How to celebrate your wife
Nov 9 - Still journaling by hand
Since the quilt shop started I have made loud support of my wife and her effort, and I get tons of DM's and comments from people who notice and encourage this behavior.
It's a good thing to celebrate your wife right? Every wife wants it, every husband wants to do it, right? This should be the default
I took some time to reflect and write why this is so easy for me so I can give this to other husbands (or give to wives to give to their husbands ;) )
Don't compete with your wife dumbass
I understand that it does bother some men to have a wife that is more “successful” than them, but this is stupid for many reasons.
Marriage is not a competition, it's a partnership. Her wins don't mean you lose, her wins mean you win. Also, winning come in many different forms (more on this ahead).
How you celebrate one person is how you celebrate all people
I'm a firm believer in "how you do one thing is how you do everything", so if you want to celebrate your wife bigger, then it should be an extension of your holistic behavior towards people.
People think I celebrate my wife but the truth is I want everyone to win, I’m just loudest about Miss Kate.
Popular belief around money is that it's "zero sum" and that there is a set supply of money that gets traded and your gain means a loss for someone else. That is factually not correct or how our economy works.
New money is created out of thin air through every trade and transaction and there is an unlimited amount that can be created and used. This is the same as love, it is also non-zero-sum. You can love everyone you meet, all day, every day, for your entire life, regardless of whether they love you back, and you will never run out.
But if you incorrectly look at the world as scarce of money and love then you will default to hoarding resources. If you think your wife’s or friends' success means you can’t have yours, you will forever live in fear of them. If you think you can’t love someone unless you know they will love you back, your relationships will always be transactional.
Do you love your friends and family with abundance? Do you want them to make as much money as possible, even more than you? Are you genuinely happy for other people when they succeed, or are you envious? Do you want them to succeed as long as it's not more than you - this nasty mindset is very common, and must be broken.
Become abundant with your worldview and it will permeate into action, then celebrating the success of your wife and your friends and everyone you know will be easy.
Play your own status game
If the only status game you play is economic or business you're always going to lose because there will always be someone richer than you. Always. There is a wisdom to life in understanding that there are many games to play.
I am fortunate to have many successful friends who make more money than me. However, they are shitty photographers and have smaller bookshelves than me. This makes us equals.
In fact, I have plenty of rich friends who are wildly boring. They have no art, they don't travel, they don't read interesting books, their entire identity is moderate wealth. Lame. (If they were super wealthy they wouldn't be friends with me). Is that really better, is that winning? No.
But I refused to look at life as a dynamic set of games and only looked at the economic game as important, and my wife happened to be better at it than me, and I looked at her as competition....then I'm going to have a very hard celebrating her.
So to fix that....
Go out and work…on anything
Lately I find myself meeting more and more men who sit at home and don't have much work, they have no hobbies, and little to no social life. This is not good for a man’s soul. Men need adversity, adventure, and chase.
“Deep in his heart, every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.” - Wild at Heart
I can tell when I talk to them that they hate this but they often have just enough money to be comfortable and lazy (I am guilty of this at times and I also hate it). Wasted free time spent alone will produce anger about how much you hate wasted free time, the result is resentment of the world and bringing others down in a feeble replacement for lifting yourself up.
To celebrate your wife, you have to be self productive in some ways. Not because she is judging you on the results but because having your own confident individuality will allow you to spread optimism freely to others - wife included.
I like capitalism, so I can't be mad at my wife for being good at it
Miss Kate wakes up every day and works her ass off. She loves to serve her quilt besties, to create magical experiences for them, and she doesn’t mind investing real money in her ideas - those are profitable skills.
If I was better at those skills than she is then I would make more money than her, that’s how capitalism works. It's a bottom up objective system that transfers resources from those who want value to those who create value.
For me to be angry at this outcome would be to get in the way of good market economics simply because I’m mad that they don’t favor me. It's sort of like flipping the monopoly table over when you're losing.
I understand there is a common cultural problem about women making more than men, but I guess it doesn't make sense to me, I haven't felt that at all. is good at business and I'm proud of her, d
There seems like there are only 3 realistic outlooks on this situation:
- I could start my own business and be better at it than her
- I can ask how to contribute to her business and find ways to be valuable
- I could get in the way of her success to protect my feelings
I'm 43, I've spent the last 10 years trying to make money without much success and within 2 months of her starting the quilt shop I realized she was far better at business than I'll ever be, so I decided to help rather than hold her back.
Things you can do
Build her up
People are not products we buy on the shelves in Target, to be exchanged when they don't do what we want. People change and grow based on their environment, so if you want a great wife - create one out of the lady you have.
I love my Miss Kate just as she is, I also recognize that she has infinite potential, and it is the husband's privilege and responsibility to help her realize that potential.
This starts with dialogue, our words have magic power in them. What we say will become true, and if you tell yourself and the world that your wife sucks, then you will act that out, she will feel it, and reality will follow. Conversely, if you tell the world your wife is pure magic, you will instill her with confidence, and it will become true.
Practice abundance
Abundance is a mindset and something you have to actively practice all the time. It takes work to be genuinely happy for other people, envy is our default. It helps to confess your jealousy and scarcity out loud, which is also often difficult, which is why you need friends. Then you can surround yourself with other abundant and optimistic people for whom this way of life becomes your normal.
Daily mental health
Most of the men I talk to who are not doing well right now all have the same 3 or 4 problems, this is general guy advice.
If you don't work, stay at home, don't have friends, and don't go to the gym - you are going to hate your life and you are going to spread that shit around, that will cause you to repel all the productive people with good attitudes and you'll be further alone, resulting in a spiral of negativity. This is hell.
Alternatively, if you spend time with friends, being somewhat productive, lifting weights, and getting outside, you'll be a lot happier, and then you'll spread that around too - and the goal is that your wife is the greatest recipient of your enthusiasm for life.
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