"I do everything around here."
At one time or another, you — like every other hardworking wife on the planet — have probably made that statement. It may well be true. And, sorry to tell you this, but ... it may also be your fault.
"Knowing that we're the only ones who can manage family life is very empowering, and I think many women get a thrill from being so indispensable," says social psychologist Carin Rubenstein, who interviewed more than 1,500 men and women for her new book, The Superior Wife Syndrome."That sense of power and control can be difficult to give up." In two out of every three couples Rubenstein interviewed, "Wives run the show while their husbands sit back and take it easy," she reports. "Women are the CEOs of their households, and their husbands are more like employees."*
Rubenstein knew that she was on to something when she observed this do-it-all, know-it-all, fix-it-all pattern in many of her friends' relationships, in her work doing couples research, and even in her own marriage. "It's not just that wives do more of the chores and errands," she explains. "It's also that they are the ones who see the big picture, the ones who take charge — they have become the family managers, schedule keepers, event organizers, and decision makers."
And all that control comes with a dangerous downside. "Superior-wife marriages end up leaving both partners feeling unfulfilled," Rubenstein says. "When one person calls all of the shots all of the time, contempt and a lack of respect fester, and that undermines trust, intimacy, and loving companionship." REDBOOK talked to Rubenstein to find out how to restore equality to a relationship and pave the way for a more satisfying bond.
*YOUR TAKE:
"This definitely describes me! I feel resentful when my husband doesn't notice all that I do. Recently I made him a to-do list, but I was still annoyed that he didn't see on his own that things needed to be done. At some point, a husband needs to be an active participant."
— Alyssa Yano, 32, Indianapolis
Why is this superior-wife syndrome so common now?
Some women believe that they're supposed to do it all. The women I interviewed in superior-wife marriages described their role as: "If I don't do things, they don't get done." And, "His philosophy is that as long as he has me, he doesn't need to worry about things." Men tend to think that a household functions automatically, when it's really the wife who's hard at work behind the scenes.
The fact is, most marriages don't start out this way. Somewhere along the line, an insidious shift occurs. I think that, biologically speaking, women are generally better at multitasking, and they're also more efficient. Add a husband to the mix who lets his wife take charge, and let that mixture simmer. Eventually men accept the wife's superiority as the natural state of affairs. Over time, a woman's thought process becomes, It's too annoying, complicated, or time-consuming to explain to my husband how to [fill in the blank], so I might as well just do it myself. The standard male response to a superior wife's rare request for help is, "You're better at it than I am." It may sound like he's giving you a compliment, but the truth is that it's really a cop-out. If he changed a diaper 10 times, he'd be perfectly good at it too.
You yourself were a superior wife. How did it affect your relationship?
I've been married for over 30 years, and my husband always followed my lead and never had any desire to take charge.* His only jobs were working, washing our cars, and handling family finances. I was always the one who cooked, cleaned, shopped, fixed our computer, planned family vacations, helped our two children fill out their college applications, set up the satellite TV, and hired the painters — to name a few of my responsibilities. I also work full time. I was constantly irritable and pissed off — it's exhausting to live like that!
Two years ago, we visited our daughter in Washington, D.C., for her graduation from college. I thought it would be nice to get her a graduation cake, so I researched bakeries in the area, ordered the cake, and paid for it over the phone. When I asked my husband to pick up the cake, he protested, saying, "I don't want to have to think!" That was our marriage in a nutshell: I think, therefore he doesn't have to. I should have responded, "I prefer not to think either, but unless we hire a butler, cook, and valet, both of us are going to have to do some thinking." But instead, I resentfully went to the bakery and picked up the cake. That resentment kept building in me, and it was harming our marriage. I viewed him not as my partner but as a third child — he was someone who relied on me and couldn't manage on his own.
*YOUR TAKE:
"If my husband was in charge, our living room would have stadium seating, our TV would be sitting on beer boxes, and all dinners would consist of something wrapped in bacon!"
— Melissa Heidelberg, 27, River Edge, NJ
