Psychology 409B: The Unity Model of Marriage 03/28/06
Communication and Forgiveness
By Carly Kanemaru
I. Introduction
-The topics in this outline are from Joshua Coleman’s “The Lazy Husband” pages 112-149.
-Coleman discusses the different types of spousal personalities.
II. The Boy-Husband
-The husband needs help managing his life and is willing to have someone else run it for him.
-The man is unable to meet deadlines, take care of himself and his duties and needs someone to handle all his responsibilities.
-The wife is then forced to take responsibility for her husband.
-This results in the similar feeling of raising another child.
-Coleman suggests that wives need to recognize their husband’s laziness and kindly address it.
-A shift of responsibilities should be made back onto the husband on things every individual should be capable of doing.
-Patience is needed for a successful transformation.
III. The Worried Wife
-This a wife who constantly is overly concerned with various issues dealing with her husband.
-She feels a notion of full responsibility and accepts it even when it is not given to her to accept.
-This is a personal problem for the wife to change.
-The wife must recognize her bad habit and modify it.
-Small steps are the primary goal.
-Each step takes you closer to a happier and less stressful marriage.
-Accomplishment is acknowledge with each successful baby step.
-Without modifying, her husband will no longer take her seriously and may begin to ignore her and her concerns.
IV. The Worried Husband
-This is a husband who is constantly overly concerned with various issues dealing with his wife.
-He is overly serious in manner and makes domestic life difficult and uncomfortable.
-A wife must support her “worried husband” by:
1) Refraining from criticizing him.
2) Gently express concern and feelings without being overly aggressive and insensitive.
3) Don’t let his worrying rule your life and affect every aspect in your home.
4) Seek medical attention by a doctor to ensure it is not a biological condition.
-If it is, get the condition medically treated.
V. The Perfectionist Wife
-This is a wife who is constantly trying to make everything “perfect” although it seems as though this goal is never achieved.
-They become very critical with everything they do as well as the things that others around them do.
-Standards are set too high and they are constantly trying to achieve their own standards as well as the standards they perceive other to have.
-Another characteristic is the lack or the disappearance of compliments and positive remarks.
-Self-Examination on “the origins of your feelings, your irrational beliefs, and your criticisms about your husband” are solutions.
VI. The Perfectionist Husband
-There are two types of perfectionist husbands
1) Hardworking/ Obsessive and expects his wife to be a Perfectionist
2) Husband that makes his wife feel “anxious, guilty, or depressed.”
-Can be overly critical and demanding toward his wife.
-A wife’s solution is to develop ways to deal and handle with their husband’s personality.
VII. The Angry Husband
-This is a husband who is controlling, dominating and belittling.
-They have a tendency to make a wife feel anxious, depressed and afraid.
-A wife should not overly analyze.
-Don’t let him intimidate you.
-When necessary, stand up for yourself.
-Get your feelings out in a letter on paper.
VIII. The Angry Wife
-This is a wife who is very argumentive.
-A cause may be due to insecurity and past scars from emotional distress.
-The female must learn to deal with guilt by learning to forgive themselves and coping strategies.
VIV. My Interpretation
-I believe that the man should need to work around the woman’s personality types just as much as the woman works around the male’s.
-It is unfair to make the wife cope with the husband’s problematic behavior according to how open the husband is willing to deal with his problem.
-I feel that by forcing the woman to deal and cope with the problem, it encourages the undesirable behavior.
Related Links
This website provides a list of viewpoints on the different marriage personalities they have found.
www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/fcs/pub/marriage.html
This website is an informational website on solutions for a spouse trying to fix their marriage.
This website provides information on how a wife can solve the problems in her marriage.
My Home page:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409bs2006/kanemaru/kanemaru-home.htm
Class Home Page
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy24/classhome-g24.htm