Men need attention. They need to feel appreciated, loved and most importantly respected. Don’t get me wrong women need that too but it’s different for men. When they don’t get what they need they aren’t always good at expressing themselves in a productive way. I’ve learned over many difficult years that if my husband is not being nice, one of his needs are not being met. This week I got the opportunity to watch this play out as I saw my husband interact with our teenage daughter. As you know, teenagers can be difficult at times. My daughter is 14 and not very “engaged” with the family right now. She’d much rather be off in her room alone or watching TV alone. When she gets home from school she has 2 hours before her “very annoying “ younger siblings get home from school. During that time she’ll usually stay out in the kitchen with us but is still usually quiet unless she needs something. One day this week she was home and my husband was trying to talk to her. I guess he wasn’t getting the responses he was looking for because it soon turned into her Dad trying to annoy her. And he was deliberately trying to make her irritated. When I saw she was about to cry and asking him why he wouldn’t just leave her alone, it hit me. He was treating her just like he does me when his needs aren’t met. I knew she really had no idea why he was being so annoying and I he didn’t know either. So while my husband sat there I said to my daughter “Let me tell you about men and why they act that way. Daddy needs your attention. He needs you to talk with him, maybe sit next to him and ask him what he’s working on. Tell him about your day. When he feels ignored he’s going to do anything he can to get your attention even if it’s negative attention. He doesn’t mean to do it and doesn’t even realize he’s not being nice, he just wants some reaction from you.” As a teenager, she heard me and laughed but changed nothing, just went to her room.
My husband wholeheartedly agreed with what I said and acknowledged he does it unconsciously. It was interesting watching him act that way to my daughter, I thought he just saved that for me. I still don’t really get why he can’t see he’s acting that way and stop it but at least I know what I’m working with. It took me years to figure out. I hope my daughter can learn from her Dad and not have to figure it out on her own.
So the next time your husband is trying his best to upset you, it’s probably because one of his needs aren’t being met. Maybe he just needs you to sit and watch TV with him for 15 minutes. Maybe he needs some acknowledgement for how hard he works. If you can realize he needs something but just can’t put it into words, it makes it easier to offer some grace for his attitude and look for a solution.
Ok but why is it your daughters job to act more mature than your husband? This sounds like your husband needs to grow up and understand that it’s not okay to intentionally annoy people in the hopes that they’ll pay attention to him.
Right?? Glad to hear I’m not the only one dealing with this, and also not the only one who thinks a grown man ought to be more mature than his teenaged children. Teaching your daughter to feel responsible for anyone else’s behavior, let alone her father’s, seems horribly unfair. How is she supposed to have any respect for him after that? Or stand her ground in other relationships?
I agree your husband needs to grow up. Furthermore to say he is unaware that he is being annoying is far fetched. Your daughter did right to laugh and go to her room.
I agree your husband is being immature in his actions, but this actually hit an “aha!” with me. It isn’t your daughter’s (or your) responsibility and hopefully verbalizing what he was doing will resonate with your husband, and help him to recognize and stop acting like this.
That said, I think it’s easy to say that your husband should just stop being emotionally immature, but many men (people, really) grow up in an environment in which expressing emotions is unacceptable. And emotions come out in someway, no matter our intentions. Not an excuse, but a truth.
It is helpful to know this could be the case with my husband, I’ll keep it in mind when I notice he’s “bugging” me. If I give him more positive attention, will it stop? If I notice a pattern I’ll let him know that he needs to tell me what he needs. Or say “You’re doing it again” so I’m not taking all of the responsibility on myself and moving it back to him to be responsible for his own actions. Everything is a process though. I’m not perfect either. He grew up hiding his feelings with his parents, it wasn’t acceptable to verbalize how he was feeling, so it’s a work in progress to get him to open up. I think this (knowing that he’s “asking for” attention) will help our relationship in the meantime.
I think if anyone is rewarded for a particular behavior, it reinforces the behavior and increases the probability of the behavior occurring again. The daughter made an excellent choice to communicate Dad’s attempt to annoy is a non-issue to her. However, I agree, it should not be up to a daughter to parent her parent – shame on Dad. This brings me to my question: I live with spouse who often acts the same way. I used to ask him why he would intentionally annoy someone -especially if they are already stressed? He never had an answer so I began to realize I was reinforcing his behavior by attending to it. I have since not addressed my husband at the time or anytime later and I only attend to the child he is attempting to annoy. This is often a recommended approach for sibling issues. It’s been about a yr and has and there is very little improvement so I’m at my wits end as I now believe his behavior is a reflex for him. Does anyone have any ideas – short of stating “Get in the corner” the next time his behavior mimics that of a toddler -kidding but I find this to be truly a pathetic situation and am pretty sure I’m not in a position to look at the situation logically.
Yeah, I don’t think this article is real, just a troll attempt to get reactions.
“How to Teach Your Daughter to be a Door Mat 101”