Questions and answers of the psychologist: Who is the boss in the house?

Question for a psychologist:

I have been married for 2 years, my son is 3 months old. The fact is that my husband is not active in financial matters. How to make your husband work? I thought that with the birth of my son, he would “turn mountains” - he would go to a second job or find a better one to replenish our budget and provide for the child. The salary is only enough for the first two weeks, and the husband does not even think about additional earnings. How to encourage him to be more active?

Before giving birth, I earned more than my husband, but now I take care of the house and the child. If the situation does not change for the better, I will have to go to work early and leave the child, which I would not like very much.

Psychologist's answer: How to make a husband work?

Hello!

Firstly, I sincerely congratulate you on the birth of your son, in whom, judging by the letter, you do not have a soul.

The question is really serious, but is it a problem? Why did you decide that your spouse will quickly undermine and run to 10 jobs, as soon as you give birth to a child? Apparently, before the birth of your son, you worked, your husband worked, and despite the fact that it was you, the woman, who was the main earner in the family, this state of affairs suited everyone. With the birth of your son, for you, as a mother, everything has changed dramatically, life has literally been divided into “before” and “after” childbirth. But is it true for your spouse? Is he ready to quickly, at the call of nature, break everything that he built, not being a father? And the point here is not even in the child, but in the fact that you and your view of the family and the way everything should be arranged have changed, but not him and not his view!

Have you asked your spouse how he is now? Why does he not find ways to solve the financial issue? And isn't he looking? Or maybe he really searches and tries, and when he comes home and, no less than you, in need of support, he finds at home not affection and understanding, but reproaches and insults. It is not a fact that this is somehow related to your family, but often this is exactly what happens.

You ask: “How to make a husband work?”, but if a person is naturally inclined to passivity, “inciting him to be active” becomes coercion, which, as a rule, is accompanied by withdrawal and, as a result, resistance.

Of course, it is difficult to raise a child in cramped material conditions, but it is quite possible that a quiet and calm conversation in the evening in the kitchen will help to come to a common conclusion that will suit both, and will not be ritual dances of one on the bones of the other. After all, as V. Satir, the famous family psychologist, said: “The best model of family relationships is: “Tell me your dream, and I will tell you mine, and together we will think about how to make them come true.” No matter how trite it may sound, but conversations are not a waste of time, but a real, and almost the only, opportunity to achieve a complete understanding with each other and clarify the situation.

Therefore, talk with your spouse, what is called "heart to heart", try to listen to his arguments, his understanding of the situation, his opinion on everything that happens in your family without "arrivals", and think together what you can think of without infringing on anyone's rights and interests.

Indeed, in the end, in the 21st century, families are increasingly common where it is the woman who is the main earner of money, and the man runs the household and raises children. Of course, for our mentality, this state of affairs seems not quite normal, and yet there are families where all members are satisfied with this arrangement, and happy families. Maybe your family is one of them?

I wish you and your family happiness and a speedy solution to pressing problems. Of course, you, as a woman, do not want to “carry things on yourself” all the time, and, at times, you want to relax, knowing that the responsibility for what is happening is in reliable male hands. But such is our female share in the modern world, which, of course, we should be proud of, because it is we, and not someone else, who will stop a galloping horse ... And to those who said that a woman is a representative of the weaker sex, I want to ask one single question : "Sure?".

Believe in yourself and be yourself!

Good luck!