There is a women's magazine in Australia called "New Idea". It contains the usual mix of light weight trashy stories that are so popular about celebrities, human interest stories, Princess Diana, that sort of stuff. It also contains a regular feature called "Mere Male" where readers write in and retell vignettes of silly things their husbands have done. It is harmless enough in itself but it plays on the image of the husband as harmless bumbling fool in the relationship. Look at many of the adverts for household cleaning products or baby care needs and you will see further examples.

It is a role that men find easy and comfortable to conform to. It takes responsibility away from them in the household and in their relationship with their wife. It is however a sign of a deeply flawed, but not beyond repair, relationship. Many of these men are managers of groups of individuals in the workplace; strategic thinkers; go getters. Yet at home they conform to a role that allows them to disengage with their wife on almost all levels.

It is time to look at your relationship with your wife and ask yourself "Am I guilty of taking the soft option and letting her 'rule the roost'?". If you are then you are cheating both yourself and your wife.

There is also a dark side to this marital structure. Ironically, it is too often accompanied by violence. The scene is all to common of the compliant submissive man who periodically "explodes" because he

1. can no longer handle that his values, beliefs and needs are being ignored
2. does not know how to talk to his wife about how he feels and what he needs from the relationship (I am not talking about sex here.)
3. is so emotionally withdrawn that his wife, out of desparation, provokes him to get at least some type of response.

So what happens. As well as the obvious damage to his wife, the man is even more disempowered. He now has feelings of guilt to add to the firestorm of emotions that he is unable to understand or resolve, mainly because he does not have a wife or any true male friends in which he can confide to help him sort them out.

The Solution
1. You are an equal partner in the relationship who is entitled to have your beliefs, values, needs and wishes respected. (Your wife is equally entitled to this.) Of course you cannot expect these things to be respected if you do not tell your wife what they are, she is not a mind reader. It may sound stupid but even in a marriage of 10 or 20 years this is still important particularly if you have not been doing it along the way. You are entitled to say "That is how I feel. I am not asking you to understand it, just accept that that is the why I feel."

2. Your wife has a set of beliefs, values, needs and wishes which are not the same as yours and you are entitled and obligated to find out what they are and respect them, even if you think they are stupid.

3. Your wife is not always correct she can also be obstinate, misguided, perverse and irrational just like you can. You don't have to accept everything she says. On some matters you can disagree entirely and still have a happy and fulfilling relationship.

4. If you are angry about something then your wife is entitled to know. How do you think that adopting the "cone of silence", and giving yourself a stomach ulcer by quietly fuming over it, is going to fix the problem.

A marriage is a relationship between equals. If yours is not then it is time to fix it. If you have been together a long time then it will be a difficult task that will need to be undertaken with tenacity and in the knowledge that you both will need to change, which is never easy.