Healthy Wife, Happy Husband
My friend tells me a key “aha” to making his marriage work was: “Happy Wife, Happy Life.” “If she’s not happy, no one’s happy!” he says. “It took me a while to learn that… but it sure helped when I did!”
My friend’s ahead of most of us knuckle – headed guys who still wonder why she won’t do more of what we want. Even today we get news of the Gores, another high-profiled couple calling it quits because they “grew apart.” Yet, we can still miss the message. Good relationships don’t just stay good. It takes effort, energy and emotional intelligence. “Happy Wife, Happy Life.”
In the meantime, more scientific evidence comes to light that proves ”Happy Wife” theory and even takes it one step farther: “Healthy Wife, Happy Husband.” As husbands make it their job to help their wives find balance, health and happiness, she wins, the relationship wins, the sex-life wins, the family wins. Easy? No. Worth the work? Well, wouldn’t ya think?
Specifically, as John Gray, Ph.D’s new book Venus on Fire; Mars on Ice says, “Understanding the differing effects of oxytocin and testosterone on men and women is the first step in making subtle shifts in behavior and nutrition.” Gray’s book, subtitled, “Hormonal Balance – The Key to Life, Love and Energy” says that today’s stressful environments with more women in the workforce overwhelmed with work-home responsibilities, has been wreaking havoc on hormonal balance. That same feel-good, stress-reducing hormone that helped her fall in love with you, gets depleted by stress as well as a lack of safe, nurturing and relationally sensitive environments. OXYTOCIN MUST BE REPLACED and RE-RELEASED. OR ELSE!
The good news: Gray says that husbands can help fix this problem. He writes, ”Oxytocin is released in safe, cooperative, caring, supporting and nurturing situations.” So what can a husband do? Well…. as hard it sometimes sounds: HELP CREATE THOSE SAFE, COOPERATIVE, CARING AND SUPPORTING AND NURTURING SITUATIONS.
Gray concludes his book with “One Hundred Oxytocin-Producing Activities A Woman Can Engage In” (Or a husband can help facilitate) Here’s just a few husbands can orchestrate.
- Share non-business meals with friends
- Special “spa time” getting a manicure or pedicure
- Create special occasions by lighting candles at dinner
- Browse in a book store with no agenda
- Spend time at the beach, a river or a lake.
- Visit or tour an art museum or exhibit
- Going camping or river rafting with a group
- Shop for sexy lingerie
The book also talks clearly about how wives can help build and maintain her husband’s testosterone levels.. Yes, definitely worth a summer read!
Enjoy the day!
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