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Friday, August 17, 2012

Getting him to Heaven


It probably wouldn't have been so bad for the guy next to me at BYU Education Week to be asleep, except for the fact we were in a class about how to make better husbands out of raw material.
(That's not really the title but essentially that's what the women attending were probably expecting.)
The husband was nodding off as John Bytheway, the teacher, made the ladies in his audience sigh when he told them they were in the wrong class.
(Paraphrasing here), he said, "If you came here to find out how to make your husband lead the family to Heaven, you're in the wrong place. You can't do that."
He said he didn't have the order forms for women who wanted to submit an order for a new and improved model.
Bytheway said the only thing a woman can do is to love her husband unconditionally and "change" him by changing herself.
Criticizing, complaining, comparing, doesn't do it, he said, but loving and accepting does.
He added that the three words that frighten men the most are: "Can we talk?"
He said if wives will be clear about what they want to discuss and what they want from their husband (Oohs and aahs instead of solutions), things will go better.
It will also help to set a time limit.
He followed by helping explain that husbands and men typically look for exits when they're approached about having a heart-to-heart or holding a Family Home Evening.
"They want to know how long it's going to be," he said, citing a study that show men asked to describe a meeting room one week after the meeting could tell the researchers where the clock and the exit signs were.
Women remembered the meeting, what what said, which illustrates a problem in most marriages.
Men listen and talk for information. Women listen and talk to achieve interaction.
When neither side understands the difference, one or both sides become unhappy.
What about when one snoozes?


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