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Feeling Competent
What’s the worst thing a woman can do to her
husband? Does she ignore him? Does she withhold
marital relations? Does she hide the remote?
According to a really important marriage counselor
I heard on the radio (whose name I didn’t
catch), if a wife wants to hurt her husband, the
worst attack she has in her arsenal is the dreaded
Eye Roll. (Please note, this is the worst thing a
woman can LEGALLY do to her man. Lorena
Bobbit’s ideas don’t count).
This is not the Eye Roll Plus Groan With Smirk
that usually follows a really funny joke. This eye
roll comes either after a bad suggestion he has
offered or a mistake he has made. This eye roll
sends the message, “You are an idiot. You are
incompetent.”
The marriage counselor (who was speaking on a
nationally syndicated talk show so he must be an
expert) said that, in his experience, when a wife
rolled her eyes during a therapy session, the
couple was more likely to fail in counseling and
choose divorce. Why is that? How does one
unattractive facial gesture carry so much
power?
It’s because men need to feel competent.
Feeling competent is part of what makes us whole.
It gives us a sense of power. When a wife rolls her
eyes, she takes away his feeling of being competent
in the marriage, the most important project in his
life.
Have you every tried to feed a bowl of peas to a
baby? Not the mushed paste that looks like poop,
but actual whole vegetables. It does not take long
for Baby to realize that she can move her hand and
hit the spoon. When she does that, the funny green
things will fly around and fall to the floor. Then
Daddy will make a grumpy face and put more on the
spoon to play again. She has discovered that she
has some control over her environment. She also
discovered that she has some control over
Daddy.
This need to have power over something matures
through adulthood. It evolves into a need to not
only do something, but do it well. Some men have to
be the best at what they do, but most men just have
to be good—to be proficient. Feeling
incompetent is an unhappy and unhealthy feeling.
For the most part, it doesn’t matter what we
feel skilled in, just that we feel skilled in
something.
It is important to note that men don’t need
to BE competent. We just need to feel like we know
what we are doing. The first car I bought was a
‘87 Chevy Celebrity. I had no more money after
buying it, so if it broke—which it often
did—I had to rely on myself to fix it. I spent
hours under that car, holding it together
with—literally—duct tape and wire coat
hangers. Was I an expert mechanic? Hell, no. Did I
feel like one? Absolutely. And that’s what
counted.
To feel like a man is to feel capable. When we
get the eye rolls of life and begin doubting our
competence, we need to find something we are good
at and do it until our confidence returns. Then,
when we remember that we do have skills and are
qualified, we can get back to doing our jobs:
getting under the table to clean up all those
peas.
©2008, Mark
Phillips
* * *
Women, it's true, make human beings, but
only men can make men. - Margaret Mead
Mark
Phillips is a Stay-At-Home-Dad and freelance
writer. Along with raising his four children, he is
developing a franchise called “The Vacuum IS a
Power Tool.” It is designed to help SAHDs
maintain that which makes us men, instead of hairy
Mom-substitutes. He earned a B.S. in
Communication/Theatre Arts and teaching
certificates in English, public speaking, and
psychology from Eastern Michigan University. After
six years as a high school English teacher and
Director of Dramatic Arts at Powers Catholic High
School in Flint, Michigan, he changed careers and
became a Stay-At-Home-Dad. www.TheVacuumIsAPowerTool.com
or E-Mail
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