Who’s the Boss in Your House? It’s Time for Parents to Take a Stand

This day, as does every day, belongs to everyone, young and old, rich, or poor. However, there are too many adults abdicating their roles, responsibilities, and authority as parents, leaders, and guides to their children. These adults allow many of our children to not only run amuck, but to also believe that it is all about them and no one else matters. There are too many of our young people who are allowed to disrespect themselves, disrespect their parents, disrespect their friends, and disrespect anyone in authority. As a matter of fact, many of our children have no clue as to how they got to where they are, because many adults in their lives are so busy trying to deny who they are and want to live vicariously through the lives of their children and other young people. Unfortunately, rules and regulations seem to have become the exception, rather than the norm.

 

It seems as if no matter how bad some of our children behave, they know that nine times out of ten, their parents or some other adult will rescue them and not hold them accountable for their behaviors. They are also fully aware that they will probably not face any consequences for their poor attitudes and their poor behaviors. Many of our children have negative attitudes because such negative attitudes have been modeled by and exhibited by the adults who serve as their role models. On the other hand, many adults have negative attitudes that prevent them from seeing the negative attitudes of their children, especially when it comes to mothers and daughters. 

 

Ironically, too many young men have developed disrespectful chips on their shoulders that permeate into their relationships with females, young and old. The tragedy is that there are adults who don’t seem to see the problems that manifest from their own negative attitudes and negative behaviors, eventually negatively impacting their children. Children often model what they see and what they hear. 

 

The negative attitudes and negative behaviors of many young people are constantly being enabled by their parents, often not to their benefit, but to their detriment. Please note that I am keenly aware that these negative behaviors don’t fit every young person and every adult has not been caught in the cycle of enabling such behaviors. However, there are entirely too many children and too many parents that fit into both categories.

 

Sadly, many adults have lost control of their children, and young people in general. But why is this so? It’s not so much that parents and other adults have lost control; they have given away their control to their children! They have also thrown out their values and beliefs with the bath water. It sometimes seems as if many adults are afraid to maintain control or to take back their control. They are so busy trying to run away from how they were reared by their parents, believing that things were ‘so bad’ for them, that they have decided to rear their children in a different manner…many times overcompensating by giving their children things and opportunities that they don’t deserve. 

 

Too often, some parents are caught in a cycle of trying to ‘please’ their children by giving them what they want, in lieu of providing them with what they need. They dress their children expensively on the outside, with expensive technical toys, while they expect less from them on the inside. Not only are these adults constantly giving to their children, but they are also not expecting anything in return from their children. And they are not holding their children accountable.

 

As adults, until you start expecting and demanding respect, gratitude, positive attitudes, responsibility, and accountability from your children, you are contributing to their negative attitudes and negative behaviors, at home, at school, and at other places. You are also contributing to a generation of downright arrogant and entitled young people who are unhappy with themselves and with life in general. In addition, more and more parents expect schools to be responsible for ‘fixing’ their children when it is not the responsibility of the school system. It’s the responsibility of parents to ‘fix’ their own children before sending them to school and other places. 

 

Education starts with parents and in their homes. Schools are a microcosm of the macrocosm of society. As a matter of fact, it’s the responsibility of parents to work with schools to help teachers to manage the negative attitudes and negative behaviors of their children as they strive to effectively educate them. No one wants to be with or work with a spoiled brat!! And if you don’t believe you can handle your child, how in the world do you expect someone else wants to try to handle him/her? The negative behaviors, negative attitudes, disrespect, arrogance, and sense of entitlement your child(ren) displayed when they were very young, which you laughed about and thought were cute, have now come to haunt you during their adolescent, teen, and young adulthood years.

 

It is time for you, as parents, to take a stand and formulate a stance as to whom the adults are in your home. It is also time for you to provide guidelines and boundaries for your child(ren), no matter what age.  You must not only provide models for your child(ren), but you must also serve as a role model for them. Being disrespectful to, as well as yelling, screaming, and cursing at your child’s teachers, coaches, or other adults in their lives is most certainly not indicative of modeling positive attitudes and positive behaviors for your child(ren). It does take a village to rear children, including yours! 

 

Parents, I challenge you to take out a pad and pen to monitor your own attitudes and behaviors for two weeks. Assess your role in not holding your child (ren) responsible and accountable for their negative attitudes, negative behaviors, and disrespect toward themselves, disrespect toward you, toward their teachers, and toward their coaches, friends, and others. It’s time for you to decide how much you are enabling your child (ren) in their negative behaviors. I am not asking you to carry guilt or to beat yourselves, but I am asking you to be accountable for the role you play in your child’s sense of entitlement, lack of responsibility, and lack of accountability. 

 

As parents, not only do I challenge you to monitor yourselves for two weeks and document your enabling roles with your child (ren), but I would also like for you to develop a written plan of action for you to rectify your enabling behaviors with your child(ren) to rectify their negative attitudes and negative behaviors. Develop five (5) action steps that you CAN and are WIILING to implement to help save your child(ren) from self-destruction and the destruction of others. 

 

As you assess your own attitudes and behaviors for two weeks, assess the attitudes and behaviors of your child(ren). Sit with your child(ren) and share your observations and concerns regarding their negative attitudes and negative behaviors that you have observed, while providing praise for their positive attitudes and positive behaviors. Allow your child(ren) to help you to develop five goals with five action items you expect them to work on in changing their negative attitudes and negative behaviors. Remember, you are the parent; you aren’t asking your child(ren) to change their negative attitudes and negative behaviors, you are making them responsible for and holding them accountable for changing their negative attitudes and negative behaviors. They don’t have a choice in the matter!

 

Remember, the way you start rearing your child(ren) will, in a large part, determine the young person and ultimately the adult they will become. Either you change your parenting behaviors NOW and work with your child(ren) to change their negative attitudes and negative behaviors NOW, or you will pay dearly later!

 

Attitude Plus Gratitude DOES Determine Your Life’s Altitude! I challenge you to take on Nike’s slogan and “JUST DO IT!!!” Change your negative attitude and negative behaviors as you challenge your child(ren) to change theirs!!!

 

 

©2022; J. Morley Productions, Inc; P.O. Box 1745, Decatur, GA 30031; 770-808-6570; www.doctorjoyce.com

 

You Can’t Change Your Past, But You Can Create Your Future

To continue your journey beyond today, you must define your present and confront your past. If you are seeking success beyond today and into the future, you must first define success and clarify the implications and steps necessary for you to attain it. Is success defined by the money you possess, the house in which you live, the chair in which you sit, the car you drive, the job you hold, the title of the position you hold, or all the external attributes that tend to or seem to indicate that one has “made it?”

 

What you must come to realize, is that success is not external, it is internal. If where you are going is based solely on external situations, external circumstances, and material possessions, you will never recognize your true success in life. Success is being able to accept who you are, where you are, where you came from, and where you are going, without reservation, without hesitation, and without regret. Success calls for you to relinquish your past, relish in your present, while rescripting and creating your future. 

 

The bottom line is, no matter who you are, what color you are, where you came from, who your parents are/were, what you had/didn't have while growing up, your body size, your income or your social status, the level of success you have achieved and will continue to achieve, all starts with you and comes back to you. Wherever you are and wherever you aspire to reach in life, personally and professionally, depends on you. It’s important that you remember that anything and everything you aspire to do and become begins and ends with you. You are the dreamer and the creator of your future, regardless of your present or past situations, past circumstances, or past conditions. Yes, your past did occur, and it can’t be erased. You must recognize that no matter how your past looks, you cannot change it. However, you can determine, and you can create your future by using your past as steppingstones, instead of stumbling blocks!

 

Too often, it seems as if the negative situations, negative circumstances, and negative conditions of your past continue for a lifetime. However, the encouraging news is that situations and circumstances are only temporary, and conditions belong to you, only if you claim them or own them. I am sure that some of you have experienced some difficult situations and circumstances, and it is a wonder that you are still here. You have made it through the tough times, through the rain, and the storms. You have survived the seemingly never-ending piles of unexpected life circumstances, including financial devastation, the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, and other issues. You have somehow been able to sustain and maintain while juggling family matters, as well as work responsibilities. However, with God’s grace and His mercy, you have made it this far. As a matter of fact, because of God, you have survived your seemingly tumultuous past, and you don’t look like what you’ve been through.

 

To accept the success of your future, you must be willing to move beyond the negative situations and negative circumstances of your past. You must assess where you have been, without getting stuck in you past. You must also assess where you are, in your efforts to move into your future. If you hold negative inhibiting doors open, positive and inviting doors will remain closed. There were a lot of things that went wrong along your life’s journey. You made some mistakes along the way, a relationship went awry, sone things did not work out the way you hoped they would or the way you expected that they would. You made some wrong choices, you entered some negative situations, and you walked down some death-defying paths. However, no matter what did or didn’t happen, you must begin to close the cracks in the doors of your past for you to effectively deal with your present and prepare for your future. You must also admit that the reason you survived your past is because some things went right for you, and you made a few right choices and a few right decisions.

 

There are several steps necessary for you to move beyond your past to successfully create your future. You must start with self-forgiveness, which eventually gives you permission to forgive others. Doors of optimum success will be blocked and barred if you hold on to the negativity of your past with unforgiveness. You must see yourself as worthy, allowing you to see others as worthy, by moving through a process of forgiveness. Your heart is too small to hold onto mess, or to carry others in it. It is imperative for you to begin to let go and move forward.

 

So what you spilled the milk while carrying the container in which the milk was contained. Crying over the spilled milk will not correct the error. The spilled milk is not the problem; it is not doing anything about the mess once the milk is spilled. You must get up and dry your eyes, to provide an opportunity for you to see clearly how to clean up the spilled milk and for you to begin to assess how you were carrying the milk prior to the spill. Your assessment of the situation ensures that lessons are not only learned from the spill, but also from how you initially carried the milk. The problem isn't falling, it is not getting up.

 

Because you are human, there will be problems and things will not always go as planned. But guess what? There is always a light at the end of every tunnel. For you to see the light, you must want to see it and be willing to remove the blinders that have hindered and hampered you from moving forward. Since success is an internal state, it is a feeling, a belief, and it is knowing that you know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that no matter what the circumstances and situations of life have been and what they seem to be, you have information that allows you to manage yourself and therefore begin to determine your life’s destiny. Benjamin E Mays once stated, “You might not get everything in life that you pay for, but you most certainly will pay for everything that you get.”

 

Another step on the road to moving beyond your past and creating your future, is increasing your self-esteem. Having high self-esteem will catapult you to greater heights than low self-esteem ever will. If you love yourself, believe in yourself, and trust in yourself, it won't be too difficult for you to accept yourself, no matter how barren your past might seem, believing that you are worthy of an even greater and brighter future. If you believe it, you can achieve it! It’s time for you to only glance at your past, in preparation for creating your future. Loving yourself and others gives you the energy and the reasons for letting go of your past, as you move into your future.

 

If you don't believe in you, how do you expect that your colleagues, your family members, your mate, your children, your friends, or anyone else will believe in you? You must believe that whatever you set your mind and heart to achieve, with hard work, perseverance, and determination, you can and will achieve it. 

 

You must also learn to speak into existence the positive, learning how to deny, decry, and defy the negative of your past. Possessing self-determination is an act of being motivated and being prepared to take on that which may come before you, leaving that which was in your past behind you. It means that for every knockdown, you will get up, hold your head up, while looking up, as you keep moving forward. It’s remembering that a quitter never wins, and a winner never quits! Self-determination gives you permission to make mistakes. The problem isn't the mistake, its lying in the mistake after it is made and not getting up to clean up the mess, while finding a way to fix it up. Self-determination helps you to recognize the importance of not looking down, but learning to look up, remembering that the sky is the limit Looking down only yields you the ground. 

 

You cannot change your past, but you can determine your future. As a matter of fact, not only can you determine your future, but you are also empowered to create your future. You must decide to do so today and every day moving forward. In determining and creating your future, you must have the proper attitude. Your attitude determines your latitude. You must not only have a winning attitude, but you must also have a win-win attitude. You must believe that you can win at whatever you do. You must believe that everyone around you can also win, and you must also align yourself with winners. You must begin to see yourself with “Positive People Going Places” (PPGPs). Anything you touch and whatever you do will turn to gold, because you have a rich and winning attitude. In other words, you must believe that you have, the “Midas Touch,” through your thinking and your actions.

 

Your behavior is also a major factor in helping you to create your future to move beyond your negative past. You can and you will always profit in life, based on your treatment, respect of and respect for yourself and others. Your attitude will dictate your behavior. Hence, your success in the future starts when you awake each morning, giving thanks first for life, for your blessings, and then for others. It starts each day with your positive greeting of life, and your greeting of others afterwards. A pleasant smile or any other greeting takes nothing away from you, but it does open the doors for many possibilities in the present and in the future. You set the tone for how much more successful your future will be than was your past. Because others exhibit unpleasantries, it doesn't mean that you must join them.

 

You might have all the material wealth, all the physical niceties that life can afford you, but it doesn't guarantee you anything for tomorrow, unless you possess and show a daily positive attitude. It will help you to create the type of future you want and need. You must possess an attitude and behaviors for a successful future while not forgetting how you got to where you are. You must also remember those persons who are and were instrumental in helping you to get to where you are in the present. In other words, you can't forget the bridges that brought you across. This means your family, your friends, your colleagues, your mate, your children, your neighbors, and the list goes on and on. The same people you met going up, you will eventually meet going down. However, it doesn't mean that you must hold on to the mess associated with any persons, situations, or circumstances that formed your past, prohibiting you from moving successfully into your future. You are truly the author and the creator of how your future will be and how it can be. 

 

To successfully move into your future, you must be self-directed. You must strive to create a future that you can dictate, as well as one that you have the power and the authority to orchestrate. You must have some idea as to where you are going from today forward, while leaving your past behind. There must be goals with specific action plans as to how you will get to where you're trying to get to in the future. Your goals must be realistic, attainable, and measurable. You must see your past as the rearview mirror of your automobile, which is small because it is designed to view those things behind you. You will have to leave your past behind, only remembering those aspects that will allow you to venture into your future. You will have to see your future as large as the windshield of your car, for you to eventually behold all that God has in store for you. You should want to see everything that is available for you to accomplish the goals you set for your future, unobstructed and without barriers. As the driver of a car, you are keenly aware that there are writings on your sideview mirrors that state, ‘caution, things in this mirror are closer than they seem.’ Therefore, along with your self-direction, your goals, and your specific action steps, it’s also important that you remember to develop a contingency plan, just in case. 

 

It is important to leave your past behind, only gathering and carrying with you those aspects of your life necessary for you to attain success in the future you create. Even in your future, there will always be obstacles looming around on each side of you, as well as in front and behind you, as you move through life. Once again, these obstacles will become your past as you create another aspect of your future. However, it is imperative that as you look through the windshield of your life and become more observant of the sideview mirrors that warn and caution you of maladies, problems, and other obstructive situations that can get in your way, you are prepared to pull over to the side of life's roads.  You must not be afraid to move into a new and different direction or a different life lane, as you place as many of those obstructive situations behind you, in your trunk of life. Sometimes you must be willing to use the trunk of your life to place those unnecessary and unexpected blockers and other negative situations in the trunk of your car and lock them away, allowing you to lighten your load.

 

As you create your future, leaving your past behind, it dictates that you must have faith. For every disappointment, you must pray to keep your faith in a higher power, recognizing that the sunshine always comes after the rain. Your faith allows you to continue to believe that when one door closes, you will most certainly find another door. And if there are no doors, you will find a window. As sure as there was a way into any situation or any circumstance in your past, there was a way out, allowing you to create a new way into your future. Your self-direction and self-determination allowed you a path beyond your past, indicating that no matter how thorny the paths have been in your life, no matter how winding the roads have been, no matter how many closed roads and detours you encountered, and no matter how dismal the outlook, remembering to never give up was always important in helping you to move beyond your past, while creating your future. 

 

Nothing ever happens unless and until you make it happen. You must decide to step out of your past and begin to move into the future by engaging in the steps shared with you above. You must believe that you deserve a positive and success future, as you behold and envision your future in your mind, in your heart, and in your spirit. Use your goals and action plans to map out your strategy and your specific action steps. Sitting and ‘waiting on God’ to create your future is not the answer to you moving beyond your past. In all actuality, God is waiting for you to initiate the steps for your future success. You must also be optimistic about the outcome of your future. You must have positive optimism. Some of you believe that you are optimistic, but you don't totally believe things can and will get better in your life. This line of thinking and believing is negative optimism; you are optimistic about positive things not happening. As a result, what you believe is what you will receive! You are casting doubt on the outcome of your future. And if you cast doubt on the outcome, you are then shutting out any actions you will take, as well as any possible gains for your future. Your beliefs determine your actions, and the ensuing consequences. Your gains for the future are predicated on how successful you view your past, how successful you feel in the present, and it's knowing that you are okay, just because you are you and you were put here for a purpose. Your purpose in life was not for you to be a failure in your past, your present, and it most certainly wasn't for you to be a failure in your future. You can’t change your past, but you CAN create your future!

 

Starting today, begin to see your future as a blank canvas, where you are the artist. You can choose the type of brushes you use, the colors you will use, as well as the type and consistency of the paint you will use, to paint your future on your blank canvas of life. You can choose short or long strokes, thin or broad strokes. Every brush stroke is an indication of the action you will take in putting your past behind you, putting your goals into action, and creating the success of your future!

 

Key Points to Remember as You Create Your Future

·      Anything I aspire to do starts and ends with me 

·      My attitude determines my latitude  

·      How I start my journey into the future will determine which roads I take and the outcomes of my journey 

·      I must give myself and others

·      I must love myself

·      I must have a win-win attitude 

·      I must keep looking up because the sky is the limit 

·      I must align myself with “PPPGs” (Positive People Going Places 

·      I must have self-determination

·      I must make written goals with specific action steps

·      I must keep the faith

·      Have a contingency plan

·      I must believe that I CAN

·      I must start speaking my future TODAY! 

 

 I challenge each of you to let go of the negative pains and negative experiences of your past; they have truly passed and are behind you. You can't do anything about what has already occurred and what has happened in your life, but you can work on what is and you can prepare to design and create what will be in your future. You must begin to look up to stand up, to believe in yourself and to decide that the sky is the limit. No matter your age, no matter what has taken place in your past, it is never too late to leave the negativity in the rearview mirror of your life and embark on the positivity of the future that is waiting for you in your windshield of life!

 

I challenge you to challenge yourself to be all that you can be, to take risks end stare life straight in its face. There's only one time around and that time is now! Take it, shape it, and make it be your time, so that you will be prepared for tomorrow, whenever it comes, which happens to be today! You must begin to nurture your future and the success of your future where it starts and where it will end, right inside of you! You are your present and the outgrowth of your past. You are the success of your future! Get started today, start moving forward today, start creating your future today, because you can't change your past!

 

 

©2022; J. Morley Productions, Inc.; P.O. Box 1745; Decatur, GA 30031; 770-808-6570; www.doctorjoyce.com

Spring Cleaning Your Relationship

The three most common problems in building a positive and healthy relationship over time are poor communication, lack of forgiveness, and lack of respect. As a matter of fact, the three go hand in hand. Often, couples don’t communicate effectively because they weren’t taught the skills of effective, open, and honest communication. They bring their individual selves, as well as their values, their beliefs, and their attitudes into the relationship. And even if one person within a couple practices effective, open, and honest communication, the ineffective communication of the other can have a negative impact on the total level of communication within the relationship. It takes two people practicing the same positive behaviors to ensure effective communication with respect.

 

A lack of forgiveness comes about when an atrocity of betrayal has occurred within the relationship, which at least one member of the couple deems unforgiving, causing them to lose respect for each other and for the relationship. Instead of talking about the issue, they avoid each other. They don’t talk about the atrocity, the betrayal, their feelings, or anything else, furthering the communication gap.  To add insult to injury, while living in the same household, they engage in the childish behavior of not speaking to each other for periods of time. 

 

If couples hold onto hurts and pains, they hinder their ability to communicate effectively and their ability to forgive and be forgiven is thwarted, with disrespect becoming the norm rather than the exception.  Over time, the lack of effective communication, the lack of forgiveness, and the lack of respect weathers and tears at the relationship, many times rendering it in need of serious repair, sometimes which might not be possible. When your relationship becomes a situation, it can become irreparable. 

 

Practical approaches to “Spring Clean” your relationship and moving it back to or regaining a sense of healthiness and wholeness entails ridding your relationship of the problems of ineffective communication, unforgiveness, and disrespect 

 

a.     Engage in weekly, written, relationship checkups, by looking at communication patterns, without blaming each other or projecting onto each other. These relationship checkups will allow you as a couple to focus on yourselves as individuals and not on each other.  You will ask yourself how you have communicated with your partner, both negatively and positively, as well as what you can do and what you are willing to do to correct your negative communication patterns.  You will also document and talk about how you can use your positive communication patterns to eliminate your negative communication patterns, by using your “I” messages.   Once the checkup is complete, both of you must be willing to implement the positive communication patterns discovered, ensuring effective communication daily.

 

b.     As a couple, each of you must agree that when an atrocity of betrayal occurs within the relationship, you will talk about the situation and talk about your feelings. You will do so without blaming each other and agree to take responsibility for your individual behaviors and the role you played in the atrocity of betrayal.  You will also agree that any atrocity will be handled the day it occurs and that you will never go to bed angry.  You will agree to write down your individual feelings about the atrocity, using your “I” messages, and without blame.  You will also document what is needed for forgiveness to take place on either side.  You will practice verbally saying, “I am sorry, please forgive me,” as well as, “I accept your apology, I forgive you.” As humans, I am aware of the difficulty in forgetting a betrayal. However, once you have agreed to forgive one another, it is imperative that you do your best to practice forgetting the atrocity. It is also imperative to remember that the act of forgiving, doesn’t give the forgiven partner permission to continue the behavior(s) that caused the act of disloyalty from the onset. The betrayer must learn to forgive him/herself, and find professional help, if necessary, to move past the negative habit of disloyalty.

 

c.     As a member of a couple, and to ensure a respectful relationship and not a disrespectful situation, it’s imperative that you and your partner recognize that respect is earned, not given. Too often as an individual, you attempt to engage in relationships with others, based on how you see yourself, not realizing that the first healthy and positive relationship doesn't start with others, but with self You must come to know yourself, understand yourself, respect yourself, and accept yourself, along with your faults, frailties, and failures, while encompassing the positive, prior to engaging in a relationship with someone else. Until you respect you and accept yourself, you will have difficulty respecting and accepting others. You will spend much of your time trying to find yourself, at the expense of your relationship. A selfless person inevitably becomes a selfish person. As a matter of fact, without self-love, self-respect, and self-acceptance, you will spend your life trying to make your mate into a carbon copy of YOU! You must first define on paper, the meaning of ‘respect,’ for you, as well as the attributes necessary for you to feel respected by others, and those necessary for you to show respect to others, including your partner. Afterwards, assess how you treat yourself, and the behaviors you exemplify to show self-respect. You must also determine what can you do and what you are willing to do to respect yourself more and to ensure that respect is a reciprocated process in the relationship.

 

After engaging in the short and simple activities above, you and your partner can come together to share your findings, agree on what each needs to give up, ensuring effective, open, and honest communication; agree to the attributes necessary to ensure forgiveness, including any deal breakers; agree to what is necessary to ensure respect in your relationship, including deal breakers. Once you and your partner have engaged in a process of “Spring Cleaning” your relationship, the two of you should agree to revisiting your agreements by engaging in relationship checkups on a seasonal basis. This relationship checkup and cleaning should occur during each summer, fall, winter, and spring! Also, don’t forget; if the two of you aren’t successful in your “Spring Cleaning” relationship efforts, don’t hesitate to engage the services of a professional, licensed, marriage/family or couples’ therapist. Your relationship should be worth the hard work!

 

©2022; J. Morley Productions, Inc.; P.O. Box 1745; Decatur, GA 30031; 770-808-6570; www.doctorjoyce.com

How to Effectively Manage Your Relationship When One Spouse Earns More Money Than the Other

Sometimes it can be quite challenging when one spouse makes more money than the other within a relationship and within a household. In all actuality, the disparity incomes should have been revealed and discussed prior to the commitment of marriage. Often, the love a couple shares with one another gets in the way of the reality of many unknowns that will raise their head once the honeymoon period ends.

 

The dynamics of unequal income within a household can be a plus for some and a pitfall for others. Problems can exist when one spouse is more financially successful than the other. Often, the difference is not as noticeable unless the higher income spouse begins to engage in power plays and control tactics, or the spouse earning the lesser amount of income becomes insecure and/or jealous. Money can make or break a relationship. Many times, how a spouse deals with the income disparity within a household will differ for men and women. No matter what disparity exists is in household incomes, with love, respect, a commitment to each other, a commitment to the relationship, as well as a commitment to the institution of marriage can remove the focus on the visible disparities to a focus on the strength of the relationship.

 

In many cases, because of the discriminatory practices that exist in pay rates between men and women in America and other countries, it is expected that men will earn more money than women, even within the same job role, the same education level, same skillset, and same level of experience. Sadly, Black, Brown, and Indigenous women are paid even less than White women. However, there are those rare instances in 2022 where women are being paid equal or higher wages than men. They are being paid their value and their worth. As a result, there might be many men who have difficulty dealing with the disparity of pay within their household. Here are a few tidbits men can take into consideration when their wife earns more money than they earn. 

 

 

1.      As one spouse excels beyond the other spouse in his/her level of economic success, he/she must decide to be proactive by inviting his/her spouse to discuss the situation. Sit together as a couple, discuss your feelings, discuss the impact that the disparity of success might have or is having on you and your spouse, clarify your expectations of each other, and discuss any concerns. You and your spouse can develop a verbal and written agreement to not allow your differences in accomplishments and income interfere with your relationship or your marriage. And if the two of you cannot amicably discuss emerging feelings and concerns about the income gap that exists in your household, you can agree to seek professional help.   As a couple, you must learn to focus on the positive aspects and commonalities that exist within your marriage, instead of focusing on the disparities in your levels of success and income. In other words, you must focus on what the two of you have in common, rather than the differences within your relationship. You must give each other compliments, as well as tell and show each other how proud you are of the accomplishments of each. You must verbalize how proud you are to be the chosen spouse of the other. Celebrating the accomplishments of each other removes the focus from the disparity associated with your different levels of success and income and keeps the two of you from competing. You will not worry about or focus on what others might think, believe, or say about your respective roles as the ‘man or woman in the marriage.’ Further, you all will not worry about how it should be, or how it looks, because one spouse is more successful than the other and makes more money than the other. Others don’t live with you as a couple and others do not contribute to your upkeep. As a matter of fact, what goes on in your household, including the incoming levels of you and your spouse is no one’s business but you and your spouse! 

 

2.      Husbands I provide the same information to you regarding how you can deal with income disparity as I would your wives. You must first come to see your wife’s level of success as a compliment and an enhancement to you, rather than a disparity between the two of you.  You must find your self-worth through having a life of your own, by identifying and focusing on what makes you “successful” in your own right, without separating yourself from your wife, without competing with her, and without trying to overshadow her level of success. You must learn to see your wife’s level of success as an inflator for the couple, instead of a deflator for you.  You and your wife are partners, not competitors. You must begin to deal with your feelings of insecurity, inferiority, and sometimes jealousy due to your wife’s accomplishments and unequal income level. Talking honestly and open with your wife about your feelings can relieve a lot of your anxiety. And if you and your wife cannot deal with these feelings together, you all can visit a marriage and family therapist to help you sort through the divisive feelings and thoughts.

  

3.      As the husband in the relationship, you must learn to focus on the bigger picture of having a wife who is more successful, by changing your mindset about role stereotyping. Instead of focusing on the fact that your wife earns more money than you, and instead of seeing you and your wife as separate entities, you must begin to see you and your wife as partners. If your wife has a job earning $150,000.00 per year, and you are in an entry-level position earning $50,000.00 per year, you must begin to use the simple process of addition; $150,000.00 plus $50,000.00, equals $200,00.00. The bigger picture is that you and your spouse can earn more together than you would make being apart. The combined income makes you and your spouse more powerful. And the wife must be careful that she doesn’t harp on her greater success, by demeaning her spouse, either verbally or nonverbally. She must value his worth as her spouse, and not let tat worth be based on his income. Your worth and value to each other must be based on how you see each other, the reason you all fell in love with and married each other, instead of the weight of your paychecks. It’s a matter of respecting each other no matter how successful or unsuccessful you are. You are in it together, which should be for love and not for money!    

 

 

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