July 20, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
07:51
| 
| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom and Radio. | |
| Hope you're doing well. So, a very kind listener has sent in an article that I wanted to share with you. | |
| It's from the Washington Post. | |
| And it's in the section on marriage. | |
| And I think it's going to be very helpful, particularly for husbands. | |
| So the article starts, it says, Study says yelling as harmful as hitting in disciplining wives. | |
| So what should husbands do? | |
| That's a good question. I mean, clearly wives need to be disciplined. | |
| But if you can't yell at them and you can't hit them, what are you supposed to do? | |
| It's a fine question. So it's written by a man, and the article says, it's hard to discipline wives. | |
| Oh, ain't that the truth. You can't hit them. | |
| Locking them in the basement is not effective. | |
| Now, as if that wasn't enough, now a study out of the University of Pittsburgh says that yelling at wives, particularly when it involves cursing or insults, can be just as harmful as hitting them. | |
| So what can you do? | |
| I mean, you can't give up the need to discipline your wife or control her behavior at every turn, but if you can't lock her in the basement and you can't yell at her and you can't hit her and you can't verbally abuse her, what are the options open to you as a husband to control and discipline your wife? | |
| Well, the article has some stuff I think that helps with that. | |
| So the article says, the guy says, remember that the word discipline originally meant to teach. | |
| So look for opportunities to coach your wife, not just punish her for a misstep. | |
| That's good advice. So this guy is the author of Duct Tape Husbandry. | |
| I guess it's a guide on how men should be good husbands. | |
| He says, discipline implies setting limits and boundaries. | |
| So you want to set limits and boundaries for your wife. | |
| But the way we do it is, I'm going to punish you when you do something I don't like. | |
| It's a completely wasted moment. | |
| See, it's not wrong to just punish women and hit them. | |
| It's just, it's a wasted moment. | |
| So the article goes on to say, no husband wants to yell at his wife. | |
| And we usually feel bad when it happens, right? | |
| So we don't actually choose to yell at our wives. | |
| It just kind of happens and we are there vocalizing. | |
| But most husbands didn't know that yelling at your wife could be as damaging as hitting her. | |
| The University of Pittsburgh study, released in September, looked at 967 wives over a two-year period. | |
| Those whose husbands used, quote, harsh verbal discipline, such as yelling, cursing, and using insults, were more likely to be depressed or have behavior problems. | |
| See, if you scream out, yell, and verbally abuse your wife, she has the problem. | |
| It's called a behavior problem. | |
| The study found That verbal abuse was also not effective in getting wives to stop what they were doing, and that it was damaging even to wives in homes that were generally warm and loving. | |
| See, that's important. | |
| Because sometimes wives are in homes where there's lots of verbal abuse but are generally warm and loving, which I guess is an interesting juxtaposition. | |
| So this guy is a marriage coach, particularly for husbands. | |
| And he says, when you yell at your wife, you either create somebody who yells back at you or somebody who is shamed and retreats. | |
| You're either growing aggression or growing shame. | |
| These are not characteristics that any husband want in their wives. | |
| So it's important for your wife to have characteristics that you want in her. | |
| Not for her to develop her own characteristics or have her own thoughts. | |
| It's really important that you monitor, control, and discipline your wife so that she ends up with the characteristics that you want. | |
| There is a difference, of course, says the article, between being verbally abusive towards your wife and merely using a sharply raised voice at her. | |
| Yelling alone is not always damaging, although the surprise of a sudden change in volume can cause your wife to become fearful or anxious. | |
| It's often what is said that is harmful, according to this guy. | |
| He's the program director for the Center for Effective Wifely Discipline. | |
| And he says, when people raise their voices, the message typically isn't, wow, my wife, I love you, you're a great wife. | |
| You're usually saying something negative and ripping down their self-esteem. | |
| Now, the article does, of course, provide some conciliatory tone. | |
| The article says, it's nearly impossible to never yell at your wife. | |
| It's going to happen. | |
| See, you don't do it. It just happens. | |
| So it's nearly impossible to never yell at your wife. | |
| It's going to happen. Even if you're not calling your wife names or insulting her, though, there are more effective ways to deal with disciplinary problems than yelling, says this guy. | |
| Wives, he says, find our sensitive underbellies. | |
| And when they are outright defiant, and what they do flies in the face of our husbandly expectations, we do yell. | |
| Wives find our sensitive underbellies. | |
| So they know what makes us upset as husbands. | |
| And when wives are outright defiant, defiant towards their husbands, when they are outright defiant and what they do flies in the face of expectations, we do yell. | |
| We do yell. We're husbands. | |
| We're only human. We do yell when wives don't do what we want them to do. | |
| And when they're defiant, So he says, but it's definitely not in the toolbox of what's effective discipline. | |
| You want to effectively discipline your wife, and it's just not as effective at disciplining to yell. | |
| It's not a good toolbox to have. | |
| What can frustrated husbands do to get through to that wife who despite being asked 10 times to mop the floor is still playing with the cat? | |
| We've all been there. Here are suggestions from husbanding experts on how to keep behavioral problems from your wife from turning you into a screaming lunatic. | |
| You see, this is what they're trying to get across to you as a husband. | |
| Your wife, who's defiant, who's not meeting your expectations, who doesn't possess characteristics that you want in her, and Has behavioral problems. | |
| Those things turn you into a verbally abusive person. | |
| It just happens. You don't make that choice. | |
| It just happens. They want to really help you to understand, as a husband, how you are not responsible for verbally abusing your wife. | |
| Right? I mean, she's defiant. | |
| And she has behavioral problems that need to be corrected. | |
| So she can turn you, like that, into a screaming lunatic. | |
| And how to recover from it on the hopefully rare occasions when you do yell. | |
| See, some yelling, some verbal abuse, obviously going to happen. | |
| I mean, she's a wife, she's provocative, she's disobedient, right? | |
| But I think the article is really trying to help you to understand that... | |
| It's as bad as hitting your wife to verbally abuse her. | |
| So you need to find other ways to control, to manage, to discipline her. | |
| And so the article goes on in more detail, which I think is important and helpful for those husbands who are having discipline problems with their wife and whose wives are not. | |
| Are not doing what the husband expects and find ways to have the wife experience something very negative in order to get her to conform to what you as a husband need her to do. | |
| That's really, really important. So I won't read the whole article because I think you sort of get the point, right? | |
| And I will put it in the low bar. | |
| You can read through it yourself. | |
| There's three pages. I could only stomach one, but I hope that this is helpful and illuminating. |
Export Selection