Married man, how can I better myself for my marriage and my wife?
August 17, 2025
Married man, how can I better myself for my marriage and my wife?
10 comments
You just have to learn to control your temper. I’ve been there. My wife wasn’t easy either. We both had heaps of work to do.
My take is establish a boundary that you won’t tolerate abuse within a relationship and that includes yourself. Have you read Schnarch ? That was game changing for me.
I’m 52 now and happily married and my wife and myself hardly every fight and when we do it’s never going above acceptable limits.
My wife and I did a lot of counseling but reading Schnarch was much more important for me. Maybe you could speak to some AI as well. It’s free and I find it offers great advice.
My general advice is to aim to make your spouse’s life easier not harder.
Stop feeling like you have to be right. Biggest issue for a lot of people especially when you guys are having discussions (or arguments) is the need to be right.
Example: Some discussion about whether or not this actor/actress was in that movie and one of you wants to win to say that yes this person was in that movie, when in fact who gives a shit.
You get the idea. When you feel the need to not have to win every single argument or discussion you will do a whole lot better .
Get a prenup. Yeah yeah, you love each other
Get a prenup.
Have you gotten in touch with, owned and accepted, and learned how to express the full range of your feelings? Have you learned how to communicate from those feelings simply as your truth, without having to make a point or convince anyone of anything?
Have you learned how to hear and sit with the full range of her feelings without defensiveness, judgement, panic, or trying to help? Have you learned how to take deep breaths, together and individually, as needed?
Those are the basics. Therapy may be part of advanced work, but that’s where I’d recommend starting.
Hard exercise can provide temporary stress relief. If you have no money for gym, there’s a free program called Busy Dad Training that’s remarkably effective but somewhat limited in exercise options. Look it up, it’s referred to online and on reddit. It’s for temporary stress relief though.
In the long term, however, you’ll have to work on your thinking. In some cities there are free self help groups where people with similar issues get together to help each other grow as people. Maybe your community has something similar?
This might be controversial, but have you tried talking to an ai?
I dunno. Stupid question. Not be fat and be nice?
Spend some time with each member of your family individually and talk to them and actually listen to what they have to say… Then have a family talk involving everyone and again just listen
Why do you respond in anger? Is she winning the debate? Is she right and you can’t accept that you are wrong?
Are you used to running over her and she just takes it?
Is she in the habit of just needling you over and over until you get angry?
There is a lot of context that is left out so it makes it hard to give a good answer. I do think that if we look at the big picture, you are talking about the lady who you love more than anyone on the planet but find yourself angry with her. This is the lady who would stay with you even if you were sick (like you are “health issues”) so what does she have to do to get you to be nice to her?
She chose to be with you forever yet she is constantly waiting for the next shoe to drop? WTF man?
10 comments
You just have to learn to control your temper. I’ve been there. My wife wasn’t easy either. We both had heaps of work to do.
My take is establish a boundary that you won’t tolerate abuse within a relationship and that includes yourself. Have you read Schnarch ? That was game changing for me.
I’m 52 now and happily married and my wife and myself hardly every fight and when we do it’s never going above acceptable limits.
My wife and I did a lot of counseling but reading Schnarch was much more important for me. Maybe you could speak to some AI as well. It’s free and I find it offers great advice.
My general advice is to aim to make your spouse’s life easier not harder.
Stop feeling like you have to be right. Biggest issue for a lot of people especially when you guys are having discussions (or arguments) is the need to be right.
Example: Some discussion about whether or not this actor/actress was in that movie and one of you wants to win to say that yes this person was in that movie, when in fact who gives a shit.
You get the idea. When you feel the need to not have to win every single argument or discussion you will do a whole lot better .
Get a prenup. Yeah yeah, you love each other
Get a prenup.
Have you gotten in touch with, owned and accepted, and learned how to express the full range of your feelings? Have you learned how to communicate from those feelings simply as your truth, without having to make a point or convince anyone of anything?
Have you learned how to hear and sit with the full range of her feelings without defensiveness, judgement, panic, or trying to help? Have you learned how to take deep breaths, together and individually, as needed?
Those are the basics. Therapy may be part of advanced work, but that’s where I’d recommend starting.
Hard exercise can provide temporary stress relief. If you have no money for gym, there’s a free program called Busy Dad Training that’s remarkably effective but somewhat limited in exercise options. Look it up, it’s referred to online and on reddit. It’s for temporary stress relief though.
In the long term, however, you’ll have to work on your thinking. In some cities there are free self help groups where people with similar issues get together to help each other grow as people. Maybe your community has something similar?
This might be controversial, but have you tried talking to an ai?
I dunno. Stupid question. Not be fat and be nice?
Spend some time with each member of your family individually and talk to them and actually listen to what they have to say… Then have a family talk involving everyone and again just listen
Why do you respond in anger? Is she winning the debate? Is she right and you can’t accept that you are wrong?
Are you used to running over her and she just takes it?
Is she in the habit of just needling you over and over until you get angry?
There is a lot of context that is left out so it makes it hard to give a good answer. I do think that if we look at the big picture, you are talking about the lady who you love more than anyone on the planet but find yourself angry with her. This is the lady who would stay with you even if you were sick (like you are “health issues”) so what does she have to do to get you to be nice to her?
She chose to be with you forever yet she is constantly waiting for the next shoe to drop? WTF man?