I’ve been reading this interesting book by James Dobson, entitled “What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women“. In the book he asks the reader to rank the 10 common sources of depression for wives in order:
- low self-esteem
- fatigue and time pressure
- loneliness, isolation, and boredom
- absence of romantic love in marriage
- financial difficulties
- sexual problems in marriage
- menstrual and physiological problems
- problems with the children
- aging
- in-law problems
He has surveyed a whole bunch of Christian and the order above is the order that they gave him from most severe to least severe.
There is room in the book for ranking these and my ranking was like his, pretty much, except that I had two things reversed. I had the financial difficulties and in-law problems reversed, because I have this idea that women are really bad with money and that they care more about relationships. I also had aging and sexual problems reversed because I don’t think that sex is very important to women, and they are sort of unaware of how much of a problem it is for men. However, I think they are terribly concerned about aging.
Note: Commenter Maureen points out to me that women are better than men with money these days. I can’t go against this evidence showing that she is right.
So I thought I would post this to see if anyone else has any thoughts about this list. Does it seem right to you?
I noticed in this article that more and more women are suffering from depression, so it’s important to know why they do that.
Excerpt:
One in four women aged between 45 and 64 now experience some form of mental disorder – an increase of 20 per cent in the last 15 years.
This decline in mental health is greater than any other age or gender group, according to the research.
The study also found that women in general suffer more mental problems – or talk about it more -with 21.5 per cent complaining of stress or depression compared to 13.6 per cent of men.
Mental health charity Mind said women in their 40s and 50s were becoming increasingly affected by trying to manage the responsibilities of family, home and work.
The figures emerged as the independent psychiatric Capio Nightingale Hospital reported a 20 per cent rise in enquiries relating to depression since the start of the year, many related to financial pressures.
The NHS Information Centre report, entitled the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2007, was carried out by the National Centre for Social Research and the University of Leicester and questioned 7,461 adults.
It followed on from two similar NHS studies carried out in England in 1993 and 2000.
The report concluded that the number of 45 to 64 year old women with a common mental disorder rose from 20.5 per cent in 1993 to 25.2 per cent in 2007.
The survey also found that the number of women aged between 16 and 74 who reported thinking suicidal thoughts in the previous year rose from 4.2 per cent in 2000 to 5.5 per cent in 2007.
Dr Peter Byrne, director of public education at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said the role of woman had changed significantly in the last 15 years.
“This particular age group was probably reared by their stay-at-home mothers and they are almost certainly now working mothers, who face the financial pressure of being part of a two income family,” he said.
It’s also important to pick a woman who can be made happy by things that the man can do. I think the wise man has to be careful to choose a woman whose interests are not based on her emotions but on a plan with outward-facing goals. Someone who likes to work at projects and get things done, rather than be dominated by her feelings. Someone who tries to control her feelings when she sees that they are not rooted in reality.
I think it’s a better situation for a man where he is in a relationship with a woman where he can do things in the world and that will drive her emotions. The situation to avoid is where a woman’s emotions are not rooted in anything in the real world and she in’t impressed by what a man does that accomplishes tasks to achieve specific goals that she is passionate about. You want to avoid a woman who is concerns about Betty Friedan’s “the problem that has no name” and one who is impressed with the apologetics course that you are teaching at the church.
You don’t want a woman who says “I’m depressed and since I don’t care about anything except my feelings and victimhood, nothing you can do for me impresses me”. You want a woman who says “I’m depressed but if you do things in the real world that help to achieve goals that I care about, then I’ll feel better”. This is something that has to be tested for in the courtship. At the very least, women ought to know how to identify when they are being tricked by their emotions. They have to be able to talk it out and see that there is nothing specific that is bothering them, and then realize that their feelings are playing tricks on them.
WINTERY KNIGHT 