It's quite embarrassing to write so much about such a small matter, but I still wrote it because I think this conversation contains some unnoticed PUA (Pick-Up Artist) techniques, and even I almost fell for it. This Weibo post is the result of my thoughts, and I want to share it with everyone.
The original post is here: "My wife is a lazy cancer patient, how should I take care of her?" https://weibo.com/1905895522/NpkZGhfiG
I mentioned before that this Weibo post is quite inspiring, but I always felt that something was off. Now I can be more clear about my conclusion: I believe that the counselor has some brilliant expressions, but there are overall logical flaws. If the husband in the article is really convinced by this, then he has definitely fallen for PUA.
Where did the counselor go wrong?
Firstly, I believe that the most basic consensus in the field of marriage counseling is that any intimate relationship problem requires joint efforts from both parties, and it is not solely one-sided responsibility. In this case, the husband has already been troubled to the point of seeking help from a counselor, while the wife is not present.
Secondly, the counselor simply attributes this problem to the husband's imbalance in his mind (original words: "The real problem is not housework, but the imbalance in your mind"), and the solution is to make the husband reconsider this matter and adjust his own psychological feelings? This simplifies the issue too much.
Changing cognition and perspective does sound like a good method. I understand that this is exactly the "emotional ABC theory" in cognitive-behavioral therapy. The complete statement is that people's emotional reactions (C) are not directly caused by external stimuli (A), but by people's cognition, interpretation, and evaluation (B) of external stimuli. Here, the counselor hopes to change the husband's cognition (B) in order to change his emotional reaction (C) to this matter.
But the biggest problem is that the transformed B needs to have a certain rationality and cannot be fabricated or converted arbitrarily. If B is irrational, it cannot provide reliable cognitive support value and will become psychological manipulation. And this is exactly what the counselor is trying to do.
Next, I will analyze this matter from several aspects and provide what I believe to be a more reasonable cognition and try to propose a solution.
- From the perspective of independence and mutual respect.
I believe that even in a marriage, each individual needs to have basic self-care abilities, especially for things that can be easily done. They should not rely on each other, and this does not need much explanation. At the same time, some family ethics should be emphasized. Family ethics means that, based on making oneself comfortable, one should not excessively increase the cost of the other party's efforts, and should not be indifferent to the troubles caused to the other party by one's own actions.
In this case, the wife's behavior has already caused great distress to the husband, otherwise he would not need to seek help online. From the husband's one-sided account, the couple did discuss this issue, but the wife responded with a dismissive "I'm just lazy." The wife's indifference to the husband's distress and even her starting to slack off is a very bad attitude towards communication.
As for the part about sexual life, there is no need for further explanation. The wife's behavior is more like that of an incapable giant baby.
- From the perspective of energy cost.
Every family has household chores, and doing household chores will definitely take up time and energy. These household chores can be done by either the husband or the wife. Regardless of who does it, both parties need to respect this effort and minimize the time and energy cost of household chores. The wife's habitual behavior clearly increases the additional workload. If she has good habits, such as washing dirty dishes immediately as mentioned in the article, it can greatly reduce the husband's cleaning time.
The counselor said, "Success is executing behaviors that benefit others to satisfy personal needs." This statement, taken alone, is fine. The husband doing household chores does indeed satisfy his own need for a clean environment. However, on the other hand, the husband's need to spend less energy on household chores is not being met, and the extra time and energy could have been used for more valuable things. I believe no one wants to spend too much time on labor activities. Naval Ravikant said that you have to price your time, and this principle is easy to understand.
In short, from the perspective of saving the overall labor time of the family, the wife should also respect the husband's efforts and further improve her own self-care abilities.
- From a psychological perspective.
Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson has a book called "12 Rules for Life," and one of the chapter titles is "Clean up your room before criticizing the world." I think this chapter reveals a very profound truth: people who lose order in physical space often have chaotic thinking and logic.
The book "The Power of Habit" also mentions that people who live in a messy environment for a long time often exhibit a series of problems, such as decreased immunity, increased stress, decreased self-control, compulsive shopping, and binge eating. From the husband's account in the conversation, it can be seen that the wife is someone who spends several hours addicted to live-streaming sales, which is a clear manifestation of decreased self-control and compulsive shopping.
A person trapped in an environmental order dilemma often falls into some kind of psychological dilemma, such as learned helplessness. Of course, the husband can help her and even seek some form of psychological treatment together, but it should never be summarized as simply "being lazy by nature."
These are my analysis points. I am not forcefully arguing from multiple perspectives, but I believe in Charlie Munger's multiple mental models - you must master multiple mental models to get closer to the truth.
So how should this problem be solved in the end?
In my opinion, it should start with the wife. People in a state of disorderly order need help. In normal cases, adjustments can be made using behavioral methods, such as referring to the "Fogg Behavior Model," especially the eighth chapter of the book, "Designing Behavior for Others to Feel Successful." I personally think it is very helpful.
In more serious cases, the intervention of a psychologist may be necessary. Of course, psychological counseling is a very professional field and often requires joint efforts from both husband and wife. I dare not give too much advice. At the same time, I do not believe that marriage counselors can solve all problems, just as communication cannot solve all problems.
This topic should have ended here.
But suddenly, I remembered an article I read a few days ago about managing intimate relationships, and I found it very thought-provoking. The original article was written for women, and I will quote a part of it:
"After studying women's growth for so many years, the most regrettable thing is that until death, many women still haven't understood that studying how to manage intimate relationships is useless. By useless, I mean that it may be useful to gain a certain period of time with a certain man at a certain stage, but it wastes the most important thing: your energy.
The pseudo-proposition of managing relationships leads you to constantly focus your energy on men, treating managing relationships as a lifelong mission. And I know that many bloggers make money in this field. But in reality, this field is like a black hole that absorbs all women's attention, and in the end, you find that you have wasted the most important thing in your life: your time.
Life is wasted like this. It could have been used to manage it more abundantly, but because of the time you spent on a mediocre man, life can never be regained. This sunk cost is the most hidden loss. This kind of thing often happens to women of the previous generation, who have spent their entire lives for a man, and it's too late to regret.
So the earlier women turn away from relationships and face themselves, face a larger world, dance around the bonfire of their own lives, the happier they will be, and such women don't even need to worry about men, they don't need to manage them at all. There will be countless passionate and admiring gazes watching you from behind.
I think this passage is also applicable to men trapped in intimate relationships.