Are you asking yourself how you can become a better husband and father? Watch the video and hear what Paul Friedman says on this topic for you to be a better father and a better husband.
I’d like to help you get started moving in the right direction on this one. I don’t know whether this is something that you became aware of on your own or whether your wife said to you that you’re not living up to her expectations but there’s a lot that you can do so we need to talk about let’s first begin with husband and then we’ll move into father.
When you got married, you got married with a promise to your wife that you would love her, that you would be there for her, that you would care for her, protect her for the rest of your lives. Biologically speaking, man’s role is as a protector and so you’re not making it in that arena even though you may think you are because you’ve probably crossed the most typical usual line that men cross and that is the line of going from a protector to a threat so I’m going to use this to illustrate what I’m talking about.
Actually, a friend of mine back when I was doing divorce mediation, it was another divorce mediator and he heard it from another divorce mediator and it’s great. He said to imagine going to a planet where you don’t know what to expect and you bring two bodyguards and the bodyguards are fighting with each other. Woah, you’re in trouble, right so that’s what happens to your children when you’re not getting along with your wife so I took this a little further.
Imagine you hire a bodyguard and you’re walking down the street, a very loyal good bodyguard and then he says pulls out his gun, he says, ” I could shoot you in your head right now and I would totally get away with it.” Man, that guy is gone right then and there or the next day by memo because you don’t really want to get near him because he’s threatening. Well, with our wives what we tend to do if we’re not educated about this is we forget that our power is in
all the areas. Our power to protect is in all these areas that effectively protect like if someone’s coming at you, you may act sternly.
You’re not going to pull out a gun necessarily but you can act sternly and says, “You better back off.” You use that tone of voice and the person goes, “Okay.” Now your wife who is the protectee when you use that tone of voice on her, it has the same effect as if she were an enemy but worse it’s a betrayal. This is the number one mistake that men make. They raise their voice and
you could say, “Well, she screams at me,” but it’s not the same.
Men raise their voice they speak sternly, they take charge. They put themselves in the position of a commanding officer. All those things betray your marriage vows. You’re supposed to use your powers only for protection. It’s the same thing with children especially girl children. If you behave in that manner, they will fear you rather than feel loved and protected by you. This is subtle stuff but it really is profound because it really does have the fit.
I’m not saying you don’t discipline your children. You could spank your children. I shouldn’t say that because these days you can’t spank your children. Even when I raise my children two of my kids begged me to spank them so they would have that experience but you can be diplomatically utilising your strength with your children. They need to understand and your wife needs to understand that your power is their resource and not a threat so that’s number one. That’s number one, you have to end any kind of behaviours that imply that you may use your weapons of power on them. They just have to be gone. It doesn’t do any good to apologise for any past mistakes but you can say, “Wow, I didn’t know about this. I’ve learned this to your wife, not to your kids.” And now I’m going to
be aware of it.
The second step — so that’s proactively reducing the negative part. It’s huge, it’s probably 80% of it or more for most men. The other thing is proactively expressing love, not in the form of but expressing love.
How do you express love?
You express love with actions of appreciation that are sincere acknowledgments, support,
recognition for women especially. Listening is a big way to express your love, to proactively listen, “How was your day? What happened?” Wow, really get into it. Understand it and really try to understand it from her point of view as a woman, a mother, a soul.
Women are much more connected to themselves as souls than men are so that’s really it. If you just do the first part, big, big changes. The second part is the icing on the cake. I hope this was helpful and useful and I hope your marriage is not sliding towards divorce. I hope that’s not why you chose to search for this video.
