Give your husband the grace you give yourself

I keep seeing versions of this… gif or meme; I am not sure what an Instagram or Tik Tok qualifies as in forms of media. In my head it does not have the longevity of a legitimate video, but we will go with video. To preface my comments, the video is meant to be funny; I just do not find it funny. Despite what some may think I DO have a sense of humor. What I do not tolerate, nor find funny, is wives making fun of their husbands for likes on the internet. Before you go thinking my husband is fragile, which is a common argument among feminazis, my husband has a great sense of humor. We will laugh about our individual traits together, but I would still never joke or mock him on the internet (or behind his back or to him). If you are unsure whether you are making fun of your husband or if you are sharing a moment; here's a hint, if your husband is not laughing with you or would not laugh if he could hear you, stop!

All that to say, I understand that the video is meant to be a joke, but I find that it points to a growing trend among wives and women that is disturbing and damaging for relationships and for the family. You can look up the video it is not hard to find, it may also be old, but I am a little behind when it comes to social trends, so bear with me if this is old news I still have a point to make.

We all know the classic trope:

Wife: “Honey, what would you like for dinner?”

Husband: “Whatever” or “anything”

This video takes it further and shows the wife pretending to cook a piece of paper that reads "whatever". It is funny because it is a non-answer from the husband. It is the female version of when a man asks a woman what she wants to eat says the same, but turns down every option given to the woman by the man.

Here is my first problem with this video; when a man says anything as an answer to this question he usually means anything. When a woman gives this answer she really has an idea and just does not want to get rejected. Obviously there are exceptions, but generally speaking what I said is true. Which is why the man joke is funny and the female version is not. The female version of the joke is directly making fun of the husband/man in her life. It is not simply poking fun at the situation. It is directly mocking the husband for his answer.

My second issue is; you should have made a meal plan. Your job as house administrator aka wife/mom/woman is to coordinate the house meaning, you should have planned out what was getting eaten that night. There should be no, what do you want, what do I want. Your husband, short of being the cook, does not want to think about dinner and probably does not want much of an input. He just wants to eat whatever you decided to cook. If he had thoughts on dinner, he would have brought them up long before it was dinner time.

My third issue with this video is the lack of grace given to the husband! Not just in this video, watch any video of a woman talking about her husband you will find that women have an extraordinary lack of grace when it comes to their husbands! You get a group of women together in one room most of what you will hear is;

"My husband is such a baby, he had a cold the other week and you would think he was dying."

"My husband didn't take out the trash"

"My husband threw his dirty clothes NEXT to the hamper instead of in it"

"My husband left his shoes in the middle of the floor"

"My husband asked me to make him a sandwhich"

The last one is a joke…I hope! But you understand what I am saying. Of course we want to vent to friends, but venting about your husband is something you should not do unless it is to someone who will take BOTH of your sides. You do not need someone in your life egging you on about how you should stop helping your husband or telling you that the above instances mean your husband does not respect or love you. Those earworms get in your head and they make you as bitter as bakers chocolate. It is not cute.

Besides making you bitter; I 100% guarantee you, you would not say the same thing about yourself. If YOU had a cold, you act like a baby, we all do. Some might fight through it better and it is not easy to make downtime happen when you are a sick mom, but we all whine when we are sick. "But oh Beckie, you should see him!" I know, I know, you're husband is a particularly big baby about it, but honestly honey… could it be when he gets sick he just gets more sick than you? Not all colds hit people the same way.

I am a hermit, by nature, but also because I work from home. When a sickness hits my husband, he brings it home. It 99.9% of the time hits him way harder than it hits me. For example we both had the flu last year…or was it earlier this year… I do not remember… it was definitely after Christmas. He had a fever for 5 straight days, handled it like a champ, but he was down and out more than I was. When I got sick I only had a fever for a day or two. I could have told anyone who would listen that my husband was acting like a baby, cause some would have seen it that way. It would not have been true though, the flu just hit him harder than it hit me.

If you forgot to take out the trash, you would have a laundry list of excuses why you did not get to it. "I have the baby, I had to do the laundry, I was busy working" ect. Rarely would you look at your full trashcan and go, clearly I hate myself and have no respect for me. Maybe some of you hard core self-loathers would and that is something we can talk about later if you are interested, but generally not something you would think. If you missed the hamper and moved on, you would think, well I do the laundry any way or something to that effect. You would not find it disrespectful, neither would your husband or your family.

We women give ourselves a nearly endless amount of grace, but once we see someone else do the same things we are also guilty of; we lose all sense of grace and understanding. Your husband does not disrespect you when he misses your expectations; your husband is a person with things on his mind and a list of priorities. He may have been in la la land when he threw his clothes, maybe he thought something was more pressing than the trash. Maybe, just maybe, he is just as human as you. Our husbands deserve the same grace we give ourselves.

Let us all practice keeping our minor inconveniences to ourselves and stop this awful behavior among women. Let us all practice giving the same level of grace we give ourselves, our children, and our friends, to our husbands. They deserve it!