__aagmrb7289's Journal: Perhaps, a little understanding?

I am writing this in hopes to share a bit of a revelation that has come to me - right or wrong. Having grown up with friends both male and female, and being part of many conversations on how spouses are messing up their lives, I have noticed certain trends, and I'd like to make some suggestions.

Women complain about their husbands "bad" habits, while men complain about their wives "nagging". While not universally true, there are only two complaints I have every heard a man utter about his wife - a complaint about some sort of nagging behavior ("You left the toilet seat up again.", "Why didn't you take the garbage out last night?", "Why do you hang out with those jerks you call friends.", etc. - you probably have heard many more). The other complaint is that their wife is "letting their body go", and all I'm going to say about that is these men should have never gotten married in the first place. If you don't know that a person's body becomes less desirable as they age, then you need to be dragged away from that TV set, and get a reality adjustment. As for women, the primary complaints about their husbands are that they are "doing that thing again". Most of these "bad habits" have been known about since either before or shortly after the wedding, and the woman, in most cases, decided that she would just have to "change the man" to "fix the problem", encouraged, of course, by her "sisters".

Here is what amazes me: (a) five years after being married, the woman is still complaining that her husband constantly leaves his dirty laundry on the bedroom floor; and (b) five years after being married, the man is still leaving his dirty laundry on the bedroom floor. I hear this statement a lot: "If he truly loved me, he'd understand that these things really bother me, and he'd change." To that, I respond with this: "If she truly loved him, she'd love him the way he is, bad habits included." And I'd remind the man: "If you truly love her, you'd try to change those habits that bother her." It is so simple that it hurts. If a man and woman get married, and plan to live their lives together, they must love each other as they are - without any plans or thoughts of "well, I hate this about them, but I can change that once we are married". And if a man and woman get married, then each need to recognize they have habits that are going to bother the other person, and not only work to find out what those habits are, but endeavor to correct them.