty of effort a man is still unable to accept influence from his wife on a particular issue, it’s a sign that an unacknowledged, unsolvable problem is stymieing his attempts. In such a case, the key is to learn how to cope with the
gridlock, using the advice in
chapter 11. One couple we studied, Tim and Kara, faced this dilemma. They constantly argued about his unemployed childhood friend Buddy, who Kara thought was anything but a pal. He often fought with his live-in girlfriend and ended up boozing and then crashing on their living room sofa. Kara feared that Buddy would be a bad influence on Tim and saw his frequent
presence in their home as an invasion and a threat. But whenever she tried to talk to Tim about it, he insisted that this was his home and that he could invite over anyone he wanted. When she disagreed with him, he would stonewall, which made her so angry she would start yelling. Then he would accuse her of being the one with the problem, not Buddy. Kara was infuriated by Tim’s attitude. As she saw it, he refused to respect that this was her home, too, and that he had to share decisions about houseguests with her.
More than 80 percent of the time, it’s the wife who brings up sticky marital issues, while the husband tries to avoid discussing them. This isn’t a symptom of a troubled marriage—it’s true in most happy marriages as well.
When I interviewed Tim and Kara, his unwillingness to accept her influence seemed to be the core of their problem—especially since he admitted that he saw no grounds for compromise on the issue. But when I asked him what his friendship with Buddy meant to him, it turned out there was more to the story. During high school, when his parents were going through a bitter divorce and his home life was coming apart, Tim spent countless nights on Buddy’s couch. He believed it was now his responsibility to help out the friend who had so often rescued him. He resented what he perceived to be Kara’s attempts to get him to abandon Buddy, which would go against his sense of honor. He wasn’t concerned that Buddy would be a bad influence. He saw himself as a stable, married man and took pride in his ability to help his friend.
The more Tim talked about Buddy, the clearer it became that he and Kara were grappling with an ever-present problem in their relationship concerning their views of friendship and loyalty. By recognizing this difference and working on the problem together, they were able to transform the issue. Tim stopped thinking about it in the context of his “right” to do what he wanted in his own home. Kara acknowledged that it had been Tim’s “piggish”
attitude—not just Buddy’s presence—that was making her so angry. She told him that she really admired his loyalty—it was one of the things she loved about him. She just worried that Buddy was taking advantage of him. He acknowledged that Buddy could be a “user.” By identifying the issue for what it was—a perpetual problem—and agreeing to work on it with Kara, Tim had effectively accepted her
influence. They each became better able to see the other’s perspective. In the end, they agreed that Buddy could continue to use their living room as a crash pad, but less frequently than before.
It took getting to the heart of a perpetual problem before Tim was able to accept influence from his wife. But in most cases, the husband just needs to be open to sharing power and then to get plenty of practice doing so. A husband can start by taking the quiz below, which can assess the current influence level in a relationship. There’s no reason why wives shouldn’t take the quiz as well, since the more open to influence both partners are, the smoother a marriage. Couples can then work through the fun exercises that follow, which offer practice in power-sharing.
Now that you’ve worked through these examples, you should have a better sense of what it means to “give” in a relationship. The next step is to get used to giving to your spouse and sharing power more in your own marriage. The following fun exercise lets you work on making decisions together. Remember that the goal is for both of you to be influential and to accept each other’s influence.
If you’re having difficulty accepting influence, you will benefit your marriage enormously by acknowledging this tendency and talking about it with your spouse. Nobody can change old habits overnight. But if you’re able to take responsibility for your difficulty with power-sharing, that will be a major leap forward. Your spouse is likely to feel a great sense of relief and renewed optimism about improving your marriage. The next step is to make your partner an ally in your crusade to overcome this problem. Ask her (or him) to gently point out to you instances where you are being unwittingly domineering, defensive, or disrespectful.
Because the Seven Principles are interrelated, you will find it easier to accept influence as you master the other tenets of this program. Likewise, the more skilled you become at accepting influence, the easier it will be to adhere to the other principles. A willingness to share power and to respect the other person’s view is a prerequisite for compromising. For that reason, becoming more adept at accepting influence will especially help you better cope with marital conflict—the focus of Principles 5 and 6. As you’ll see, there are two major categories of disagreements that virtually all couples experience. But the ability to accept influence is a cornerstone of success no matter which type of conflict you’re facing.