The Male Brain or the Women Response?

I can't for the life of me remember where I heard this initial thought. I can't remember if I read it somewhere or someone told me, but I have been pondering it lately and decided to ask my husband his thoughts on it. This was the thought: men choose to put their energy into the things they feel they are most successful at. Okay, so that might not be the exact phrase, but I think for the sake of this post you can get my gist. Basically, let's take a husband just as an example. Of course someone doesn't have to be married to fall into this category, but just for the heck of it. If this man feels like he is successful at his work, well, he will probably choose to work more. Especially if maybe he doesn't feel like he is as successful at home. If he feels very successful at being a father and his kids love him, well, time at home will be where his time is spent as much as possible. This can go for hobby's, passions, etc. If he feels successful at golf, well, that's another place he's probably spending most of his time.

After bringing this up to my husband, he actually agreed with the statement for the most part. We also kind of touched upon the subject of love languages, and if words of affirmation are a guy's love language, then even more so this falls into effect. Where he is being verbally "rewarded" in a way for doing a good job, is where he feels he is being shown love, which will ultimately be where he wants to spend his time. I honestly don't know if this is strictly a male thing or not, because it sure sounds like something us women would do as well, but sometimes our emotional brains take over I think. It's not always that simple. ☺

I thought this idea was really interesting because it made me think about my own role as a wife. Am I making my husband feel successful at home.. as a husband... as a provider...as a daddy? If I'm helping to make him feel like he is succeeding in these areas then he is going to naturally want to spend more time on them only making things even better in the long run! I absolutely adore my husband. We were made for each other and he is truly my best friend. I sadly, I can definitely think of times where I definitely was not uplifting about certain subjects. Just this weekend for instance, I was completely ridiculous and when my husband put away some tools that had been laying around the house for quite some time, instead of saying, "thank you for putting those away, I really appreciate it." well... this was my response...I broke into a song {which happens quite often around here and I blame my parents for this!} and the song was a re-mix of "Oh Happy Day." Can you say Whoopi Goldberg? Sister Act 2?! I wish I was kidding. lol!

Oh happy day...oh happy day...
Oh happy day...oh happy day...
When the tools went away!
Oh happy day!

Oh happy day...oh happy day...
Oh happy day...oh happy day...
When the tools went....oh when the tools went...
Oh when they went away!

Oh happy day!

Well, thankfully me and my hubby have a good sense of humor and joke around all the time and when my 3 year old started chiming in and singing with me we were both just laughing. Come to think of it, my husband was probably also laughing at the ridiculous dance that also went along with the song. Well, looking back on this incident, my poor husband probably didn't feel too successful in that moment. Instead when he was putting away tools, he got a completely sarcastic re-mix and a horrible dance to boot. I don't think that next time he works on a project around the house and before he leaves the tools out will think about how happy that made me and run to put them away. He will probably remember the feeling he had of annoyance at my response which may even lead him to not want to put them away the next time. I have no idea if that is really how he felt, but I can assure you that I probably would respond that way! Can anyone relate?! If I got totally ridiculed for doing something helpful I would be hard pressed to do it again. Now this is just a very silly example, but I think it's so true and eye opening at the same time! I made him feel unsuccessful without even thinking about it. I think my last statement is where the problem is. Without even thinking about it. That's the problem. We respond to certain things without thinking, or at least I do. If we constantly aim to bring up our husband, boyfriends, fiances, and make them feel successful and loved at home they are going to thrive which will ultimately lead to a more meaningful marriage and a happy family. I'd love to hear your responses to this one... do you agree or disagree? ♥

"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love." Ephesians 4:2

And just to give you a little better idea of the tune of my song... I'm leaving you with the clip from Sister Act 2. Enjoy! LOL.