Why is He Never Good Enough?

Do you have those moments of irritation, close to desperation, when you feel like everything your husband does is wrong? It’s not that you are hard to please, but there is a certain minimum of spousal “performance” that is quite reasonably expected. To be a good listener and show interest in your problems. To make sure to spend some quality time together, do something as a couple: hiking together once a month, going to the movies every second Sunday night. To maintain romance in your life, even if you are not as passionate about each other. But alas, you feel like every normal husband does it except for yours. Did you get a “defective” product???

Your list of claims may be different from mine, but I am sure every wife has it. So does every husband (Jonathan would probably name my lack-of-variety cooking as the biggest source of his marital discontent). The point is we always have some demands that we want to be met. And even if our spouse manages to fulfill all of our selfish wishes, we will come up with more. At some point, if we don’t stop ourselves, keeping up with our demands will become impossible.

Switching the status of your significant other from “totally imperfect” to “good enough” requires some substantial work and inner struggle. I will share a few ideas to keep you on the right track:

- Stop comparing him to other men. Even if you think that your best friend’s husband makes all the right moves, trust me he has imperfections of his own. Many seemingly happy couples have problems, which they don’t always share with the public. Besides, what works for others, might not be as appealing to you. You man is unique and he will never be able to transform himself into someone else. He is what he is. If the urge to compare becomes irresistible – compare him to the guys that are way worse: the ones that cheat on their wives, never help out with kids, have the lowest-paid dead-end jobs, etc.

- Focus on the positive. There has to be something good about him. But we often prefer to limit our perception: we downplay his good qualities ,then make a real tribute to a couple of bad ones. Take a moment to write down a list of all the things you like about him: it will serve as a great reminder why you married him in the first place in those desperate moments, when you feel like you are stuck in the wrong relationship.

- You are not perfect either. That’s something we all love to forget upgrading ourselves to an angel’s level. So here you do quite the opposite: write down all of your flaws, things you don’t like about yourself. Once you are done, read it carefully – who knows, maybe you will feel surprised and grateful that he hasn’t run away from you yet.

- Men don’t know how to read our mind! And this means that sometimes you need to take the initiative. Or to tell him exactly what makes you unhappy about his behavior/habits/attitude rather than wait endlessly till the bright thought reaches his mind. So I do plan all of our outings, even though I would love for him just once to be in charge. But if I don’t take the matters in my hands, we will just stay home on every festive occasion (which reminds me to make a reservation for the upcoming St. Valentine’s Day). But at least I know that we will have a nice romantic dinner with delicious food – and who’s in charge of making it happen doesn’t really matter. Stop waiting for things to change. Rather than getting close to exploding with disappointment that he doesn’t make you happy – be happy on your own. And try to make him happy. He will appreciate your efforts and will inevitably feel obliged to pay you back. Besides happiness is contagious and tends to spread around: so just open your heart and let it in.