FALLING IN LOVE AGAIN

Whenever we see surveys carried out regarding the topic of relationships one of the most common complaints from women about their men is the one that says “he takes me too much for granted”.   It’s at this point that I can hear all the blokes agreeing that ‘yes that accusation has been levelled at me at some time or other but to be honest I don’t really get where she’s coming from?  I don’t really know what she means by that.  I suppose I could ask for a bit more detail as to the supporting evidence to that slanderous accusation, and it is slanderous because that does not sound like me at all but I suspect that could in turn lead to an argument and I don’t like arguments so I’ll just stay here in the dark not knowing what she really means when she says that and maybe the problem will ‘go away’…or words to that effect….

I’m going to help you out here fellas because if your lady has at any time accused you of taking her for granted then it must be true because that’s how she feels, or rather that’s how you have made her feel and I include myself in that too.  I’m afraid it’s a sad reality that complacency can work its way into even the strongest of relationships from time to time and it’s  that complacency that can indeed lead to ‘taking your partner for granted’ and it’s not a problem ‘that will just go away’ if left unchecked.  I’m going to take sides with the women here and say that it’s us men who are more likely to fall into a state of complacency when it comes to love and relationships hence earning the ‘you take me for granted accusation’.  Women in general do tend to naturally put that little bit more commitment into a relationship as they are more nurturing, caring and sensitive than us ‘sometimes inconsiderate bone-headed’ men.

However in defence of men everywhere I don’t think we purposely settle down into a state of complacency just to spite you and in a bizarre way a wife or partner who tends to care and look after her other half ‘too well’ is probably more likely to fall foul of ‘the lazy so-and-so who just takes me for granted!’

The way I can help you guys is to enlighten you on just what your spouse is talking about when she throws down the ‘taken for granted’ line which unfortunately is probably only used in the middle of an argument and there lies the first clue to solving the whole mystery. The accusation is usually scripted into an argument because arguments have a tendency to dredge up all the old ill feelings and resentments that have not been aired over a period of time.  An argument is an opportunity to get off your chest all the little things that have been bugging you over a period of time, probably since the last argument you had and when a woman says in the middle of a domestic altercation ‘you take me for granted’ she is talking about the little incidentals that occur on a daily basis.  She is not complaining about the fact that you take it for granted that if a major crisis appears in your life you expect her to be there for you no questions asked, because that’s just where she would be in such a situation, backing you up 100% when the going gets tough.  Women are good like that, it’s the protecting and nurturing thing again, it comes naturally to them.  What they are talking about is the culmination of ‘little things’ that happen daily, building into an overall situation where they eventually feel that they are being ‘taken for granted’.   Little incidents and occurrences that if they were to try and resolve them one at a time as they came along would probably lead us to accuse them of ‘nagging’ or ‘moaning’.   Without more consideration from us the girls are in a no win situation on this one so how can we do better?  What do we need to do to make them feel more valued and appreciated in our relationships?

I’ll use a true life example here in an effort to help the men out.  Not that long ago I used to work with a guy who one morning came into work looking ashen faced and totally crestfallen.  He was actually half an hour late for his shift so because I was his manager he came to see me to explain the reason for his lateness….. “The f…ing wife’s left me” were the first words he offered in explanation and just as I was pondering whether or not to ask why he quickly followed up with “Just because I left the washing in the machine! Can you believe that” he enquired of me obviously looking for some sympathy and empathy from a fellow bloke.  Now I could have given him what he was seeking but I didn’t think that would be the right thing to do, easiest yes but right?…no!.... Not from where I was sitting on my opinionated high horse anyway so I tried to get him to see what had really happened that morning or the night before as it turned out.

I said to him, “a woman does not just up sticks and walk out on a marriage solely because her husband did not take the washing out of the machine and put it to dry…so what else have you done?  Or not done as the case may be?!”  He went straight into denial and defensive mode as he painted this picture of himself that without doubt qualified him for a ‘Hubby Of The Year’ award and anyone who didn’t know him would think his wife must be stark raving bonkers to walk away from such a catch!  However I did know him.  I knew him very well in a way that you get to know someone when you work in close proximity with them five days a week.  Five days a week where you are sharing the same space, using the same kitchen and sharing a toilet.

I asked him “when you are at home do you ever wash up or do you leave dirty coffee cups lying around everywhere as you do at work?” he raised a quizzical eyebrow…. so I continued, when you use the loo at home do you pee all over the floor like you do here and do you regularly pebble dash the bowl and just leave it or do you by chance occasionally use the toilet brush at home?  By now he was getting really offended but he could clearly see where I was coming from much as he didn’t want to admit it.  He knew that I knew the way he behaved at work was pretty much the way he carried on at home and vice versa.  I reminded him that he often turned up for work in a crumpled shirt because “she didn’t do the ironing” or worse still a dirty crumpled shirt because “she didn’t do the washing or ironing”.  He was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation we were having so I took off my ‘mate trying to help hat’ and put my ‘Managerial’ hat back on and backed off which was a shame because he definitely needed it drumming into him a bit more in order to understand that his wife had left him after years of being taken for granted and the washing debacle was the final straw that broke the camel’s back.  He was throwing in pathetic arguments like “I didn’t have time to take the washing out after working all day,” while conveniently forgetting that she also holds down a full time job as well as doing the cooking, cleaning and most of the child-minding.  He also failed to mention the fact that any spare time he gets is usually spent playing on Xbox which is a whole new 21^st century phenomenon that I struggle to get my old head around… grown men getting hooked on computer games…?  I left the conversation really hoping that he had taken on board the advice I was giving him but somehow I don’t think he did and sadly I’m afraid he’s not the only man who thinks we’re still living in Victorian times, the age when it was a woman’s duty to look after the home and care for the children while still finding time to attend to her husbands every whim.

Wake up guys!  Things have changed a hell of a lot over the years.  In the past women never went out to work whereas these days most of them do.  You no longer have the argument that men even in the 1960’s and 70’s had, in that because they were out working all day it was reasonable to expect their dinner on the table when they got home because their wife didn’t go out to work.  Making the dinner was part and parcel of being a full time wife, mother and homemaker.  Note that I said ‘full time’ because that’s what it was then and still is now and that’s the point that too many men fail to see until its way too late.  

In the 60’s and 70’s a full time wife, mother and home maker who didn’t go out to work had the time to cook, wash and iron, she probably had time to follow her husband around picking up dirty socks and undies as he discarded them willy nilly around the house, she may have picked up wet towels from the bathroom floor while cursing quietly through gritted teeth or even saw it as part of her duty to remove the pebble dash left by the ‘love of her life’ around the toilet bowl?  But thinking about it now maybe that’s where women in the past have made things harder for women in modern times?  All that running around picking up after ‘Great Grandad’ that ‘Great Grandma’ did because she had time to do it has back fired on women the world over today.  It’s been fed into the male psyche over the years that it’s ok to leave your undies exactly where you step out of them, the bathroom floor is the right place to leave wet towels and the toilet is the place to pee wildly in all directions because ‘the cleaning fairy’ will magically appear when you’re gone and make it all good again!  Then there’s the ‘washing and ironing fairy’ that produces clean crisp shirts in abundance.  I wonder if she’s related to the ‘cooking fairy’ that produces all those wonderful meals just at the time you get hungry?  There must be a ‘child minder fairy’ in the family too because it’s amazing how your five year old gets up in a morning, gets washed and dressed, has breakfast and takes himself to and from school every day without any input whatsoever from you!

When you break it all down taking someone for granted more often than not is more about the things you don’t do rather than things you do.  Its lots of little things that you probably used to do but don’t anymore.  They paint into a picture of contempt towards your other half.  I know I keep using toilet habits to illustrate my point but I think it can sum up a lot of what I’m saying and no I don’t mean I’m talking crap…. Cast your mind back to when you first met your wife or girlfriend and you’re round at her place courting and romancing when nature calls and you have to visit the loo and it’s a sit down visit that’s required.  You do your business then flush but before you leave the bathroom you notice that flushing was not enough to remove the evidence from around the bowl.  Did you take time out to use the loo brush and leave the place in the same clean state as when you found it or were you happy to leave the mess for your girlfriend to find and clean up later?  I would like to think you took the first course of action even if for nothing more than wanting to make the right impression because it mattered to you what she thought of you in the early stages of your relationship and a poo stained toilet bowl is not a good image to be associated with.

So when did things start to change?  At what point in your relationship did you no longer feel the need to try and impress?  When was the day that you first stepped out of your dirty boxers and left them to magically find their own way into the wash basket?  Which was the first tea cup you used then left to find its own way to the sink or dishwasher?  When was the first time you came home from work hungry and thought I can’t be arsed making dinner for us, she can do it when she gets back from work?  When was the first time you went to work in your crumpled shirt looking far from your best because “she’s not done the ironing”?

These may not sound like major life changing incidents that can end a relationship and singularly in isolation they’re not, but if they become embedded as behavioral traits the long term effect can have far reaching and catastrophic consequences.

In order to make the women in our lives feel more valued and appreciated and not taken for granted we have to stop ‘not doing’ stuff.  We have to be less lazy and more considerate in our general day to day behaviour because it’s the general day to day stuff that we ‘don’t do’ that once it becomes habitual starts to annoy and grind women down to the point where they walk out because the washing was left wet in the machine.

The golden rule I use is ‘to pretend I’m in a new relationship with Trudie where I’m still looking to create a great impression in every way I can and whenever I can.  I have consideration for the fact that she goes out to work full time as I do and endeavour to play my part in all aspects of family life.  Where are the 10 Commandments of marriage that state:

1)‘Man shall not do housework’? 

2)‘The kitchen shall remain the sole domain of woman’?

3) ‘Woman gives birth to children and shall therefore care for them and raise them alone’?

Etc. etc. There are no such Commandments, only bad habits born of a lack of respect for your partner’s time, energy and well-being lead a man to want to live his life that way.  I don’t remember a line in our marriage vows that mentioned anything about Trudie running around like a blue arsed fly, waiting on me hand and foot and raising our child in return for my contemptuous love.  Marriage and long term relationships work better when both people are pulling in the same direction and doing for each other because they want to and it doesn’t have to be hard work either and it’s certainly easier than living a life of constant bickering and falling out.  

Guys I’m not telling you to trade in your masculinity and become housewives, it’s nothing of the sort, in fact if you think about it men engaged in the ‘Armed Forces’ are made to be responsible for their own cleaning washing and ironing and I certainly won’t be the one to stand up and call them non masculine pansies… will you!?

I’ve been doing my own ironing since the age of 14 because I’ve always believed in looking my best and never wanted to be waiting for my mum to get round to ironing my 24 inch flares so that I could go out and impress the girls.  Nowadays I’ll often do the ironing for myself and the family but I work it to my advantage by cunningly doing it in front of the TV when football is on.  Now I don’t think there’s a woman in the land that would moan about her man “watching bloody football again” if he was doing the ironing at the same time. I’ve perfected my ironing skills to a fine art now and often I’ve finished by the time the pre match punditry is done and I’m sat down with a beer just as the match is about to start.

My mum always insisted that from an early age I clean and tidy my own room so I suppose I’ve been well trained to the point where I naturally pick up after myself.  The result of all this is that Trudie and I never have petty squabbles over who’s done what or more importantly who’s not done what and if she ever walks out the front door with her bags packed it won’t be because I’ve failed to empty the washing machine.

A woman walking out of a relationship on the back of a petty disagreement such as this may be saying verbally “I’m leaving because you’re a messy sod to live with” but what she’s really telling you is that she’s leaving because she’s fallen out of love with you and you have caused that to happen.  I strongly believe that a woman doesn’t just fall out of love with a man who is making an effort and working at a relationship.

I often hear men saying things like “Oh you can forget about sex once you get married, that goes right out of the window once she’s got the wedding ring on!”…. Now I wonder why that is?... Well I don’t wonder actually because I know why this happens and again I’m siding with the girls here in an effort to explain it to the guys because once again it’s our fault not theirs.

Think about it and you will see that I’m right on this… in the early days of your relationship you were regularly showering her with love, affection, roses and Chanel No. 5 and the upshot and reward of this was that every spare moment was spent making love or having raunchy sex as the mood took you.  A few years down the line and the only things you’re showering her with are dirty socks and undies while the only fragrance she probably receives from you is ‘Eau de Smelly Beer Fart’.  You may still have time for sex but she certainly does not as she runs around clearing up behind you and the kids before collapsing knackered at the end of the evening…. After a day like that sex is the last thing on her mind!

Generally speaking most men can just stop whatever they are doing and have sex if the opportunity arises but many of them are mistaken into thinking that women are the same but they aren’t.  Women are a lot more sensitive to the ‘rituals’ of making love, they like a little romantic pre-amble, a slow build up. They want time to be looking and smelling their best before getting between the sheets and they have every right to expect the same from you so when you are getting amorous and doing the ‘You can leave your hat on’ routine at the end of the bed in an attempt to get her aroused after her long hard day as well as being tired and unprepared she may well be thinking ‘he’s not bringing that smelly unwashed thing anywhere near me tonight so he may as well leave his bloody hat on and everything else too’!

She may be feeling cheated because you have moved the goalposts of expectations and standards from when you first got together.  Having a quick ‘leg over’ in bed so you can empty your sack before rolling over and falling asleep is not the same as going on a date and wining & dining before making love on a fur rug in front of a log fire…. Ok to you it might sound like the quick and easy option but if that’s your regular game plan then you may just find yourself heading towards a ‘quick and easy divorce’.  

You’re probably thinking ‘I can’t be bothered with all that palaver every time I fancy a bit of sex’, but I’m not saying you should be having a candle lit dinner for two five nights a week.  Once in a while is enough to keep the home fires burning as they say and if you take on board what I’m saying about taking over some of the household chores you’ll be amazed at the difference in your lady.  If she has more time and energy to spend on herself you will find her to be a lot more responsive to your needs as she begins to fall in love all over again with the wonderful, kind and considerate man she originally married.