Ask Aviva: Her tension to his lack of attention

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Dear Aviva,
I was disappointed with your response to “Strangled in Marriage” (1/27/2011).  I think you missed the point and your advice was narrow-minded.
When I read the husband’s letter, I heard a young wife who wants love and attention from her husband.  It’s obviously hard for her to express her needs directly, but love and attention are the strongest needs of every woman.  If her husband is out for FOUR HOURS it’s no wonder she makes up a reason to call him.  A healthy couple should want to enjoy spending time together.  My husband is happiest when I am happy and we cherish every opportunity to hang out together. 
You give advice that the wife should relax more, but that’s not going to work like magic if they are lacking a healthy relationship.  Her husband is her best friend (hopefully) and nothing else will fill that void if he is not attentive and loving enough.
The husband sounded like he needed advice on being a good husband and enhancing his most important relationship.
I don’t think your advice helped, but probably exacerbated their problem by making him feel justified and not putting the wife’s feelings into consideration at all.  She is probably not controlling, nor are many other wives...they just want some attention.  And this is the husband’s obligation.

 -An Understanding Woman

Dear Understanding Woman,
You should call yourself “A Fortunate Woman” due to your uxorious husband. (Don’t worry; I didn’t know what that word meant either until my uxorious husband taught it to me yesterday.)
Here’s the deal—you are 100% right with your goal. A perfect marriage is a marriage of best friends. Hate to burst your bubble, but there are many spouses out there who cannot stand their other half. How can we say, “Be friends!” when they have very harsh feelings for each other? The way I picture it, if I just told the husband to spend more time with his wife and be home more, he would not have listened to me because he clearly doesn’t want to be at home. (I’ve seen it in my practice).
Validating him is not empowering him to be a worse husband. It’s meeting his needs so that he now has something to give. I also saw the wife’s pain through her husband’s letter. But I acted as if the letter writer was my client and addressed his needs first while trying to squeeze in her needs.
If you noticed, I did manipulate the situation a bit by advising him to first tell her that he sees that she’s under stress and wants to help her more. Then I told him to help her and be around for two weeks. After that, he can ask for more space. The hope was that after two weeks of helping, he would need less space.    
And just for the record, I have seen plenty of childish, abusive, manipulative wives.
Ladies—speak honestly and politely!

-Aviva

 Aviva Rizel is a Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice who can be reached at AvivaRizel.MFT@gmail.com.