Natalia Roszkowska a writer and Clinical Data Manager shares this insights on Marriage online : Read
Four people sit at a table - two husbands, two students. One of the students is male, the other one is me.
I had just spent the past two weeks with these people (in a much larger group) and on the eve of our departure, I was mildly surprised to find the other student asking them about marriage. I was even more fascinated to learn about marriage from a male perspective.
“What are some things you appreciate about your wives?” I asked.
“Her advice.” One of the husbands answered. “Over the years, I’ve learnt to ask for her opinion when signing potential clients. One such situation was when I was considering signing with a client who on paper seemed perfect.
She advised me not to, completely not being able to explain why she felt that way, other than that she had ‘a bad feeling’ about this guy. Perhaps it really is woman’s intuition, because it later turned out that she was right - the client was a crook.”
The other one said: “How she makes a house a home.”
I was surprised to see all three men nodding enthusiastically in agreement, even the unmarried student - I guess up until that point I hadn’t realized how important it was for males to have a base, a safe haven for them to return to.
“What is something that you learned after marriage?” The male student asked.
“Before marriage you could meet up with your girlfriend, tucking away any personal problems to the back of your mind and dealing with them later. Once you’re married, you quickly learn that you can’t hide your worries and fears away because you now live together.”
The other husband spoke up:
“At the early stages of marriage, whenever my wife complained about a problem, I would (to her great frustration) attempt to solve said problem by giving her advice. I quickly learned that she doesn’t necessarily want (or need) my advice.
This led us to form the following system, where we ask each other - ‘Do you want: advice, to vent or a hug?’ and it’s been much simpler since then.”
That night I also learnt what issues really should be discussed before marriage (“finances, household chores, religion and whether or not to have kids”), as well as certain issues that may crop up during marriage, the key one being:
“Miscommunication.”
One of the husbands recounted a situation that had occurred that very afternoon:
“After lunch, we wanted to take our son for a walk. My wife told me to wait for her outside.”
Chuckles followed when he explained that his wife had meant ‘outside their room’ (at the time we had been living in rooms on the 3rd floor), while he himself had understood ‘outside the building’ leading to a long trek up & down the stairs as the couple tried to find each other.
