Save Her from the Stress

Just in case you haven’t noticed, life contains a surfeit of stress. Yes, it’s true, we all face problems, each and every day. Even the people you might think don’t have problems to worry about; movie stars, athletes and rich people all have problems. In fact, most of them have more problems to deal with than you and I do.

Stress can cause us a number of problems; everything from eating disorders, to high blood pressure, to total emotional breakdowns. It appears that these problems are even worse for women, than they are for men. Of course, none of us need these problems and we need even less for our wives to have them.

As men, we actually need a bit of stress to function. A man without any stress is called a couch potato. He just sits on the sofa, channel surfing, and calling out to his wife to bring him another Coke when his bottle runs dry. Stress is what causes us to get off the sofa and do something with our lives.

Not so for women. There’s a definite difference between how men and women deal with stress. While men can set a problem for which they don’t have an answer aside, women can’t do that. That problem grows and grows before their eyes, becoming bigger and bigger, until it’s all they can see. Instead of being able to deal with it, they often get to a point where all they are doing is worrying about it.

Now, I’m not saying that women aren’t capable of getting things done. We’re not talking the 1850s here, where women were thought of as being incapable of doing anything. Women are just as capable to deal with things as we are, sometimes even more so. What I’m talking about is how dealing with those things can affect them. By and large, women are far more skilled at worrying then men are. So, when faced with a problem, they tend to worry.

By the way, that’s why women nag their husbands; they see the problem, but they don’t see their husbands doing anything about it. The fact that you’re mulling it over in your mind or waiting for something to arrive, which you need to solve the problem, doesn’t count. She can’t see it, so it isn’t happening.

Part of our responsibility as men is to protect our wives. While that clearly means protecting them from physical harm, I’d have to say that it goes much farther than that. One of the areas where I have found it important to protect my wife is in the area of stress. Her mother is a world-class champion worrier, and she taught both her daughters well. So, it is very easy for my wife to fall into that habit. If I don’t protect her from worry and stress, it can destroy her.

One of the biggest areas of worry and stress for most couples is in the area of finances. It bothers me when I see couples in which the woman is the one handling the finances. Not because she’s not capable, but because of the stress which is associated with that job. If you ask these couples why they are doing things that way, they either answer that he’s irresponsible or she’s a better administrator.

Okay, those sounds like good reasons, but are they really? If that’s causing her stress, which ultimately leads to health problems, are they making a good decision? Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if he learned how to take care of the finances, so that she wouldn’t have to?

In our home, I do that. Now, I don’t keep my wife totally in the dark about our finances, she knows all of our accounts and about how much the bills are every month. She knows in general how much income we have (it varies from month to month). But, I never burden her with “I don’t know how we’re going to pay for this.” Instead, I figure out how we’re going to do it, and let her know. I take on the responsibility, instead of dumping it on her.

I’m not saying that she has no say in our finances, either; she does. When we sign up for some service or membership or whatever, it’s usually because she wants to. She comes to me, tells me what she wants, and I determine if we can afford it. If not, I tell her. If she still wants it, then we sit down together to decide what we’re going to give up, so that we can afford it.

When we run into a situation where money is a little tight, I just tell my wife that we need to be careful about our spending for the next few weeks. I don’t get into detail; I don’t dump it on her: I just tell her to put off any unnecessary spending for a bit. Likewise, for things like Christmas shopping and going on vacation; I tell her what we can afford to spend, and that’s what we work with.

Please don’t get me wrong here. I’m not treating my wife like a child or treating her like she’s irresponsible. What I’m trying to do is protect her from the stress associated with dealing with our finances. Our books are open. She can ask me at any time what we have and what we don’t have. She can ask me if such-and-such a bill has been paid. She can know how much cash I have in my wallet (and there’s no “she money” in there). I’m just protecting her.

How can a woman, who doesn’t feel secure in the family finances, feel secure in her marriage? She can’t. That’s why I’m protecting her. I want her to feel secure, that she doesn’t have to worry and that everything is going to be all right.

Maybe you can’t do it the same way that I am. You have to find what works for you. But, I will tell you this; if you have your wife paying the bills, you’re wrong. You’re dumping your responsibility on her, along with all the stress that goes with it. Learn how to take care of things, so that your wife can relax and feel secure. That will help her feel loved, as well.

Facing Problems Together

Have you ever read Willard F. Harley’s book, “His Needs, Her Needs?” It’s a rather interesting book, showing the five most basic emotional needs for men and women. If you’ve never read it, it’s worth picking up. Doesn’t even take all that long to read.

Amongst the needs that Harley states for women is Financial Support, he describes it as “She needs enough money to live comfortably.” “Live comfortably,” now, there’s a tricky term. What may be comfortable to one definitely isn’t to another. The filthy rich people out there call themselves “comfortable.” So, if we go by their definition, you’d better be a millionaire. Yet on the other end of the scale, in Veggie Tales story of “Madame Blueberry” the French family living in a tent was more comfortable than the Madame. So, according to Big Ideas Productions, you need to get rid of your house, and pitch a tent in the park.

Actually, comfort really doesn’t have much to do with how much you have. It has a lot more to do with what you do with what you have. How you live isn’t just a result of having money, but of using what money you have in a way that makes you comfortable. C’mon now, let’s be honest, you really don’t need a 14 bedroom mansion to be comfortable, do you?

Okay, so if we don’t need that huge mansion, does that mean that we really need to move into the tent? No, I wouldn’t suggest that extreme either. Regardless of how happy those veggies were in the tent, I don’t think your wife is going to be any more comfortable there than my wife would be. No hot baths, no running water… just a little bit short on the creature comforts. While us guys can handle that pretty good, our wives really can’t.

So, where’s the balance in this equation? Well, it has to be somewhere in between. Let’s just shoot for middle class. Actually, any sort of middle class will do, just as long as it’s middle. Now, how does one live comfortably within those limits?

As I’ve already said, it’s not so much what you have as what you do with it. The first rule of comfort is that you can pay the bills, when they come in, without having to worry about them. If you haven’t seen it already, let me tell you, your wife can put you to shame worrying about the bills. She’s an Olympic champ at that and you’re a rank amateur. So, if you have trouble paying the bills, she’s not going to be comfortable, no matter what.

The next thing I’d have to say that is necessary is that you have some money set aside every month for fun. Yep, entertainment is an important budget item. The reason that it’s important is that we all need a chance to relax and unwind. Not having that opportunity builds stress; and that’s another place where your wife can make you look like an amateur.

Thirdly, I’d have to say that you need to have enough to eat. Here’s one place that many families blow it. They spend way too much on food, because they’re too lazy to cook. Eating out all the time, even in fast-food joints is expensive. If you’re taking your family out to eat all the time, you’re throwing money away.

No, I’m not saying that you can’t go out to eat; but what I am saying is to make it reasonable. Don’t get yourselves so busy that there’s no time to cook. Oh, and by the way, you can cook too. Don’t make your wife do it all the time. If you don’t know how, now is a good time to learn (warming up frozen prepared foods isn’t cooking).

Finally, if you’re going to be comfortable, the home you live in and the cars you drive need to look and work descent. That doesn’t mean that they need to be new; nor does it mean that they need to be perfect. What it means is that you need to fix whatever is broken. Many couples spend a huge percent of their income making payments on two cars. That’s the biggest money waster there is. By the time you finish paying for it, the car is worth about 20% of what you paid. In the meantime, you’ve paid as much per month for those cars as you paid for your house.

My wife and I drive older cars. Hers is a ’99 and mine is a ’96. However, they are both clean, run well, and in decent shape. Hers looks almost as good as it did when it rolled out of the showroom and mine would if I got it an Earl Sheib $199 paint job. The only reason I don’t is that it’s the car I drive in Mexico, and I don’t want to look like I’m driving a new car.

If your furniture is starting to get run-down looking, cover it up; make it look good again. If your kitchen is looking drab, paint it. If your carpet is wearing thin, put a rug over it. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to make your home look comfortable and in good repair. More than anything, you’ve got to spend a little bit of imagination, making things look better. That might cost a few bucks, but more than anything it will cost you a little bit of elbow grease. Cheap.

If you could do those four things, you could honestly say that you have allowed your wife to “live comfortably.” Why is that important? So that she’ll feel secure; that feeling of security will translate directly into a feeling of being loved.