Are you a good wife? There is something awkward about this question in the
first decade of the 21st century. In a postfeminist world, the word “wife”
on its own sounds quaint enough, and “good wife” conjures up images of
blissed-out 1950s housewives admiring their hostess trollies. Good wives are
what women had to be before we fought for the right to be good at something
else. In 2009, a woman wants to be good at her job, a good mother, a good
friend, a good daughter, good for her age, good in bed, but a good wife? Do
me a favour.
Still, the defensiveness surrounding the subject of wifely behaviour suggests
we’re not as sorted as we like to think we are. That recent throwaway
comment of Fay Weldon’s about socks (she suggested it might be easier to
pick up your husband’s socks than to fight about it) ignited a bitter debate
about gender stereotypes in relationships. Rewind a few months and Lionel
Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin) rattled feminists by creating a
fictional character who aspired to marriage (apparently, even dreaming of
lasting love makes some people angry). There’s also a new and flourishing
admiration for women such as Michelle Obama, Samantha Cameron and Sarah
Brown, who manage to be dutiful wives without compromising their own
identity. And somewhere in the middle of all this confusion lies an attitude
that could be roughly summed up as: don’t you dare try to tell me how to be
a good wife. But I don’t want to become a divorce stat, either. As a married
thirtysomething girlfriend who came close to divorce a year ago says: “I
don’t know about being a ‘good’ wife. But before, I wasn’t really being a
wife at all. There are things you have to pay attention to in order that the
other person feels, well, it’s worth being married.” Say, for example:
Make him a priority
Even women who would never call themselves feminists have bought into the idea
that men are bottom of the list after their personal fulfilment, fitness
routine and, of course, the kids. The modern habit of making the children
the centre of your life is what the author Ayelet Waldman was questioning
when she wrote a now notorious essay about loving her husband more than her
kids (“I, unlike most women I know, have failed to make some kind of amorous
transition, to supplant my husband with my children as the object of my
passion”). She argued that if you neglect your husband, you risk your
marriage, which, in turn, risks your children’s security. Before I was
married, I used to gawp in disbelief when women spoke to their husbands as
if they were hard-of-hearing toddlers. But now I realise it is amazingly
easy to slip into the eye-rolling, “give me strength” position, because you
marry a man and then you discover (especially when you have children) that
what you need is a qualified housekeeper, not this fallible creature who
mistakes shampoo for conditioner and the oven setting for the grill. You may
want to leave him Post-it notes asking him to pick up his socks — as
Michelle Obama has in the past. But what you must avoid is making your whole
life about your domestic arrangements and hating your husband for not being
Martha Stewart.
Have sex
Almost every woman I spoke to about how to be a good wife mentioned the
importance of sex. A feminist writer who wishes to remain anonymous (not
because she’s a feminist, but because her husband hates her discussing their
marriage) admits that sex dropped off her to-do list for a long period, and,
looking back, she feels like she had “a near miss. We are crazy if we
imagine men are happy to go without sex. And we tell ourselves we are tired
out, but the truth is we have all these other fabulous ways of spending our
time — yoga and Pilates and seeing our friends”. She cites the research of
an Australian therapist, Bettina Arndt, who asked men to keep a sex diary
for a year and discovered that all of them were desperate for sex while
their women were constantly refusing them. “You get carried away with your
life. Looking after the kids. Working. You just push it to one side for some
later date,” says my friend the near-divorcée. The point that everyone
seemed to agree on is that just getting down to having sex (because,
invariably, you enjoy it once you’re actually doing it) is what really
counts.
Beware resentment
Arndt’s theory, and Waldman’s, is that the No 1 reason for lack of sex in
marriage isn’t tiredness, but female resentment. Resentment because women
“have ended up, contrary to their expectations, living lives disturbingly
similar to those of their mother”. Waldman recommends filling in a “who does
what?” questionnaire, because it makes you both realise “how much there is
to do and how really endless the tasks are”, but she makes the point that
sharing the domestic burden, though crucial, is only a part of the solution.
We have become socialised and media-ised to think it’s all about us. Ask
yourself, why did I marry this guy in the first place? But the other
questions to ask are, why is he married to me? What’s he getting out of it?
Be kind and supportive
I was flicking through a magazine when I came across a comment by David Bailey
on marriage to Catherine: “I just love being with her. It’s the feeling that
someone is totally on your side.” This stopped me in my tracks, because that
is what we all want, but how many husbands feel the same as Bailey?
Supportiveness is not only a bonus in marriage, either. The researcher John
Gottman, who can predict a couple’s chances of making it with 93% accuracy
by observing their style of communication, rates kindness and supportiveness
as the two factors crucial to long-term happiness. Contempt, defensiveness,
criticism and stonewalling are the four guaranteed destroyers, by the way.
For Shriver, the even bigger challenge as a wife is “to remember to treat my
husband as well as I treat other people, and that is shocking because the
temptation is to treat him worse”. Both Shriver and Weldon have remarked on
how easy it is to forget that men can be hurt. If you don’t manage to stop
yourself being a bitch, then you’d better learn, like Shriver, to apologise:
“I had trouble admitting I was wrong in the past. But as politicians have
discovered, there is a thrill to it. And then, just like that, you and your
husband are back in the same universe again.”
Shriver (who, incidentally, spends long stretches of time apart from her
jazz-drummer husband) has one other bit of advice for wives who are looking
to stay wives. “Don’t stop kissing. The mouth is the emotional portal — the
connection between emotion and sex. It’s pretty simple.” Well, not simple,
maybe. But something to be getting on with, anyway.
How to be a good husband by Matt Rudd
I have been (blissfully) married for five years, which is long enough for the
honeymoon to be well and truly over. Here is what I have learnt so far.
In any dispute, be prepared to accept that you are wrong. This is not simply
because your life will be so, so much easier if you do. It is also because,
in almost all circumstances, you are genuinely wrong. Her way of stacking
the dishwasher is more logical. Watching reruns of Road Wars isn’t more
important than watching The X Factor live. Nothing can be gained from going
to the pub three times a week.
Even though you are wrong about absolutely everything, you must still put up a
bit of a fight. If she thinks you are agreeing to everything simply to make
your life easier, it won’t make your life easier. She will know.
Talking is important. Talking and listening. I know it can be excruciating,
but wives need conversation. They cannot exist on grunts alone. You must
save that for the pub. If you don’t, you will be nagged. And nagging, as we
all know, is the marital equivalent of waterboarding.
Your computer is not more important than your wife.
Your iPhone isn’t, either.
On the specific point of housework, there are two things you must accept.
First, you have to do some. Second, you can nab all the decent chores
(putting out the rubbish, unloading the dishwasher, cleaning the car) and
avoid all the horrid ones (pairing socks, loading the dishwasher, vacuuming)
by being proactive.
And finally, always remember you were lucky enough for your true love to agree
to spend the rest of her life with you, in sickness, health and toleration
of all your stupid blokey habits. Do everything you can to keep her, because
she has been kind enough to keep you. For now.
Matt Rudd’s debut novel, William Walker’s First Year of Marriage
(HarperPress £6.99), is out now
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