Last week we looked at the following scale as a way to describe why there can be common conflicts between men and women since men typically lean to the sloth side and women typically lean more to the vanity.
Sloth (-10)———Healthy Middle (0)———Vanity (+10)
The first thing I should add is both sides have their benefits; there is good in both sloth and vanity. For instance, sloth reminds us of the importance of rest and relaxing. Of course, it’s only really relaxing when there’s already been strain. I once met a young man who claimed his problem was not being able to relax. What did his day look like? Sleeping in, watching TV, and playing video games. Yea, he didn’t have a “relaxing” problem; he had an “I don’t work or strain myself in any way” problem. Our bodies are designed to need struggle, which is why we only build muscle through it. At the same time, we need rest. God originally commanded the Jews to be fruitful (the first command received by humanity), but then they were told to take a Sabbath (i.e. a day off) once a week. They were also told to take a Sabbatical year every seventh year in order to give the land a break and for them to have a solid rest and recovery time. That sounds pretty amazing, doesn’t it? A full year off. Considering how stressed and overworked we are in our culture, that’s one command I wish we could re-establish.
Vanity also has its positives, especially since I’m not a fan of people wearing pajamas in public – where’s your dignity? We all need to have a healthy amount of pride in how we look. After all, our outside reflects what our inside looks like. Of course, at a certain point someone’s obsession about their outside also suggests serious brokenness on the inside that’s comparable to someone who doesn’t take care of themselves at all. As always, we need to find the happy middle between too much and too little.
Last week I spent most of the lesson focusing on the men and sloth, which means it’s important to look more at the ladies this week. That being, noted, I’ve recently had a number of people ask me how to motivate someone to move whether for themselves or someone else. The good news and the bad news are actually the same on this one depending on your perspective: There are only a couple main ways to motivate someone (see how that can be good and bad?):
- Fear: This can be anything from a fear of failure, shame, being left out or disappointing someone important.
- Ego/Vanity: Appealing to someone’s vanity side can be a good motivator, especially if the person has the personality of a politician. Guys who are single are more likely to be motivated through vanity as they need to prove themselves in order to win over a woman (or a herd of women if you’re a wannabe rock star).
- Money: I think you get this one.
- Reward: Whether the reward is praise, appreciation, or something more superficial, rewards can be very helpful in motivating and reinforcing people to do something different.
- It’s the Right Thing to Do: Ideally we learn to do things because it’s simply the right thing to do; although you could argue this is a fear of “not doing what’s right”, which goes back to the first motivator on this list.
Tip: This can be made even simpler by claiming motivation is to either gain or avoid something.
Unfortunately, when it comes to someone who is burnt out or super lazy, finding the right fire to light under their butt can be a challenge. Some people can even seem to be immune to fire.
People who struggle with vanity are very different than those who struggle with sloth because these people are very self motivated. The biggest challenge for vane people is to recognize they need to work on their meanness, especially since you can’t tell them this – they’re better than you. What’s the one thing vane people don’t accept as something they need to change? Their meanness. Why? Because any issue is someone else’s fault. No matter what they do wrong, they can always justify it because there’s someone else is to blame; they are the innocent victim. I recently had an eye opening situation with my own wife. Our two older girls sleep across the hall from us, and they have a nightlight to keep it from being too dark. The benefit of their room is it’s really large (it’s two rooms combined as one) and they have lots of cold air being pumped in because of the extra vents in their space. Our youngest, who is about 17 months, sleeps in her own bed in our room largely because she prefers it really dark like my wife. I have the ability to sleep with a spotlight shining on me as long as I’m not too warm whereas my wife is still under covers when I’m sweating from the heat – that’s the foundation of the problem I’m about to share. My wife likes to keep our bedroom door closed because of the light, but during a heat spell our room was getting uncomfortably warm… at least for me. She still had covers on (I don’t know how). The summer is the one time I’m grateful my wife steals the covers. Because of the heat, while getting into bed I casually asked if we could keep the door open in order to let in some of the cool air from our daughters’ room. Without looking at me, my wife in a very curt voice replied: “If you want to wake up extra early because the light woke up [our daughter] then go ahead.” Her response was pretty shocking. After all, the day had been normal. Nothing had happened to put her in a bad mood, yet her response was very sharp. In these situations I always recommend a two option question like “Was that a jab response or am I misreading it?” So what did I go with? Not that. I was direct: “Why are you jabbing me?” This kind of direct response is normally a good way to start a fight as the other party is typically not trying to be as mean as we think and this accusation leads to them being defensive, which is why my two option question is better. My wife, however, was completely unfazed. Why? Because she meant to jab me. Her response to my question was to give her logical explanation for why I deserved being jabbed in that moment, which was basically: “If you’re going to bother me with such a stupid question, I’m going to make sure you know it’s a stupid question.”
Please know I’m not writing this to throw my wife under the bus or even to vent. This was, instead, a very eye opening moment for me: “Wow, you have no problem being mean to me because you can justify it. We’re very different.” As a guy, I would never jab my wife… partly because I know she’s better at it and I’ll pay the consequences. It’s also too much work to get into a jab contest – my sloth side. As a guy, it’s easier to stuff it down. This moment is also valuable to look at because it’s a very common dynamic with wives and husbands: (wife) “Look at how much I do for the family. I’m allowed to treat you like garbage. That’s the reward for how hard I work.” Because of a woman’s vanity, she can justify being mean whether it’s because the husband doesn’t do as much as her (at least in her eyes) or she’s simply superior to him in some way (again, in her eyes). Is this a new problem for modern women? You could argue that, but I like to point out there’s a reason why the Apostle Paul wrote in several letters for women to submit to their husbands and for husbands to love their wives. Men were being lazy and not helping their wives feel loved – the problem we still have (including me) – and women struggled not to become controlling in the home. You could go back even further to the first recorded story of humanity with Adam and Eve because which of the two took the fruit and who obeyed that person when they were told to take it? From the very beginning there has been a power imbalance.
One of the main reasons women struggle with vanity is other women – they fear the judgement. They can also be drawn to wanting to be the envy of other women. The way people act on (or avoid) social media says a lot about where they are on the vanity scale. Which gender is more likely to post or make a response? Straight guys have to be careful how they even respond to someone’s post because they can easily be accused of being a pervert or flirting when they weren’t.
One of the most beneficial or dangerous things for women is the company they keep. My wife has met some wonderful women at our church who are very grounded. They have been a great blessing to her as they’ve helped her be a little nicer to herself when her natural inclination is to punish herself for not being perfect – the repercussion of growing up an incredibly beautiful teenager. I’ve had many clients, however, who’ve had friends or noticed their wife’s friends do the opposite – they’re mean. These types of friends are essentially ruining marriages with comments like “I wouldn’t put up with that!” and “You deserve better!” These vanity inducing comments add to the biggest problem with a vane person as the following defines:
Vane Person: I don’t accept any responsibility for this. You’re the problem. You need to change if you want me to stay because I’m better than you and you need to earn my love. I’m so great I’ll have no problem finding someone who will treat me the way I deserve. Everyone agrees with me, so, no, I’m not going to apologize. You owe me the apology, and then you better do something about it and not just give empty words – I deserve to be loved the way I want.
Can you see how the vane person is impossible to work with and is setting themselves up for divorce? Dr. Gottman teaches about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which are the four behaviors that give him the ability to guess to an almost 100% accuracy who’s getting divorced within five years. What are these Horsemen (with my definitions):
Contempt (or disgust): I’m better than you as shown through eye rolls and sneers
Criticism: Making the other person feel like they can’t do anything right
Stonewalling: This is either passive aggressive silent treatment (i.e. I’m punishing you with silence until you apologize) or passive silence (i.e. I’m hiding from you physically and/or emotionally)
Defensiveness: I always have to give excuses for why I do what I do because I never seem to do anything right based on how critical you are… even though this will annoy you and cause you to have more contempt for me. My other option is to yell at you to get you to back off and give me space, but either way I know you’ll just have more resentment toward me in the future, so I’m screwed.
As a therapist, my experience is women struggle with the top three because they typically struggle with feeling superior while men struggle not to stonewall out of fear and/or be defensive because they feel like nothing they do is good enough for their wife. That being noted, there are exceptions. I’ve met one husband in particular who could challenge the meanest wife for who was the champion meanie pants. He took contempt to intense levels. Regardless of gender, anyone who struggles not to have Contempt, Criticism, and Stonewalling to punish, struggle with vanity. What does this look like? It’s someone saying, “I had to yell at you because you did [blank],” or “See what you made me do? I had to hurt you.” In the worst case it’s someone who gets caught having an affair and feels no remorse because their spouse wasn’t making them happy; they essentially deserved to have an affair. Yes, this is a real thing. I’ve seen it several times. The only men I’ve seen get caught and not have remorse were already planning on leaving the relationship for the new woman they were seeing, which is a serious dirt bag move. That being noted, the mistress is just as terrible – she was dating a married man, but in her eyes, she deserved it. When I hear a woman has had an affair, it’s a 50-50 toss up whether she’ll have remorse or she’ll see it as a natural response to her husband not making her happy. It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve come across. We all sin, but to justify something as bad as cheating because someone else didn’t do something is next level passive aggressive.
The other issue with vanity is it can lead to resentment issues. From my experience one gender tends to develop fear for the other while the other develops resentment. I’m sure you can guess those two sides. Add in the fact women typically have better memories for a husband’s mistakes, which they can bring up twenty years later: “Do you remember twenty years ago how you…?” (guy) “I don’t remember appointments I need to go to. How am I remembering that?” Because of this memory difference, a woman can naturally see herself as superior and can add to the risk of her being sucked down a very dangerous path: “I deserve better because, as the saying goes, my poop doesn’t stink.”
I’m very lucky because my wife might have jabbed at me in the situation I shared, but overall there isn’t a lot of contempt toward me because she balances a lot of her feelings with gratefulness. If you want to reduce resentment, consider focusing on appreciation for what the other does. If you can’t think of anything good they do, there’s a good chance you’re not seeing it (or they’re a drunk or video game junky, which is a whole other problem).
This week may you consider how we need a little sloth and vanity in our lives, but that too much of either is very dangerous.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)
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