Feeling Inadequate as a Husband?

 Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we’re all in this together.

Brene Brown

I was admitting new members into my Good Guys, Great Husbands Facebook Group the other day. One of them listed his biggest challenge as constantly being judged by his wife. Another stated that he felt unappreciated for his efforts.

This supported something fellow relationship expert Sheila Wray Gregoire wrote in her Bare Marriage blog this week. She was addressing some commonly accepted statements from the best-selling books Love and Respect and For Women Only.

She addresses author Shaunti Feldhahn’s use of a “double barreled question set” instead of a single choice option. She asked if men would rather be alone and unloved or inadequate and disrespected. Men responded they would rather be alone and unloved.

Because the results were conflated, Sheila ran another survey with over 7500 participants where those four words were presented individually and asked to be ranked from worst to least bad.

She found that women hate being disrespected more than feeling inadequate. For men, those two feelings were reversed.

This makes a lot of sense when you consider many men want to be seen as capable.

And far too many men feel inadequate when it comes to their marriages. They feel that nothing they do for their loved ones is seen as good enough to their wives.

They may flourish in their professions. Which means they are capable.

But somehow, that isn’t getting translated to their personal lives. Which means there is a disconnect.

The answer hit me when I was reading Scott C. Clary’s newsletter. He was discussing the 2009 paper Conditions for Intuitive Expertise by Daniel Kahneman and Gary Klein.

They found that “expertise only develops effectively in environments with clear feedback and opportunities to practice.”

While those conditions often exist in the workplace, rarely do they show up in marriages.

You may know your wife wants some things to be different. You probably do too. But unless you each clearly understand not only what’s wanted but how to evaluate how well you each are doing, you will continue to miss the boat.

In addition, you need to feel supported as you make the agreed upon changes. You will make mistakes because that’s part of the learning process. Without that grace, progress will stall, and your marriage will suffer.