4 Reasons Your Wife Hates When You Just Sit Around
Try asking what you can do to help, or offering to join in whatever activity she is doing instead.
pixelfit, nomadsoulphotos | Canva Men, you are not imagining the annoyance and disdain that spreads over your wife’s beautiful visage like a wet Swiffer over hardwood when you take it easy in your favorite armchair.
Today I will explain to you why seeing you sit down and play video games, play on your phone, or stare into space is so enraging for the woman you married, even though she used to bring you sandwiches while you played Xbox back in the honeymoon phase.
Here are 4 reasons why your wife hates when you just sit around:
1. If you’re sitting down, who’s taking care of the household?
A huge complaint I get in couples counseling is “My husband just sits around and does nothing” (and the counterpoint, “My wife hates when I relax and needs to control every second of my time”). This is because men and women have opposing ideas about household management. They can be summed up in this sentence: Women think household management is infinite. Men don’t.
I just turned to my husband and asked, “What could you be doing right now?” He said, “I don’t know, what could I be doing right now?” (Note: this is a good response and one which indicates that he heard the edge of potential hysteria in my voice.)
But the point is, here is what I think of: do the laundry, clean anything, supervise the kids, organize anything, write a grocery list, start on the lunches for tomorrow, clip the hedges, make the kids a snack … and that’s just what I could type in real-time as the thoughts went through my head. When you sit down, the potential for you to help with those things decreases dramatically, at least without your wife feeling like a nag or a bother.
2. Sitting down and lazing around is so … passive
Women hate passive. It has to do with our evolutionary imperative to be with someone who can hunt and fish or whatever. Passivity is certainly not sexy.
So, even if your wife was in the mood to have sex because she just had that dream about the quarterback in her old high school or what have you, seeing you sitting down doing nothing is going to snuff out that flicker of sexual energy like a Dyson snuffs out dirt. Conclusion: In addition to sitting being bad for your health, it’s also bad for your sex life.
3. If you’re sitting, it’s likely you’re not open to hanging out
You’re on your phone checking the scores (that’s a phrase people use, right? I’ve never done it in my life), and you may think you’d be totally open to a conversation. But when your wife sees you engaged in another activity, she feels shut out.
This is actually really common in couples counseling. The husband says, “But if you wanted to talk so badly, why didn’t you just come over?” And the wife says, “I was staring at you but you never looked up from your phone.” In the cases where the wife does directly communicate, often the husband will say, “One second,” which may mean one second, but turns his wife off entirely, making her feel rejected (as rejected as men feel when rejected for sex), and she leaves the room and seethes.
4. You aren’t joining her in her life activities
This is perhaps the most important one. If your wife, who is assuredly more anxiety-prone than you if this dynamic applies, is always up and moving, and you’re usually stationary, you aren’t joining her, and she feels alone and lonely.
Think about getting up and doing whatever she’s doing as empathy, but expressed physically. You may think she’s overly Type A, but here is a little-known phenomenon: If you act like she’s correct, that there are things to be done, and there is a need to hurry and do things, then your wife will experience a linear decline in her own sense of urgency about these matters.
All it takes is your empathy, manifested as standing near her and asking what you could do to help, or offering to join in whatever activity she is doing. Also, read Overwhelmed by Brigid Schulte for more of a sociological perspective on why your wife feels that she has to be so busy in our current society.
This article is not meant to suggest that women shouldn’t learn to be more laid back and accepting, but rather to delineate why exactly they may be acting so seemingly insane about you just sitting there. Forward to your partner and see if this can start a conversation.
Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten, aka Dr. Psych Mom, is a clinical psychologist in private practice and the founder of DrPsychMom. She works with adults and couples in her group practice Best Life Behavioral Health.